Source
r/WeAreTheMusicMakers•
NotMarkus

Tips for mixing a live recording

I've been working for the past couple days on mixing various live recordings that I have of my band (acoustic/electric jazz), but it's basically just trial and error. The recordings were made by the venue, and some are mixed much better than others.

I've run the shows through some compression and then EQ'd them a bit to drop some of the muddiness/reverb of the bass and to get the drumkit sounding more crisp. The recordings are much better now, but they're not as good as I'd like them to be, and EQing them the way I did seems to have slightly boosted crowd banter.

WATMM seems to be very electronic-heavy, but is there anyone here that has any tips or tricks for mixing live recordings?

Posted Dec 19, 2010, 6:57 PM UTC

18
halfcalorie•

You have to embrace the live sound, because it's never going to sound the same as when you're recording in a controlled studio. The differences in your recordings are probably based on the differences in the placement of your instruments and the microphones and the way they bleed. I would be surprised if the recordings sounded consistent, as the front of house and monitor mixes are more important to the venue.

If you want a better sounding recording, your best bet is to go back in and work with the venue engineer to figure out what works and what doesn't.

3
NotMarkusOP•

I have no problem with the live sound. The nature of the music is almost entirely improvisational so really the only sound to have, for us, is the live sound. Even recording in a studio, we'd record together in a single take so I know our sound will never be flawless. I've worked a bit with the sound guys at this venue and our most recent show sounds fantastic.

But I'm trying to put together a mix of our best takes, and while some tunes happen to be in that show, others aren't. These are the ones that I'm trying to get to sound good enough.

1
bluetshirt•

the general trick for EQ, if you can't find what to remove:

  1. put a narrow band pass filter on your thing

  2. sweep it - find any points where you get really ugly sounds

  3. turn off the band pass filter

  4. place notch or peak filters over those trouble spots

  5. cut till the nasty goes away

2
NotMarkusOP•

Awesome. I'm going to try this out right now. Thanks!

1
HonestGeorge•

You're vague, do you have the multitracks or just the final mix as it was mixed live?

2
NotMarkusOP•

Just the final mix.

1
Aequitas123•

You can polish a turd but its still a turd in the end. What I mean by this is that if the tracking doesn't sound great on its own there isn't too much you can do. If you can resolve a bit of muddiness with some EQ thats great but use EQ as little as you can as its a really damaging process. I'd use a tiny bit of compression, probably with the Oxford limiter, just to give it a bit of coloring and reduce and discrepancies.

But you pretty much summed it up: "it's basically just trial and error"

1
bradtwo•

Here is some general Mixing ideas for you to try out.

EQ is similar to what you would in the studio. Try cutting out frequency ranges that aren't necessarily important to that particular instrument. I'm not saying cut out all LOWEND in your guitars but you can do a little bit of a roll off. This will help even out all of your instruments if done right. I suggest looking up normal frequency ranges for the type of instruments you're using. The more you can isolate them this means the more holes you have available in your mix to place other items. You can find charts all of the the nets that help.

Depending on the quality of your mixer you might have to have a look at a couple of rack mount EQ's.

Compression: For live i pretty much only use compression for over all volume control rather than an effect. From the looks of what sort of sound you're wanting to achieve I would suggest a similar thing.

If you have the cash to throw around; I did the whole Dave Rat thing and run multiple compressors. Basically compress it between the SubMix's; so you'll need 1 stereo compressor / sub group.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMMmR1u0CFk

This is pretty awesome and I wish I would've seen it way earlier in doing live sound. This allows you to basically put a lot of your "fader chasing" on auto pilot.

Finally but not at all least important. What is your final output? Is it the house PA or your own? It's only going to sound as good as your speakers you're feeding to. If it doesn't sound crisp and you're using a house PA then chances are they have a blown tweeter. That is pretty much given when it comes to gigs. Of course this is all on the quality of where you are playing. I know some places that have the whole Midas mixers and amazing PA setups.

1