Tips on mixing live performance!?

[s0nguy]

All,

I recently landed a mixing gig for a HUGE band and they gave me a hard drive with around 60 tracks of a live performance they recently did.

I have little experience mixing performances recorded live.

Does anyone have any tips as far general mixing techniques? People seem to think my studio mixes are really good so can I apply most of the same principals to the live mix?

-Thanks,
S0nguy

[Dave Martin]

Main thing to remember is that there's gonna be bleed - trying to get rid of it usually has less than optimal results. I'd mixed a few live records, and generally, I feel like if it sounds good, it IS good. But I also don't have problems with the warts that often come of live performances - that's what makes me like 'em.

(in the last week, I've listened to Joey De Fancesco Live in San Francisco, Etta James Rocks the house (Live), The Meters Live On The Queen Mary, Humble Pie at Fillmore, and Willie Neslon At Panther Hall...)

[s0nguy]

Originally posted by Dave Martin
Main thing to remember is that there's gonna be bleed - trying to get rid of it usually has less than optimal results. I'd mixed a few live records, and generally, I feel like if it sounds good, it IS good. But I also don't have problems with the warts that often come of live performances - that's what makes me like 'em.

(in the last week, I've listened to Joey De Fancesco Live in San Francisco, Etta James Rocks the house (Live), The Meters Live On The Queen Mary, Humble Pie at Fillmore, and Willie Neslon At Panther Hall...)

Thanks!

yeah I kinda am approachng it like....i see the guys on the stage and adjust accordingly. However, I did gate the toms because they were picking up way too much hat, cymbal, and crowd.....everything else Im leaving as is.....except one kick...Im going to replace the sound with a fatter kick on one of the kick mics and blend it with the other.

So far its more fun than mixing "studio" stuff

-S0nguy

[meteor]

the main thing is with the live vox. if you compress them too much it sound weird because the bleed pumps. if you gate them it really sounds weird. try using an expander and compressor or a gate with a range function on vocals and work on a setting that keeps the bleed at a somewhat stable level when there are no vox. try to match the vox mic bleed gate/range level with the average bleed level when the vox are hitting the comp.

obviously, there are some compromises here, but it can sound fairly natural of you mess with it a bit.

.02

cheers,

[JohnnyTooLoud]

Lots and lots and lots of volume rides.



--Giovanni

[Waylon]

Do yourself a MAJOR favor and post this over on the Remote Possibilities Forum as well, or maybe a mod could move it. Steve R is unbelievabe at this stuff, not ass kissing at all, I have heard the man work, and believe me, he knows whats up.

As a rule, go with what Dave said, if it sounds good, it is good!

[djui5]

Originally posted by JohnnyTooLoud
Lots and lots and lots of volume rides.



--Giovanni

Yeah..no kidding...I mixed a 4hr live show....spent 2 days doing automation rides...holy crap.

I also strapped an Aphex brickwall limiter on the stereo buss...this helped a ton.....might try it.

I'd advise just emphasizing what you have...don't try to make it something it's not.....if you don't have ambience mic's then a good plate verb will work wonders on the buss....

[Fletcher]

The way I've always approached that was to bring up the "room" tracks, then make all the "close" tracks just add detail to the "room" picture. I try to not use too much processing like compression because it may have very well already been done during the recording, or may very well have been done by the FOH engineer for the room... especially with vocals I've found that the best course of action is to make sure they fit in with the room tracks to a "T"... even when they're overdubs with almost no relevance to the original performance, the 'vocal reverb' provided by the room recording remains my point of reference in terms of texture and balance.

As always... YMMV

[Waylon]

good point about the room relation Fletcher.

For me, my typical M.O. when mixing a live record is to get the perspective of an attendee. any verb I will use is essentially to make any overdubed tracks fir into the original space, or to add elements to the room mics that wernt nessacarially in the FOH mix as loud as I would want them ( altiverb can rock in this application btw. ) If you have to do any overdubs or additions, it is vital tat they arent recognized as such, ( vocalign is brilliant for replacing live vox in Protools.) of there were loops played along with, IE the drummer was runing loops as well as playing live, You can use Beat Dective to tighten things up, not to move the drummer into perfect time, but to use the Drummers part to generate a tempo map and conform the loops to the drummer.. that wasy, the mechanical stuff will breathe witht he live band ( I do this alot on in studio stuff as well, if you get it right it is super cool ) It is important to note that as much as makign a studio record is really about capturing an emotion, Live recordins is really ONLY about catching the emotion of that band on thta night, that has to be the point of reference... so even if things arent "perfect, or correct" they can be "right" Listen to the U2 elevation DVD, Bonos vocals are a mess, but are stellar IMHO because they were left that way...

Singily the biggest maistake we as AEs can make on a live album si treating it like a studio record that has cheerign at the end, picture yourself in the 4th or 5th row, and think about how much room you hear, and go for it... there are alot of issues to deal with, but if you get it right, it iwll be not only really cool for the listener, but for the folks tat were there, it iwll be magical..

thats my 2 cents.

[s0nguy]

Thanks to ALL!

I followed your advice and was already implementing the techniques described without knowing they were "right".

I figured out early on that I can't approach this like a studio record....my sytle in the studio is very" Mutt Lange" for lack of a better word....every beat ON THE BEAT...no tempo flux.

However, the vibe of this particular band is very..well...."vibey" and I think I brought a lot out with just LIGHT compression, major volume rides and some slight EQ.

I listened to my first mix last night and I must say that I did a good job....kinda freaked me out because it took WAAAAAAY less time than my typical studio mix.

Thanks again,
S0nguy

[Gie-Sound]

Originally posted by JohnnyTooLoud
Lots and lots and lots of volume rides.
--Giovanni

Yes... and look out with compression.
Also: Spend a lot of time Eq-ing your ambience tracks. get rid of anoying frequencies, and try to get a tight low-end. Some people just cut all the lows, but that sounds very unnatural to me.
Don't bring up reverbs, when you have the ambience down... Some people try to mix with the ambience muted, and when they have a good mix, they will just add the ambience. For me that just doesn't work. That's one of the reasons a lot of live recordings sound fake to me...

I like mixing live music... But hey... That's what I do 90% of the time...

[Remoteness]

Awesome folks!

There are a lot of great ideas and suggestions posted in this thread. I'd like to add one thing...

Consider starting the mix with the track(s) with the most leakage.
Since it's gonna be next to impossible to do anything with those tracks -- Make them your "friends." Get the best out of the instrument(s) that supposed to be cut clean on those tracks and use the bleed to your benefit. Blend in the leaked track with the bleed.

A few years ago I was mixing another remote recording outfit's tracks and noticed that there was a huge amount of cymbals in the piano tracks... Well, I just went with it. I got the piano to sound a good as I can get it. When I was ready to work with the drum kit I just added the stuff that was missing from the piano tracks. I time delayed the drums to match the cymbal bleed and wah-la, piano and drums sounded just right. You could not tell the difference.

[Matt@Curbside]

A big ol' second on the time delay trick... works wonders if you've got cymbal or other high freq. bleed.

It depends on the style and quality of the tracks, but try to keep the live feel if it complements the band and the tunes. I'd rather have a big, slightly messy, great feeling mix than an over-gated mix with too many fader rides and replaced room effects in it.

Great bands play great onstage, as a mix engineer all you have to do is facilitate...

[hollywood_steve]

A couple of comments based on the 28 song mix I am still working on:

1. well planned panning can do more than all the effects hardware in the world combined. I prefer a very natural audience perspective, but they key is to try to keep instruments from interfering with each other as best you can. I'd say that fully half of the issues that you try to correct with EQ or compression can be better resolved by a great job of panning.

2. the method of muting tracks when that particuluar instrument is not playing anything. Good points - you can remove a large amount of the "junk" on your recording (bleed from other instruments, traffic, air conditioning, etc.) by muting tracks like bk vocal mics when they are not in use.

BUT... Bad points - you need to be very careful that you do not change the overall background ambience when muting / unmuting individual tracks. Nothing sounds worse than suddenly hearing a whole new background when you un-mute a vocal mic, and then it disappears again when the vocal is over and you mute the track again. (not sure if this makes sense to anyone reading it, but once you've heard this type of mistake, you never want to make it again.)

Ok, I'll stop there.

[John Hedger]

Originally posted by hollywood_steve
you need to be very careful that you do not change the overall background ambience when muting / unmuting individual tracks. Nothing sounds worse than suddenly hearing a whole new background when you un-mute a vocal mic, and then it disappears again when the vocal is over and you mute the track again. (not sure if this makes sense to anyone reading it, but once you've heard this type of mistake, you never want to make it again.)

Ok, I'll stop there.

I know exactly what you are saying Steve. While re-mixing my record (recorded live in the studio) at Dave Martin's facility about a month ago we had bleed, bleed, and more bleed to deal with! Sometimes it was obvious when say, we muted a vocal mic,...the whole band would sound darker/lighter, etc. However, on one song, we used that change of color to very good effect I believe.

John Hedger

[7rojo7]

It's better if you have control over the tracking, then you can avoid the usual pitfalls. You can adjust some of the isolation or use a different mic for the recording than the FOH. It's better to get splits from the mics than feeds from the board, the processing issues disappear. If you have a lot of time to set it up there are some techniques you can use to phase cancel the monitors if you want.
It's best if the band had a good performance then you won't have to mix so much, they'll have probably mixed themselves. The make the bleed your friend is the best way to go with any problems like the common "why is there basss in all my mics".
Start there and work your way out, you may end up cutting all the bass from the direct mic just keeping 300 and above and use the lows from all the others, if you have to. that's for another thread.

[bubbakowalski]

check out whoever does the mixing for the band SNARKY PUPPY. they do most of their stuff straight live and the sound is out of this world good.

[bishopthomas]

Originally Posted by 7rojo7

It's best if the band had a good performance then you won't have to mix so much, they'll have probably mixed themselves..

This is the main thing. If you have great sounds coming from the instruments then you'll have an enormously easier time getting everything to fit. As others have said, start with the tracks with the most bleed. Otherwise you'll get a great drum sound happening then turn on the lead vocal and the bleed will destroy your drums. Depending on the placement of your audience mics (you did use audience mics, right?) a lot of the glue will come from them. Maybe start there and treat everything else as spot mics. What kind of music?

[MixBuss]

I believe the problem starts while tracking, the signal is usually recorded from the FOH mixer's direct out, thus under the mercy of the gain set by the FOH engineer mainly concerned by sound reinforcement. I would highly recommend using a splitter snake to a diffrent mixer/pre that you can control for the best sensitivity to reduce spill.

Spillage is a usual problem in distant mics such as drums overheads, strings etc.. However, in close micing such as vocals or guitar amps, they appear mainly as low freq. rumble which you will end up filtering anyway.

Its always a good practice to record audience mics, and blend them to your mix. ( It has to sound like a concert not like a studio recording).

Cheers

[Broken_English]

Eric Hartman...

Originally Posted by bubbakowalski

check out whoever does the mixing for the band SNARKY PUPPY. they do most of their stuff straight live and the sound is out of this world good.