sort of a gig report

[huub]

Hi all..
I mixed hollands biggest rockband (couldn't think of a bigger one, so I guess it really is)
last weekend for a live broadcast for dutch music television.. This is not much of a gig report because I was waaaaay too busy to take pictures.. It was a pretty straight music gig with our new and awesome truck (cinevideogroup OBV-15) wich has a Lawo mc2/66, lexicon pcm91, sintefex replicator compression, neve 33609 compression,2 waves max RCL compressor/limiters and tc system 6000.. Oh, and ambilights that can change colour .. Band was about 45 channels active stagebox from p.a. company and I had 2 dpa shotguns (awesome mics!) and 3 neumann km140 for ambience/crowd..
I was multitracking to a MADI pyramix system and tascam da98/88 for back up (eighties crap!.. but, hey, a back up is a back up..)
I was mixing with a representative from the band, with whom it was nice to work..
It was a hard job though.. I had my drum and bass sounds during soundcheck, and I was pretty satisfied, but ten the rest of the band came in, especially the vocals, and man!
the drums turned from fat and in your face to an ambient mush, and the bass guitar disappeared.. I worked hard from the multitracks to get a nice mix before the liveshow started, but I'm still not loving the mix I was able to get.. Oh well, that just happens sometimes when mixing live music I guess.. The band was satisfied with the mix though, not sure if they really loved it..

see and hear it in glorious mono on youtube:
YouTube - Kane - Rain Down On Me (TMF Showcase - Amsterdam 09-05-2008)

It was interesting to hear what the stations processing (some orban device) did to the mix: apart from some pretty hard limiting and levelling,
It also added a whole lot of exciter type highs, and it ate the real lows, I guess to remove headroom in order to make it louder, I monitored the processed signal during the live broadcast, I actually kind of liked what it did to te signal, apart from the disappearing lows..

cheers
huub