Recording tenor sax

I use a Zoom R8 with Rode Nt1 condenser microphone for playing sax tracks on to
downloaded backing tracks. Interested to hear from other saxophonists as to how they
set up their recordings such as EQ.

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Hi David, Let me preface this by saying I am not an expert! I have a Yamaha 82Z 'atelier' special edition tenor. I use a dynamic vocal mic by Beyer. I find my clip on Sennheiser condenser mic is just too sensitive unless playing live. I am lucky to have a vaulted ceiling in my music studio which gives a nice natural reverb. My biggest discovery was;'crap in equals crap out.' If in doubt do it again you really can't fix some things in the mix. As far as mixing is concerned I tend to use a small room ( around 0.4s) followed by a hall type reverb ( 2.0 s).I tend to mix in Logic pro. I will put a tenor specific channel equaliser and some times a compressor. If I want special effects I tend to use Native instrument plugins such as Guitar rig 6. I think with tenor less is more and the most critical element is the space you are playing it in. There some really good sax players ( and some good sound techs too) on wikiloops much better than me and with much more experience hopefully they will add to this thread.looking forward to hearing your sound!

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As Zoot implies we all have different setups. My aim is to match the sound of the other instruments so that it sounds like we are playing in the same space/place. However a little bit of reverb/delay can always make our tone seem smoother.

My recording space is "dry". I mostly use a condenser microphone that's not more than 30 cm (one foot) away from and pointing towards the "G" key. When mixing my aim is to integrate my sound with what's already in the track. I'm often playing backing, but even when not, I don't think the sax should sound as though it's added on and on top of everything and dominating. More like a good singer (other than metal).

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interesting I am going to try that. Thanks.

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