I just noticed that a lot of brass section recordings in some bands' albums sound so boxy, and quite frankly, dissonant and out of tune. While I'm a total idiot to wind instruments on how to play them, is it possible to:
1. Stay in tune during a performance, especially with a section?
2. Record your instruments individually but live? Or were you compelled to deal with a few mics?
3. Make the instruments sound good in themselves? Or are there really "bad-sounding" saxes, trombones, etc.? May parang hierarchy rin ba ang brass instrument brands in terms of sound and quality?
Hi Dodgie.
1. The difficulty (I'm guessing) might be arising from the fact that orchestral players (and therefore, horn players who also play in an orchestra and/or symphonic band) have to deal with repertoire that requires them to tune at 442khz instead of the A=440 we're now more accustomed to.
2. For the most part, a succesful recording of a section would require the players to listen to each other, and so, recording them one by one might be a more difficult proposition.
3. Yes. There are bad instruments. And if you do get the chance to find out how 'barely functioning' the instruments that most of our wind players have to use, you'll realize how good most of our wind players are.
By the way, perhaps the boxy sound is because in some recordings, the sound engineer points the mic directly at the bell of the instrument.
Hope this helps.