Mixing A Live Performance

[pbell]

SO it looks like I'll be mixing a live recording for a band and seeing as I have never done one of these before I have a few questions. The recording is going to be done to an Alesis HD24 and then dumped into Pro Tools. My question for you is do you split the Recording into seperate sessions for each song or do you just leave everything in one session and mix from there? I'll be mixing on ProTools 5.1 on MAC OS9. Thanks for the input.

[pkautzsch]

When the HD24 should crash or have a power failure, it will only find the data recorded before you last pressed STOP. So in every break between songs long enough for the HD24 to stop, save, and resume recording, do this.
I think, though, I'd have it all in one PT session. Most of your static mixer settings and plug-in assignments etc will be the same for all songs the band performs, won't they. Plus you can make really smooth transitions during (shortened) applause.

[Gilliland]

Originally Posted by pbell

SO it looks like I'll be mixing a live recording for a band and seeing as I have never done one of these before I have a few questions. The recording is going to be done to an Alesis HD24 and then dumped into Pro Tools. My question for you is do you split the Recording into seperate sessions for each song or do you just leave everything in one session and mix from there? I'll be mixing on ProTools 5.1 on MAC OS9. Thanks for the input.

I do this every day. I far prefer to work with the recording as a whole for mixing. When I have a finished mix, then I edit.

Don't press stop during the recording - you're likely to miss something. Use a UPS to power the HD24 instead. Keep the HD24 away from loud sources of sound - vibration can cause disk I/O errors on any disk recorder.

Make sure that you have at least a pair of room mics. Better yet, two pairs - one to capture the audience, the other to capture the natural reverb of the room. You can augment it with digital reverb if necessary, but it sounds much more natural if you include some of the real room in the recording.

[pbell]

Do you ever run into any problems with the system crashing with a whole performance in one session?

[Gilliland]

Originally Posted by pbell

Do you ever run into any problems with the system crashing with a whole performance in one session?

By "system", do you mean the HD24? If so, no, it has never crashed. It has been 100% reliable for the five full years that I've owned it.

[pbell]

sorry, i was a little vague. What do you mix on? Do you mix right off the HD24 or do you dump it into a DAW? If you do dump it into a DAW do you ever run into problems with the computer slowing down with such a big session?

[bishopthomas]

Most system crashes happen during tracking rather than mixing. It is MUCH more CPU/memory intensive to record 48 tracks than it is to mix them. Unless you're running a LOT of plugins...

[over-man]

You can't mix on the HD24, you just use it record up to 24 tracks onto one of its two internal HDs, then you dump the data to a DAW for mixing. I've had an HD24 for about a month, and so far its been great. Except for the Western Digital hd I bought, it failed during the 2nd test recording. The manual says you can use "any" hd, but they really mean NOT western digital, preferably Maxtor or Seagate...

I always back up from one of the Alesis caddies to another, then use the fireport to import tracks onto a fw hd for mixing in Logic.

I also use a 24 channel snake splitter w/ iso transformers and 3 Presonus firepods for pres. (2 of them made up my last rig) Since I got the splitter and ADAT, the quality of my recordings has gone way up. Especially since the extra 8 channels allow me to use more house mics ( at least a stereo pair + pzm) and DI signals. With an Intel Mac Mini Duo, CPU isn't really a problem.

[larsfarm]

Originally Posted by bishopthomas

It is MUCH more CPU/memory intensive to record 48 tracks than it is to mix them. Unless you're running a LOT of plugins...

Why? Wouldn't recording be shuffling data from input via buffers to output on disc. Wouldn't mixing shuffling data from disc via buffers to output and add summing, scaling and processing plug-ins.

L

[jabney]

Another way to avoid losing a session on the HD24 is to pre-record a track of your multitrack song. You are generally covered through the amount of time you've pre-recorded.

Pushing 'Stop' and then re-starting takes very little time. In fact, doing so during the applause can be so unobtrusive that there is often no need for editing the stop/start point. Though, as noted above, a UPS is a good idea as well.

best,

john

[SarasotaSlim]

Originally Posted by Gilliland

I do this every day. I far prefer to work with the recording as a whole for mixing. When I have a finished mix, then I edit.

Don't press stop during the recording - you're likely to miss something. Use a UPS to power the HD24 instead. Keep the HD24 away from loud sources of sound - vibration can cause disk I/O errors on any disk recorder.

Make sure that you have at least a pair of room mics. Better yet, two pairs - one to capture the audience, the other to capture the natural reverb of the room. You can augment it with digital reverb if necessary, but it sounds much more natural if you include some of the real room in the recording.

This is the method I prefer too.
I've been having a little trouble with my HD24 cutting off in the middle of a song because of the bass vibrations you mention. I'm gonna try to get a special foam lined rack and put a piece of foam under it where it sits on the PA amp rack and then put another piece of foam on top to place the PA board on, I use the inserts on my elcheapo Mackie CFX20 directly into each channel of the HD24 and it sits on stage with us. My next puchase will probably be a FirePort and a bigger better Mac (my old G4 desktop just died) and depending on how things go with the the FirePort and the bigmac maybe a MasterLink too. I've been mixing the live stuff old school analoge with my Mackie SR24 so a MasterLink might make sense for that kind of mixing.

[Gilliland]

Originally Posted by pbell

sorry, i was a little vague. What do you mix on? Do you mix right off the HD24 or do you dump it into a DAW? If you do dump it into a DAW do you ever run into problems with the computer slowing down with such a big session?

I generally transfer my tracks to my PC, then mix in the box. At this point, I'm running a 3GHz P4 with a RAID pair of SATA drives. It's not impossible for me to overload it, but it takes a lot to do so. I've got a show on my PC right now that is a full 24 tracks with 4 submixes and a lot of plugins. That one pushes the machine pretty darn hard. But for the most part, it's fast enough.

In fact, it's sitting here next to me right now rendering a mix of a show that has only 12 tracks. The show is about 1:45 in length, and it will take about half that to render the complete stereo mix.