Soundresearch No. 14 - One mic - Tomi Purich Trio

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Sooner or later, you will again encounter greater resistance from your own body or, rather, we could say from your own mind, which then cramps up the body. I thought that the hardest step would be starting to record with just one microphone. But it is in the nature of things that they escalate and you can no longer repeat the same story, but you must grow. So during this period, I recorded with a trio, whose individual members we had also collaborated with on other projects and still collaborate with to this day. Tomi Purich Trio: Tomi Purich on drums, Aleš Ogrin on piano, and Goran Krmac on tuba.

Before this recording, I had already had a #Soundresearch that didn't work out for me. I had a similar lineup, and as I set up the recording, I directed it towards an abyss. My fear was stronger than creativity and exploration. I was working with natural drum instruments for the first time — which means they don't have amplifiers and they can't match drums in terms of volume. So, I started with logic, not intuition. Because I knew (or imagined) that the drums would be loud and that only they would be heard on the recording, I placed them very far from the microphone, all the way to the end of the room, and then added sound panels and covered them with various blankets to mute them even further. Logical. Everyone would place a loud instrument far away to make it quieter. We do the same with children when they are loud — we put them in another room instead of listening to them. Anyway, the drummer was so far away and isolated that he didn't know what was happening. The drums remained loud as a result. Another one of my failures. But there was no time to cry because panic was the first thing to come. Panic, because another group was coming in three days, and I didn't know how to do it. This was the start of a journey through all possible stories and traumas. What will they say? Why did I even start this? You know it yourself — when we want to make ourselves victims and don't want to find a solution, we are really good at it. However, I was already on the path of #Soundresearch and I was ready to explore further. Instead of focusing on the problem, I started looking for a solution. I took a drum and a cymbal and started to explore the sound in the space, which led me to a clue.

The sound of the cymbal is equally loud whether it's close to the microphone or far away from it. The difference lies in the transients, that is, in their presence. When I moved the cymbal away from the microphone, it surprisingly remained similarly loud, as it filled the space with sound from both ends, and the difference was only in the direct sound. And then I remembered Norah Jones's producer, who seated band members very close to each other for energy and intimacy. This approach connected them. Based on the cymbal research, I decided to place the drums right in front of the microphone to capture their sound. But because it is also close to the piano and tuba, the drummer is automatically forced to respect the people around him and the microphone setup itself. Just placing the microphone so close already has a psychological impact on the musician. In this way, I shifted the responsibility onto the musicians themselves, and this is what came out. Once again, beautiful music and a great session.

When we think something should be as we have planned it, it can happen that our non-solution, which we have in our head, is the key to success.

This is not possible? Test and observe.

To be continued...

AEA Ribbon Mics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQeP7zC4acI

#Soundresearch št. 14 - One mic - Tomi Purich Trio

Prej ali slej priletiš ponovno do večjega odpora lastnega telesa oz. rečemo raje lastnega uma, ki nato telo spravi v krč. Mislil sem, da bo najtežji korak to, da začnem snemati z enim mikrofonom. Toda v naravi je, da se stvari stopnjujejo in da ne moreš več ponavljati iste zgodbe, ampak moraš rasti. Tako sem v tem obdobju snemal s triom, s čigar posameznimi člani smo sodelovali tudi na drugih projektih in še dandanes sodelujemo. Tomi Purich Trio: Tomi Purich na bobnih, Aleš Ogrin na klavirju in Goran Krmac na tubi.

Pred tem snemanjem sem že imel en tak #Soundresearch, ki se mi ni izšel. Imel sem podobno zasedbo in kot sem zastavil snemanje, sem jo usmeril v prepad. Moj strah je bil močnejši od kreative in raziskovanja. Prvič sem delal bobne z naravnimi inštrumenti - kar pomeni, da nimajo ojačevalcev in da z jakostjo ne morejo parirati bobnom. Zato sem štartal z logiko, ne pa z intuicijo. Ker sem vedel (a si v resnici predstavljal), da bodo bobni glasni in da bo na posnetku slišati samo njih., sem jih postavil zelo daleč stran od mikrofona, čisto na konec sobe in nato dodal še zvočne panele in jih pokrival z raznimi dekami zato, da bi jih utišal. Logično. Vsak bi dal glasen inštrument daleč stran zato, da bo tišji. Tako naredimo tudi z otroci, ko so glasni - damo jih v drugo sobo, namesto da bi jim prisluhnili. Kakorkoli, bobnar je bil tako daleč in izoliran, da ni vedel niti kaj se dogaja. Bobni so zato ostali glasni. Ponovno eden izmed mojih neuspehov. Vendar časa za jok ni bilo, saj je bila prva na vrsti panika. Panika, ker čez tri dni pride druga zasedba in jaz tega ne znam narediti. Tu se je štartalo potovanje po vseh možnih zgodbah in travmah. Kaj bodo rekli? Zakaj sem se tega sploh lotil? Saj veste sami - ko želimo iz sebe narediti žrtev in nočemo najti rešitve, smo res hudo dobri. A vendar: sem že bil na poti #Soundresearcha in sem bil ponovno pripravljen raziskovati naprej. Namesto problema sem začel iskati rešitev. Vzel sem boben in činelo in začel sam raziskovati zvok v prostoru in s tem prišel do enega indica.

Zvok činele “je enako glasen”, pa naj bo blizu mikrofona ali daleč od njega. Razlika je v tranzientih, torej v njihovi prezenci. Ko sem činelo odmaknil stran od mikrofona, je začuda ostala podobno glasna, saj je iz obeh koncev z zvokom polnila prostor in razlika je bila samo v direktnem zvoku. In tu sem se spomnil na producenta Norah Jones, ki je člane benda zaradi energije in intime posedel zelo blizu enega z drugim. S takim pristopom jih je povezal. Glede na raziskavo s činelo sem se odločil, da bom dal bobne tik pred mikrofon in tako zavzel njihov zvok. A ker je hkrati blizu kalvirja in tube, je bobnar avtomatsko prisiljen spoštovati ljudi okoli njega in postavitev samega mikrofona. Že postavitev mikrofona tako blizu psihično vpliva na glasbenika. Tako nekako sem odgovornost premestil na njih same in ven je prišlo tole. Ponovno lepa glasba in lep session.

Ko mislimo, da bi nekaj moralo biti tako, kot smo si zastavili, se zna zgoditi, da je ravno naša ne-rešitev, ki jo imamo v glavi, ključ do uspeha.

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Editor: Rok Rokson