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Jazz music can be one of the most rewarding styles to record. Many times, the performances are all done live, with the players in the same room, moving the same air. In this tutorial, Grammy Award Winner, Fab Dupont, shows how he approaches the complexities of having all of the players in close proximity to each other and adapts to the player's needs.
Learn how to:
- Record a Jazz Drum Kit with 3 mics
- Record an upright bass to get a balance of low-end definition and clarity in the individual notes
- Record a Jazz Pianist
- Manage bleed from players in close proximity
Once you have seen the video, download the stems and listen to the different microphones and test your skills at mixing the session!
Equipment & Software
- AKG C12
- AKG C28 C
- AKG C60
- Neumann SM2
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Fab Dupont
Fab Dupont is a Grammy winning NYC based record producer, mixing/mastering engineer and co-founder of pureMix.net.
Fab has been playing, writing, producing and mixing music both live and in studios all over the world. He's worked in cities like Paris, Boston, Brussels, Stockholm, London and New York just to name a few.
He has his own studio called FLUX Studios in the East Village of New York City.
Fab has been nominated for Grammys 6 times, including two Latin Grammys and has received many other accolades around the world, including Victoires de la Musique, South African Music awards, Pan African Music Awards and US independent music awards.
Credits
David Crosby
Queen Latifah
Jennifer Lopez
Mark Ronson
Les Nubians
Toots And The Maytals
What do you have to say?
Leave a comment 
Juan J. Bermúdez
2018 Aug 07
I loved the job fab. What I liked the most was that you found a real situation that often happens with the bands and their different opinions. I would have liked to know a little more about the double bass and the position of 47. For the next please! Thank you
jjdeloza
2018 Aug 01
Really liked the real time issues you dealt with and how you handled them. I have to say, from a business perspective, I thought you handled everything freaking great. You were trying to please your customer just as much as you possibly could before you would actually break your back. All the while keeping the feel of the their song in order to ensure you capture a great performance. Very nice Fab.
telepathy
2018 Jul 11
Gotta respectfully disagree with the previous comment ... the use of headphones and the placement of the musicians should be up to the musicians themselves. The engineer facilitates - it's his or her job to take those kind of game-time decisions in stride and to work around it. Not the other way around.
Fab, great job. Would love to see a video of the mix session for these tracks.
RMaletick
2018 Jun 16
So I have mixed feelings about how this session went down......
1. Refusing to wear headphones in the studio is a really weird. And making the engineer move the piano closer to the drums is disrespecting of the engineer's job, experience, and skill set.
2. I don't understand why the pianist is so adamant about not wearing headphones and doesn't seem to notice the piano is out of tune. This is mind blowing to me. The tuner should have been asked to come back and touch it up a bit. The tinny tone you hear in between some of the intervals reveals this.
3. Their performance is fantastic.
Freihausmusic
2018 Apr 21
Hi Fab! Beautiful example of how artist and engineer work out the needs and compromise so a good record can be achieved. I would have loved to have seen a bit more about how you captured the bass. I'd definitely love to see more of those genres covered (Jazz, Latin, Afro Cuban, World Music, Folk) and Producing/Tracking in General. Especially when we then can have the files to listen in and practice the mixing of what we have seen. I'd also love to have "outtakes" like tracks before you had the gobos on the back of the drums just as an example of what you didn't like ; )
sixtyanman
2018 Apr 08
That was a beautiful song done by very talented musicians and recorded superbly! a job well done by all. Thank you Fab for sharing.
pete.j
2018 Mar 20
just started watching, but at some point it's kind of satisfying that even on this high level on musician and - of course - engineering you have to deal with same problems as we do! I record a lot jazz and my - in my opinion - really good piano sound gets often ruined by to much bleed from drums or so. Yes, bleed can help to ole a mix, but it also makes (mostly because of phase issues) my piano sound "smaller" as if we mute all other microphones ;-)
Great work Fab! And thank you for the honesty to show, that even top-notch guys like you have somewhat similar problems!
ollieneedham
2018 Mar 19
One of the biggest take aways from this video was dealing with the musicians' independent requests and weighing up the benefits/sacrifices of implementing them. Really useful to see. Thanks Fab & team.
jamesbrownmusic
2018 Mar 16
So great to see a "real world" situation, with all the inherent problems of recording jazz - juggling the artists wishes and expectations with setup positions, mic choice, placement, headphones etc. A wide range of skills are needed to pull this off! Fine work. More jazz please! Would love to see a modern/NY style jazz tracking session...
G.MICHAELHALL
2018 Mar 15
The internet is absolutely flooded with "expert tutorials" and while some are quite good in their own right ( a lot are also mind numbing dogshite), IMHO, the standout instructor to always to pay extremely close attention to is the ever entertaining and informative and all round super human being, Fab Dupont. He really deserves a Grammy for being such a great enabling instructor. Excellent tutorial chocked full of golden nuggets to take on board.x
caesarjamesaugustus
2018 Mar 15
Official Starbucks soundtrack. Very smooth Gentlemen.
tipi.pulkkinen@gmail.com
2018 Mar 15
Nice!
I am just missing the info on the mic placement on the double bass!
I was not shown at all the video or spoken out.
Is it possible the let that information out?
jcthomas.mus@outlook.com
2018 Mar 14
Beautiful timbre on the piano. Shout out of great joy to the Piano Tuner-Technician. Sounds like you have had some fairly recent Voicing performed on the Piano as well. Sounds Great!
Great Jazz players. They know how it is done. What is that Piano anyway? A very Old Steinway? I know it has to be well over 100 years old. Sounds amazing.
hanshaberkorn
2018 Mar 12
Nice Video!! Thank You!
...of course you played a ballad in the end.. ;)
jayhelmus@gmail.com
2018 Mar 12
What I loved about this video is seeing the problems arise and watching how they were dealt with. In some cases, some battles were not won and that's ok! This is, after all a huge part of the recording process (dealing with and managing problems). Very awesome video! More like this!
Candymanjl
2018 Mar 10
Very helpful to see managing personalities and how you work things out.
TRP777
2018 Mar 07
Love it!
leski
2018 Mar 07
Really useful tutorial. One question though..Were the drums muted in the mix (at the last few minutes of the video)?
Cryptx
2018 Mar 07
That was magic, thanks
jonlibra
2018 Mar 06
Very good video and great music, thank you!
kafkons@hotmail.com
2018 Mar 06
Wow ! very good ! really happy to have seen and learned from this video ! Thx Fab !!!
filipwil
2018 Mar 06
Really great video, thanks Fab!