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.
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