Originally Posted by Jim vanBergen  For me, the first consideration is:
is my live broadcast mix the final mix, or will this be post-mixed?
When it's the final mix, I will usually:
1) focus on having a limited dynamic range (especially for classical music!) to stay within the very limited 14dB dynamic range that most sat trucks are expecting ( the -10 to +4 VU range in analog, or the slightly wider -30 to -10 range for digital). This is not something I hear discussed openly, it's what I have experienced back from transmission trucks when I don't consider the limited dynamics and earlier in my career, would listen to my confidence mix and hear them compressing the living SH** out of my mix. "It was too low for our transmission standards, so we put a limiter on it." Now I discuss this IN ADVANCE and mix accordingly.
2) I too, will limit the amount of added FX processing for most elements. But it totally depends on the moment & what the client wants to hear. Gating, compression, reverb, delay, etc- sometimes you really need a very WET approach for instrumentation, sometimes the songs have FX that are integral. Sometimes you have one chance to get it right...I have experience both nailing it and f*&king it up. I tend to have a LOT more verb/fx on studio-based projects or post-mixed events, and the live capture shows tend to have enough room to reduce that need.
3) too much ambiance/audience response. I am VERY envious of the studio engineers who have been able to tweak their audience mics, zone and limit the house PA and offset the response mics, and get just the right amount of applause/laughter. I have one producer who always wants a little more room- if everyone stops talking, he wants to hear the room tone in the background; kinda like the recent Golden Globes, whether it was too low a ceiling, too much booze for the crowd or too much room in the mix, you heard a LOT of background chatter the entire time. To me, that's a bit excessive. But he who pays the bill gets what he wants.
These are elements I will ALWAYS be working on. And in items two and three, these elements interact so much, it's about their balance and relationship. If your audience response is too present, it's too much room. If you take them out during the songs, you miss the 'instant response' factor that makes it live.
JvB |