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Hello, 

 

Daza here to present Ben Beal live at Electric Air Studios. 

 

I met Ben while producing a few singles for the band Soulpax. He was playing keys adding a really cool touch to the harmonic movements of the indie soul music the band was making. His piano and keyboard skills were outstanding. 

 

Throughout those recordings I got to book Ben to perform at sofar sounds miami and to my surprise these wouldn’t be instrumental piano tunes. Turns out Ben is a master vocalist. He accompanies himself on keys but his main musical focus and instrument is his voice. 

 

He performed for Sofar Sounds Miami early 2019 in Wynwood alongside Veta Ceti, and Shannon LaBrie. And he captivated the audience beautifully. I was expecting a soul funky vibe given what i had seen him do within Soulpax. But he actually performed beautiful rearrangements of jazz standards. It was inspiring to see this side of Ben. Kinda made me think Soulpax were underutilizing him. 

 

With time, around 2021 we got to talking about doing an audiovisual live EP for Ben and thus we embarked on exactly that. 

 

The premise was simple:

Audiovisual Live Jazz band.

Format varied between quintet, quartet or trio depending on the songs

Drums, upright bass, piano, saxophone and voice

4 jazz standards 

1 original tune

 

Note* this was during the pandemic and if you remember, safety and health were major concerns we took very seriously. We had to wear masks up until the second we were going to hit record and social distancing was law. 

 

After a few attempts at locking down a date and having to reschedule due to covid scares and exposure by a few band and crew members, we locked in a date for March 2021.

 

The band was rehearsed and prepared to record. Our team was prepared to capture the band and host the band with safety and health as priority. Followed by a great musical experience and amazing sound and video quality! 

 

The day was finally here.. Ben Beal Live at EAS day 1. 

 

Things started a bit rough but quickly picked back up. The morning of the recording, our saxophone player tested positive for covid. He had to miss the session. Ben had to call in a last second replacement that could handle the task at hand. Perform 3 jazz standards and an original tune with only a brief sound check as rehearsal. After numerous calls, Ben was able to lock in the one and only Jean Caze. A legend in the jazz community, a great human being, and more than capable to rise up to the occasion and delivery. 

 

Crisis averted. 

 

The band got to the studio and began rehearsing. Mean while our Electric Air team started to places mics, soundcheck the band, and placed final lighting & camera positions. 

 

Within the hour we had the audiovisual recording system up and running. And the band was hot. 

 

Pause. Let me introduce the band. 

 

Lucas P on Drums

Marty Quinn on Upright Bass

Jean Caze on Flugelhorn & Trumpet

Ben Beal on Piano & Vocals

 

Honorable mention to our original horn player 

 

Unpause.

 

Recording began. We maybe captured about 2-3 takes of each song. And just like that everything was captured. Before breaking down we got everyone in the control room to listen to the tracks and make sure we had a THE TAKE. The band was great and the sounds were raw and live just like we wanted. 

 

The band began tearing down their gear and packing up. As I bounced the audio of each take for Ben to reference and select final takes for our upcoming post production meeting. We also began sorting the video files and backing everything up to the cloud. Everything was going smooth! 

 

But… the camera files for Ben’s main camera were corrupted and after much research and file recovery attempts, they were unusable. This was a big issue. We had no shots of Ben outside of my handheld camera which followed the entire band. I couldn’t believe it. This broke my heart.

 

I broke the news to Ben and begun looking at options to audiovisually overdub the piano and voice to the live band tracks. We had no choice and obviously I absorbed the cost of this and Ben was kind and understanding. He volunteered his time to make it happen. 

 

This also forced us to adjust our goal from 100% fully live band to a hybrid of live takes. The loca band, and a live take of Piano and voice on top. Ben and I discussed it and decided this was the best decision to keep the project moving forward. 

 

Ultimately and unintentionally this was an upgrade in sound and video. Why? Well now I can use all the cameras on Ben so we can highlight the leader of the project from a visual standpoint. Additionally recording solo piano and voice as an overdub allowed for a cleaner recording without drum bleed, bass, and horn bleed. 

 

I spent a few days cleaning up the piano bleed from the drum overheads and bass mics with iZotope RX advanced. Only on the songs quieter songs where Lucas used brushes since the piano bleed was a bit more present. The goals was to make sure Ben’s original takes wouldn’t be heard and the new overdub didn’t have an alternate piano/voice ghosting in the back. RX’s waveform and frequency viewing option allowed me to see and erase the piano notes from the overheads without altering the sound of the drums at all. Same for the bass mics. Once this audio repair was finished we were set to advance to piano & voice overdub.

 

We locked in dates for the overdub session and begun planning the shots and mic setup for Ben’s solo piano and voice. I was excited. This gave me way more flexibility so I put my best mics on the piano. A stereo pair of DPA 4099’s by the hammers for attack and clarity. A second stereo pair of AKG C414 XLII’s. Along the body of the baby grand for a more distanced and resonant sound. A mono Bock407 for an overall picture of the piano and low end extension. And lastly an AEA R88 stereo ribbon mic for room and distance. They all worked together to give me a natural and organic piano and room sound. 

 

For vocals we decided on one of our vintage Neumann U67 Tube LDC mics to give Ben’s voice the presence, body and vibe his record needed. 

 

All running through Rupert Neve Designs 5052 Preamps and various compressors doing very little to no gain reduction or dynamics control. 

 

We had a grand time recording and post production started. 

 

During this time it became clear to me that Ben was happy with the sonic quality of the overdub recordings however didn’t feel as well represented with his vocal performance. We explored options like re recording the overdubs, or trying to tune vocal with Melodyne. The later option became impossible due to the vocal bleed on the piano mics. Where you could head the original pitch and timing of Ben’s vocals behind the tuned and massaged vocal recording. We were a bit overwhelmed and disappointed. 

 

All options seemed costly beyond budget, time, and scope of work. The project was shelved until further notice. 

 

During this passive time, whenever I found time I experimented with iZotope RX Advanced (version 7). The goal was to Erase the vocal from the piano mics so that we could correct the pitch and timing of the vocal mic. The software was amazing and if you ever get to dig into it, it is impressive what it can do. However it is not perfect. You can hear a ghost of Ben in the piano mics and in the same manner a ghost of the piano in the vocal mic. 

 

That whole first year and a half the theme was audio repair. It was frustrating because I would make progress but it was never enough. Eventually I upgraded to RX9 Advanced and the results were more promising but never good enough. And then I had an idea. 

 

What if I analog sum the piano mics and blend them into a single stereo track, and then apply the Music Rebalance to remove the vocal? Well it was significantly better than applying the process to each track separately or to a digital sum of the piano mics. 

 

That solved half of the problem. Now for Ben’s vocal recording I figured we could re-record the vocal as tight and identical in rhythm as the overdub. Which would ensure it would match the video recording saving us the cost of audiovisual overdub recording and piano tuning. Plus allow for us to take our time and record the vocals and make sure they are pitch perfect. 

 

I saw Ben during another soulpax session and told him about my audio repair progress and the idea to re record the vocals on top of the original band recording and repaired piano overdub. He lived the idea and took it a step further by enlisting vocal mast extraordinaire Liana Salinas to attend the vocal recording sessions. 

 

We had a plan and begun recording the hopefully last overdub of the project. Ben was able to focus on sole vocal delivery and with Lianas guidance and live coaching his vocals reached a new level! I witnessed Liana’s technique and form to push Ben into his best vocal delivery, pitch and tonal control, breathing techniques. Ben never sounded so good and I could see the finished product. 

 

We conclude the vocal recordings and now it was time to put this theory of my to the test. It took incredibly light massaging of the vocal timing and no tuning at all to get the solo vocal overdubs to completely mask the minimal ghosts of the piano and voice vocals found in the piano track. 

 

In the mix we added extra repair by adding oke sounds Soothe to dynamically EQ out vocal frequencies in the Piano tracks via a side chain and from the vocal track. 

 

It worked! We begun mixing and we decided the most appropriate method would be analog mixing through our Rupert Neve Designs 5088 console and outboard gear. The console is wonderful sounding to say the least. And the added aux and groups we used light parallel processing to give more clarity, punch and presence to each of the instruments and voice. With the Swift mix faders we got to automate the analog faders of the console via protools dummy tracks. The final touch was a pass through our Mara Machines Restored MCI tape machine for some added tape goodness. 

 

While working on the mixes we developed a parallel workflow with editing the videos. We would work on one song at a time diving the session into mixing and video editing. 

 

This part of the process went fast. The look and sound of this project was supposed to be organic, raw and live. Ben and I completed and signed off on the mixes and video edits. Now we had to master. At this point I decided to bring in Anna Frick from Ally Sounds to master the project. She’s based out of Denver Colorado and her credits and quality of work speak for themselves. I had met Anna at Welcome to 1979’s yearly Recording Summit event at a panel we both participated in. And we hit it off right off the bat. 

 

I made a conscious decision not to brief Anna on the overdubs and audio repair process this record had gone through with aims to see if she heard any ghosting or bleed from the other takes. I was nervous and prepared to have to go back and do further audio repairs in the event mastering revealed any audio repair artifacts and or ghosting. 

 

I sent the files to Anna, and I got them back with a note saying these guys are great. What an amazing love performance. As you can imagine I was relieved beyond measure. I called Anna told her the whole story and she was impressed and said she didn’t hear any artifacts or ghosting. 

 

 

Finally, the finish line was within reach. All that was left was swap the audio in the video edits with the master and export the videos. 

 

What I present below is a project with so much heart, love and dedication I hope it inspires anyone it reaches to be resilient, adaptable, and to believe in yourselves & the teams that surround you. 

 

For a while Ben and I didn’t believe and we couldn’t imagine crossing the finish line. Today am proud to say we did and present you with Ben Beal Live at Electric Air Studios audiovisual EP. 

 

Thank you Ben, Marty, Lucas, Jean, Anna, Daniel, and Giorgio for your part in this journey and project! 

 

Enjoy! 

 

• Daza