Any suggestions for live recording?

S

SirPsychoSexy

New member
Hey all, my band has a gig on Saturday, and I was planning on renting a cd-burner and hooking it into the board.

Do live recordings generally sound alright if the soundman knows what he's doing?

If not, can anyone give me any suggestions? Thanks!!

Chris
 
From my experience, the direct recording isn't going to sound like the room sound (ie; what the sound guy hears live will not translate exactly on to your recording).

I would set up a mixer (4 channels) and take a stereo line from the board and then mix in a stereo mic sound. You'll get the best of both worlds. If this isn't possible, then go with two mics positioned in the room (preferably at the sound board) and record that. At least you'll be recording (mostly) what you're hearing live. (The only possible problem would be frequency drop off from the mics. Try to get some condensor mics if you can...)

Good Luck!

:D
 
The reason why a live board mix doesn't always work very well is that the live mixer is using the PA in combination with the sound being generated directly from the instruments and amps on stage. In other words, when he sets his mix, he is listening to a BLEND of live drums enhanced by mic'ed drums, instrument amps enhanced by mic'ed amps, etc. What you get by taking a line off the board is the live mix minus the "live" part of that blend, so you may end up with too much vocals, or not enough drums, etc. The "naturally" loud instruments may be under-represented when hearing the isolated board mix.
 
littledog conveyed exactly what I was trying to get across: what you hear at the gig will not be what's recorded...

:cool:
 
dbc said:
littledog conveyed exactly what I was trying to get across: what you hear at the gig will not be what's recorded...

:cool:
Click to expand...

No, no, no!!! It was YOU that conveyed exactly what I was trying to get across! YOU da man, dbc! :D
 
Real tricky.

There's so many factors, such as littledog and dbc pointed out.

When you take a feed from the board, see if you cant create your own mix from one of the effects sends.... in addition to the live stereo mic setup. If that's not possible, you might explore a submix setup.

With a little trial and error, you'll see what's lacking in the recording that you can add with the effects send.

I did a live recording at a small jazz club last night... first time with a direct-to-disk recorder. Two matched mics, XY.

I wish I could have tapped a little guitar from the board... but there was none! (picture - small club...) Since there's only one place an XY mic pair can be at any one time, I had to balance all my options and settle for what was the best balance of the mix.

All in all, it went pretty good.

A little more guitar would have been nice.
 
who cares about the audience on the night!!??? Just lock up your sound-man into an iso booth (toilet at the pub) and give him some cans to put on his head (with a very long cable which is plugged into your board)...get the right mix for your "cd burner" and don't worry about the crowd that night....do yourself a live album maann!!!:D :D :D :D :D :D

P.S. That was a joke, don't do that....
 
Here is what I used to do before I got my multitrack recorder...

Bring a Makie VLZ 1202 to the gig. Take individual channel outs from the house board (PRE-fader) and run them to the individual channels of the Makie. Put some headphones on and make your own mix. Send your mix to the CD burner. It sounds great (if you are a good on-the-fly mixer). :)

If you cannot do that, here is another option:

Take a mono feed from the house board. Run it to the L input of the CD burner. Take an audience mic and run it to the R input of the CD burner. After the show, load the 2 CD tracks into Pro Tools or Cakewalk or something and mix/eq them to your liking down to one mono track.
 
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