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Live bands in crazy bars


Parker Brown

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Hey everyone, hope life is good,

Just a quick favor if I may.

I'm up for a gig during the SxSW music festival for a documentary in which we'll be following a band all about town and recording and filming their various live performances.  SxSW is chaotic to say the least (read tons of live music performances in a crazy number of wildly variable venues).  I'm confident I've got the 4 band members under control (so to speak), but I wanted to ask if anyone had any suggestions for recording the live performances.  I've asked for advance notice of the venues so that I might have a chat with the managers and hopefully their sound guys, but I've done this a couple of times before and the reception can be all over the place.  My plan at the moment is to take a feed from the board and bring a pair of 8040's on high stands to mic the PA.  Basically I'm nervous about what I might get from the board and I'm looking for tips to maximize my chances of decent tracks in what I expect will be 30 min set ups in packed bars.  Everything comes to my 788 with no real worry about the camera (maybe a scratch track).  Obviously there's no better time to say "it depends", but any help would, ya know, help.

Thanks to all,

Parker

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Bordering on "it depends", I know... but... don't count on anything consistent from the soundboards.

your plan for a pair of 8040s or other mics in an xy mount on a stand is the least hopeless option I can imagine.

Strongly suggest you test this in your hometown at a friendly venue before you go.

This actually is a situation where a zoom h4n might be your fastest easiest way to get something useable.

 

now, I have seen and heard lots of xy mics into a 7 series sd recorder before, and its a viable setup.

 

frequently done with schoeps cardioid pairs....

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You are doing what can be done under the circs.   You desperately need the board feed, but will only get what the FOH guy feels like giving you.  Advancing the shows as much as you possibly can (w/o being a pest) is a great idea, most FOH guys do not like someone who hasn't contacted them previously just showing up and demanding a board feed, so get as many ph numbers and emails as you can, ask questions and beg politely.  As you know, you are very likely not going to be the only one wanting a feed, the politics of who gets what feed can get very interesting as well.  Having all your own cables, adapters etc and a working knowledge of every console you'll encounter will help as well, if only to know if the FOH guy is BSing you.  Being early, like BEFORE soundcheck helps a lot too.

If you show up after the music has started then God help you.  Be persistent, practice "I'm very polite, attentive and helpful but I'm not going away…".

 

philp

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some pads for live mics in case you get blasted.

 

some sescom il-19-2 should already be in your kit.

 

i was on a job as A2 at irving plaza in nyc and as soon as the house lights went down and the stage lights came up full A1

indicated he was getting a huge hum and couldn't get rid of it.

 

it wasn't coming from the board feed. after no luck i remembered using the same mixer having the same problem in an office building where there was a closet full of wireless and computer wire, everything and then some. i mean packed. even their switchboard was wired with a system to send text message alerts after hours.

 

so i'll assume the venue was an audio deathtrap of the same sort full of all sorts of crisscrossed wires and suggested to A1 to plug the headphones directly into camera. hum was gone. lesson learned: live venues have lots of wiring and you have no idea whats going to happen in and behind the walls when the power to run the pa and the lights come up full. plug in the sescom box before rolling.

 

we were lucky that time. i always have the sescom box with me in my kit, but camera owned all the gear so i usually bring only a multi tool and a flashlight on gigs like that. as it turns out the return from mixer to camera was fine the next day/next shoot.

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Thanks guys,

It's going to be a beast, but I can do some footwork before hand.  The bands play in showcases from noon to 6 and 8 to 2am, each for 30 min before the next band gets 15 min to set up for their 30 min etc.  Half of them are outdoors and half of them are not real places, just made up venues for the week (I once saw a full sponsored showcase in a residential backyard).  I really appreciate your responses, all good advice.  I hadn't heard of the sescoms, they're on their way.  My friend pedals a cycle cab and makes $4k in 5 days...wonder which of us will work harder...

Pb

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Thanks guys,

It's going to be a beast, but I can do some footwork before hand.  The bands play in showcases from noon to 6 and 8 to 2am, each for 30 min before the next band gets 15 min to set up for their 30 min etc.  Half of them are outdoors and half of them are not real places, just made up venues for the week (I once saw a full sponsored showcase in a residential backyard).  I really appreciate your responses, all good advice.  I hadn't heard of the sescoms, their on their way.  My friend pedals a cycle cab and makes $4k in 5 days...wonder which of us will work harder...

Pb

You.  With way more stress.

 

philp

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I would definitely rely heavily on your stereo pair. Depending on the size of the venue your board feed will vary from just vocals and maybe a little kick for the sub to every instrument. But even then the levels aren't usually a good mix on their own, as the live engineer is balancing/compensating for what is in the air coming off the stage. The smaller the venue, the more of a problem this seems to be. Board feeds from larger venues or outdoor spaces tend to be more true.

A nice blend between the board feed and stereo pair will give you the best results under these conditions. But be careful of phasing. Your board feed will hit your recorder instantaneously but your stereo pair will be delayed due to distance from the sound source. You might want to try setting a delay on the board feed track (usually mono for smaller venues) or make a note for post about how far your stereo pair was from the stage.

Sounds like a really fun project!

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ORTF generally not appropriate for this type of event, but too many variables to say with certainty what should be done.  I could see situations where I'd bring a mic splitter and track / sum my own mix + board feed.  I could also see getting a board feed only and throwing up a mono audience / ambience mic.  Amplified PA, I'd be less concerned with stereo specialization and more concerned with just getting a balanced mix.  For documentary purposes, in some cases it is still useful to have wireless lavs on since you can get band chatter, things that FOH will not be interested in nor capable of picking up.  There's really a lot more questions that come up in my mind than answers to give.

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Parker, Id did a reality series in Nashville with the same situation.  We had CMA Music fest and various performances from random bars all over the city.  All I can say is what Philip P. said is that you are doing all you can.  Shout of a protools rig, with lots of mics and a full blown liver recording session at each venue you will get what you get.  I always asked for a stereo mix form the house, which 60% mono was only available.  You will also find that house mixes are Vocal heavy as well.  The best thing is to give post as many options as possible and you seem to be doing that.  The other tip is be weary of taking a feed from the headphone jack where an AUX or other master out is not available on digital boards. When the flip monitoring sections they will screw your mix.

 

Best of luck, and it usually turns out better than what us perfectionists think.

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I would not even worry about getting a feed from the board. Matt has mentioned several reasons. The FOH mixer's job is to make it sound good in the room/venue. 99% of them will likely not care, nor have time, or even the possibility to accommodate you. If the place is small-ish, there may be no drums in the feed, a guitar amp may be loud enough without adding it to the PA mix. If the place is reverberant, the feed may sound bone dry and simply weird. Definitely be prepared to do your own thing. Keep the XY pair on a stand in a sweet spot (usually close to the FOH board). And yes, even a Zoom or similar recorder might be your best bet (don't forget wind protection and shock mount!). Even getting a feed to try and blend it in with the XY recording, imho is over-thinking it and not worth it. Just my 2 centavos.

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My one reservation about completely embracing Johnny's advice is that it seems to automatically discount the talent / skill / professionalism of the SR company and the FOH mixer.  There are companies out there that ply their craft at a high level and focus their attention at all levels of the performance, to include spec'ing the correct equipment, having things dialed in for utmost fidelity, and more often than not, the FOH guys I've worked with are quite good and many times can get me a better sound than what I would be able to get on my own with carte blanche access to any gear I could dream up.  Sometimes a mono feed from the board will be the best thing you can do.  An audience / ambience mic is always a good idea (necessary actually for doc shoot) and a failsafe for you, but I really don't think that it's going to sound better than a really good FOH feed.

 

My last gig with Jimmy Buffet, I asked the FOH mixer for his mono mains feed as well as an isolated pre-fade pre-EQ pre-everything of Jimmy's mic, so that post had options for balancing a final mix that was appropriate for the situation - maybe it was Jimmy's vocals specifically that they wanted to boost for intelligibility / broadcast reasons, since the project was not ultimately a music-centric project.  I placed TRX742 / MKH8060 on a roving camera for ENG style audience ambiences and had my own mic at FOH position to augment everything else.

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PP: " will only get what the FOH guy feels like giving you. "

JK: " 99% of them will likely not care, nor have time, or even the possibility to accommodate you. "

I think that is a poor attitude on our part...  It isn't about "feel like", or "caring", but the most important factor is the lack of time; this is the same cluster bang for them as it is for us, maybe even worse, as 15 minute tear-down/set-ups for unfamiliar bands, with all their instruments, demanding all their individual specializations --like monitor mixes, just for starters.

geting golden results with any consistency is probably an unrealistic expectation.

 

although I'd prefer a TASCAM over a Zoom,  this is probably a an appropriate situation...

along with whatever lav's you have on the members...

and the only appropriate "stereo" is the sound of the room and its crowd.

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Thanks again everyone,

I tend to agree with Tom that stereo specialization is likely to take a back seat to providing a clean track and I wonder how much I should be looking to mic the room (mics back where it sounds nice to the audience/FOH) versus just trying to get the mics ( or even just a mono mic) past the audience near the PA (on pads) and let post fill in ambience with camera mic and Zoom.  I'm a little wary of leaving the venue and all of it's noise and chaos to hear tracks that sound suddenly way to noisy and chaotic because the mics were back in the room.  That said I've never mic'd a band's PA in this situation.  Is putting the mics up there a mistake?

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Great advice given by everyone here.

 

8040s might be too wide for this application.  You could end up with more crowd than you want.  I'd be looking at 50s or even 60s.  Getting a house feed might help later to supplement your recordings, but as others have pointed out, it might be over-complicating the situation.

 

If you build a mic tree with shock-mounted XY on either side of a Zoom/Tascam/Sony recorder, you'll get everything you need.  The 788T can be switched to line level on the mic inputs and still supply p48, so if it gets really loud, you'll be ok.

 

Also, camera should record audio, if not just for syncing but also to capture another perspective.

 

SXSW is chaos.  Keeping the rig near you and safe is the way to go.  Having mics and you near FOH mixer is pretty wise.

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Perhaps my post came off a bit weird, but I certainly did not mean to say that FOH mixers are generally un-professional, “do not care” or anything to that effect. Senator said it better: 

 

“…the most important factor is the lack of time; this is the same cluster bang for them as it is for us, maybe even worse, as 15 minute tear-down/set-ups for unfamiliar bands, with all their instruments, demanding all their individual specializations --like monitor mixes, just for starters.

geting golden results with any consistency is probably an unrealistic expectation.”

 

The FOH mixer’s job and professional duty is to provide a good mix for the audience in the room. That mix is usually far different in terms of levels, EQ, etc. from what you would want fed straight to a recording. 

If they are set up for broadcast, then by all means, there will most likely be a good sounding feed for that purpose, which I would take any day, IF they can provide it. This would ideally mean that there is a mixer is sitting in a separate, isolated room or truck, which I jumped to the conclusion seems unlikely with “Live bands in crazy bars”. 

 

An example;

Once on a documentary shoot, at a bar with live music in Los Angeles, I tried to have a friendly chat with the FOH mixer, and kindly asked if I could get a feed from their board. They just starred at me with a suspicious look that felt like “don’t touch my board”. When I finally had begged and pleaded my way to be allowed to look at the board - it turned out there were zero outputs available for a feed.

 

To sum it up, I would most certainly bring cables and adapters (perhaps a Ground Lift Barrel or two) to be ready for taking a feed, but I would not count on anything, and definitely be ready with your own setup. 

 

 

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No accusations Johnny, I think we both have had our own valid experiences.  One thing I do with productions that plan on shooting live venues is to prepare them for the proper half day of coordination before the actual event.  I go in a day or two early, find the FOH, find the monitor / utility mixer, mash hands, familiarize faces, chat, BS, etc...  One thing this does is show the respect that along with every other guy laying down cable, carpet, flying lights, rigging arrays, is that we are taking our job seriously too and asking for things in advance before the "oh shit" moment just like they are, rather than unnecessarily trying to figure it out right before the act goes on stage.

 

When some other trade approaches me, I really appreciate it when they give me the benefit of the doubt that I'm professional and can do my job, and with a little cooperation, we can all make beautiful things happens.  If wardrobe were to come to me seconds before sticks and introduce some foul, noisy garment, I wouldn't necessarily feel obligated to be my most cooperative with them - same courtesy to the house sound crew.

 

I walk away from each of these meetings so that they know who I am, I know who they are, what the plan is for getting a feed(s), permission to rig a mic mast somewhere, and very important - frequency coordination so that I know their IFB and mic feeds are given plenty of room.  During zero hour, I can walk up to the FOH, and say "hey I'm ready to plug into your feed" and everything will be set to go.  I find that the really good FOH guys are pretty fricking OCD and if I put something in as a formal request or written spec, you an be sure that it will be taken care of.  It also sucks to have the monitor / IFB mixer to chase you down and start complaining about stepped frequencies.  In the heat of the moment, there will be no attempt to do last minute coordination - it is their temple, and you will be shut down and kicked out first before any effort is made to fix the issue on the spot.

 

Here's a little snapshot of my last live sound encounter...

 

post-1336-0-85166900-1394130224_thumb.jp

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aside from all the above good points: make sure you can hear what you are getting. if its crazy loud you may want a pair of headphones that are insulated from outside noise bleeding in. like koss 4aa. the next step is out the door into the next room or the street. its more important to hear the headphones than the room as a whole in the circumstances. (i saw there was a reply as i was writing this, wow we had the same idea going, liking this thread a lot).post-1444-0-12380200-1394164315_thumb.jp

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I will repeat (Senator), that you will get what the FOH guys feel like giving you. Operative words: "feel" and "give".  Your job is as much diplomatic as technical in this situation--you need to make the FOH guy "feel" confident that you connecting to his gear will not cause him any sort of extra trouble or audio mysteries, and you need to act as though you are requesting what is essentially a gift from that guy to help you.  This is a very important attitude to have front of mind during the whole affair.   I profoundly, totally disagree that you can get away with skipping the board feed.  You can get by w/o an audience pair in these kinds of situations, but you can't get by w/o the board feed, even if it isn't great.   Even if the PA is pretty good and the mix has the vocals pretty forward the intelligibility of the vocals and the detail in guitar runs, percussion and probably any real sense of what the bassist is doing will be lost in a wash of all kinds of audio debris.  For rock bands, the hall pair is for some sense of the room and the applause, alone it will not get you a track they can keep up in a mix for more than a few seconds.  BTW, many club PAs are actually mono, and/or the feed they can easily give you is a mono sum, so you may only be getting 1 channel anyhow.  Consider putting this on a wireless if you can, so you can roam with the camera and continue getting the verite audio that will tell most of the story.  Unless you are making a concert film, the stage performance usually turns out to be B roll for the verite "story" scenes anyhow.   The Remote Audio  "High Noise" headsets are great for location music work--I am many years and many albums down the read with them and they've really helped me understand what I'm getting in noisy environments.

 

philp

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here is a board mix for the good rats on the king biscuit radio show. some dents and dings, but okay. you'll want as good or better; i think having two stereo sources to mix is a mistake. a cardioid dynamic or a shotgun for pointing and pickup, audience presence should suffice to augment the board feed. if you were miking the shows you'd go about it differently, but you're not. you're going to get better at this as the job goes on, and maybe one or two times you'll get stung.

 

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I would definitely rely heavily on your stereo pair. Depending on the size of the venue your board feed will vary from just vocals and maybe a little kick for the sub to every instrument. But even then the levels aren't usually a good mix on their own, as the live engineer is balancing/compensating for what is in the air coming off the stage. The smaller the venue, the more of a problem this seems to be. Board feeds from larger venues or outdoor spaces tend to be more true.

A nice blend between the board feed and stereo pair will give you the best results under these conditions. But be careful of phasing. Your board feed will hit your recorder instantaneously but your stereo pair will be delayed due to distance from the sound source. You might want to try setting a delay on the board feed track (usually mono for smaller venues) or make a note for post about how far your stereo pair was from the stage.

Sounds like a really fun project!

It might depend on the band you are with, but bands I know that have played SXSW may play a big venue and then a surprise set in a parking lot or hotel room. Again, the big bands probably wouldn't do this, but some of bands are going to play a set where mostly vocals are going through the PA, or the board feed is vocal heavy because the amps are all full throttle.

If you are with Soundgarden or something, they will probably have sound people in tow and spend time setting it up. If you are following somebody like OFF!, be prepared for anything and have a way to mic the space. They may drop a small geni and PA in a parking lot and tweet about an "after party". That might call for a pair of XY cardioids and maybe something like a Zoom for backup. Zooms were first marketed to people in bands that they could drop one the floor of the basement and record band practice with the limiters and auto levels. Not studio quality, but way better than cassettes. You also have the option of placement.

*if* that's what you might run into! maybe have a few ways to rig your mics besides a tall stand. Offhand, I made a few mini ballhead bolted to a spring clamp for random problem solvers, PSC also distributes those plastic clamp with flexible hose to 1/4" 20 threads. Might not be bad to have one in tow if you want to clamp a recorder, or mics, to something up and out of the way.

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I had a gig not too long ago like this. Like everyone here has mentioned, I spoke with the FOH engineer ahead of time, got a stereo feed of the music and a mono feed of the vocals, and set up a stereo pair XY. The recording turned out fantastic and they broadcast the recording on XM radio as a result.

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