brass / silver bands

Have you ever considered recording a CD with your Brass Band or Silver Band? 

Championship Division and other top flight bands can secure significant sponsorship to pay for expensive recording sessions in big name recording studios.  It doesn't have to be like that.  

Even Third and Fourth section bands with very tight budgets can make a CD.  I would love the chance to provide my professional recording services to your band and I offer a comprehensive recording package. 

I bring the digital recording equipment to a suitable venue of your choice and together we can create a unique CD that you will be proud of.  I can usually produce final mixed and mastered CD's within a week or two of the session, sometimes much quicker. This will enable the production run to start promptly and you minimise the time before you can start selling the production CD's.

• My prices for a typical brass band recording project with up to six hours recording time (including set-up) plus up to 4 hours of mixing, editing and mastering of a master CD start at £299. I do not charge VAT.

Why Record a CD with Your Band?

• Just about every band wants to make a recording at some point to capture and enjoy
   the music that they make.

• You can raise money by selling CDs to audiences / friends / parents at a profit.

• For the enjoyment and experience of making a recording.

• To have a permanent record / souvenir of your event.

• To provide an opportunity for press or radio coverage for your band, either of which
   could help fundraising.

Where Can You Record - Choosing A Venue ?

• Brass and Silver Band recording is best done in a venue with pleasant acoustics. Typically, if the venue sounds good to sing or play in then usually it will also be a good location for a sound recording.

• For a Brass band this usually means recording in a performing area with a floor space that could take 4 to 5 times the number of players and which does not have a low ceiling. This sort of space helps blend individual instrument sounds into a coherent ensemble performing in a real space.

• Some venues, such as large churches are too big and will produce significant echoes and other reverberant sounds that could overpower the direct sound. However, some music (particularly religious pieces) is designed to sound good in such an environment.

• If the recording venue is not where you usually rehearse or perform, it may be wise to have a pre-recording rehearsal there just in case there are any unforeseen problems.

Balancing The Sound

• The conductor normally ensures a natural balance of the instruments.  Unless you want it to sound otherwise I try to capture the sound heard in the recording area.

• To achieve this, in a good acoustic space I will set up an array of microphones on a large tripod stand (A Decca Tree) behind and above the conductor to get a good, basic stereo soundstage for the recording.  This gives a pleasant openness to the sound.  I may also use other stereo microphone arrays to provide a more defined stereo image.  (e.g. M-S Middle & Side, Crossed Pair, ORTF, Blumlein Crossed cardioids). 

• I can position other microphones to cover various sections of the band to be used if necessary to alter the relative balance of the sections and soloists or to help “fix” the location of instruments that will spill into most of the other microphones (e.g. Bass Drum).  This will be essential in venues with high reverberation where we need to capture as little of the room ambience as possible.

• I can use up to 21 microphones if required but often need less than 10.  I will do detailed planning before the job starts.  It helps greatly to have a detailed sketch of the band layout to work from.

• Each microphone signal will pass through my digital mixing desk and be recorded to its own separate channel on my 24 track hard disc recorder.  This will give me total freedom to re-balance microphone levels at the mixdown stage.

• At the time recording of I will provide a pair of high-quality headphones and small JBL monitor speakers to listen back after each take if required.

• Within the agreed time limit you can record as many “takes” of each number as required then select the best take, or I can edit together the best sections from different takes providing the tempo is reasonably consistent at the edit points.

• When recording live concerts with an audience I use the minimum number of microphones and stands (or floor-mounted PZM mics or suspended mics) since multiple microphones can give a cluttered look on the stage that is not acceptable to an audience. The other recording equipment can be sited away from audience view.

On The Day

• You will need to take regular breaks during a session. There is a limit to how long brass players can perform before their lips begin to go. This limit tends to be shorter with third and fourth section bands.

• Brass recordings are often best captured during a two day session.  With a full 2 day session the pressure is significantly reduced.

• Another alternative is to share a two-day session with another band and do two half-day sessions each.  This would minimize my mileage costs and significantly reduce average set-up times. It could be two different types of band, Brass & Accordion Bands or two brass bands alternating.  We would replicate mic positions and control settings for at each session as far as possible.

Please contact me now to discuss any recording requirements you have.