Recording A Jazz Band Session at Birmingham Conservatoire

Recording a Jazz Band (Work Experience)

On Tuesday 21st June 2016 I went to the Birmingham Conservatoire to sit in on a recording session which was booked with a Jazz Band. The band had commercially booked out the studio for 4 hours to record a new albums featuring Paul's new composition. The genre of his songs was very experimental within the jazz genre, but typical jazz instruments were used; tuba, trombone, saxophone, trumpets, double bass and a drum kit. 

I was lucky to be able to sit in the control room and watch Simon Hall, head of music technology at Birmingham Conservatoire, lead the recording session. It was very interesting as they were using a mixing board which was connected to protools on the mac computer. This meant that the mixing desk could be controlled from the mac and the faders could move automatically. 

It was extremely important for the studio team to watch out for any clipping on the tracks and run sound checks before and throughout the session. To avoid clipping we set sound levels before recording and monitored the levels during the recordings.  

Health and safety was a factor which we had to consider whilst setting up for the session. The team had to ensure that all wires were away from walkways and that the was no consumption of food and drink in the studio of control room. 

Overall, 17 microphones were used to record a 10 piece band. This meant that 17 track had to be set up for levels. This was extremely difficult as the 10 instruments were playing at the same time. It was necessary to consider what microphones should be used in this recording.