Now that the live tracks are in the can

[Gedit]

I've been hanging out in remote possibilities for a few months. Time to switch gears ...

Over the summer I recorded a four-piece band (drummer, guitar, bass, keys) at four different venues (Tin Angel in NYC, NorthStar in Philly, The Fire in Philly, and World Cafe Live in Philly). I mic'd each show identically - kick and L and R overheads for drums, DI keys, and mic'd the amps for bass and guitar. They only use vocals for talking to the crowd so i split them off the house boards.

The band is now choosing which of the songs from which of the shows they want to use for a live CD compilation. It's been a while since i mastered live stuff (many years - let's say i used to use tape cutter blocks and leave it at that ;p ) so I'd like to know if I need to prep the raw tracks.

For example: working with digital over the past couple of years I'm used to normalizing and/or adjusting the volume on tracks. Should I adjust these tracks to the same relative volume to make mixing/editing/eq-ing/effects easier? Any other suggestions?

Thanks for any input.

George

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Gedit

I've been hanging out in remote possibilities for a few months. Time to switch gears ...

Over the summer I recorded a four-piece band (drummer, guitar, bass, keys) at four different venues (Tin Angel in NYC, NorthStar in Philly, The Fire in Philly, and World Cafe Live in Philly). I mic'd each show identically - kick and L and R overheads for drums, DI keys, and mic'd the amps for bass and guitar. They only use vocals for talking to the crowd so i split them off the house boards.

The band is now choosing which of the songs from which of the shows they want to use for a live CD compilation. It's been a while since i mastered live stuff (many years - let's say i used to use tape cutter blocks and leave it at that ;p ) so I'd like to know if I need to prep the raw tracks.

Here's a tip. First of all, do NOT normalize the gain between the venues to the same highest peak. You will likely be WAY off the gains you need to match up the venues.

In fact, in the ideal, if all of your preamps were at the same gain and you used the identical mikes at all four venues (concerts), then things will likely match very very well. Not counting obstacles such as output level of electronic keyboards set by the musicians, and so on.

I would just edit, and if you hear a discrepancy at the edits, adjust gain of one side of the edit up or down.

The "gain of the real world" will determine if you have any discrepancies. Yes, of course, if your guys move far away from the mikes in one concert and are closer in another, and the amount of PA is different, these are all going to make the edits more difficult. But in principle, if all your gains were the same when you tracked, it makes editing the venues much easier.

To help determine this, listen to the ambience of the room when no one is playing (just before the downbeat), which includes all the amps that are on as well as preamp hiss and "room tone". Switch back and forth between two takes from two different venues while listening to the room tone. Adjust the gain of one until the two room tones match level-wise. This will also prove to be the most likely gain match for edits between the two venues.

Next, solo each instrument when switching between venues, again listening to the track BEFORE the take begins. If you hear an ambience shift, e.g. the hiss of a guitar amp is distinctly louder in one venue than another, then adjust the gain of one guitar track to match the two ambiences. It then is HIGHLY LIKELY that the two guitar tracks will match perfectly.

This prevents you from making an instantaneous judgment that you think you have to drop the level of a more exciting take from concert 2 to match a take from concert 1, at least in the first go-round when you're trying your edits. The rest will be refinement, and if you follow this approach you will likely need no more than a further one dB or so gain shift here and there to accomplish your edits. Good luck!

[Gedit]

damn, Bob, that's a helluva piece of advice and exactly what i was seeking.

thanks very much.

anyone else want to chime in, I'm all ears.

george

[heathen]

Great info to keep in mind Bob. Cheers here too.
Heath

[Gedit]

this notion of gain across venues brings up another question ..

my recording included two AUD mics for ambience and crowd. i tend to leave those tracks out of the first (rough) mix and only add them in at the end, assuming i'm not missing anything in the mix that i need to fill from the AUDS but that's unlikely because everything was mic'd.

is this standard operating procedure nowadays, or something else?

[bob katz]

Originally Posted by Gedit

this notion of gain across venues brings up another question ..

my recording included two AUD mics for ambience and crowd. i tend to leave those tracks out of the first (rough) mix and only add them in at the end, assuming i'm not missing anything in the mix that i need to fill from the AUDS but that's unlikely because everything was mic'd.

is this standard operating procedure nowadays, or something else?

Hmmmm.... for a first pass it's ok, but to refine your mix you might find that a hair of the AUD mikes provides some depth, ambience and sense of reality and it's going to "dilute" your mix so you need to take that into account when you're mixing. You have another consideration, which is the transitions between songs. I recommend you mix, and when you reach a certain point you're going to have to deal with those AUD mikes, determining how much audience you want in YOUR SOUND. Because it is YOUR SOUND and you can't postpone that. Then when you finish the mix with the proportion of AUD mikes you want, you have to deal with end applause and the transitions from song1 to song2, etc.

There are different ways of dealing with that, but the optimum would be to mix EACH song so that it ends with clean, not too long ending applause and then ambience (audience murmur) for anohter 5 to 10 seconds. Then mix the next song the same way, lather, rinse, repeat. Then bounce each of those to a 2 track that will become a new playlist.

The rest of this is a REAL ART!... here goes.

Then create all kinds of snippets of audience murmur, loud, medium, soft, quiet, and mix 10 to 30 seconds of each to a stereo file that will also become a possible element in the new playlist. Then create ending applauses (ESPECIALLY ending applauses that end in a clean clap with no talking), loud applauses, whistles, sweetening elements, all sorts of pieces you want for the assembly and bounce those to 2 track.

Now you create a new playlist, checkerboarding the sources you mixed, and when applauses are not appropriate for the transition, you replace them with the applause elements you so dutifully mixed previously, until you have a continuous concert.

As a mastering/editing engineer, with a program such as SADiE or Sequoia or Sonic, this assembly/editing task of producing a continuous concert is much easier I think than Pro Tools. So if you wish to leave that difficult assemly task to the mastering studio, then mix each song with as much continuous applause at its end as possible and as much applause that actually ends as possible. This is not easy. You may find that someone talks over the applause and you want to get rid of it, that the band starts tuning or introducing the next song before applause finishes and you want to get rid of it, and so on. So, think ahead, and whenever you find an element that can be used as ambience, room tone, audience, or ending applause, mix it to a new 2 track and label the new file "ending applause" or "whistles and cheers" and collect those elements for the editing/mastering/assembly session.

BK

[Gedit]

Bob, again, thanks for the input. I have my work cut out for me, don't I?

I'll post back as I make progress.

-george

PS .. i think it's time to buy your book.