David Chen & the Muddy Basin Ramblers

Recording the Muddy Basin


After almost 4 years and plenty of material in our repetoire, I feel we're ready to put out a CD/album.

I started researching in earnest a few months back about our options for recording -- the obvious, traditional studio route isn't attractive -- there's the pressure of time and cost, and the idea of a padded, airtight room and ultra-clean production techniques doesn't appeal to me, at least for the MBRs.

To me, the essence of our sound is a down-home jam. Be it at my small but cozy apartment on Xinhai Road, the Sandcastle, outdoors in the hills, by the Bitan River, or at an athletic field at a certain university-- our music is made best when we're simply hanging out, relaxed, among friends, and engaging in lots of silly and hilarious banter.

From a technical standpoint, we're not the easiest band in the world to amplify on stage or in the studio, since we use instruments with a wide variety of dynamic ranges (everything from loud brass to the quiet ukulele), and we change instruments for different songs. And, physical presence is an important element-- we're used to hearing each other and playing in a circle, either standing up or sitting down.

What we're aiming for is an 'ambient' recording that balances our overall sound with the right amount of detail.

So, instead of micing each instrument, I decided that we should try some of the standard techniques for recording classical music, which is commonly referred to as stereo recording. Many classical recordings are recorded with a matched stereo pair of microphones that capture the overall sound in a concert hall. With this set-up, ideally, the listener hears what the audience hears with the instruments arranged spatially in a stereo spread..

This approach makes it both easier and more difficult -- easier in the sense that you may have just one pair or several pairs of mics to set up. The hard part is tweaking the position of the mics and musicians so you have a balance of the right "spatial" feel and the right amount of detail. This is where a lot of discussion, debate, and technical theories starts among recording engineers, musicians, etc.

This technique and a portable recording rig (see below) also allows us to record in some ununusal spots -- we've scoped out a few outdoor spaces near Sandy and TC's, and there's a nice wooden pavilion on the Xianji Hiking Trail that I've always wanted to try out as an acoustic space.

So the goal for now is, at the end, for listeners to "hear" the fun we have playing jug band music and feel like they're sitting there with us...


Recording -- Technical stuff


Been reading a lot, filling my head till I'm dizzy with information. For recording techniques, there's a lot on the internet, but I've learned the most by reading articles on stereo microphone and recording techniques by Bruce Bartlett. On the microphone front, we've been using two Rode NT1As, which we often use for stage performances. I've built up a small microphone collection, which includes a pair of Electrovoice 635a mics, commonly used by television reporters in the field with a "nice radio announcer type" sound, which you can hear at this site on broadcast mics; a stereo pair of superlux small diaphragm condensers (living in Taiwan, gotta use something relatively local!); and a cheap ribbon microphone made in China by Apex, which has a nice sound and will be interesting to experiment with.

We're recording to hard disk using an 867mhz 12" Powerbook G4 (which I bought from TC) and a MOTU Traveler firewire interface. So far it's proven to be stable and relatively easy to use. I chose the MOTU Traveler for its portability and solid functionality -- we want to do some recording in outdoor spaces (in the wilderness and perhaps an abandoned temple), and the fact that it was designed for use in the field with a portable battery makes it very appealing. It also has 4 high-quality mic preamps and plenty of inputs which gives us some flexibility. We're using MOTU's bundled software, Audiodesk, a run-of-the-mill DAW more than sufficient for our purposes. To power the MOTU unit and firewire hard drive, I bought a 12v battery used for photography lighting -- it fits in a small shoulder bag and weighs about 4 pounds. I'm looking forward to testing this out.

While I've written about the technical side, it's just one half of the story. We have a bit of work to do musically as far cleaning up and improving our arrangements, but taking on the challenges ahead will also be rewarding and fun.