Triple Fusion

...25 lutego 2007. w Music Nepal Studio w Kathmandu miała miejsce sesja nagraniowa na żywo którą zatytułowałem "Triple Fusion" - jak trzy kontynenty, Shyam, Binod i  Pritam - Nepal, Azja, Greg Simmons - Australia i ja z polski na didjeridoo żeby krąg był pełny...

cytując Grega z jego bloga:

First, you need some instruments. In this case there's tabla, didgeridoo, flute, sarangi, marchunga (jaw harp) and bull roarer. An unusual mix of Himalayan and Australian instruments that actually worked very well together...

Add a Schoeps MS pair microphone rig, a Nagra V hard disk recorder and an impatient pair of Beyer Dynamic DT250 headphones (that barged in on the previous pic) and you're almost ready to go...

Ruff in his location on the didge... Note the placement of the Nagra?

Oh, you'll also need an engineer. This guy is wearing a Nagra hat, but that doesn't mean he knows what he's doing...

All you need now are the musicians! Pictured here from left to right are Shyam (sarangi), Prithim (tabla) and Binod (flute). Not shown here is Ruff, who is represented by his didgeridoo, cushion and water bottle...

After placing the microphone, it soon became apparent that the didgeridoo was simply too loud in the initial placement shown earlier (to Binod's left side).

After much experimenting the didgeridoo was placed behind the MS pair, relying on the rear rejection of the cardioid and the side rejection of the bidirectional to keep the didge level down while also giving it more of an ethereal and floating spatial sound (i.e. not such a pin point image). Thankfully, the acoustics in the main studio at Music Nepal are dead enough to let this approach work well

without the didge becoming roomy.

Note the small sheet of plywood placed underneath the end of the didge. This was to reflect the higher frequency articulation sounds back up to the microphone rather than letting them be absorbed by the carpet. (To give you an idea of the location, this was almost immediately behind and beneath the MS pair...)

With the microphone placement sorted, I took the line outputs of the Nagra and fed them into the control room where the sound could be monitored during the performances without worrying about non-musician people making noise in the recording space.

After showing Ruff how to put the Nagra in and out of record mode (very easy), I left the room and let them get on with it, discussing among themselves when they were ready to start and stop without having to include me in the process... 

Shyam in action...

Group shot! Rear left to right: Greg the Dork, Punam, Shyam, some guy called Sunit who we couldn't get rid of, and Ruff. Kneeling from left to right: Prakash (Music Nepal engineer), Rojai (Music Nepal engineer) and Binod.

 

story by Greg Simmons foto Ruff Libner