[JazzItUp]

Hey Sax on the Web,

I've spent a long time trying to develop a better sound on my Alto Saxophone; after months of trial and error and listening to my favorite players, I finally began to get the sound I wanted which was real "smooth and sweet". But now I go and play on a microphone for the first time and it's nothing like I planned it would be, it's not bad but it's not the way I sound without a microphone. It doesn't sound "smooth or sweet", and to be honest I'm quite upset.

Why does it sound diffrent?

 

[saxmanglen]

Might be the difference between a $20 mic and a $2000 mic. What kind of mic was it?

 

[JazzItUp]

Might be the difference between a $20 mic and a $2000 mic. What kind of mic was it?

Good question. The mic isin't very good at all.. I bet it's less than $50, but I will be using a pro one for the wedding me and my friends are practicing for. So you think that's the problem?

 

[saxmanglen]

Mics are as different as all the sax's out there. I've just begun to look into it and there's a whole new level of GAS awaiting me.

 

[Agent27]

It's hard to judge your own sound while you are playing. 1)The horn is pointing away from you and if you play in an open area, the sound dissipates. Playing into a wall or reflective surface can help. 2)The horn is in your mouth, causing your head to vibrate. This is also the reason why your voice sounds different to others than it does to you. I find using a thick patch on the mouthpiece helps cancel this out.

 

[Reedsplinter]

I assume you're playing out through a PA (rather than recording, say?). You, or someone, needs to adjust the equalizer. Your sax will sound like anything from a kazoo to a foghorn if the sound is incorrectly set up on the board.

Hak, where are you when we need you?

 

[hakukani]

Don't put the mic too close. Think of where your ears are when you listen to someone else play---certainly not down the bell or 1 foot from the horn. There are other things, but first get a balance sound. It's also different for recording than for PA.

As always, a little more detail about what's going on helps.

 

[Agent27]

Don't put the mic too close. Think of where your ears are when you listen to someone else play---certainly not down the bell or 1 foot from the horn. There are other things, but first get a balance sound. It's also different for recording than for PA.

What about the players who use clip on bell mics? They always sound like themselves. Honest question.

 

[hakukani]

What about the players who use clip on bell mics? They always sound like themselves. Honest question.

If you notice, most of them are some distance away from the bell itself (up to a foot). The wireless mics like the Roam1 are cantilevered relatively far from the bell. EQ is a dangerous thing in inexperienced hands, but much can be done by a decent sound guy to get rid of proximity effects.(carefully, subtley), plus judicial use of reverb effect---and live sound has much different requirements than recording, especially considering leakage from any monitoring system,,,they didn't have to worry much about monitors in the 50s.

I remember the first time I heard Wynton live. He had just put together his quintet, and he played similarly to the way he played with Blakey--Mic right in front of the bell--almost to the point that he could use the foam windscreen as a mute. Fairly substantial monitoring. He had a good sound guy (I knew him--a local guy that was good with jazz). It sounded good, but amplified.

Ten years or so later, I was working monitors at a jazz festival. Wynton was more experienced, and had the sound guy from the Lincoln center doing sound. NO MONITORS---that was the first shock. Wynton and the alto player used one mic between them, and a walkie-talkie was used with the house sound guy to adjust their positions so it blended---I gotta say that is one SCARY way to do things at a festival.

It would not have worked if there was a single monitor on the stage. The mics picked up the musicians, and reinforced them. No leakage---that's why it worked.

 

[playitfunky]

Microphone and the speakers you are playing through mean everything. Even the quality of the Amp can make a huge difference. QSC is my favorite amp and I think they truly have a purer sound with less distortion.

 

[hakukani]

Microphone and the speakers you are playing through mean everything. Even the quality of the Amp can make a huge difference. QSC is my favorite amp and I think they truly have a purer sound with less distortion.

I like QSC. Good amps. A bit cheaper in Canada.

...But so are Crown and Crest, and EAW.

A good crossover is also important. Also a good console (mixer, or desk in the UK) Speakers are important. I prefer EAW, myself, for reinforcement.

We're not talking a 5000 seat venue here, though,,, unless jazzitup is holding back on us.

For your wedding gig, unless it's more than 200 people, play without the PA. You've got enough to think about.

 

[crazydaisydoo]

Good advice all round here, you don't have to spend a fortune to get a good sound. Personally I do not adjust any EQ, I just record what is coming out, this way I am not kidding myself

I think the general rule with mics is heightwise to keep it in the middle of the horn, slightly pointed down towards the bell, and about the same distance away from the horn as the length of the horn (imagine a triangle) I find this accentuates the brightness on me, so my mike is lower, nearer the bell, and only about 10" away. The closeness is because I have quite a bright reflective room, and it means I do not pick up many room reflections. Remember that on a sax the sound comes from everywhere, top notes come from the top of the horn, and lower notes from the bell.

Keep trying different things, but remember hearing yourself back is a bit like hearing your own voice for the first time, so it can take getting used to. Don't go too far down the microphone upgrade route, it can be worse than mouthpieces! I would say a shure sm58, or any large diaphram condensor (AKG/Rode/Samson) should give faithfull reproduction. If you are doing heavy eq tweaking, then consider it may be your tone that needs work, not the equipment. I think EQ should be for compensating for bright rooms etc, not for altering your fundamental tone.

 

[hakukani]

I agree with what you say Matthew, except that recording is completely different than sound reinforcement.

What works for one doesn't necessarily work for the other.

Sound reinforcement is much more difficult because there are more variables over which you have limited control.

 

[kymarto]

There are a couple of factors involved here. First is the fact that close miking eliminates all the ambience that the player experiences. Think of putting your ear next to the bell and you'll get an idea what the mic is picking up. As others have pointed out, the player's ear picks up a totally different pattern of sound radiation, much mellower with a lot of room reflection, which smooths out the sound considerably. One way is to supply what is missing by adding back artificial ambience in the form of reverb, and to EQ the sax sound. Mic placement is also important. Matthew has a good suggestion with his general rule.

There is another psychological factor...Have you ever seen a video of yourself and been shocked at how different (usually negatively) you look than the image you've gotten of yourself by looking in the mirror? It's completely the same with recordings of your playing. You are listening to a naked, objective recording of your sound, minus the bone conduction, ear position, and most importantly the inner dialog and flow of feelings that accompany your playing. Every little mistake and hesitation is glaringly obvious. Painful stuff at first, and a real ego-buster.

But it is also a very valuable, if severe, teacher, an objective mirror of your playing, which if used correctly can improve your sound and playing tremendously. Of course you should still get the best sound possible, which means decent mic placement and decent post-processing.

Toby

 

[SOTSDO]

Put me down on the side of no PA at all for a small job. Other than the vocalists (who usually need both amplification and tweaking), most acoustic instruments can get by fine in a reasonable environment without the boost that they get from the sound man.

I think that it's a tendency from the rock crowd, who never feel comfortable unless each and everything on stage is provided with its own feed to the board. I have even played (once only, very long ago) where the tambourine on its high-hat type stand was miked, and this was in a very small venue indeed.

Of course, there is call for miking wind instruments now and then, particularly in a very large venue, or when playing with rock and pop oriented folks who are often dynamically challenged in the first place. But, for the kind of wedding that I think is at issue here, go it without the microphone - less headaches in the long run and you won't be losing very much by skipping the processing.

 

[potiphar]

The sound doesn't, of course, come out of the bell. It comes out of all the little holes at different frequency-mixes. So a clip-on mike is a compromise between the sound from the bell, the sound from the body of the sax, and how close it has to be to be to drown out what's happening across the stage. Then add mic quality, sound reflections, EQ mix and things are beginning to get seriously out of hand.

 

[Swampcabbage]

Once I've chosen my mic (421, RE20, or AMT Roam 1) and the room/monitor EQ is set, I've found that the biggest effect on my sound is the low/high/mid range levels at the board. For my sax I prefer it to be completely flat. Straight up "0" for everything. I want to live or die by my own sound. I work with one guy who I swear is deaf in the high mids and always cranks them to the point that it starts to sound like a soprano. I wish we'd go with someone else, but I haven't the authority so I just try to express my feelings in a rational manner and let it go.

 

[BlueTone]

Cheap mics are not "Flat"....in other words, the frequencies put out by your sax are not amplified evenly.
Some of your overtones are amplified at a much greater gain than the fundamentals.

Also....when you record, try not to have the surroundings reflect back into the mic.

an Engineer once told me..."For recording Saxes, any mic that sells for under 200 dollars is a Toy"

 

[Dave Dolson]

I am of the no-mic school of thought. I refuse to play into or near microphones (for reinforcement). I think microphones distort a player's sound. I also believe that a player's sound needs to travel some distance (and what distance that is I have yet to decide) before it develops character.

Are my opinions scientific? Not in the least. But after 50+ years of playing, I HAVE formed some opinions.

I agree with Hak that there are two reasons for microphones - one to record, second to re-inforce, It is the need for reinforcement that turns me off. Even in the loudest environments, the player has no idea what is being heard in front of the band. I'd wager that even if the player can't hear the horn, the audience can. And, if the playing environment is THAT loud, something is drastically wrong.

In recording, the cold fact is that one must play into a microphone except when the recording experts are trying to capture the overall sound of an ensemble (pre-mixed, if you will) and don't intend to mix/balance all the tracks later. I've done a recording like that (pre-mixed) and it turned out surprisingly good. No mixing after-the-fact, just the pure sound of the ensemble captured, the players providing natural balance.

If the recording is to be mixed afterward, then most microphone set-ups will NOT capture the instruments' natural sounds. Oh, I suppose some may work well, but all the ones I've done (and others that I heard where I knew how the player SHOULD sound), were not as accurate as I would have wanted. DAVE

 

[JCBigler]

In the studio, or live on a stage, it's all about your microphone technique, and more specifically, your placement and then mic choice. I can get almost as good a sound out of a Shure SM57 or Audix i5, as I can with a Neumann TLM 103, or U87. Sure there's a difference in the sound when you hear them back to back, but if you have miced the instrument correctly, the difference is much smaller than the difference in the price between a quality low budget mic, and an expensive boutique mic.

Some of the best advice on mic technique is contained in Michael Paul Stavrou's Mixing With Your Mind book.