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Pattracks,

I just finished recording my own solo cd. I have not started to advertise it yet, but you can find it with some sample clips here:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/MichaelAndrew1" target="_blank
If you like what I have done, Email/IM me. I'd be glad to discuss the issues/difficulties/equipment/editing/mastering etc.
We need more great sounding recordings of tubas out there. Even some fine engineers have turned wonderful, artistic tuba playing into tin-toned instruments that sound like they've been recorded in a shoe-box!
I think I've done ok for my first time out, but I also learned some lessons!!!

Best Wishes,

Why not share what you've learned with the community at large? Is it some sort of trade secret?

I recently was recording a fine arts supplement for my college applications, and the recording I got from the first try sounded pretty good. I had two mics, one about 20 feet away and the other about 30 feet away. Cd sounded just like the tuba in real life.

Neil,

I appreciate your concern, but there are just too many facters to discuss in a forum such as this. There are no real secrets, just lots of questions that I do not have all the answers to. I had to learn so much before I could even approach making a half-decent sounding CD. If there are any specific questions, I'll be happy to answer as best I can.

Thanks,

This is just a thought, not advice. Rather than micing the piano you could try using a really good electric piano which will be triggering better samples than you can record and run it straight into the desk. Then record the tuba later in a dry room and add reverb etc. later. This is a "create a recording" approach rather than a "document the sound in a given room approach".

Just food for thought; I may be on the wrong track entirely.

Regards

Gerard

Just my two cents, but you can be in a room that is acoustically terrible, and with the "right" mics and engineer make a disc sound fantastic. The room can add to the ambiance, but in the grand scheme of things it really has nothing to do with close-up micing, esp. w the tuba.

A lot depends on the recorded sound that you have in your head, and how much you mess around with the mic placement for both the piano and tuba.

I'm a big fan of near-coincident condenser mic pairs (ORTF or DIN pattern), generally about 20 feet back and 8-10 feet above the stage floor. I like to be closer to the performers and add the reverb to taste after the fact. In that way a "dead" hall is actually to your advantage. The downside of this approach is that the performers have to have a well balanced sound since you won't be able to isolate the instruments in post.

When it's solo brass and piano, I've had much better results close miking each instrument. For the piano I will listen from various positons underneath the open lid to find the best overall sound. I will then put a near coincident mic pair in that exact spot, with each capsule in the same relative position as my ears - one pointing generally to the treble side and the other towards the bass. The time spent to find the best piano sound is well worth it - you will get a full and balanced sound with excellent stereo spaciousness - it will sound natural for both headphones and speakers.

For the brass soloist I like to put up two different mics about 3 feet from the bell. I like to use a large dynamic mic right on axis (electro voice RE20) to capture the full body of the sound with a strong low end. I will also put up a ribbon mic a few degrees off axis (I may also turn the capsule a bit off axis) to capture more of a natural presence. Be careful - ribbon mics sound a lot like you sticking your ear 3 feet away from the bell, and they capture a lot of detail. This includes embochure noise, buzzes from the horn, valve noise, and page turns. I generally don't like to close mic brass with condenser mics - they seem to emphasize frequencies that are associated with "edginess." In post production I will mix the two mics to taste and will generally pan them apart in the final mix. For this reason it's very important that they are the same distance from the sound source to avoid phasing problems.

In the final mix I can equalize and compress the two instruments independently. If you have enough tracks (and mics) available at the recording session, it would be a good idea to record both the close and stage mics and give yourself more options at final mixdown. I will typically put reverb across the final stereo buss. I will use some amount of compression and peak limiting (maximizing) in every CD I make, including classical. I no longer normalize tracks at any point in the process. I know that many purists like to stay away from this type of signal processing, but in the modern digital world I believe that you can get very musical and wonderfully dynamic recordings by utilizing the tools that are now available to us.

Good luck with your projects, Mark