Question to FOH engineer !!!

[bunnerabb]

a lot of small hall and club rigs, and even fully flown concert rigs are, indeed, rigged for mono.

The room, however, isn't.

I usually do 16 tracks out of the FOH console pres if I'm mixing and 16 or 24 off of a splitter to my console , if I'm not mixing the show and just tracking, and a stereo pair for the house.

If you're just doing a mic pair with no console outs, definitely stereo.

[opentune]

Most live sound systems are stereo today. Well, the ones i work on are...

So you should do your backing tracks in stereo - in case the FOH console
provides two separate mono channels for your tracks, you can easily
make them mono with the panpots... or you can narrow the stereo
image a little...

Oh, and make sure they are mono compatible !

[bunnerabb]

If you're doing a straight up mix of multi-tracks for a live show, just.. do it like any other record, put the stuff in the soundstage and fold the room mics in to recreate the show, not the PA feeds.

And a lot of small hall and midline rigs are indeed, mono, over her in amerkuh, but.. you know.. the show isn't because the show happens in 3D.

[opentune]

Originally Posted by bunnerabb

And a lot of small hall and midline rigs are indeed, mono, over her in amerkuh, but..

Wouldn´t have thought this.... really? Well, i´m glad to hear that your shows
happen in 3D !! (would look a little egypt-like, if in 2D...)

oh, and don´t tell the others that we´re talking live sound - don´t wanna
know what happens if we get caught...

[audioez]

Originally Posted by vudoo

I'm working on some back tracks for a few live show...i was just curious whether there are advantages doing it in stereo or just plain mono ?? aren't most live sound system in mono ??? Thanks.

gawd forbid a music broadcast was being done, where multi tracks were involved, they might want the stereo tracks for some reason or another,

[bunnerabb]

Originally Posted by opentune

oh, and don´t tell the others that we´re talking live sound - don´t wanna know what happens if we get caught...

I do over 270 shows a year and I track a lot of them, too.

I also track and mix a lot of studio work.

Anybody that doesn't want "those sort of discussions", here, is absolutely welcome to nuke my account or pay my bills.

[opentune]

Originally Posted by bunnerabb

Anybody that doesn't want "those sort of discussions", here, is absolutely welcome to nuke my account or pay my bills.

yeah!

Oh and btw, seems like i got vudoo´s question totallly wrong. I thought
he was talking about some additional tracks to play in live show...

So what exactly are "back tracks" ?

[against88]

opentune, i think you're the one who's got the question RIGHT.
(but who knows? we could both be wrong)

vudoo, you are taking a portion your clients' studio recordings and mixing the backing tracks (everything but drums/bass/keys/guitar/lead vox, etc) down to two stereo (or one mono...that's the question) tracks for them to play along to live so that their live show doesn't lack the instrumentation that their recording has. correct?

if so , i vote stereo! i've been touring for the past two years with something like this. actually i started with a stereo mp3 as a backing track. had the click panned right and the music panned left, split the signal sending the click to me and the music to FOH. now i've got an mpc1000 which is fun. and stereo for FOH.

fun!
-will

[Fletcher]

If you're talking about "backing tracks" as in having the band, or additional elements [like percussion parts / horn parts / etc.] then you're going to have to either do it with at least a 4 track, or plan on one track of audio and one track of click.

Unless you're talking about percussion tracks that start a song [think "Sympathy for the Devil"] you're going to need to give the musicians on stage a way to reference where the playback audio is in relation to where they're playing.

This is usually done with a 4 or 8 beat count into the song and a click track that goes into their monitors [or at least the drummer's monitor] that keeps the band locked to the playback. If you have things like horn parts on the playback then it's really a good idea that they come in at the right time or the whole illusion will be destructive rather than complimentary.

Now... if you're talking about "band on a disc" where the only thing live on stage are the vocals [also known as a "TV Mix" of the song] then I'd recommend you do it in stereo. Even if it's a mono Sound Reinforcement system one night, it very well may be a stereo system the next. The audience is there to hear the singers sing... and fully understand that the band is canned [and don't really care as long as the singing is "live"].

If you're talking about recording the whole event... there are a million and a half ways to do that... I'd suggest you read some magazine articles that have covered the topic or just hire a competent remote recording truck.

Best of luck with all you do.

[Remoteness]

If you're recording to a stereo (two track) device consider mixing to mono tracks. Discrete stereo recording. Split up the tracks a bit so you can have more control at FOH.

[dplitt]

One of the bands that I mix FOH for is an 80's tribute band called the 80z All Stars (awesome band). The drummer runs tracks to me (keys, horn parts etc..) and I mix them with the rest of the band (bass, guitar and drums). Basically it's a mono send from an MP3 player as I get the right channel with the music and the drummer has the left channel in his ears for the "click" track.
I guess to answer your question, it would be mono as one channel is the music and the other is the click track.
A trick that I use is to take a direct out from the boards input channel and feed the same track back into another channel this way you can have a simulated stereo by panning each channel left or right (if you run your system stereo). Or lets say if you have back ground vocals in addition to music on the track then you could run 2 different channel EQ's (one for the music and one for the Backing Vox). In this configuration you should run both channels straight up / mono.

When creating backing tracks it's a good idea to "normalize" them to be the same volume so there is no change in volume between songs.

As for running stereo or mono, well it's mostly personal preference. I personally prefer mono and about 95% of all live rigs are run in mono. It's a lot easier and less hassles plus unless 100% of your audience is sitting in that perfect proverbial "sweet spot" ...well, no one will notice. Now if by chance you happen to be mixing Pink Floyd one night, then by all means..go stereo...lol.
Hope this has been of some help.

Dan Plitt
Sound Source
San Diego, Ca.