worst live recording ... CD or DVD

[jwh1192]

i know what mine is but i want to see if anyone else comes up with it before i let it out...

peace john

[e-cue]

The Misfits : Evilive

Worse audible live cd ever. But it's punk, so that's cool right?

[Remoteness]

This is a tough one for me, because it's hard to dog my associates.

For me, it's much easier to chat about the best then the worst live recordings... I guess that is why we don't have a longer thread.

We already have a favorite live recording thread and that has a fair amount of posts...

I wonder if we'll get many negative replies...

You never know, let's see where this goes...

[Steve Smith]

Steve,

I have some outakes from the gig I did in Flushing Park with your truck ( which was great btw) that may qualify as some of the worst recorded music of all time, but luckily it never made it to release..

[Remoteness]

Originally posted by Steve Smith
Steve,

I have some outakes from the gig I did in Flushing Park with your truck ( which was great btw) that may qualify as some of the worst recorded music of all time, but luckily it never made it to release..

Yup, it's a lot easier to talk about the worst recorded music then the worst live recording.

[Steve Smith]

I really need to get off my butt and e-mail you a wav of the piano solo i am thinking of... wow is it baddddd....

[jwh1192]

worst recorded music will do just fine...or we can discontinue this thread if need be...feel free...

[Remoteness]

No, no...

I was trying to say, it's a lot easier for me to talk about the worst recorded music, then the worst live recording. That doesn't mean you and others can't talk about it.

You are totally welcomed to it, just don't pick anything I did; Just kidding.

[jwh1192]

i was thinking the same thing about the things i have done....

[TinderArts]

You know what would take more balls than slamming someone else's 'worst' would be to post your own 'worst'. Any takers?

I am happy to see that there hasn't been any slamming of anyone at this point.

[jwh1192]

here goes...slamming myself...

Public Enemy DVD...

I recorded it for the shoot to DA-88's in the NDTC truck here in LA, mixed it and mastered it in Pro Tools Mixplus...during which I was upgrading the system to the not so error free first version of Pro Tools 5.1...chasing digibeta for video and doing manual EDL conversion as they came in from the Avid.

It is clean but a bit lifeless for me now. The stage was so loud that even when I tried to leave the audience mic's up in the mix during the songs (of course they are there during the breaks for applause and there is no sweetening of the audience) it was a mush of shit. So I did mute automation on every word that was sang on each mic for the entire show and added room in the rears for some help...the wireless mics were provided by the house and were such shit that you could hear all the dropouts in the audience mics through the PA. The Procontrol was like a christmas tree with all the mute lights going on and off. Had no money to master the thing and only the waves L1+ and C4 as mastering EQ / limiter and no other reference than the Dynaudio BM6a's that I had. A great testament to the Dynaudio's...what you hear is what you get...no hype...

Also, did Kool and the Gang in a simalar manner but without the need for mutes. They did come back to me with over 300 overdubs...some 1 note and some completely new parts. They are a great act and were recorded great by Tim Powell in Chicago...Kudos to Tim for those tracks. Was hard to even come close to his analog mix through API console in PT. Pro Tools is much better now with HD. Wish I had it for those projects.

I have done many live recordings and I am looking for all the advise and information I can about making the next one better. It is always about money for me and the lack of it on the projects that I worked on. No mastering, no great room to mix in, just an office with some monitors and a few pieces of sonex.

I should have called this post a different name...if you have an idea and would like to start new one in this vein please do. More like how did you record , mix and master projects without money, mastering or a great room...

thanks for listening and responding...john

[Steve F]

Since no-one really knows where I am I can probably get away with a blunder story. Mind you, we didn't actually lose anything but it did cause quite a few nervous hours later getting it to work.
I suppose this story re-inforces the "know your equipment" rule.
Anyway, once upon a time, in another land (well different city) we were requested to record the final gig of a fairly popular (in NZ) band. We were in the throws of changing over multitrack machines and were caught a little short, so we "borrowed" 3 x Fostex D90 8 track machines and "locked" them together - or so we thought. During the event everything worked fine - we had prearranged gaps in the program to change hard drive caddies (a real yuck - don't want to go there again type situation). Preceding the event we had recorded some of the sound check and everything seemed O.K.
*** BUT ***
Afterwards the band(and groupies) had a listen. The drums were on one machine and they started to go out of sync with the rest of the band - not a lot but you could hear the flanging with the spill on the other machines. We cut over to the DAT tape and used that for the rest of the time then spent the trip back to the depot trying to work out what had gone wrong.
It turned out that the machine that had the drums on had a setting wrong so that it was actually free-running.

After much fiddling back at the studio we got the lot transfered to ProTools (which was the format they wanted it in) in an acceptable fashion - scarey though. The machines would stay in sync for about a song so we transfered it one song at a time with a lot of offset mucking around in between.

In the end they thought they made too many mistakes and so re-recorded the lot while keeping the room sound.

Ah, well - I don't intend to make that mistake again !

Cheers

[Steve Smith]

Back whn I really did not grasp the whole "level in digital is not the same as level in analog" thing, I recorded a set for a band and they had some Tascam MDMs and an AMEK live desk ( 501 ) with the sends from each channel going out to the Tascams.. well, I was in a very poor enviorment for monitoring ( right next to stage) and what I could not hear in my cans was that all the pres were on the edge of distortion trying to send what looked like enough level to the multiracks... put together 32 tracks of that and ouch! the entire midrangs was super painful ! The one redeeming factor was that it turned out that the group that hired me to record had not gotten clearance form the srtist's lablel ( although the artist was cool with the record) and so it was dead in the can..

[jwh1192]

ouch...got scratched by the level kitty....i do 16 bit recordings that always need a touch more level due to not being able to compress even just a tad to tape and try real hard not to over or under...24 bit is alot more forgiving but the client gets what they can mix with...

what do you all consider average reference level for 16bit recordings...are will still working with -20 = 0Vu or -18 or -14 or -12

Or, is it the material that determines the reference...ie: slamming rack with less dynamic gets -12 and classical at -20 to capture all the dynamics in that music...

what is the minimum level that 16bit can reproduce before it sounds steppy....

i have heard reverb tails in down in the shit...and that sounds like it is turning on and off...which probably is...

peace and long live liv recordings...john