Live Recording

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chrisharris

chrisharris

King of Bling
EDIT - I'M DONE WITH THIS...GO LISTEN TO SOMEBODY ELSE, AND THANK YOU TO THOSE OF YOU WHO LISTENED.

Song

[EDIT - I'M DONE WITH IT..DON'T BOTHER]
 
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chrisharris said:
These guys are friends of mine, and they asked if I could give some input to help them mix some live recordings. They were playing somewhere in Houston (COUNTRY MUSIC WARNING), and the tracks are straight off the board. There were no room mics.

Here are the major problems I ran into:

1. The Acoustic is D.I.'d, obviously. Taming that brittleness was a challenge.
2. The drums were recorded with 4 mics, no overheads...and the snare was (is?) really really really ringy.
3. They're a 4 piece, there are no bg vocals, and most of the instruments only play during about half of the song, so I had to make it really mono.
4. I cannot feel the kick...at all.


Those are the things I struggled with. I spent about an hour on it this morning, and I'd be interested to see what anybody thinks about this mix.

Song

Thank you very much for any help.
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Do you have the individual tracks, or are you messing with a stereo mix?
 
guitar zero said:
......Huh?
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Greg's question seemed to indicate that it's so bad that I must have only had a stereo mix to work with. Truth is, I had a DI'd acoustic, a vocal, bass, electric guitar, kick, snare, and 2 tom tracks.
 
chrisharris said:
Greg's question seemed to indicate that it's so bad that I must have only had a stereo mix to work with. Truth is, I had a DI'd acoustic, a vocal, bass, electric guitar, kick, snare, and 2 tom tracks.
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Can't speak for Greg, but I doubt that's what he was saying. He just wants to know how fixable it is. If it's just stereo mix, you're kinda up a creek. Since you have all the tracks, I'll bet he can help.
 
Ya know, Chris. I think it sounds fine. If I thought this was a studio recording, there would be all sorts of things I'd freak out about, but if I were sold this as a "live concert recording" or something similar, I'd be absolutely fine with the sound.

Sounds like the band has a blast on stage... They'd be fun to watch.
 
For a non-professional live recording, this sounds pretty good, Chris.
Sure, it lacks a bit of low-end and kick, don't know if you can do anything about that. Song's great and the singer's really good. Very tight band too.
 
chrisharris said:
Greg's question seemed to indicate that it's so bad that I must have only had a stereo mix to work with. Truth is, I had a DI'd acoustic, a vocal, bass, electric guitar, kick, snare, and 2 tom tracks.
Click to expand...

That is what I was indicating. Your "I cannot feel the kick at all" comment made me think you were stuck with a bad stereo mix. But if you do have the tracks, there no reason to not feel the kick. Start with the kick track, like you would with any drum tracks, and build off of it. Never lose the kick. If you find the kick getting buried as you mix, stop, backtrack, and get the kick back.

The acoustic and vocals seemed too loud anyway. It's okay to pan.
 
With more overall drums, I think this would sound a lot better. I think the sound quality is pretty good.
 
I think the sound quality is quite good for a live recording actually. I normally prefer some room or audience mics thrown in to give more of a feel of the venue, as board mixes often sound kind of dry and lifeless to me. Not the case here. For whatever reason, this sounds more, well...live...in a good way.

I can hear the kick fine. It just sounds kinda "woofy".
 
I thought the vocal was just a little loud. But barely.

I'd turn up the snare and overheads quite a bit. <-- edit oops just re-read ... no overheads. Not sure what to do then.

Can you get any more definition on the bass? One note just kind of blends in with the next.
 
A quick suggestion: You can "double buss" the kick (or any other track, for that matter,) and increase by 2 the level the kick comes thru on the recording. If the result is too MUCH kick, you can always pull down one of the resulting tracks.

Now, if you ask me HOW to do that, I have no idea. I was there when my recording engineer did it on the rock n roll summer camp session recordings, but I was busy and didn't have the time to watch how he did it. If you can't figure out how to do it on your own (I know I can't), you can email him direct at studio101nola@gmail.com

(Yeah, another shameless plug for his business. Get over it.)
 
I want to thank you all for listening. I can hear the kick ok...I just can't feel it the way I wanted to. I smeared this a lot. I shouldn't mix anymore, but I made some adjustments and sent it to my buddies today and they seem happy with the direction, so I'm done, LOL.

Please don't waste anymore time on this one, but thank you for helping me.
 
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