Recording Brass Instruments for "Broken House" by Joe Cashetta

The brass section is essential to my senior capstone project's reinterpretation of Joe Cashetta's "Broken House" through a comprehensive orchestral arrangement. The brass part strengthens the composition's thematic themes by contributing emotional intensity and depth.

Particularly notable are the horn flairs, which serve as a recurring motif throughout the piece. These flairs represent moments of resilience and resolve within the story, cutting through the arrangement with a triumphant yet poignant tone. The warmth of the French horns, the boldness of the trumpets, and the rich undertones of the trombone and tuba outline the dynamics of conflict and resolution central to the song's meaning.

In recording this section, I will be giving special attention to achieve a balanced yet powerful sound, ensuring the brass complements the surrounding orchestration and vocals. By emphasizing the brass section's unique ability to convey strength and vulnerability, this portion of the project adds an essential layer to the emotional landscape of the reimagined "Broken House."

Now, when it comes to session preparation, I like to make sure I have all of my boxes checked to ensure I have a smooth session. I ran through all of the microphone and preamp choices and possible miking techniques to get exactly what I wanted out of the sound of the powerful brass.

For this session, I did my intensive research on how to get the best live sound out of brass instruments in particular. I found that ribbon and dynamic microphones help with the process of recreating the live sound aspect. I chose to use a Sennheiser MD421 for my dynamic microphone and 2 Royer M121s for my ribbon microphones.

When it comes to microphone placement and technique, I referred to this website by Bobby Owsinski. I noticed a pattern from this website to others as well as information I gathered from a mentor of mine, Leah Schattschneider. I decided to use the 421 as my direct microphone and the 121s as my room microphones.

• For trumpet, I “close miked” the 421 about 3 to 4 feet away from the bell and angled it so that the end of the microphone was pointing at the top of the bell.

  

• For trombone, I had a very similar miking technique as I did for trumpet. The only difference being that it was a little closer. A little over 2 feet away from the bell.

• For tuba, I grabbed a crane mic stand to allow for the 421 to sit a little over 2 feet away from the bell directed at the outer edges of the bell. I wanted to make sure the sound didn’t end up being too blatty.

  
  

  

• For these 3 instruments, I placed the 121s equidistant from the players at a 40- and 140-degree angle about 5 to 6 feet in front of them. I made sure that the microphones themselves were pointing in the direction of the player so that it sounds more as if the player is “playing for an audience” as per requested by the composer. I chose to go along with this due to the microphone being bi-directional, giving me the sound from the instrument, and the reverberation off the walls and such.

• For French horn, I took a different approach due to the shape of the instrument, while still holding the same type of techniques from the other brass instrument. I used the 421 still as a spot microphone about 4-5 feet away from the bell, and lowered the mic stand so that the microphone would be in line with the bottom of the bell. I then placed the 121s equidistant from the player, but this time it was behind the player at a wider angle because the horn parts are so powerful, and the player was going to be louder. This way I was able to still capture the room tone while still getting more of a direct sound.

  
  

  

Now onto the preamps!!

My original decision of preamp was the API box, but unfortunately there was some miswiring and it was unable to work.. So I had to improvise… here’s what I chose instead!

• For the lower instruments – trombone and tuba, I decided to use the Manley preamp to capture more smoothed out low end. People tend to use this for smooth electric bass, but I decided to use that power and drive it towards the low brass. And honestly, it was a great decision. I loved the way the sound turned out.

• For the higher instruments – trumpet and French horn, I chose the Daking preamp. I decided to use this because I really enjoyed testing this preamp on vocals a while back – specifically my own vocals. I like to describe my own voice as a brassier sound when I’m belting, and I really enjoyed how the Daking emphasized that aspect but also showed off my warmer attributes as well. This is the type of sound I wanted out of the high brass – and that’s exactly what I got.

It's finally time to start recording!

• Playing tuba – Adrian Suppes

• Playing trombone – Alex New

• Playing French horn – Claytin Sweeney

• Playing trumpet – Andrew Shenk

Each musician was phenomenal, and I believe I can say for both me and Joe that we are entirely grateful that they were willing to give up their evening to do some recording for us.

I believe the only challenges we faced during the recording process was getting signal out of the room microphones and then some silly tempo/click track issues. We were able to resolve these issues and get going with our amazing day!

This session in itself has allowed me to grow significantly as a producer/engineer. I already have so many ideas for the mixing process! I have sat in on so many sessions, and I believed all of them prepared me for this day. The hospitality, the professionalism, and more importantly the patience have all allowed me to keep a quick but intentional workflow. I am deeply excited to continue these sessions, and even more for the end result!

Thanks for reading!

Madelyn Jarrell

Recording date: January 19, 2025