All posts by maxdyer

Miking the cello and live sound

February 5, 2014 maxdyer

For a couple decades now I have played cello on many recording projects and even produced a few myself. Most often nowadays, I record myself here at my home studio- Cellomax Studio. I really enjoy the creative process of working closely with musicians and producers from all over.

MIKING THE CELLO

Studio mic placements

Every sound engineer will have his own opinions about this, and placement varies a lot with the individual mic. But this is what I have found:

There’s a sweet spot about the size of a salad plate from just below the bridge and encompassing the lower part of the fingerboard. A little towards the A-string side and about 1/2 to 3/4 of a bow length away. This gives a bright full sound which records well. I got this after a lot of trial and error and it was confirmed exactly when I talked to Nashville cellist John Catchings who has done as much studio cello work as anybody on the planet. Set the mic about bridge height and 14-22 inches away depending on how much of the bow noise you want. Too close can become boomy. The angle of the cello to the mic also makes a huge difference. You get a brighter, better sound when the mic is not perfectly perpendicular to the belly of the cello The mic should be a little off axis to the cello- and that’s the way we sit with it anyway.

AUDIO
This placement about 15 inches from the bridge gives a gutsy in-your-face sound which is perfect for this rock song
Claude Peritt: Chicago Land. (Recorded by Andy Bradley at Sugar Hill Studio, Houston) for 2014 release

This mic placement is a bit more refined. Even with the bottom of the f hole, (about 20 inches off the floor) and 16-22 inches away (closer is warmer, too close gets boomy) pointed towards the right F hole or slightly towards the middle of the cello. This is a smoother and more complex sound that lacks some of the rawness of the bridge placement. The mike is also closer to the hard floor so it picks up more of the “early reflections” which lend clarity.

AUDIO
This lower placement about 20-25 inches away gives a sweet clear sound.
The Champion Sisters: Unconditional Love (excerpt) from “Not Fit to be Tied”. (Recorded by Andy Bradley at Sugar Hill Studio, Houston) 2011 album.

My favorite to mic for cello is Schoeps CMC6 with the mk41 hypercardoid capsule. This is a great orchestral spot mic for cello and in my opinion, you won’t find a better one. But expensive. I got one second hand for $1200. I record here in my home studio with it thru a Summit 2BA 221 pre amp. It has a high pass filter so I roll off the bottom from about 70hZ to get rid of any unwanted rumble. Plus you can use it live and drive a mic and a pickup simultaneously. Nice clean warm tube sound.

For stereo recording I have a matched pair of Peluso cardiods that I like to place in a 20-22 inch equidistant triangle towards the bridge. John Peluso worked for Schopes for many years and his mics are great and surprisingly comparable to Schoeps but at a fraction of the price.

I use Sennheiser earphones don’t cup the ear but are flat so I can position them to leak in sound from the outside so I can hear the cello acoustically when I record. Many studio string players just use one ear. It’s better that the sound guy doesn’t give you much of your own sound in the headphones. If you hear too much of the cello thru the headphones you will play too quietly and the cello doesn’t record as well. Better to hear less and play out so the cello resonates fully.

Most studio headphones are big and clunky and get in the way of your pegs so get your own headphones that are small and hi quality and get comfortable with them.

Ethan Winer has a terrific site devoted to room treatment and acoustics. He is also a cellist! If you are interested in getting your room to sound much better, check out his site HERE. He sells a full line of acoustical treatments and also tells you how to acoustically treat your room build your own bass traps. This is a whole big discussion and I hope to devote an article to how I built my home studio .

Classical recording mic placement

This is a huge topic and I only want to say that the first thing you need for good classical recording is a decent room or hall since the microphone placement tends to be farther away for a smoother recording and you want to hear more of the natural reverb of the hall. “6 feet up and 8 feet away” was the default placement for the Houston Symphony audition recordings.

LIVE SOUND

For live sound I use the DPA 4099-C. microphone. I have tried a million clip on mics and pickups and this is the best. It clips on behind the bridge and I point it toward the soundpost and slightly off axis (unlike the photo on the DPA site).

makes a rich natural sound and very little feedback- you will probably want to roll off from 80 or even 100Hz down since it is likely to be a little bass heavy. But it sounds great- I am using it in this video

For club work I use a Acoustic Image Coda R with my DPA mic. Very transparent and sounds great. I put it away from my on the other end of the stage so I don’t hear too much If there’s a sound man I generally just put the mic thru the house PA- You really don’t need your own monitor on stage- you usually hear plenty acoustically.

This can be used in conjunction with Realist Pickup which goes under the foot of the bridge. I use this on my electric cello if i need serious volume, in a rock setting for example. Use as much of the mic as you can before feedback become an issue and then add the sound from the Realist pickup so you can cut thru the drums. I run the realist thru a LR Baggs Para DI acoustic preamp,

With a drummer in a loud situation I use in-ear monitors which keep the volume down and saves my failing ears and also permits me to hear myself. You will need to get the sound man to give you a mix you can work with as well as your own cello sound- getting the right volume of your own playing is extremely important so you can play freely.

NY Cellist Eric Friedlander has a ton of good info HERE about live sound and miking. Check out his excellent site.

HEARING IN ORCHESTRA

Hearing my own cello sound in the orchestra pit has become more problematic in recent years since my hearing has started getting worse. When I have to sit next to the piccolo (and in front of the timpani) in the pit for the Ballet I use an in ear monitor in the left ear to block the sound, I bring my little self monitor. Sound Devices MM1– I run my DPA mic thru it to provide phantom power and to drive my earphones. Uses 2 AA batteries and clips to your belt. A bit heavy, but a solid professional piece of equipment. It has a monitor mix 1/4″ input which you can balance against your own sound. I used this very effectively in performances of the Lion King. Such a pleasure to hear those great drummers and I could synchronize my playing easily. I use Westone ES5‘ s but you can get decent in-ear monitors for less. Sennheiser IE4 earbuds are great too if I have to sit in front of the brass and I can choose how deeply to block my ears with them. It makes a huge difference if you can hear yourself clearly in the orchestra. Plus it’s really important to save your hearing!

Improv, Interviews, Performances

New Projects

February 2, 2014 maxdyer

“Inspired: Max Dyer and Friends”

Thanks for all your support on my CD Project!

“Inspired” Max Dyer and friends is now available at CDBaby

I also have some nice T Shirts you can order please email me at ten.k1755089968nilht1755089968rae@x1755089968amoll1755089968ec1755089968 and specify size (S M L XL XXL)

I am very pleased to be a featured guest artist on Grifter and Shills latest CD Project “Wathershed”. Please join us for a CD release party on Saturday July 12 at The Mucky Duck in Houston

ZOMBIE MUSIC! Max joins Claude Peritt’s unreleased CD in production at Sugar Hill Studio, (excerpt from “In Chicago Land”)

AUDIO

My old friend Marienne Kreitlow, a Minnesota singer/songwrite recently invited me to play cello on her new album.

I’ll be joining Jacqui Sutton and the Frontier Jazz Orchestra: Thursday Ap 24th for “Da Camera at Discovery Green Houston” Concerts @ 6:30 and 7:30

Here’s a cool video – Hammer Dulcimer National Champ Joshua Messick with me and my dear friend Indian Classical singer Nanda Banerjee. Nanda is singing my favorite raga “Bhairavi” and we are doing what we do! YouTube video

KUHF Radio Broadcast – The Front Row- Interview and performance “The Language of Peace” East/West trio. North Indian Classical vocalist Nanda Banerjee, Keyboardist/composer John Hardesty, Max Dyer Cello

I am proud have composed title credit music for NY independent film maker Alexandra Addison’s 2014 release movie documentary “Love Song”. She’s in the final cut stage now. Here’s a video clip.

My good friend , Andean Mufti-instrumentalist Charry Garcia has just finished a great new CD “Sunwalker”. We recorded and mixed it here at Cellomax Studio. Here’s a clip:

AUDIO

Also in production at Cellomax Studio, my Renaissance Festival band Cantiga : our seventh CD “Dreams of a Forest Garden” Here’s a link to all our CDs.

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L-R New Orleans-based fiddler “Sick”, Fluteman Bob Bielefeld, gamba/lutenist Alex Korolov, Celtic harper Martha Gay, me, Middle Eastern master drummer Jamal Mohamed.

Improv, Interviews

Interview with MAX DYER: Improvisation Approach

November 28, 1998 maxdyer

CELLO CITY INK
INTERVIEW WITH MAX DYER
by Sera Smolen

SS: What got you started improvising on your cello?

MD: When I was little, my family sang a lot in the car, and I loved to sing my own harmonies, so I guess that was the beginning. Then in the 70’s I had a lot of friends who were folk singers and I discovered how easy it was to play along on their songs with the cello. And it was very fun and refreshing after all that intense music school playing. I played with songwriters for several years in Great Britain and then back here and got really comfortable with it.

I got acquainted with Paul English who is a Houston jazz great, and my wife encouraged me to play with him. But I had absolutely no jazz background, so it was sort of like deciding to learn to speak German or something. So learning his tunes and the jazz standards became my next big project. I got the “Real Book” and started getting jazz recordings from the library and made tapes of all the tunes I could find that were in the Real Book. But I was perplexed: hearing Miles Davis playing a tune didn’t seem to bear much resemblance to the Real Book version. He was way up in the “stratosphere” and I didn’t even know the basic tune yet. So I would got earlier recordings or the original songs the jazz standards are often based on. My dad knew all these tunes but I didn’t. I grew up with the Beatles.

I also got a bunch of Jamie Abersold records. “ii V I” and “Nothin but the Blues” were helpful. It also helped that I had a 4-channel tape recorder. I’d pick a tune I liked and record the bass parts very slowly with a metronome. Then on separate tracks I’d record the thirds and sevenths of the chords playing everything on the cello. Learning to read chords and quickly play the 3rd and 7th gave me a headache at first, but I gradually got better at it and it is probably the most useful skill I know for learning to play over changes.

I’d jam along with these practice tapes and sing with them in the car trying to work these new sounds into my brain. I was listening over and over and singing along until the music played kept playing automatically in my head. At that point, the changes literally captured my imagination, and I went around hearing it in my mind and scat singing constantly. My wife will tell you I was pretty hard to talk to!

I called up jazz professor and cellist David Baker at IU and he was so encouraging. He suggested I learn jazz by playing along with bebop tunes at half speed. He sent me a couple of tapes with about 40 bebop “heads” and music for them all. I hated them at first. If you’ve never heard bebop it sounds incredibly complex and frenetic. I was supposed to learn this?? My tape recorder had a half speed switch so slowing it down was easy. Then Charlie Parker’s alto sax sounds just like sort of hashy lugubrious bari sax but it is right in the cello register. I started with “Groovin HIgh” which David said was an easy one and transcribed most of Charlie’s solo note by note. Later I got the “Charlie Parker Omni book” which has most of his solos transcribed. I gave them cello fingerings, and practiced them with the tape and tried to find bowings that gave the right swing. Over time it started to sound familiar in but I sure had to force it in at first. Baker’s approach is to memorize “licks” that the jazz greats use until the sounds get in your mind and your fingers and they form the basis of your own improvising. Then it’s up to you to find your own voice with this language.

SS: What other resources have you found helpful in learning how to improvise?

MD: The “Band-in-a-Box” program. It is a music processor for both PC and Mac which costs about $60 and you can get it at music stores and on the internet. It’s a very useful tool if you want to learn jazz or really any kind of improvisation over chord changes. Typed-in chords will play back at any tempo and in many styles and it’s a lot of fun to jam with. I appreciate this so much, as it much less cumbersome than the four-track, and I now can slow down and loop parts of the music I’m working on to try to master the tough changes. I recommend it highly.

There were some outstanding instructional video tapes I rented: “Larry Carlton Plays the Blues”, “Emily Remler Jazz and Latin Guitar” were two of the best. What terrific jazz lessons! Emily Remler was a terrific jazz instructor and she boils a decade of teahing into an hour on video. It’s so sad she died. I’m not a very intellectual player and she showed me ways to play jazz instinctively by learning to hear thirds and sevenths and then base solos on those “guide tones”. She also stresses practicing with a metronome on 2 and 4 which brings big results in learning to “swing”.

Also “Jennie’s Jazz” is a bulletin board on the internet for Jazz lovers around the world with lots of good tips for improvisation.

SS: Describe some ways you practice your improvisation–how do you warm up?

MD: It always varies. In the course of “warming up” the music starts flowing inside me, that inner voice starts singing and then I’m set for the day. Some kind of music just keeps going around in me, and I’m hearing it constantly. So I guess at some level I’m practicing whether I want to or not! I’m not sure this is the best method, but it’s what happens to me. The main priority for me is to cultivate a soul that’s ready to turn on like a faucet. Doing this requires a lot of things that are not specifically musical. I meditate in various ways and do Feldenkrais body awareness work which is kind of like yoga and read the Bible and other things that make me feel strong. I love Fritz Magg’s “Hour of Daily Calisthentics” and an hour-long scale routine with a million bowings by Francois Rabbath. The bass guys use this and it really gets you buzzing.

I’m sure everybody develops their own warm up routines, but the goal is always to forget the technique and play what you hear. If you really want to express something, the fingers will find a way with a little repetition.

When I’m practicing charts, I use the Band-in-a-Box extensively. One good way is to read through the changes playing first the “head” or melody. I play the bass notes, the thirds, sevenths and the nines and then to try to connect these “guide tones” as melodically as I can. But then after my brain gets tired, I just jam and see how much I have retained. Recording myself playing along with the changes is very useful at this point.

You have to remember this is a slow and gradual process and you can’t expect fast results. Internalizing takes tremendous repetition for me. But I work on what I love so I enjoy this. I never get tired of jamming on “Falling Grace” by Steve Swallow.

What do you think about when you solo?

MD: Not a hell of a lot!! I’m not a mathematical-crossword puzzle-chess playing- jazz player. I can hear beautiful things in my mind, and guess I play my best when my thinking is at a minimum. I like to just close my eyes and let it rip. But for hard changes, unfortunately, I do have to think and try to remember some stuff. I make a loop of the hard chord change with my Band in a Box and jam with the cello and also make tapes to sing with in the car while I’m driving around and eventually it gets internalized. Then I find a few good notes or licks for that spot and I try to memorize them so at least I have something to hang on to in the tough changes.

Improvising live in front of an audience is so fun because you really get out on the edge! Making “noises” which seem to fit with that moment. You learn to trust yourself in the moment to produce beautiful things. And you get good at playing what you hear in your mind. Sometimes I can hear the next idea begin just before it comes out on the cello and then it unfolds from there, other times I get so absorbed and intense, I’m not sure what I’m doing but somehow it works. When you take a solo the other guys are supporting you, helping you, rooting for you. And you do the same for them. And it’s so liberating to get caught up in that.

When I’m waiting for my turn to take a solo, I try not to figure out what I’m going to do. I always bomb if I make that mistake. Instead I listen hard and try to stay in the moment, right up until I begin to play. A lot of times I start my solo with an idea that imitates the last few notes of the previous soloist. In my solo, I’ll probably only use a fraction of what I could do, but if it’s fresh and I’ve never done it before, then I’m happy. Lots of times I can’t remember what I played but I have a sense that whatever it was, my own “voice” was speaking.

When you play night after night, a big temptation is to try to recreate some “peak experience” that may have happened the night before. It’s so important to learn how to let go of anything that’s happened before and come back again to “square one”. Expectations can be a real distraction. You have to “break the mold” and allow something entirely new to happen. I guess that’s about the most challenging part of performing for me.

SS: Anything else?

MD: Yeah, a quote from Charlie Parker:

“Master the instrument, learn the changes, then forget all that shit and just play!”

-Sera Smolen for CELLO CITY INK, New Directions Cello Association

NEWSLETTER OF THE NEW DIRECTIONS CELLO FESTIVAL Vol. 5,
No. 2 Fall 1998

CELLO CITY INK
NEWSLETTER OF THE NEW DIRECTIONS CELLO FESTIVAL Vol. 5, No. 2 Fall 1998

“Max Dyer’s cello playing combines the beauty of fine classical technique with the soul and spontaneity of a great jazz improviser. His experience in a wide array of styles is evident in every note he plays.”
Chris White, Director, New Directions Cello Festival

Max Dyer is a classically trained cellist who performs in every context from Opera and Chamber Music to Jazz, Folk, Renaissance, and also loves Indian classical music. In the 1980’s, he played and toured with the Houston Symphony. He currently plays with the Houston Ballet Orchestra. His jazz trio, PICO, performed their original compositions as well as Jazz standards at the1998 NDCA festival. Max also shared his approach to learning Jazz as a cellist in a workshop titled “Playing Over Changes”