Free Jazz and Improvisational Recording at The Vision Festival
LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN: As Brooklyn-based experimental-jazz quartet The Fay Victor Ensemble took to the Abrons Art Center main stage Friday night at the Vision Festival, we sat down backstage with Stefan Heger, the festival’s recording engineer.
The Fay Victor Ensemble at the Vision Festival, Friday June 25.
Heger has been recording the 15-year-old Vision Festival since ’02, making improvements to the system he assembles each year to capture the avant-garde jazz performances at ever-higher quality.
Now based in Cologne, Germany where he’s a recording and mastering engineer with Fisheye Music and Supow Studio, as well as Dangerous Music’s European distributor, Heger will leave NYC at the end of the Vision Festival with 300 – 400 GB of recorded audio.
Artists, labels and estates will get in touch when the opportunity arises for a live release and Heger will mix and master the high resolution recordings at his studio in Germany.
With all this in mind, Heger records the Vision Festival at the highest possible quality his resources will allow and captures the performances in surround should a 5.1 mix be ordered up. His recording approach combines studio techniques with — quite appropriately — live on-the-spot, improvisational engineering.
“I want to act like I’m in a recording studio as much as I possibly can,” Heger says of his approach to recording the Festival. “At the same time, this is momentum music. It’s so far outside of the pop genre I usually work with (and listen to) and it forces me to look at music in a different way.
Stefan Heger with his recording rig backstage at the Vision Festival. Photo by Nobu Awata.
“I’m always interested in figuring out how to get the best sound, but with this music, it’s more about capturing [the energy of] these amazing moments where — all of a sudden — everything is in sync, the musicians are grooving like nothing you’ve ever seen and then, before you know it, it goes off in every direction again.”
On a stage where anything is possible, Heger comes very well prepared, combining the house mics on stage with recording microphones and using studio mic pre-amps and converters.
This year, he doubled most of the instruments with Mojave studio mics, on top of the house mics. “For example, a double bass recorded with a tube mic in front can be a great choice,” he notes. “If the bass player doesn’t move a lot or if the bass is loud. And for horns, a tube mic can be a wonderful addition if it’s placed a couple feet away, etc. I’m using Mojave’s large diaphragm tube MA-200 and the smaller MA-100, their FET version, and some dynamic mics as well. These mics have that warmth, that studio character.”
Each year, Heger assembles his rig through endorsements from select manufacturers. This year, the system consisted of the Mojave microphones, a Soundfield B-Format microphone for surround sound ambiance recording, ShinyBox mic preamps, Apogee converters and Dangerous Music monitoring and summing. He records into Logic Pro.
The Vision Festival, 2010. Photo by Nobu Awata.
“I also need visual control due to the constantly changing setup,” Heger points out, noting the visual component of the ShinyBox preamps, which he hadn’t used prior to this year’s Festival. “The ShinyBox visuals are great for me — I can easily see the level and adjust accordingly. [And sonically,] they’re very convincing. They almost have a Siemens character.”
“From the pre amps we go straight into the Apogee AD-16x with Soft Limit, which is my safety-belt for high levels. So, it’s safe for me to leave the system while it’s in record,” he explains. “The Apogee converters sound great, are compact and easy to use. I’m doing 32 tracks at 24-bit / 96 kHz and don’t have to sweat it.”
“On the back-end, I’m using the Dangerous D-Box so I have several monitoring options including speakers and if a quick ref mix is needed, I can use the 8-channel summing on the spot.”
Then there’s the Soundfield B-Format microphone. Positioned at the top of center stage, and pointed towards the back of the stage, the B-Format’s four capsules capture sound from every direction. “I’m recording six channels of that mic — two are stereo for a rough mix and the others you can zoom in on individual instruments, you can use the back capsules for the audience,” he explains.
Vision Festival 2010. Photo by Nobu Awata.
“You can change the patterns while you listen, from omni all the way to figure-8 and you can change the stereo width. It even does Mid-Side. And the bottom end is unbelievable.”
More important than the amazing sound quality of the Soundfield B-Format for the Vision Festival is the freedom it affords Heger in post-production. “Why not decide later how much room you want?,” he poses, noting that he’s now making so many other decisions in the moment.
“As an engineer I can’t help but be inspired by the musicians on stage, and make decisions on the spot as I go,” says Heger.
“I really get creative and give myself the freedom to experiment, try different things. When a new band comes on, there may suddenly be two sax players and they didn’t mention this…so I decide on the spot I want to bring up a completely different mic than the FOH. I might even have a plan starting out, but then I’ll change my mind and do things differently in the moment. The spirit of experimentation and improvisation is infectious!”
For more on the Vision Festival, visit http://www.visionfestival.org and get in touch with Stefan Heger through his website, http://www.fisheyemusic.com. Photo by: Nobu Awata