http://blog.discmakers.com/2011/04/recording-your-live-gig-pt-1/
1. Know your purpose, and choose the right-sized recording rig to get you there.
Are you recording your gig for a large-scale, multi-disc release? Do you just want to review your show with your bandmates over beers to see where you rocked and where you… could use a little more practice? Or are you planning on sending 30-second sound clips around to your fans as teasers for your next gig?
If you’re not making the recording commercially available, your easiest, and cheapest, gear option is likely going to be some variation of a handheld recorder, possibly with an extra mic or two to give you more choices when it comes to working with the sound post-gig. If you plan to get the recording professionally mixed and mastered, make 1,000 copies, and sell them for $20 each, definitely investigate something higher end – probably a multi-track recording system with multiple mics and high-quality pre-amps.
2. Befriend the venue and explore ahead of time.
Touch base with the venue, and the sound engineer, several days before the gig and find a time when you can do a walk-through. Make special note of where electrical outlets are and be sure to ask the house manager where you’ll be able to set up. Being nice is key, and bringing chocolate helps, emphasizes Cookie Marenco, California-based producer, engineer, and founder of Blue Coast Records. Don’t even think about showing up ten minutes before the show, introducing yourself to the probably-overworked-and-underpaid sound technician, and expecting any sort of cooperation.
Marenco also advises that, if you’re planning on plugging anything into a wall socket, be sure to ask the venue about their power, and if they have problems with any particular outlets or circuits. “If you’re fighting for the same circuits with the lighting system, you can get a buzz,” she says. “Look out for dimmers, or find out if there are any video crews that will be plugging in as well, since those can create buzzes too.”
Be sure that you do your recon mission when the venue is quiet. “Know what your environmental noise is going to be,” says Marenco. “Is there a train that’s going to go by during the middle of the set? Are there air conditioners and buzzing lights? Especially if you’re recording something more quiet and acoustic, knowing where extraneous noise comes from can help you position microphones to minimize it.”
3. Start with the mixing board.
“The least expensive way to record a live gig is to take a board feed,” says Marenco. “Most clubs have at least a little mixing console for their PA and sometimes if you call in advance, you can find out if they have a two-track feed going out, and what kind of cables you need to record from it. You can bring a small, portable digital recorder and plug directly in.”
While the board is a good place to start, it may not yield jaw-dropping recorded sound, Marenco also notes. If you’re in a smaller club, for example, drums might not be miked at all, and the mix you record from the board could end up being all vocals and bass. Plus, you won’t get any of the live feel of the room.
If you have the gear and resources to do so, try remedying this by miking the room as well. “I always try to put up room mics on front corners of the stage facing the audience,” says Michael Winger, who runs the live recording company Flying Kitchen and has recorded acts like Regina Spektor and Tom Petty. “A mic at the back of the room usually sounds pretty bad and never mixes well with a direct recording off the board.”
4. Plan ahead.
If you’re expecting to use more than a hand-held recorder, make sure to draw a map of the whole rig from mic to recorder to monitor, says Winger, so you know exactly what you’re looking at come gig-time.
Especially if you’re working with new pieces of gear, Marenco says, be sure to set things up and do a test recording session at home long before you hit the club. “Play some music, or even talk into it,” she advises. “Some recording units have built-in limiters and compressors that can be helpful, but other times they can cause problems, especially when it comes to automatic level setting.” Better to futz with input levels in your living room than while your band is anxiously waiting to rip into the first tune….
5. Bring a friend, or hire an engineer, to help.
If you’re leaning towards anything more complicated than a simple hand-held recorder that you can just turn on and forget about, bring a friend to man the rig, so you don’t have to worry about it. “Performing and recording can both be stressful and the most important part of a live recoding is having a powerful emotional delivery,” says Winger. “It’s even harder when you’re thinking about whether or not the hard drive has enough space or if one of your channels has a buzz in it.”
If your budget permits, and you want a high-quality live recording worthy of an album release, consider hiring an experienced company or recording engineer to do the dirty work for you. You may be able to bring in someone good for only a few hundred dollars – but just make sure that you know they’re good before you book the date. Ask other musicians, or well-reputed local recording studios, for personal recommendations, and make sure to get a credit list, references, and audio samples from anyone you’re considering booking – and bonus points if they have experience working at the venue you’re playing. If everything checks out, sign the check and be done with it. The peace of mind you’ll gain from not having to worry about extra gear and logistics, in and of itself, may be worth the investment.
6. Bring the right supplies.
Make a packing list at least a couple of days before the show, recommends Winger, and think of everything you might need in a pinch. Depending on the scale of your recording rig, your bag o’ tricks could include extra batteries, headphones, extension cables, pencil and paper, and gaffers tape, to make sure nobody trips over wires or accidentally unplugs your system mid-set. Having a thorough packing list is super helpful after the gig, when you’ll likely be wiped out and more prone to forgetting things.
And finally, “don’t forget to bring a flashlight,” advises Winger. “It’s always dark when you’re trying to either set up or tear down.”
7. Make sure the music is the best it can be.
Even the most amazing recording of a live show won’t do you much good if the show itself falls flat. “Never sacrifice your performance for the recording,” said Winger. “Rehearse and get the best musicians you can to play with you. Make sure all your instruments, including the drums, are in tune and practice a lot. A band that’s been on the road touring for months always sounds better than a band that plays once a month. If you can’t get out on the road to tour, rehearse every day you can before your live recording.”
8. Bring a backup recording system.
Gear craps out sometimes – end of story – so make sure you have a redundant recording system running at the same time as your primary system. Even if all you have as your fail-safe is a hand-held cassette recorder, or the cheesy built-in mic on your laptop, it’s better than nothing. Make sure you record everything with both systems.
After the gig, if your recording is in digital format, be sure to back it up onto a separate hard drive, and burn a CD or DVD for good measure. “Remember the rule of digital,” says Winger. “If it doesn’t exist in three separate places, then it doesn’t exist.”
Monday 26 November 2012
Recording a Live Show
http://homerecording.about.com/od/recordingtutorials/a/recordinglive.htm
Recording a live show is the easiest way to get a quick demo - or an
album on a budget! In fact, many bands' first albums are a good live
recording. There's several ways to record a show live when you're doing
it for potential release or demo purposes. Let's look into the
different methods and the pros/cons of each.
Keep in mind, you'll need at a minimum, a two track recorder, such as
the Zoom H4 or M-Audio Microtrack II. You'll also need cables -- XLR,
RCA, and 1/4" to 1/4" inputs. Some monitoring headphones aren't a bad
idea, either!
Soundboard 2-Track Recording
At every show you perform, you'll have a PA system. This can be simple
or complex, and generally, the bigger the venue you're playing, the
better the system is. The easiest way to get a good recording from your
live show is recording the 2-track feed out of the soundboard.
On the back of every soundboard, there's a two-track out. Generally,
it'll be an RCA connector, but you'll also find 1/4" and XLR connectors
as well. The connectors will be labeled either "Tape Out", "Line Out",
"Stereo Out", or "Left/Right Out". Most soundboards are ran in stereo,
even if the mix itself is mono. Why? It's easy -- in most small rooms,
a stereo feed is overkill, and sometimes the actual PA is wired in
mono. If you're recording, asking the sound engineer to mix the show in
stereo (even if the PA is mono) isn't a hard request (but remember,
most club sound people will be more than happy to help you if you
remember to tip them just as you do your bartenders at the venue), and
you'll be happy with the results.
The drawbacks? You'll get a clear recording, but not always the whole
picture. Your sound person has to mix the soundboard feed for the room,
not for your recording. The general idea is this: the louder
something is in the room and on the stage, the less you'll hear in the
board mix. Guitar amps, drums, and anything else that's really loud
will be soft in the mix. This doesn't apply in a large venue where
everything needs to be mixed in.
Audience Tape
Another way to get the whole picture is an audience recording. Setting
up a pair of good recording microphones to record in stereo is a great
way to get the full sound of a live performance, but the drawback is
really clear - you'll get a lot more of the crowd on your tape, and the
performance might seem "far away". If you choose to go for this method,
setting up your microphones near the soundboard area - and somewhere
around 10 feet above the crowd, pointing towards the stage, will give
you good results. You need two microphones for stereo recording -
remember, you have two ears! You'll get the best results if you use
condenser microphones (Oktava MC012, Earthworks SR77, Neumann KM184, and
AKG C480 are all popular choices). For more information about audience
taping, check out our more specific Taper's Section.
Advanced Recording Techniques
Now that you've tried board tapes and audience tapes, let's look at a
couple advanced techniques that you can use to get a better tape.
Matrix Tape
A tape with soundboard and audience microphones mixed is commonly called
a matrix tape; however, this etymology is actually incorrect. A
matrix tape comes from a recording made out of the matrix section of a
mixing board. Quite simply, every large mixing console has what's
called a mixing matrix - an area where several stereo mixes can be
bussed together with separate sources. This is useful for several
things - you can bus all the vocals to one matrix and compress them as a
subgroup, you can bus all of the drums to a stereo subgroup to
compress/limit them together, or - relevant to this article - you can
bus together items you don't need in the house mix to a separate mix for
a recording. The term "Matrix Tape" actually comes from Grateful Dead
sound engineer Dan Healy's use of the matrix section to bus together an
audience microphone with a soundboard mix. You can use a matrix section
to either bring forth instruments not in the house mix by simply
bussing them to that matrix out, or use it to internally mix audience
microphones into the mix.
Mixing Audience Microphones With Soundboard
One of the best ways to capture a live show is mixing audience
microphones in with a soundboard feed. The biggest problem you'll find
is that microphones in the room will have a noticeable delay with the
soundboard feed. The easiest way to factor in the delay is 1
millisecond delay per foot away from the stage.
Combatting the delay is easy. Placing the microphones on either side of
the stage, facing the crowd, will help since your microphones are on
the same plane as the stage microphones. You can also face the
microphones backwards at the soundboard, or up high facing down towards
the crowd. Otherwise, a unit like the TC Electronic D-Two inserted on
the soundboard channels to delay the feed will help. Recording both
feeds separately and mixing later is the preferred method, although
you'll need to brush up your skills on syncing both sources.
Sunday 25 November 2012
Tips for recording gigs
http://www.homestudiocorner.com/7-tips-live-concert-recording/
"
A
couple months ago I got a gig recording a live concert. It wasn’t your
typical show. One singer, one piano, in a big old church. In addition to
recording the concert, I was also in charge of running sound.
Everything turned out really well, but there was a LOT to do and think about to ensure a smooth concert and a great-sounding recording. For one thing, the singer was going to sing several songs with a handheld mic, and several more songs without a mic (opera stuff), but I still needed to record her voice for that.
I don’t do a ton of live concert recording, but if you’re a home studio guy, chances are there are opportunities for you to take your gear “on location” and record a live concert. Might be a new opportunity you hadn’t considered before.
To that end, I’ve got 7 tips for you to ensure a successful live concert recording:
I packed up my iMac, Presonus StudioLive 1602 mixer, all my mics, all my stands, all my cables…everything I could squeeze into my car, EVEN if I think I wouldn’t use it.
Another tip? Make a list. I wrote down a list of things I absolutely needed for the concert, and I’m so glad I did. As I was getting ready to walk out the door, I looked at my list realized I forgot to pack my mouse and keyboard. (In case you didn’t know, it’s really hard to drive an iMac without a mouse and keyboard.)
Here’s a quick rundown of what I used:
I initially wasn’t going to bother with room mics. I didn’t even have a matched pair of mics available, and I had used all my mic cables and stands on the vocal mics and piano. So what did I do? I grabbed a couple of the church’s cheap mic stands and cables, threw them up in the choir loft and set up a pair of room mics. One was a handheld condenser mic and the other was a large-diaphragm studio condenser mic. You know what? They worked wonderfully.
Even ONE room mic can make a difference…so try your best to capture the room.
I
got to the church early and started setting up. Due to limited cable
length (and the fact that I don’t own a snake), I had to set up fairly
close to the musicians. So? I set up on the organ behind the piano.
Close enough to run cables, but mostly out of site of the audience.
The show was going great, the recording was happening perfectly, and then the pianist announces that he was initially going to play a piece…get this…on the organ, “but the sound man is set up there, so I’ll play something on piano.”
Doh.
Granted, one of them should have probably told me about that way back when I was setting things up, but it could have been avoided if I had simply asked a few more questions.
Will there be any other musicians singing or playing? Will there be any other instruments? Is it okay if I set up on the organ? Okay, I did ask that last one, but obviously it didn’t help.
The last thing you want to do is have to go back and try to “fix” a bunch of nasty clipping sounds in the recording. It’s a live event, so you can’t stop them and have them “do it again,” so set nice, low levels with plenty of headroom. I tend to want the levels to peak at just a little over halfway up the meter. That gives me plenty of wiggle room, and it doesn’t really effect the recording sound quality at all.
5. Don’t set up behind the musicians
Okay, this should be obvious. I touched on this in #3. I set up my rig behind the musicians. Ideally (of course) I would be out in front of
the musicians, so I can hear what things sound like through the PA
system. Sadly, the way the church was laid out (and my lack of really
long cables) meant I had to set up behind the musicians.
The result? I honestly don’t know.
Since I wasn’t in front of the speaker, I really couldn’t tell you if her voice was too loud or too soft. I could tell you how the recording was sounding through my headphones, but I had no idea if I was sending the right level to the audience.
Luckily, I snagged a friend of mine right before the show and asked her to text me if something needed to be turned up or down. Primitive, I know, but it helped a little bit.
This saved my butt with the piano mics. The first position sounded okay, but was a little thin. So I moved the mics closer to the hammers and angled the mics out a bit wider (to catch more of the lower and higher notes). Then I had the pianist play a quick 30 seconds while I hit record. After that I let them go get dressed for the show.
Then I went back and listened to the two piano recordings. The 2nd one was MUCH better than the first, so I stuck with that setup. Being able to record and play back (using the StudioLive as both my live mixer AND my audio interface), I was able to adjust the mics and get a great sound without having to simply set up the mics and simply HOPE for a good recording.
Remember to check this. I leave mine set to “use all available space” on the hard drive rather than a hard time limit. That way I know that as long as my hard drive isn’t almost full, I’ve got plenty of room to track the concert.
It’s almost 6 minutes long, but listen through to the end. GOOD stuff. I recorded, mixed, and mastered it."
"
7 Tips for a Successful Live Concert Recording [With Audio Example!]
A
couple months ago I got a gig recording a live concert. It wasn’t your
typical show. One singer, one piano, in a big old church. In addition to
recording the concert, I was also in charge of running sound.Everything turned out really well, but there was a LOT to do and think about to ensure a smooth concert and a great-sounding recording. For one thing, the singer was going to sing several songs with a handheld mic, and several more songs without a mic (opera stuff), but I still needed to record her voice for that.
I don’t do a ton of live concert recording, but if you’re a home studio guy, chances are there are opportunities for you to take your gear “on location” and record a live concert. Might be a new opportunity you hadn’t considered before.
To that end, I’ve got 7 tips for you to ensure a successful live concert recording:
1. Bring more gear than you think you need
You will always need another cable, another adapter, a longer power cable…you name it. If you’re not sure if you need it, bring it.I packed up my iMac, Presonus StudioLive 1602 mixer, all my mics, all my stands, all my cables…everything I could squeeze into my car, EVEN if I think I wouldn’t use it.
Another tip? Make a list. I wrote down a list of things I absolutely needed for the concert, and I’m so glad I did. As I was getting ready to walk out the door, I looked at my list realized I forgot to pack my mouse and keyboard. (In case you didn’t know, it’s really hard to drive an iMac without a mouse and keyboard.)
Here’s a quick rundown of what I used:
- Vocal (for handheld stuff) – AKG D5 (dynamic)
- Piano – pair of Earthworks SR25′s (small-diaphragm condensers) in XY configuration on a single mic stand with a stereo mic bar
- 2nd vocal mic (for opera stuff) – another Earthworks SR25, placed 5 feet in front of the singer
- Room mics – M-Audio Luna (condenser) and AKG C5 (handheld condenser)
2. Set up a room mic
If you have the extra mics and inputs, make it a point to set up a room mic or two. You never know when a room mic will save the day. For example, at one point during the concert the pianist did some audience participation stuff. The recording turned out MUCH better because I took the time to set up the room mics, so you can actually hear the audience.I initially wasn’t going to bother with room mics. I didn’t even have a matched pair of mics available, and I had used all my mic cables and stands on the vocal mics and piano. So what did I do? I grabbed a couple of the church’s cheap mic stands and cables, threw them up in the choir loft and set up a pair of room mics. One was a handheld condenser mic and the other was a large-diaphragm studio condenser mic. You know what? They worked wonderfully.
Even ONE room mic can make a difference…so try your best to capture the room.
3. Know everything you can about the show
Don’t just assume you know what’s happening during the concert. Even if they give you a nice, printed program, ask questions. I didn’t do this very well. Here’s what I mean.
I
got to the church early and started setting up. Due to limited cable
length (and the fact that I don’t own a snake), I had to set up fairly
close to the musicians. So? I set up on the organ behind the piano.
Close enough to run cables, but mostly out of site of the audience.The show was going great, the recording was happening perfectly, and then the pianist announces that he was initially going to play a piece…get this…on the organ, “but the sound man is set up there, so I’ll play something on piano.”
Doh.
Granted, one of them should have probably told me about that way back when I was setting things up, but it could have been avoided if I had simply asked a few more questions.
Will there be any other musicians singing or playing? Will there be any other instruments? Is it okay if I set up on the organ? Okay, I did ask that last one, but obviously it didn’t help.
4. Set conservative levels
Once the show is underway, you never know what’s gonna happen. The piano player will play louder than he did at sound check. The singer will sing louder, too. So do yourself a favor and set very conservative levels into your recording software.The last thing you want to do is have to go back and try to “fix” a bunch of nasty clipping sounds in the recording. It’s a live event, so you can’t stop them and have them “do it again,” so set nice, low levels with plenty of headroom. I tend to want the levels to peak at just a little over halfway up the meter. That gives me plenty of wiggle room, and it doesn’t really effect the recording sound quality at all.
5. Don’t set up behind the musicians
Okay, this should be obvious. I touched on this in #3. I set up my rig behind the musicians. Ideally (of course) I would be out in front of
the musicians, so I can hear what things sound like through the PA
system. Sadly, the way the church was laid out (and my lack of really
long cables) meant I had to set up behind the musicians.The result? I honestly don’t know.
Since I wasn’t in front of the speaker, I really couldn’t tell you if her voice was too loud or too soft. I could tell you how the recording was sounding through my headphones, but I had no idea if I was sending the right level to the audience.
Luckily, I snagged a friend of mine right before the show and asked her to text me if something needed to be turned up or down. Primitive, I know, but it helped a little bit.
6. Press record during sound check
I had very little time for sound check, so I had the good foresight to hit record while they ran through one song. This allowed me to go back, listen to each mic, and move the mics as needed.This saved my butt with the piano mics. The first position sounded okay, but was a little thin. So I moved the mics closer to the hammers and angled the mics out a bit wider (to catch more of the lower and higher notes). Then I had the pianist play a quick 30 seconds while I hit record. After that I let them go get dressed for the show.
Then I went back and listened to the two piano recordings. The 2nd one was MUCH better than the first, so I stuck with that setup. Being able to record and play back (using the StudioLive as both my live mixer AND my audio interface), I was able to adjust the mics and get a great sound without having to simply set up the mics and simply HOPE for a good recording.
7. Check your DAW’s open-ended recording allocation
This is a simple one, but sometimes your DAW (I was using Pro Tools at the concert) has a limit to how long you can record simultaneously. Take two seconds to check that preference. If your DAW is set to 20 minutes, then the recording WILL STOP at 20 minutes, whether the show is at a stopping point or not. NOT good.Remember to check this. I leave mine set to “use all available space” on the hard drive rather than a hard time limit. That way I know that as long as my hard drive isn’t almost full, I’ve got plenty of room to track the concert.
Ear Candy
All this talk about recording, I might as well share a clip from that concert, right? Here’s one:The idea
Ok so I was looking online trying to find a way of actually being able to record the gig without any levels or EQ etc from the signal being sent to the PA and came across this site: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/feb00/articles/livefaq.htm
In there it says that the simplest way is to use XLR splitters (i assume its pre-desk) on the inputs and hook it up to another desk.... Surely then I can just hook to the second, recording desk up to a multitrack recorder and record the signal without levels?
This is the idea.
I hope it will work.
"The simplest but crudest method is to make
up a box containing several parallel mic splitters, each comprising an
input XLR wired directly to two output XLRs. Providing your mics and DI
boxes are all balanced, a simple splitter like this will allow each
mic/DI box to feed both the PA and the recording mixer, but take care
only to supply phantom power from one of the desks, not both! Some DI
boxes have two separate buffered outputs, in which case these may be
used instead of a splitter."
Thursday 22 November 2012
SO FAR
Ok so for the viva I've sent out questionnaires to guys in the industry to help me out, I've written and published a survey for members of the public to do so that I can get responses for some target research, I have a project brief with my aims and objectives, I have a project plan/Gantt Chart, and am sorting shows/gigs to work on!
ASSESSED CRITERIA
§
Project Brief (Aims & Objectives); CHECK
§ Research; CHECK
§
Target Audience Identification; CHECK
§ Project Plan / Gantt chart; CHECK
§ Preliminary ideas; CHECK
§
Communication in Viva. ...
Viva 1
ASSESSED CRITERIA
§
Project Brief (Aims & Objectives);
§ Research;
§
Target Audience Identification;
§ Project Plan / Gantt chart;
§ Preliminary ideas;
§
Communication in Viva.
The proposal
So what I propose for this major project is to create a DVD of recorded gigs I've recorded.
It'll be a surround sound DVD with menu options as to where you, as the listener, would want to listen from, ie. from on stage, in the front of the audience or at the bak of the room.
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