Our first CD

[RickF]

The Symphonic Band of the Palm Beaches is celebrating its 50th year this season. As part of this "50th celebration", we're going to record the band "professionally" and make a CD. I suppose this means there will be numerous mics on stage throughout the band. We're having a 4-hr rehearsal this Saturday afternoon (different music than is in our folder now). The recording session will be the following Saturday. One of the pieces scheduled is, Holst's "First Suite in E-flat major for Military Band". I would have preferred the second suite, but the first one is good too. I thought for sure we were going to do Shostakovitch's "Festive Overture" since we just played that at our last concert (lots of woodshedden for me and the euph section). It went pretty well according to the audience response and comments afterward.

I asked our director after rehearsal Monday night while having a bite at a local restaurant if "professional recording" meant that they would run it through the computer to clean up intonation issues. Ha ha. I guess that can only be done if each player is on a separate channel in a studio setting.

Each year the band donates its profits to music students and music programs of the Palm Beach County. I understand that to date, the band has donated $230,000!! I haven't been with the band for 50 years (just 10), but think that's pretty good. Sometimes it's a partial college scholarship (students don't have to be music majors but had to have played with us for at least 2 years and have good grades). Other times it could be for a summer music camp. We sent a H.S. percussionist to Interlochen music camp this past summer. He made first chair on mallets too. [you can read about Jamie here:] We also give some money to music programs in the local schools... which help them with the purchase of new music, instrument repairs, etc. Don't know about other states, but the 'arts' in Florida is always the first thing to be cut when there's a budget shortfall.

Anyone else ever done a live recording?

[JTJ]

The Triangle Wind Ensemble, which I play in, has done a couple of recordings, both live performance recordings, with good and bad on the recording, as played live. In recording sessions it is different. Multiple recordings can be made and digitally spliced together. One particularly rough piece with a trumpet solo took about 5 tries before both the trumpeter and director were satisfied -- we played the same 8 bar phrase over again until everyone liked it. And it sounded great on the CD. So you might be prepared for multiple takes of sections of pieces on the recording session.

[RickF]

Thanks John,

Yeah, this won't be a 'live recording'. We record each concert we do live. Those are recorded with just two mics on stage and can be good - or bad. I suspect we'll have to run through a few sections a few times. Just hope it's not a retake for something I screw up.

[RickF]

We finished our recording session last Saturday. It took a bit over 5 hours to complete. Everyone's chops were spent. We must have taken about an hour just recording Holst's First Suite. Seemed like there was always something not just right each time so had to do another take. Hours later when we were almost done, the guy doing the recording said he couldn't find the first movement of Holst, so we had to record it again. There was a mic right over my head, but at least it wasn't pointing straight down at me but back toward the T-bones and trumpets. Sure hope it turns out okay.

I asked the guy doing the recording what sample rate he was using. He said 44K - which is pretty high I think.

[davewerden]

Originally posted by: RickF I asked the guy doing the recording what sample rate he was using. He said 44K - which is pretty high I think.

The 44k rate is typically used for digital recordings. If I remember the math, you get about 1/2 of that value for the upper range of Hz, so that means you can capture up to about 22kHz. Young folks can hear up to 20kHz or so, and some beyond that, so it's a good value to use.

[bbocaner]

44.1k is actually pretty low. That's CD quality. Typically recordings will be made at 48k or even 96k or 192k and then dithered down to 44.1k after all the editing and EQ is done for CD. One possible reason for using 44.1k would be if you had a ton of microphones and the amount of data was straining the CPU on your computer recording setup to keep up with. Although 48k is not too much different.

It's kind of like taking a photograph at 8 megapixels, fixing the color and cropping on your computer at that resolution, and then reducing it down to 2 megapixels or so to submit it for a magazine (CD) or even less for a web page or something.

I didn't realize you were in Palm Beach -- I was just in West Palm Beach on Friday to do a concert as a ringer with the early music ensemble of one of the small universities down there on baroque trombone -- Had I realized I would have invited you! The weather was amazing!!

[RickF]

Thanks guys. I learned something today. I think there were about 8 microphones being used.

Yeah, sorry I missed meeting you Barry. What was the name of the small university? Was it by chance, Palm Beach Atlantic Univ?

[bbocaner]

That's the one! The kids in the chorus did a great job with some HARD HARD material!

[carbogast]

Originally posted by: davewerden

Originally posted by: RickF I asked the guy doing the recording what sample rate he was using. He said 44K - which is pretty high I think.

The 44k rate is typically used for digital recordings. If I remember the math, you get about 1/2 of that value for the upper range of Hz, so that means you can capture up to about 22kHz. Young folks can hear up to 20kHz or so, and some beyond that, so it's a good value to use.

What happens is that any frequency in the input above 1/2 the sampling rate (44khz) appears in the recording as an "aliased frequency" at a frequency less than 22 KHz. These frequencies are obviously unmusical so a 22 KHz filter would be applied to the input *before* it is recorded at a 44 KHz rate.

The phenomenon is akin to the false motion of wagon wheels that one might see in an old western movie.

Sampling at at least twice the rate of the mics is ideal. Capturing above the audio range opens the possibility for removing "noises" and the like. I have heard (pun-tended!) that very high frequencies add a sibilance to the overall quality, particularly in the percussion.

- Carroll

[JBrassLee]

I have been with the Solano Winds Concert Band in Fairfield, CA for five years now. Our group has gotten enormously better over the last two years with our new conductor. We record all of our concerts live then sell the CD's later to supoort our group and our local scholarships and stuff. The band has been doing that for the past 15 years I think.

Personally, I don't like listening to them as I can hear mistakes and intonation stuff and it kind of takes the enjoyment out of it. I would rather listen to the USAF band of the Golden West which is here in Fairfield. I don't find much I can critique when listening to them.

I will add though that there are a lot of people that buy our CD's so someone must be enjoying them. In the end though, I think maybe community bands are better live than recorded. Does anyone alse agree/disagree?

Lee