Live mixing

[rosematter]

When I record a live show it still sounds like a crappy boot leg. I don't use compressors to do it. My set up is a dule pII 700 mhz win ME cake walk pro with SB live drive Fender 32channel board with anilog out puts. is there somthing wrong with my setup or is there something wrong with me.

 

[Tom Hicks]

What the ear hears live from the PA speakers is in addition to the ambient sounds of acoustic drums, amps, etc. on stage.So recording off the board is going to sound wrong and unbalanced.
Assuming you are running EVERYTHING through the board,try this;
Connect an unused aux send as a separate mono record bus,monitored off the recorder to set the levels.
Of course,general rules of recording (ala proper headroom,signal/noise ratio) still apply so don't clip it.
Are you using a laptop?Their soundcards are not usually that great.
Feel free to supply more details and ask more specific questions.

Tom

 

[rosematter]

Live

I use my Aux Mix to go to the stage and then I use my main mix to record. I use an old (2 years) Network Server with 2 prossecers and a sound blaster Live Drive, the one witht he ports in the front. I don't quit understand what you saying Well I under stand basicly but I am dence so....

 

[vox]

Basically what happens is that the instruments that sound the loudest straight from the stage when the PA is off will end up being the softest on the board recording. For example, if the cymbals are so loud that when the band is playing you can hear them clearly without even turning on the overhead mics then on the recording there will be no cymbals (besides leakage).
The best way to get a good recording is to make sure that the band sounds balanced with the PA off and only the monitors on, then, like Tom said, set up a submix on a post fader Aux going to the recorder.
The recording will probably also be lacking in "room sound" so you might need to dial up a room reverb and add a slight touch to the whole mix.

 

[Chibi Nappa]

Whenever I record live I always take the individual pre fader outputs from each channel on the house board (when I am not the one running the house board, that is). This way, I do not have to rely on the house mix because I know that mix was never made to be recorded. Depending on the gear I have with me I do one of 2 things. If I just have a small 14 channel mixer and a laptop with me, I send the outputs from the house board into my mixer and make my own mix. I then send the sterio out from my mixer to my laptop. It is still a live mix, but it is at least a mix I made specifically for recording (I can turn the cymbals up as loud as I need, etc). If I have my VS2480 with me, I plug the outputs from the house board into it and make a multitrack recording to be mixed later. This is much easier to do, but you might not be able to record that many tracks simultaneously. Using the first method, however, you can get a very good sounding live mix with practice.

 

[jgourd]

If you have the equipment, run each channel insert into a seperate recording track and mix it when you get home.

Trying to hear your seperate mix while inside the club is almost impossible. If you have to mix it live in the club, plug a good set of RF wireless headphones into the your recording mixer and walk outside. You will have to run in and out many times, but the results will be better.

The way I do it ( most people would not spend the kind of money I did) is like this: I have a 16 channel isolated ground lifted mic splitter feeding 100' of snake. I feed the snake into 16 Mic Preamps which in turn feed 16 channels of 20 bit ADAT. I then mix it at home. All the live tracks on my website were recorded this way.