Hot answers tagged live
12
You can't go wrong with a good crisp mic pre: it'll improve the sound you get out of even a bog-standard mic compared to the ones built into your mixer/audio interface without massive investment.
But it really depends what you're doing: If you're recording choirs and musical theatre then a single high-quality pre isn't going to be that useful when you're ...
12
Yes, definitely. Especially if your vocalists are not trained in microphone technique.
Dialing in some compression to take off the worst of the transients will help your live mix in exactly the same way it helps a mix of recorded music. It can also help you control feed back, because it will reduce the loud transient sounds that can trigger a feed back ...
8
Some feedback prevention approaches:
Changing the aim of the monitor speakers or the microphones. If the microphones are headsets (I assume they are for the musical), you can try to make sure the choreography doesn't take them (the singers and their microphones) too close to the near on-axis sound field of the speakers. You should always evaluate your ...
8
We just went down this road with my tribute act. Doing up the entire band with wireless IEMs was going to be well beyond our meager means. So I've got a "budget IEM" setup that tries to capture the spirit of the idea without breaking the bank.
Let me go over my setup.
We're use our own Behringer console just for doing our monitor mix. It's a Eurodesk ...
8
For live rock show, 4-7 piece bands, I've had good success with the following guidelines. As with anything else, remember that these are just guidelines - every room, every gig, every setup is different, and what works for one combination may not work for another.
Drums - usually, I'll compress the entire submix for the drums. Very little compression, and ...
7
Like anything else, you should use it if the situation warrants it.
Do you have issues with dynamic range? I once had a gospel style vocalist with a very big voice and a lot of range - when she hit the loud parts, it pushed the levels to somewhat uncomfortable levels. A bit of compression helped to take the edge off those parts without altering the rest. ...
6
As always, you get what you pay for.
I have been using the Yamaha 01V for years now, and have never had to restart it. Nor have I ever had any real trouble with it.
As long as you stick with a major brand that has a good reputation, you should be fine.
One thing to keep in mind however, a digital mixer is basically a computer. Having a solid source of ...
6
There are two possible causes (that I can think about) that would introduce lighting-related noise. Determining the cause is difficult - once you know why, you can determine the steps to take to eliminate it.
The first possible cause is RF (usually from dimmers) being picked up by some of the wiring. If you suspect this is the cause, you can determine ...
5
Yes, a good mic preamp is better than a compressor, especially for the type of recording you do. That said, the preamps in your recorder may very well be quite good. I have an old Tascam analog desk, and it has 24 great preamps! Good analog compressors are also useful, because they should happen before digitization.
Also essential are good monitors, and for ...
5
USB was designed as a general purpose bus. Hence, there will always be some latency. The more devices you have connected to the bus, the more problems you will run into. I suppose the only purpose a USB large diaphragm mic would have is for one or two mics during a pod cast. I would never use such a mic in my studio.
That being said, if you plan on adding ...
5
Adding some felt or faux-fur is a good place to start. Felt will probably attenuate, but may not help much with the wind noise. Faux-fur is great at killing wind noise, but doesn't attenuate much.
I don't have any experience with their products, but the windscreens pictured at TheWindCutter look good. Also take a look at the Rycote Mini Windjammers.
You ...
4
I usually adjust it as needed when people shuffle in, since there is such a large difference needed between 2 people and 200 people. It also depends on the show as well. If the music is supposed to pump up the audience, say for a comedy show, then the level should probably be a bit higher, but trust your judgement.
If you need to disappear for awhile, you ...
4
The best you can do with the MobilePre is to have two mono channels: click on one and tracks on the other. This is probably not what you want.
I think you're going to want an interface with at least 4 independent outs: one L/R pair for the PA tracks, and one L/R pair for the drummer getting the click. Depending on how loud the PA is and how isolating the ...
3
You just need a one-button change of patch? Assuming your synth doesn't have programmable buttons readily available, the Behringer FCB1010 pedalboard can do this for you, and is actually quite cheap.
It can be a hassle to program it, but once you learn how, isn't difficult. (A basic programming guide can be adapted from here: ...
3
It is best to use regular microphones and a small mixer, which then hooks to a USB or other sound interface to your computer.
The reason is that USB microphones are simply regular microphones with built-in sound cards. Even if you set them to sample at 44.1kHz for example, they will drift apart over time, as their clock rates are completely independent.
...
3
Midi CC data can be recorded one of two ways in Ableton.
1) Record the CC modulations while in Arrangement View. If you loop a section of the piece you're working on, you can fiddle with midi CC till the cows come home (so long as overdub is on (next to the transport controls)).
2) Program the CC modulations in the clips in the Session View.
One of ...
3
Rafael,
I don't know the cheapest ones, but I can tell what they compromise relative to the high end product:
Spectrum availability - high end products have more frequency bands available
Transmitter output circuitry - high end units have better (and sometimes stronger) output circuitry that introduces less spurious noise into adjacent frequency bands, ...
3
Can you post-process anything after? If so, avoid the FX and:
Snare
Kick
Vox
Backing Vox
Everything Else L
Everything Else R
The kick/snare and vox are what people connect with, so keeping them on their own tracks gives you flexibility to bring them up later. Also separating the lead from backing vox allows you to kill the backups if there's tuning ...
3
Corey,
First let me say that the principal of Rational Acoustics is a friend of mine, I have beta access to their product, and I think very highly of SMAART 7. It is the easiest to use of the major multi-channel FFT measurement programs (i.e. SMAART, Systune, and SIM3). I also own Systune. Now that disclosure is out of the way, answers.
The best bang for ...
3
I think trying to mix around this will be an exercise in frustration - your best bet is to try to fix the problem at the source. The dimmers (and/or associated cabling) are the most obvious likely source of the buzz. Even if the snake you're running has balanced lines, I'd want to move it away from them. And the other cables as well - if there are unbalanced ...
3
All newer Home Theater Receivers offer an option to balance the sound
coming from your speakers, which will optimize the surround sound
experience. Using the setup menu on many Home Theater Receivers, the
user can set speaker distance, speaker size, and speaker channel level
in relation to the listening position.
...
3
It would be best to use an external mic that can be positioned where less wind would strike it. A hand-held recorder, like the Zoom H1 recorder (under $100.00) would be an affordable choice for most people. Hand-held recorders have built-in microphones and also a jack for using an external mic. These recorders have adjustable record levels that can be set ...
2
You say you have a pair of mics suspended over the stage for monitoring purposes - would it be possible to move them further out into the house to get a better idea of what it sounds like there? Or if not, to get a second pair of mics out in the house? That might give you a better sense of what the mix sounds like.
If you have a big enough stretch between ...
2
Bottom line: Get a high-quality signal into the computer, backup and organize your files, and do as much editing as possible with software.
Why?
Digital data does not decay. You can fiddle with the effects in
digital domain without losing sound quality if you are judicious in
how you do it (don't cut the volume before boosting it, don't clip,
keep the ...
2
I highly recommend Sound on Sound magazine for learning about effects and microphones. It is more studio focused than live sound, but you'll learn a lot. You have to pay to read the latest issues, but you can read all issues in their back catalogue over 6 months old for free.
2
The good thing is that style of music is not necessarily that important. Generally (and this is a generalisation) you want your PA to provide amplification without affecting the sound, with EQ to carry out tweaks to compensate for the frequency response of the venue. Any effects on instruments or vocals should be carried out using processors separate to ...
2
Apple's Final Cut Pro X includes a variety of auto-analysis and auto-correction features — stabilization, compensation for rolling shutter, color balance, et c. It can also attempt to automatically time-sync multiple clips, which I've found does a pretty decent job at roughing out the timeline.
While I normally would feel uncomfortable relying on automated ...
2
The artists are the most important, so your stereo mix from the board should be your primary source (I wouldn't use the FoH mic as a primary.) And no matter what the guitarists are doing on stage, get your board feeds in from each one mixed right at sound check, so that at worst case you can stream the artist live.
For crowd mics, try and avoid getting any ...
2
Of course, it's much better to do a separate mix rather then using the FOH's, this way you can do whatever you want with the guitars if they're too silent in the main mix. As a hybrid solution, you can take e.g. 4 instead of 2 channels out of the FOH: the main mix plus two aux sends which you can use for only the instruments featured too weakly in the mix. ...
2
For amateur events, SDI may be overkill compared to using simple Component. The key for long runs is to separate the various components so that they don't degrade. There is a similar question here about long distance runs.
As for HDMI to SDI, there should be no quality loss compared to HDMI as both are digital formats supporting full uncompressed HD ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
