L-R: Joel Spector, Allan Tucker, Richard Corsello
Members and friends of the AES and covered live concert recordings of Sonny Rollins made by Richard Corsello and mastered for CD release by his long-time associate Allan Tucker. We learned Corsello's first rule of location work: "On the road, nothing is normal!" His arrangement with Rollins, evolved out of necessity, is that Richard always does the Front-of-House mix at each concert, while also making recordings and even providing the stage monitor mixes as well. While this may seem like excessive workload it has proven to yield a consistent environment for Rollins and allows him to deal only with one technical person wherever he is performing.
Richard spends most of the setup and balancing time on the stage with Sonny, giving the house sound operator the task of checking continuity from the stage feeds to the console. He has brought only his own digital recorder and ProTools rig to the job, having specified the various mics which will be supplied by the venue. It's just too costly to travel with a full complement of mics and stands. He does employ his own Audio Technica lavalier mic clipped onto Sonny's sax. With a 100-foot cable, Sonny is free to roam around the stage while he plays. That's always been his style. The leakage of whatever instrument he's in front of at any time helps create the concert ambience. When they first worked together in the 1970s, Richard provided the best studio mics but Sonny just wouldn't stand in one place. Richard does now carry his own Italian-made "Reference Lab" cables, which he finds noticeably superior to others. We were startled to learn that he does not monitor the recording on headphones; he is totally committed to providing the FOH mix to the concert audience.
In the post-production (mixing) phase, Richard re-amps the original lavalier mic performance, playing it back over studio speakers and blending its presence with the added room reflections for a saxophone sound which better delivers the concert audience's experience to the CD listener.
Back at the concert venue mixing console once Sonny has been made comfortable on stage, Richard now finds himself with little time to actually pre-balance the sound. Many of the house engineers have dialed in unnecessary effects and incorrect gain settings, which have to be undone. Richard just zeroes out the board and dials in the simplest treatment so that what Sonny does in performance will be faithfully heard by the audience. He admits to constantly riding the faders during the show, anticipating small changes based on his years of working with Sonny. He finds that using the minimum number of mics provides the cleanest sound, although he specifies plenty of mics for the gig. This enables him to crack in a bit of presence only when needed.
Another challenge of this method is that the recording feeds are taken from the house console. In some cases there is only a mono or stereo mix available. This will be combined with actual or recreated audience reaction to fill out the sound. This mix is then recorded on his Zoom H4n digital recorder via its XLR analog line inputs. If multiple outputs are available from the house console they are recorded on his laptop's ProTools gear. In any case, there are no audience-reaction mics per se on the ProTools tracks, only whatever crowd sound happens to be picked up by other stage microphones (i.e., leakage). The full ambience will be created by Richard at his studio, blending the X-Y overhead drum and percussion tracks (when available) with other tracks. Most significant is that each tune on the CD is taken from one performance, with only some lengthy "non-Sonny" solo segments shortened by Richard. "It's a Sonny Rollins record, you know," he smiles.
Moving to Allan Tucker's mastering duties: Richard supplies the program to him with all ambient segues already in place, mixed, and approved by the artist. Allan's job as mastering engineer is to smooth them, augment where appropriate, set relative and presentation levels of music and audience, use EQ, compression, and additional ambient enhancement (via a classic Lexicon 300) to bring the program alive and make it as exciting as possible, and make Refs and Master parts for upload. He told us that "Richard turns me loose, with only one specific request: Keep Sonny's tone as edgy and annoying as possible, and honor the fatness of his sound."
A very lively Q&A period covered these topics:
How does each engineer feel about "digital vs analog"? -
Richard discussed the nerve-wracking technique of making "window edits" on analog 2-inch multitrack master tapes: A ruler would be used to precisely locate a given track so that an objectionable phrase could be physically cut out of the tape with a razor blade, reversed and spliced back in place (or just corrected from another take)! This is now done digitally with a few mouse clicks, and can be massaged as often as needed until perfect. In the analog days you had better get it right the first time.
He also decried the numerous digital plug-in simulations of classic analog gear, which he feels quite miss the mark.
Allan recalled his days at Vanguard Records, mastering classical albums which required a seamless transition between musical movements and appropriate room tone. Two methods were available: a three-machine mix or mechanical crossfading by means of specially-made EdiTall splicing blocks with very long 20-degree (vs 45 or 60 degree) grooves. He feels that digital can sound as good as analog but one must know the tools and the sound you are seeking. "Properly mastered, it can fool even the most discriminating listener into ignoring the question of analog vs. digital," he believes.
How does Richard convert mono applause into stereo? -
He uses ProTools D-Verb. This allowed him to craft the opening of the album with audience reaction from one city, spoken introduction from a second city, and a mono musical performance from a third location. By gradually reducing the stereo space of the audience reaction, the mono music which starts during the applause actually appears to be in stereo.
Is every performance on a given tour recorded? -
Overseas this is not a problem, but in the U. S. there are many restrictions on recording, even with the fees negotiated by various entities. Difficulties vary from place to place.
Our audience is keenly awaiting the Fall release of this album, which is the second in a planned long series.
