Bove Audio Recording Session Notes

Ray Mase and Kevin Cobb, trumpets

David Sampson: Breakaway for Two Trumpets and Electronics

This challenging piece for two trumpets is performed along with a recording of a pre-recorded synthesizer.

The goal of this session was to produce a recording of the piece that musicians new to the piece could play along with- on either trumpet part. So, in addition to making an awesome recording of the compete piece (which is pretty easy to do with great players such as these), our challenge was that we wanted to be able to remove either of the parts and listen to each trumpet part independently. This took some extra planing and a lot of extra work.

In the end, we have three complete recordings. One is a full version of the complete piece (which will be released on an upcoming album), as well as recordings of each of the trumpet parts with electronics so you can play along with either part separately.

One good way to do this, and the way we used, is to overdub each instrument separately using the previous player’s performance as a reference along with the synth track while recording. Unfortunately, you can’t just have them record their parts along with the pre-recorded track or a click, and expect it to work out.  With chamber music such as this, the interplay, balance, and subtle relationships between parts is essential.

It also should be noted that this is no easy piece to play. There are complex rhythms all over the place, and many passages require pinpoint accuracy to pull off the compound relationships between the parts.

What we did first was to soundcheck and position both players and all the microphones in the hall until we were happy with the group sound. We were shooting for a spacious, yet present trumpet tone- a sound that would balance the powerful electronic sounds of the accompaniment.  A successful overdubbed recording needs to maintain the spacial cues of the players in the space. These auditory cues are what make good acoustic recordings sound “real” to your brain. It is important to get this right. A project such as this also requires very low noise microphones, because the final mix is going to contain each microphone twice (at full volume).

That soundcheck was the last time they would play together.

Next, we decided which trumpet part was most important for each large section of the piece, and recorded that one first. After this, the next player would listen to what was previously recorded while laying down the next part, matching pitch, rhythm, and sound. Not only did they have to match the synthesizer part, they had to precisely match the other person’s interpretation. It is hard enough to play this well when you have someone right next to you, but they actually had to “mind read” someone who was no longer in the room.

We went back and forth, working on interpretation and balance, figuring out which parts should “lead” each section and crafting a musical and emotional interpretation of the piece that was exactly the way they would do it if they were live in concert. Luckily, these two players perform together full time in the American Brass Quintet, are very comfortable playing together, and were impeccably prepared for our session. When one player was recording, the other sat with me and listened to his colleague on stage performing. We would keep notes together and actually did a lot of editing/mixing right then, in order to get the two performances exactly matched.

During post production, I essentially had two complete recording session projects to mix together, one with a trumpet sitting on the left and one on the right. I layered the two projects on top of each other and mixed it together. After editing and mixing, the end result sounds like two people performing in a room together.

This type of overdub recording is frequently done on film soundtrack sessions. An engineer may want to record percussion, for example, separate from the rest of the orchestra. It gives complete isolation without requiring small isolation booths, and helps provide more flexibility when mixing big or unusual sounds. This is definitely not a typical classical chamber music recording technique.

The project was challenging, fun, and filled with some awesome trumpet playing.

Recording available from David Sampson, with purchase of the sheet music.  Email David to pick up your copy.