In case anyone is interestedā¦
I got a gig playing guitar for this lot: www.motelkings.co.uk.
They havenāt played for 6 years and their guitarist is out of town so I got the call. Four cds of songs, 1 rehearsal, and 2 hours on stage (2 sets). Great fun if not a little harrowing.
Anyway, I mentioned in another thread that I was looking for an outboard interface. Well some serious ebaying got me sufficient spondoolicks to pick up a Tascam 1641. First outing was to record the Motel Kings gig.
Weād hired a biggish PA, so they handled the mic-ing up. We split the XLRs at the desk (using passive XLR splitters), into my Soundcraft mixer and then into the Tascam into 10 of the analogue inputs. Recording was done using my entry level Dell laptop (with all the unnecessary services etc stopped), and a little software programme that isnāt n-track. The tascam is USB2.
Recorded 10 tracks at 24bit 44.1 for the full 2 hours (and the sound check). The Tascam didnāt miss a beat.
Bass: DI
Keys: DI
Guitar: SM57
Snare: SM57
Overheads: AKG C1000s
Kick: AKG something
Harmonica amp: SM57
Vocals: SM58
Crowd mic: AT small condensor. Forget the model.
All the tracks sound great, although Iām not really happy with the '57 on the guitar cab. Sounds kinda fizzy to me although it sounded fine out of the PA. Maybe I need to work the EQ a bit.
Anyway, Iāll post some tracks if Iām allowed (not my songs).
And a big vote for the Tascam.
Thatās great Mark! 
Please do post up some stuff if you are able. Mixing live stuff is all Iām about these daysā¦ itās a challenge mateā¦
D
Quote: (Diogesneez @ Aug. 31 2009, 11:12 AM)
Please do post up some stuff if you are able. Mixing live stuff is all I'm about these days... it's a challenge mate...
D
Ain't that the fact. It would have been much more helpful if we'd all made mistakes at the same places in the same song instead of all in different places....
And that flippin' guitar player kept getting louder; levels all over the place...., no... wait... that was me, doh!
I'm really looking forward to having a go at this. Everything sounds dry (obviously) and pretty flat at first listen. Got any tips or suggestions D on how you approach your mixing of live tracks?
Cheers
Advice? Yeahā¦ QUIT NOW! 
Just jokināā¦ Dry huh? Reverb and delay plugs are your friend used sparingly just to get a little āairā in there. I have to really pay attention here as I have some sicko desire to over-do reverbā¦ Maybe itās because of the natural roar between my earsā¦
Get used to automation. If you have a PC capable enough and a hardware controller, ride a fader or faders and record volume envelopes. In my case, my old PC is rather long in the tooth and I have to keep the latency up so hardware recording of fader moves would be tricky even if I had a hardware controller. Soā¦ I spend a lot of time drawing envelopes or riding a fader with the mouse early on while I can keep the latency down.
Mic bleed? This one is a PITA and I have only hit on a few things that help. Automation, flipping the phase on one mic channel against the otherā¦ (gotta be careful with that!) Highpass EQās help cut the āmudā on the offending bleeder etcā¦ Just common sense stuff really.
Iām still experimenting myself. The main thing is keep it fun. So far, I have been enjoying it. I work in short spurts so I donāt get sick of everything so quick. One of those songs I posted a link too? There are about TEN different project files saved for that one song. Iāll go back and forth to revisit them and make notes. < MAKE NOTES!! MY feeble brain NEEDS a notepadā¦
Dās live mixinā TO DO list:
Explore side-chaining a bit moreā¦ (so easy to setup in āRā as to be laughable)
Play around more with ReaGateā¦ (gate plug)
Play around a LOT more with ReaXcompā¦ (multi-band compressor)
Next time, pre-recording TO DO list:
Work on drum mic placementsā¦
Talk to performers. They can help out more than anything elseā¦
D
Hi Mark A:
Good for youā¦
That Tascam 1641 hardware looks so interestingā¦
Question.
?
Is the drivers all O.K.
for the 1641ā¦
in your opinion, that isā¦
?
Billā¦
[EDIT] Mistakes are something you canāt rehearseā¦ In fact they are the best part of doing a live stageā¦ Well, to me they areā¦ Youāll never hear mistakes done the same way againā¦ 
Marc - that is so cool. You must be from my future. Iād love to be able to
do that some day. What letter does the other little software progran begin
with?
Hi D, Hi Bill,
D, thanks for the tips. I was already part way down the reverb route. Struggling to find the right one at the moment, but something right will come up. Levels are all over the place, so mucho envelope drawing Iām sure. Iāve got a mic I setup in the crowd which gives me a starting point for what the FOH sound was but itās gonna be hard to capture ābigā. Also these guys albums sound pretty sweet so in a sense Iāve got my work cut out for me.
Bill, I know what you mean. I guess having played for years in some very tight and well rehearsed bands that I find it frustrating to make silly mistakes. Also (not surprisingly) these guys donāt do the songs live as they do on the cds - and it was pretty much the cd arrangements that I learned, and without knowing the guys that well I wasnāt sure if some of the hand signals meant two bars, two solos, or something else!!
As for the Tascam the drivers seem just fine provided the Tascam is turned on when I startup the DAW software. Iām getting a few crackles now that Iāve started loading up effects etc, and even though the processor isnāt being hit I think I may need to up the buffers to cope.
Mark
Quote:
I wasn't sure if some of the hand signals meant two bars, two solos, or something else!!
YEAH! Pet peeve of mine. Whichever vocalist is leading the song on our team at church is responsible for cuing the band via hand signals. The main guy is good at it. We very seldom miss a cue when he is leading. Some of the others however... TRAIN WRECK!! ROFL... We're playing the verse section and she's still singin' the chorus! AAARRRGGGHHHH!
Hand signals: Know 'em, learn 'em, USE THEM! Except for the middle finger 'sign'. Let's forget that one shall we?
D
PS What do you suppose shaking your hand as if trying to flick a booger off a finger means? Repeat? Speed up? Slow down? Stop NOW? Go fetch me a tissue? WHAT!?!?!?
Quote: (sevenOfeleven @ Aug. 31 2009, 3:39 PM)
Marc - that is so cool. You must be from my future. I'd love to be able to
do that some day. What letter does the other little software progran begin
with?
R
Mark
Quote: (Diogesneez @ Aug. 31 2009, 4:06 PM)
Hand signals: Know 'em, learn 'em, USE THEM! Except for the middle finger 'sign'. Let's forget that one shall we?
D
PS What do you suppose shaking your hand as if trying to flick a booger off a finger means? Repeat? Speed up? Slow down? Stop NOW? Go fetch me a tissue? WHAT!?!?!?
Well at least we could wander across the stage in that rock 'n' roll manner for what looks like a cool chat during the harmonica solo. In actual fact it's me and the bass player trying to figure out if we're supposed to go up to the 5th for a bar before the middle 8.
Well itās begining to sound a bit bigger on headphones (yeah, I know, friends donāt let friends mix on headphones but itās late here). I know itāll sound worse on speakers but at least Iām going in the right direction.
Thanks for the tip on the āXā compressor D. Iāve got the guitar starting to sound right and the bass is on the way there except itās a bit farty.
Heyā¦ I checked out that web site. Looks like a FUN band to play in. Good score Mark!
Do they have tunes online somewhere?
D
I dunno D. I have all the albums (obviously). Iāll ask if I can put one or two songs up somewhere.
Iām a bit too ārockā and they are blues/R&B so my guitar vocabulary was stretched a little thin and did verge into āinappropriateā places on some of the songsā¦ well letās face it, they are mostly 12-bar variations and come the 5th solo Iāve run out of ideas! It would be good to have a bit more time to work on some of the guitar parts rather than just āsurvivalā.
Iād love to play with them again. The bass player and singer already gig together; the keys player, I donāt know, but the drummer has got itchy stick-hands to do something again. Geographically weāre 200 miles apart but that doesnāt have to be a problem for the right gigs.
Itās awful to sit-in on a stage when everyone knows your sittāinā¦ Everyone thanks for the job you did, and then takes a deep breath and turns the other wayā¦
I was a great fill-in bass playerā¦
thatās what filled in my calendar to seven days a weekā¦
Eight days if there were matineesā¦
Billā¦
Well the guys are talking about doing a few āchoiceā gigs later this year and next so weāll see how that pans out.
Itās funny - my son said my guitar sounded great out of FOH but on the recording itās a fizzy, weedy mess. I recorded the exact same feed - an SM57 split into the desk and the recording rig. Anyway, lotās of EQ, lots of multiband compression and a slice of Free Amp has done wonders. I should have made some notes on what the PA boys were doing with the soundā¦
Oh yes!
Fresh air! Thank you!
Yepā¦
Niceā¦
Mark Aā¦
I hear some Dutch Mason ā¦
Hughy Lewis, Donald Dunn and the MGāsā¦
Danny Gratton
Itās BarRoom stuffā¦
Youād be busy if you wanted to work over hereā¦
I am sure I can see some blue smoke coming off the voice coils of the speakers in you ampā¦
The keyboard guy has a nice touchā¦
The drummer and bass player work well togetherā¦
Thank you for those linksā¦
Your mix works wellā¦
Billā¦
Thanks guys. I hope the band like them as much.
Compared to their albums my mixes sound a lot more ārockā than āR&Bā, but thatās what they get for asking me to play guitar and mix the recording