Live DVD's - Sound

[jlaco]

Can someone explain to me how live dvd's of bands are recorded? I have a good grasp of recording, just live recording is confusing me... Signal chains? do you use preamps?

[Roland]

There is no set methodology. I've seen DVD's where they were recorded on small 8 track rig with DA88 and those recorded to 100+ track Pro Tools rigs. Huub who posts on this forum regularly is often involved with live sound for DVD recording or television broadcast, so a search of his posts might teach you a thing or two.

Apart from that I would suggest "lurking" around this forum would be good for picking up information, however, you will have to be patient, it's a large field and it will take you a while just to learn some of the basics.

Also I would suggest that you steer clear of this microphone, this pre-amp style posts, everyone has an opinion and they are all different, there are no magic formula's, just skilled people that could do the job with a lot of different equipment.

[jlaco]

bump-tious

[ckreon]

I'm not a remote expert, but from my experience, the concept of recording live isn't a ton different from studio in terms of signal flow and general tracking practices.

You can take a split from the stagebox, and then send it to whatever tracking means being used. This could be into something like an interface/preamp combo recording onto a laptop, up to a large-format console of some kind.

Sometimes direct-outs will be taken from the board, though this isn't usually considered ideal.

If you have a digi/avid rig, you can just track your live mix and tweak it later.

Sometimes the recording engineer(s) will setup their own mics and whatnot, and thus not have to deal with a split or direct-outs, or the mics and placement of others.

[hbphotoav]

What they said. And this:

Communication with the band(s), FOH and/or monitor guy(s), and with the venue is essential. You and your audio rig will be the red-headed stepchild of the evening, especially your first time in the venue. You will take up space that can usually be sold to alcohol-guzzling, cash-paying patrons. You will add clutter to the stage (even if it's just for a couple of additional mics) and to the cable run. Setup, soundcheck and strike will take the house longer than if you were not there.

All that is said to say... (1) Be polite from the start. (2) Communicate your needs succinctly and accurately from the get-go. (3) Be conscientious about the footprint (the space) you use. (4) Did I say "be polite"? OK. Also, be helpful wherever you can, and know your stuff before you get there. Work out phantom power and mic placement issues early on. The house guy has better things to do than to answer questions you should already know the answers to, or to shoot trouble for you.

As Steve Remote has well taught... plan ahead for the gig... plan for what will go wrong... plan for what could go wrong... have extra everything (including audio adapters, DIs, power cables and mic clips & stands) and be dang sure your split is clean... no pops, hics or buzzes. You WILL be disconnected... summarily, and with little chance for appeal... the first time that issue arises.

Get there early.

If you're also doing the cameras... everything above, but for three more guys with tripods. Wear black. Try not to block the patrons' view.

And, be polite.

Works for me.

HB

[soundinista]

I've been doing a lot of this lately, with small video company, although had no particular training or experience in it previously.

You have to be flexible, since each venue is different, and you have to be more organised and planned than in a studio setting, since the show starts at a certain time - they're not going to wait for you, and you're only one element of what's going on. Good idea to contact the house engineer as early as possible, as he won't have much time to stop and talk on the day.

Politeness and humility very important, as someone mentioned, particularly since usually no-one has thought to pay the live engineer extra for having to deal with this as well as his normal responsibility. He may also be wondering why he didn't get the recording gig himself.

To get the signal, you can either split, or take direct outs from the FoH desk (if it has them for every channel). I generally prefer splitting, since I'm then less susceptible to anything dodgy in the house system, which may have quite a complicated path from stage to desk. You can split at either the stage end, or the FoH end, but I prefer the former, if possible. Partly for the shorter, simpler signal path, and partly because it may then be possible to situate the recording rig backstage where it is less noisy.

I've just been using passive Y-cables, and haven't had any problems so far with that. Invest in a couple of XLR snakes, so you don't have 16 (or more) individual cables trailing over the stage.

So yes, I'm using pre-amps, since I'm just getting a non-boosted mic signal. I have a rack case with an 8-pre firewire interface, another 8 channels connected to that by ADAT optical, and another 2 by S/PDIF. That's enough for most gigs. If I need more I'll rent or borrow another Octopre and connect that by the second ADAT input on the soundcard, which adds up to 26 channels. On top of that I sit my laptop.

This is the preferred setup. The company also has a 24 channel harddisc recorder, but it only has line inputs, so you need to get a pre-amped signal. We only use this somewhere like a festival where there isn't time or space to split and set up backstage, and the rig has to be at the FoH desk. It's much tidier and safer than the laptop system in this instance.

With the laptop, you can easily solo tracks while recording to make sure there aren't any problems and play back after soundcheck to see if you like what you're hearing.

Monitoring requires closed cans with good isolation, and I also make use of a Russian-style heavy fur hat with earflaps in particularly noisy settings. It's one of my favourite pieces of kit! Although I'll sometimes also bring a single powered monitor in case the band want to have a listen after soundcheck.

If there's time, and if you can do it tactfully, it's worth looking over the stage setup to see whether anything could be improved regarding the recording. Where are the musician's? Recently I had a recording with quite a large band who only had BVs and bass on stage right, and guitar, horns, and keyboards on stage left. During the mix, I kept wishing that we had spread them out better (although I find that you can take some quite surprising liberties with panning before the eye tells you that what the ear hears is wrong).

Another potential problem is monitor spill. Explain to the band that if they want a good recording, they had better keep foldback levels conservative. Lead vocal, particularly - often bands want it really loud and you get dull, distant doubles coming from every mic. Make sure that the singer's monitor isn't pointing straight towards the drummer's overheads, as is often the case. BV mics can be placed slightly low and angled up towards the mouth, so they're aimed more towards ceiling than stage. Just, in general, look over what each mic and each monitor is pointing at well as what it's meant to be doing.

After all this though, you really are going to have to embrace and try to enjoy spill at mixdown. See how radical you can be with high/low pass, or boosting just the most characteristic frequencies of each instrument. Remember that any reverb or delay you apply to any channel will also be applied to the whole sound (which can be quite cool in some instances) but in general, keep those quite conservative, and be selective. On all but the largest stages, you're going to have cymbals everywhere, and there's nothing you can do about it unless you remove all high frequencies.

And, er...loads of other stuff. Good luck.

If you're curious to check out what we do, it's here:

Live Sessions on EyeSeeSound