The Fifth Sundays jazz group

On the first Sunday in December the Fifth Sundays came to record at the O Zone Lair. They also responded to my ad looking for jazz groups. We did things a little different than normal due to some band scheduling(some members had gigs that day..hardcore!), by different I mean started later in the day and not bright and early.

A little after 1 pm Michael showed up with his drums, strategically placed to fit inside his mitsubishi 3000 GT, a very impressive packing job in deed. We had planned on him showing up early to set up and test out some mics he owned verse the mics that I own. This was great, I was able to set his mics as well as my mics all at once while he played the drums. We listened back and his Oktavas sounded outstanding as overheads. The mids were in your face bringing the toms out like I have not heard before. The condensers I typically use were more airy and bright. Both sounded good but I wanted to go with the Oktavas since I had the opprotunity. We also tested out kick drum mics, and his AKG112 sounded really good in comparison to mine so I also used that.

The rest of the group showed up a little after 3 and we were recording tracks by 4. All 4 members were very prepared and very easy to work with. They brought an acoustic bass, a guitar, and a lady on sax and flute. The guitar and sax also wanted to record some vocals so we decided to overdub them after we laid down the music and that worked out great.

I enjoyed recording jazz the past two days because, as far as sonic energy is concerned, jazz is much different than rock. Everyone played very low key, the drums were very quiet in the room, but I was unable to jack up the trim levels to get more drum sound due to the occasional hard snare pop or anything else loud that happens. Doing that would peak out the track. Thankfully the Firepods preamps are extremely quiet so boosting the gain on the drum tracks does not bring much extra noise.

Drum Mics
- 2 Oktava condensers overhead
- 1 DR-STX1 on snare
- 1 AKG-112 kick drum mic

Bass - He played an Upright acoustic w/ a pickup and a mic attached going into a combo amp
- Direct line from combo amp
- DR-STX1 on amp

Guitar Mic
- SM58

Horn/Flute/Vocals
- 1 M-Audio condenser

Willis Wilson Jazz Group

A few months ago I put up an ad about free studio time for jazz groups, to try and get some working jazz in the studio that I could record live instead of track by track. Willis Wilson hit me up about his group. We scheduled some time and then he broke his hand....

He has finally healed and brought the group to the studio. I was a little uneasy at first because the drummer, being the first one here, told me he had never met Willis or played with his group. Fortunately all 4 of the musicians that recorded were very professional and had no problem clicking together.

The guys got set up and worked out the first song, Red Clay. We tracked Drums, Bass, Trumpet, and Trombone first, then Willis and Davey went back over that with keys and guitar. Once they were satisfied we moved onto Tell Me a Bedtime Story. For this we tracked Bass, Drums, Keys, and Guitar, then Willis went back over it to lay down the trumpet.

The two tracks came out sounding great just as a raw mix, I was even a bit shocked myself at how good it sounded. With some quick mixing of EQ and some light effects the final mixdowns already sound pro. I think everyone had a good time and we were able to record some really good tunes. Willis is a beast on the trumpet, I would really like to hear him do some straight ahead jazz and let it all out, and the other musicians were all on top of their game as well. I look forward to doing more recording with each of them.

Drum Mics
- 2 DR-HX1 condensers overhead
- 1 DR-STX1 on snare
- 1 DR-KX1 kick drum mic

Bass - He played an Upright acoustic w/ a pickup attached going into a combo amp
- Direct line from combo amp
- DR-STX1 on amp

Guitar Mics
- SM58

Horns
- 1 M-Audio condenser

Keys
- Direct line from Hartke 3500 head

Miles from Pangaea

Miles from Pangaea made another stop by O Zone Lair studios to do some more recording. The first day, drummer Jared, could not make it out to the house so we spent the day setting up equipment in preparation. Since I play drums I took a seat behind the set for what we thought would be a quick jam session, but turned out to be far from quick at all. We ended up playing for about two hours. Bret picked up his guitar and he and Dave played off each other over the top of Frank and I holding down the rhythm section and in some places invoking changes for the other two to play off of. We played a few short jams that were cool, but the real fun came out of a 30 minute jam that left us wondering where we had been the past half hour. If you would like to listen to this jam click here. After that it was time to call it and day.

Sunday was my first time being in control of the recording session. Bret was there the entire time to guide me through the process, as well give me suggestions about how and why to do things a certain way and what type of levels to aim for. It was a really great experience, and since I really enjoy the music Miles from Pangea writes and records it made the process even more fun on my behalf.

Everyone showed up around 12:00 to begin work for the day. We started with the drums and as always Jared was right on point with his beats and knocked out his tracks in a decent amount of time. After he was done laying down his drum tracks it was now Frank’s turn to do his bass work. By this point it was getting later into the day and spending a full day in the studio can be very daunting. We managed to finish up the bass tracks for all of the songs but did not have time to work the guitar at all on this night. Dave came by later in the week to finish up the guitar tracks. Dave did a great job on his guitar and we got through all of the tracks in one evening after work.

These guys make great music and it’s always fun to work with a band that has everything together when they come to the studio and are ready to record. We try and give all bands that record with us a relaxed atmosphere and a creative environment. Hopefully that will help us to keep producing quality recordings and music for all to hear.


-Steven Mosley