Live TV Mix & simultaneous record

[Beech]

Hi Folks,

I'm facing into a project later in the year and I thought I'd share some details with you. I'd appreciate any advice.


The artist and 8 piece band will be augmented by a 20 piece string section, 6 brass players and maybe 3 backing vocals.

The venue holds about 2000.

The show is be broadcast on tv and we will make a 48 track record to Pro Tools, probably with Radars for backup.

My mission, should I choose to except, will be overall sound supervisor, with an emphesis on the live tv mix, since I will know the artist's material.

Afterwards we will bring it back to the studio for remixing for DVD.

I'm thinking of ordering something like an O2/R (which I'm familiar with) or DM2000 for the mix. This means I could store each songs settings in scene memorys.

For the record I'm not sure yet. I'll have to see what's available, but I will be insist on high quality pres. I will have another engineer with me to setup the record side of things so I can concentrate on the mix.

Sooo, that's broadly speaking what's going to happen. I've not been given a lot more detail yet. Hell, I've never done a live mix for tv before ... the adrenalin is starting to flow already!

[Remoteness]

Hey Beech,

Live TV music is my favorite type of recording. I love the adrenaline factor.

Preproduction is key. Talking to the artist's people, and working out technical issues with the venue and other production folk is critical. You must find out everyone's needs in advance, especially your own. Production must know what you need and how it may (or may not) effect the show!

Surveying the location in person or on the telephone is an important part of it all. The sooner you do it the better it is for you and your associates.

That's a great time to work out any set up, location, stage plot or input issues you may have. Information about all wireless (RF) frequencies being used during the event is a must. You don't want any train wrecks during your live TV show.

Be detail oriented. Don't leave any rocks unturned.

Figuring out where the best place to set up is very important. Do you bring in a truck? Do you set up in an empty room? Is that room acoustically suitable or do you have to treat it on location? How about setting up at FOH? Does that make more sense?

What about the power feeder, snake runs, stage and room mics, video & comm feeds to each destination. This must be in your minds eye way ahead of the load in, ESU, soundcheck & rehearsal. It's a lot easier to follow your nicely planned road map then trying to cut your way through heavy foliage on the spot. Unless you bring in the proper tools to make it through...

To a seasoned professional, cutting through the heavy brush may not be a big issue. Consider avoiding the extra hassles for your first live TV mix and record.

Interfacing with all applicable factions can be interesting. Try to isolate yourself from any outside feeds to video, sound, et cetera, etc. Mic, line, video & AC power isolation transformers are a must.

Doing a live TV show is like tracking, mixing and watching a show all at the same time. Getting everything recorded to your favorite media is just one part of it. IMO, bringing in all your secret weapons for the live mix is the only way to go. Record the soundcheck & rehearsal, so you can work on the mixes up until showtime. It's a great way to work things out when you only have one tune (or so) with the musicians. During the soundcheck make sure you got everything just right to the multitrack recorder. Don't worry about the mix levels. Concern yourself with getting the inputs to "tape" with plenty of headroom. Play with the tracks after the soundcheck when you got more time to deal with the mix.

I love recording/mixing large bands. An 8 piece band, augmented by a 20 piece string section, 6 brass players, 3 backing vocals and main artist sounds like a lot of fun.

Will the show broadcast live? Or are you recording live to multitrack for the future DVD? I ask this because if it's not live "live," don't get jammed up with the live 2 mix. You can always update your mix settings later. Make sure you got great tracks and plenty of headroom to play with. The video folks will not mind a "decent" 2 mix to cut their show with. There's no big deal to make the 2 mix perfect if you're going to remix later anyway.

But hey, don't let that stop you ... if it's sounding awesome go for it. Just don't jam yourself up with it if it's not perfect.

Whatever you do, BACKUP is a must. I would consider a different format for the backup. If your main recorder is HD based consider tape as your backup medium. It's a live TV shoot, don't get caught with your pants down. You only get one shot at it my man!

Picking the right crew and vendors is very important as an audio supervisor. A sound system and/or crew can make or break your show. Choose them wisely my friend.

Good sounding pres and a Yamaha O2R or DM2000 for the TV mix sounds like a great plan for this event. It will make for a much quicker final mix for sure. Keep the tracks on point and the 2 mix sounding decent -- you should be more then half way there for your final mix.

There are other things like SMPTE TC, video sync, etc, that I haven't mentioned in this post. If necessary, additional question should follow...

So, I hope this helped. Keep us posted as more information comes in. More power to you my man!

All the best!

[Sofa King]

Originally posted by Beech
Hi Folks,

I'm facing into a project later in the year and I thought I'd share some details with you. I'd appreciate any advice.



I'm thinking of ordering something like an O2/R (which I'm familiar with) or DM2000 for the mix. This means I could store each songs settings in scene memorys.

Hi
I do some of this type of thing, and I think youre on the mark with the O2Rs.
Ive done shows without them and its been scary, and has never turned out as well as the shows ive done with them.

Make friends wit the PA folks and the TV folks.

And pick Steves brain.
He is not only very experienced at this, but is perhaps the most organized audio guy Ive dealt with.


best


Sean

[Beech]

Thanks Steve.

It will be a "live" live mix ... straight out the 2 buss and into the sitting rooms. I take all your points particularly about recording the reheasal and setting up the mix from that. Actually, I plan to record the previous night for this and indeed use the night prior to that for basic level setting. So, I'll treat it as a three day setup (budget permitting). I won't know who the production company is for a few weeks but the show will be broadcast on PBS so I'd maybe they will have a saw in this.

It's certainly a great I plan to record one show and setup the mix for each song later that evening and next day, before the main event. I do like the idea of the O2R because I know it, but unfortunately it may not have enough channels (32). I usually budget for 48 so the DM2000 may be the way to go. Either way, scene store sounds brilliant, as I know there will probably a fair variety in musical styles over the course of the night.

As far as recording goes, when I'm at home I use my own dedicated Pro Tools system (at 24 bit 48k) for these occasions but this time I'm going to have to put my trust in a hire company. Any recommendations? (the show will be in Missouri). There would be no problem getting a system in from Nashville. Indeed, there will be other gear to be hired such as pres, compressors and mics etc.

As far as backup goes Steve, I don't know what tape based system will do 48 tracks of 24 bit. That's why I've always opted for two Radars in the past.

Last year I used the Neumann / Sennheiser mic / radio system into a Massenburg 8300 pre with good results on the vocals. Only difference this year will be that I will need to get the vocal eq and compression "on the night" so I'm considering one of those all in one boxes from GML or else the Focusrite 430.

Oh yes, one last thing I can think of. I think the O2R may be ok if I do some subgrouping on a seperate mixer. It's only problem is unless you go into it digitally from the "multitrack outputs", the line inputs may not have enough headroom. So that would mean having to run 48 digital outputs from the Digidesign 192s (or the Radars) to the console. Instantly sounds like a bad idea. Suppose the DAW should fail for some reason, there would be no input to the console for the 2 mix!! Would you have a suggestion to remedy this.

Many many thank yous,

[jwh1192]

at house of blues los angeles we use 1 DA-98HR (master)and 5 DA78HR's for 24bit 48k capture ... they sound really nice in 24bit mode and you can be a little easier on yourself about levels to tape ... all machines receive timecode and master receives blackburst ... Fuji tape seems to run a bit better at 24bit than Sony ... you can run mic-pres into DA machines and then TDIF out into Pro Tools (192's) and do the mix in the box for a different way and no mixer ... i have not treid myself yet but may have to very soon ... a bit scary though ... a mixer is like a safety net and a computer is like working without a net ... i will let you all know how that goes ... everything has to be mapped out ahead of time as far as making the perfect template for the mixer ... using outboard gear will be interesting dealing with A/D and D/A conversions bring the latency issue to the table ... we shall see ... it will be the mother of all templates for 48 track live recording ... not to mention spread across multiple drives ...

if anyone has done this please email as i have a couple of questions for you'all ...

Steve is right the adrenline factor is such a high ...

if you remember we had problems with our fiber snake (Otari) ... it has finally given up the ghost ... we are putting in a piece of copper ... i love copper ...

also, this will be the first time we will use the mic pres in Audient desk as we have been going in using the line inputs from the Otari fiber (has pres on the stage end ... and not remote) ...

happy recording ... does sound like loads of fun ...

peace

john

los angeles

[Beech]

Thanks John, I'll consider the DA78 as a possible backup record medium.
I've been recording 48 track shows for a few years now and I find the secret to reliability is:
1. Fast drives freshly formatted
2. At least 1 gig memory in the Mac (Pro Tools being assigned at least half of that).
3. Set up your 48 tracks, input routing and disk allocation properly and store this as a template once you're happy.
4. Avoid plugins, in fact once I press record I don't touch the mouse until it's time to press stop.

I always put the system into test record for maybe an hour before the show just to make sure everything is working. As soon as the show is over backup to firewire drives.

Mixing in the box for me until I get back to the studio and even then it's kind of tedious. I've got a console this year and Audient too!) so I'm hoping to have a little more fun. One thing about mixing in the box though, it's good to be able to store your mixes for further editing down the road.

Cheers,
DW

[Remoteness]

Beech,

I would hire a company you're familiar with. If that's not applicable, go with a recommendation or two from people you trust. But, you're best bet maybe hiring a company that specializes in remote recording. Renting gear isn't always the best alternative. Leave it to the pros -- a seasoned professional can offer much more then gear to the venture.

Like John said, Tascam DA98HRs & DA78HRs can operate at 24 bit. Backing up a hard disk recording with another hard disk recorder is a interesting concept that I'm not very interested in. When possible, I like to record different formats of backup. It keeps your options open.

One way to save the 2 mix if your DAW fails is to run two completely different systems either by splitting at the mics or after the analog mic pre outputs. One output feeds the DAW, the other the analog console. You can still run your digital outs into the digital console, and dump to the backup system if necessary.

[Beech]

I hear you Steve. I'll be in touch with management soon and when I get the go ahead I'll start to get into the nitty grittys of this thing.

Cheers

[Remoteness]

Fast forward eight months...

Producing this teleproduction took two video trucks, two audio trucks, an orchestra mix room, two MON positions, a FOH position, two (C & KU band) uplink trucks, a variety of other necessary departments and a lot of personnel to pull off the (11/27/2004) four hour live television broadcast on PBS.

90% of the PBS affiliates took the live feed. The remaining 10% have the option to air highlights of this event at a later date. Two DVDs and a CD were also produced from this production venture.

...And now for the photos of televillage:

[Remoteness]

Here's a few shots of the mix truck...

[Remoteness]

Here are some shots of the master record, confidence (monitoring) & communication (hub) truck...

[Remoteness]

Now for the video department photos...

[Remoteness]

Besides the wired mics and DIs, buckets of RF mics, IEMs, IFBs and COMM were used during this event. The TV trucks had their own audio department that handled all the pledge / host audio.

Roughly 86 music inputs made it to the mix truck via our XTA active splitter systems. Two 48 track masters were produced along with two stem mix masters. Multiple feeds went to a variety of places.

Here's some shots of the splitters and such...

[Remoteness]

I had a chance to take some pictures of the set from the audience during the build and rehearsal. Here you go...

[Remoteness]

I took a few pictures of our audio crew. I didn't get a chance to get everyone in the clan -- Our producer, Daire and his assistant, Peter have taken additional photos. Here's what I got to show...

[Beech]

Hi folks,

Many thanks to Steve Remote for his pics!

Just thought I'd let you know how the project panned out from my perspective.

This was the plan:

To record and mix a four hour show for live broadcast via satellite to PBS Washington, where it was distributed to 28 states I believe. Reports have the viewership at somewhere between 30 - 60 million people.

The artist was Daniel O Donnell, who was running 18 shows at the Tri-Lakes Center, Branson, Missouri. The venue had a good-sized stage and had a capacity of approximately 2,400 seated.
There was a nine piece band, augmented by twenty string players and six brass from the Springfield Symphony (Missouri). There were six guests, one being our own Mary Duff who sung seven duets with Daniel as well as four of her own solo pieces. Other guests were the Lennon Sisters, Jo Ann Castle (honky tonk style piano player), Charlie Pride, The Gatlin Brothers and Pam Tillis (the Stones got stuck in traffic and couldn't make it!). These guests were evenly distributed over the four hours but the interesting part was moving them on and off the stage during the live broadcast! Not recommended for the faint-hearted.

For those familiar with the PBS you will know that they depend on pledges from viewers to fund their programming (as far as I know). So the show schedule was really tight and it lasted four hours. Every second was accounted for. It started at 6pm and at 6.20 PBS went to a pledge break while the music continued in the theatre. Back again live at 6.30 until 6.50, then another 10 min pledge, so each hour had 40 minutes of live music broadcast. There was a 20 minute interval section, which was recorded the previous day.

Steve Remote supplied two trucks plus a crew of five from New York. One truck contained all the recorders and the other housed the console and all pres etc. We recorded onto 48 tracks of Pro Tools HD (24/48k) with five stereo stem mixes being recorded to two MX2424s. Backup recorders were eight Tascam DA78 machines. Two Midas Venice desks were used for confidence monitoring.

The Mix truck housed an Otari Status which was used for mixing the returns from the Tascams. All audio was recorded through API, ATI, Focusrite, Shep, Midas and True Systems gear and it worked great! Lots of DBX compressors about as well as Distressors, Summits and a nice SSL 2 buss comp.

Mics were SM87s except for Daniel who used a 58 (all wireless).
BVs: Neumann KMS105s
Violins: DPA 4060 miniature mics mounted behind the bridge, Cello on SM81s
Trumpets: Senn MD409s
Trombones: D12E's
Kick: SM52
Snare: MD421
Hats: AKG C300
Toms: E604s
Overheads: C414BULSs
Front of Kit: M149
Gtr amp: MD421
Nylon guitar: 451
Accordion: SE Electronics (can't remember the model)

Most everything else was on Countryman DI's

Four Senn MKH416s were placed evenly across the front of the stage for crowd pickup and a pair of Earthworks TC30 omnis about half way down the hall.

The audio crew consisted of about 14 people and because of mucho planning months in advance, the project was a huge technical success.

The following day the Mix & Record trucks stayed behind and I remixed for tracks and updated the stems. Then the Aura Sonic crew headed back to NY. I would like to say that it was a real pleasure to work with you guys! You are pros.

The next phase was for my assistant Peter Gray to take one backup firewire to my studio in Dublin while I headed to Wall St Productions in Detroit with a duplicate backup. The videotapes had already been overnighted and they were being digitized. I was to load up the Pro Tools file and transfer the few tracks that had been remixed and make another few repairs.

The plan was for a cleaned up version of the show to broadcast three days later. A 2 - set DVD had to be completed and also a 20 track highlight CD! Both are now at production as of today.

Meantime we are setting up to do a remixed version for a 3 set CD and a DVD for Europe which will probably be a different video conform.

Needless to say it's fun and games getting over 71/2 hours of 60 audio tracks to play from a Mac! More to follow if anyone's interested.

Daire Winson

I'll add my humble few photos:

[Beech]

Artists and manager happy after show!

[Beech]

Padraig, Gary, Daire, Pete, Steve & John

[Beech]

John, Steve, Micheal, Dave and Robert.

[Waylon]

Looks like a great show!

I just stumbled on this thread today and didnt notice the date as I was reading, I was about to type you a PM to contact Steve when I saw his post!

[Beech]

Mix truck front wall.

[Beech]

Mix truck back wall.

[Dr. Cuso]

Ooooh, what a great post!

Thanks for sharing it with us. Congratulations to both of you!

Merry Christmas!

Alex

[Remoteness]

Daire,

How's the music mix for the DVD coming along?
Have you completed it yet?
Were you able to find another (original) SSL stereo compressor for the 2mix? What did you end up doing about it?
Keep us posted.