How To Mix Live Recordings To Sound Studio Quality - RecordingRevolution.com

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If you've ever recorded your band live and later tried to mix it for a live EP or Album release, you might have noticed how small and lifeless a live recording can sound.
Would you believe it if I told you that most professional "live" recordings that you hear aren't actually completely live?
Well 9 times out of 10 that's true.
And today I want to give you a real before and after example of a live EP project I'm working on so you can see and hear all that goes in to making a live recording have that studio quality sound we are all after.

[@cmorellato]

ARE YOU WATCHING MY LIFE? Every time I needed to learn something so specific you launched a video about it. Hahahaha thanks, Graham!!!

[@rubenwardlaw7806]

Cainã Morellato de Almeida shut your ass up

[@lamlo]

@@rubenwardlaw7806 lol

[@terrymiller111]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/bYrZcox_f7iGkLs

[@johnlannikk2701]

@@rubenwardlaw7806 shut your ass up

[@BenoitAdam]

00:00 : Intro 02:41 : Mixed (Amazing) 03:35 : Raw on recording day 04:26 : "Major Embarassing right ?" 05:31 : First thing (Capture some room mic - at least 2) 07:08 : Vocal (Too much drum in the mic = Rerecord the vocal if you) 12:00 : Bass + Keyboard (no guitar that day - added in postproduction - added tambourine & drum samples) 16:50 : Regular mixing + add reverb 17:45 : added stereo to the master bus 18:15 : Again : Before/After

[@wolfsden5842]

"how to mix live recordings" >*re-records the entire band* Hahaha nah awesome work Graham, sounds amazing. Mixed a live show of my own and it's almost impossible to remove the dull "flatness" of the performance. Will definitely consider these methods next time I do so!

[@hopejohnwaydestiny]

I'm a gospel music Minister, and I'm planning on releasing my first album, though I have some singles already. But I want a live record album and this video here just opened my eyes to many things. Thank you so much for this video.

[@garyking4032]

Your vocals on the board weren't too hot, they were mixed for the room accounting for backline & drums sound that was coming from amps & acoustic instruments. They needed less in the desk mix as the audience were hearing 50% (or whatever) directly from instruments and not through the PA. The louder the PA, the lower the percentage 'backling makeup' sound, and the better the direct PA mix. It's great that you sharing your knowledge, but personally I wouldn't be comfortable calling a recording a live mix when so much was rerecorded.

[@marerubrum]

I take the Guitar DI's and send them to the amp. I rescue my signals from other enstruments bleeding. I think most popular rock bands live album was done like this.

[@MattyDemello]

You are right that some of the bigger live recording bands DO over dub their vocals. I remember attending a concert and later that year they used the concert I went to for 1 of the songs on their live album. Well i'm a singer / musician / recording studio so I can hear and pick out things a lot of people can't. I remember the singer that night sang just 3 words different. He went lower when the original is higher and when I got the "live" recording of that night he went higher and I remember him going lower so yes they do re-record the vocals or dub them.

[@TinasheKavumbura]

We recently did a live recording at our church and after listening to it I almost got discouraged. I was one of those that thought you hit record and then publish to iTunes the next day. Thanks for the video though coz it has given me fresh hope.

[@anthonygiambusso2652]

You should do another video on how to capture these kinds of recordings showing what kind of gear you used, how many mics did you use, and how to did you connect it to an interface or did you connect to your computer straight to the board. If so, how do you get them as separate tracks rather than just one stereo track

[@gazzer2kuk]

Ah it's good, I just feel like.... I'd like to hear how you'd use just the live tracks rather than any overdubs you know?

[@daniilkolpakov2004]

Me too. Also, I'd like to add that in the hall, it sounds different not only because of the "energy" etc. but simply because in a small venue you have a loud acoustic drumkit playing, which means that the kick and the snare and the overheads are not made very loud on the console (the sound engineer just adds some of the drum mics to the mix but that's to accompany the direct sound of the drumkit, therefore the vocals are much louder), and the same goes for the guitars when they are micd from the roaring 4x12. It's strange that Graham didn't mention that. Not hitting the dislike but I can't leave like either. Hoping for the "true" live mixing video in the future :)

[@ProjectFinalAudio]

Wow the final result sounded awesome👏👏👏

[@DacianGradaMusic]

Great tips here!! As an "intern sound guy" at church I'll expect to have to deal with these things too at some point; always wondered about some of the techniques used on live recordings.

[@lukebraxton2216]

Great content! At the end of the day it doesn't matter how you get the sound you want as long as you get it. Man people gotta stop being so precious about how a sound or a mix is achieved. there is no such thing as cheating in music, there are different ways to achieve the sound you want, who cares how you get it! I loop my guitar in a live setting, is that cheating because i don't have another guitarist? no its using what you have to create the sound you want. Love ya work Graham!

[@CenterThePendulum]

The only gray area here is putting “Live” on the cover of the album and recording a full studio vocal take. Technically all recordings in the studio were “live” takes but words still have to have some agreed-upon meaning between the listener and the musician. This only works because fans don’t know this is happening. A “92% Live” label doesn’t have the same draw lol

[@jurgendold6097]

If you call it a “live remix”, the accusation of cheating is off the table. We all do some kind of live remix every day, the original just wakes up in the morning with twisted hair (if there's any left). By the way, your radio-ready song guide is really brilliant! Stay tuned and don't let the joy be taken away from you.

[@mavinslaats]

Came here for mixing techniques. Stopped watching because of all the overdubs.

[@graham287]

Really good tutorial. I thought the final mix was a bit busy but the techniques you highlighted were spot on so I now have a good idea on how to record my band in the practise room and post edit. Thank You .

[@Sketchjaja]

Are you gonna make a serie of videos about the processing of each track? They'll be so useful. Thanks.

[@TylerFG]

Agreed, especially in regards to the vocals. (Mainly Tabitha's vocal, which sounds very muddy and all over the place dynamically with no plugins)

[@MattyDemello]

wow i'm seeing a lot of comments hating on this. You guys don't realize that he's right and famous bands do the same thing. My cousin is a mixing engineer and he does BIG concerts. like Bon Jovi and Linkin Park and even sound garden back in the day. He did many live mixing projects for live albums and he's told me all that's in this video so I know its a fact that they do this. I'm a touring singer / musician and my band use pre-recorded backing tracks to.

[@thebridechurch9478]

Thank you so much for this video! Great song choice as well. Learned a lot from this video and several of your other ones. Since this whole quarantine situation our church has been doing KZbin for our services. So I truly appreciate the information and your willingness to put your faith out there. Keep up the good work! God bless

[@JeohYsrael]

my jaw literally dropped as i hear the raw tracks. i thought that the mixed one would sound so similar from the raw one, but its just night and day. 💖

[@elspanoo]

thats what happens when you add so much extra. the "mixed" one is basically 30% more. the title is a bit misleading, its not just mixing, its how to make your live recordings sound awesome.

[@sruthisuresh1173]

I am a vocalist, and I have tried live recording so many times and even though everything was amazing during the time of performance, it sounded awfully dull when we watched the recording later. I just wanted to put some insta reels and stuff but never posted anything as I was not satisfied with the quality of the music. I have a gig tomorrow, and I will definitely give this a try. I always wondered how some performances tun out so much insta perfect, but yeah, may be they were rerecorded as u said.

[@ItzTooSik]

You're an example to follow for the people in church and the people outside of it. Thank you for your help!

[@stevepethel6843]

Very honest reveal and very helpful also. Merry Christmas Gods blessing in your ministry of music...

[@DavisTibbz]

What equipment do you use to actually RECORD from the board?

[@StratsRUs]

With respect, the big live records may be re-recorded. ....but I tuned in to learn about how to mix a multitrack recording of my live band at a gig. Everyone performed great. I got better advice from Sound On Sound and Mac Pro Video.About bleeds,EQ , compression etc.So much more of a gig rather than a church service.

[@ckjjclan]

One of the fantastic things about using the Presonus Series III mixers, and Presonus Studio One DAW (at least for me) has been the relative ease in generating a finished mix with little other “mixing” outside of what I did on gig day. The mixer keeps the Presonus mixer eq, compressor, etc (called the fat channel) and auto passes those gig day settings to the DAW. I do adjust those fat channel plug in’s (and my mixer and DAW have some cool ssl, Neve, dbx, etc style plugins NATIVE to both the mixer and DAW - so, yes, they are used live too) a little because I’m no longer in that gig day venue/room, nor do I have a giant sub thumping at me, etc.... most of what I process is in the “mastering” mix bus phase.... it’s been so great for helping speed up my live recordings, and yes, what I get from the board is pretty close to final result.... because of that integration. Latest example was doing live sound for a band “Whiskey Foxtrot” song called “Carolina” here on YT... I think the only other plugin I used was iZotope on master bus to put polish on end result, and the Presonus plugins/settings I tweaked, but not a lot of changes. It may not be “radio ready” 100% but given I was running around taking video too, the recording was ok I think.

[@fredriccortez6190]

I also do live recording. Check out Waves PSE. This would help tame the bleeds on post. I use this a lot. Give it a try. But yes overdub is an option. :)

[@carlostorres1171]

For my church is her record recently we tracked over a few weekends. Three services per weekend. So we had retakes of each song. Drums, bass, and electric guitar or all live from the floor and comped together where necessary. Lead vocals, acoustic, and some keys were overdubbed. (And some of the keys stuff was pre tracked to begin with)

[@thesoundco7844]

Wow what a contrast! Great work Graham - what drum samples are you using??

[@lukehart1642]

I've been recording live recordings for over 15 years and have never had the opportunity to overdub separate vocals to replace and have managed fine. Sure there is bleed but it's all in the balance and in the processing. Honestly this would have been more beneficial if you had kept it real... Nice to see something on this subject though. I wish positive thoughts to you. Cheers!

[@vrmemories98]

I am at 0.33 mins and I am ready to comment :). This is going to help, thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge. I attempted to record a live Big Band with a Zoom H2N. I thought it might work, it did not :(. Oh, coincidentally, it happened in a church.

[@deltavistastudio124]

True dat! You are a true gentleman and scholar. Thanks for all you do Graham. :)

[@eddiecruz6617]

This video came at a perfect time for me!! Thanks graham!

[@freefallin0531]

It's really helpful! thank you for uploading!

[@MediaManProductions]

As always, a great video Graham. Regardless of what people may think of the morals of this video, it’s how it’s done in a lot of rough and ready live albums that aren’t recorded live to a click... which is a bit like cheating in itself anyways. Top vid, it’s what I do too!

[@jerome.angelachandler6501]

Yes! This is what I needed!

[@recordingrevolution]

Awesome!

[@jerome.angelachandler6501]

Im learning how to mix gospel recordings, and a lot of gospel projects are live recordings. Usually groups and choirs.

[@starsandguitars2050]

This was so great, the tutorial and the music. Thank you Graham.

[@elvissorna8861]

The snare sounds amazing

[@carlosrichards2731]

so should you strive to have the live recording to be as close to a mix that has been cleaned?

[@stevenbolivar3220]

I have a question! What kind of mixer/board did you use so all the instruments where all in a separate track in pro tools? I have a Mackie ProFX22v2 22 and i don’t know if I can multitrack like that with one of those. Great video!

[@Permaglueck]

I thought this will gonna be an interesting video but actually it's not a life recording and mixing if I exchange and rerecord everything in the studio :(

[@StudioBuster]

hey bro! i didnt follow all the tips and advices for my concrete record, but in this tutorial YOU gave me briliant ideas how to improve the sound of that record. i'm here just to say huge THANK YOU !!!!

[@Teddylaw609]

This is great. Thanks for this

[@RichKDollarElement]

Thank you for not making an intro jingle. Was stoked that this went right into what we wanna learn.

[@mattinnerfrost7415]

A very interesting video, I will begin shortly to record live for make a live album and your advice are gold for me, thank you so much

[@boredlegacy5800]

this has been so much informative. im new to recording a live band. thank you so much

[@8odycount]

Dude. We are musicians and we are human beings. It's all about the feeling, energy and passion for the music. So why overdubbing the vocals? That's not cheating. That's unauthentic. Mistakes are a part of music. It doesn't need to be perfect to be good.

[@lemonysnick5171]

Wow, this video is so cool. Great stuff. Would've been interesting to see you work with the original vocal tracks though and see how well they could be polished

[@paulsaul9513]

How did you record the guitar, bass and drums. Mic the drums and mic the amps of each instrument? Mic the drums and directly plug in the guitar and bass ?

[@allanperkins5060]

This is very helpful! Thanks, Graham!

[@sadramadonna8549]

that before and after video is really true I've experienced that a lot and so and its so frustrating cux thtas not how it sounds in the house. i really need tolewran how to mix

[@julijuhuu]

Thats what i'm searching for long time. Thx graham.

[@robertlottmann]

Never seen such mixing come by on KZbin... Great job...

[@ivanquinoyog422]

planning to set up and record worship live in a room. What are stuff we should prepare? Thanks for reply

[@Hoyalio2k]

I've always wanted to know how this is done, thank you!!

[@Wiewirsind]

Awesome work. Thanks a lot for the insides. Really appreciate that. Cheers

[@chrisoz4929]

Hi Graham. I really enjoyed this insight into your method. Thank you, great stuff

[@gootyobt2032]

How to make a live recording. Record live then rerecord everything plus more in the studio.

[@walidelmatador2920]

All your videos are amazing ❤

[@williamsichone8591]

How do u isolate each track...when recording

[@kcrocks5]

Here's how to mix a live show! *proceeds to replace everything live with studio recordings and samples* lol. Well that didn't help one bit lol.

[@ebentechstudio]

1. which mixing console did you use? 2. How did you record into your PC? Didd you use audio interface from your mixer to your pc or or you used perhaps the usb connection directly from your mixer into the pc? I ask this because i want to know how you achieved the multitrack recording for each instrumentaions and vocals?

[@benitostudiosofficial8701]

This is amazing? Did you have the full song? Sounds great.

[@Excelratedsmart]

Thank you for this video

[@eyonggabbi4670]

Do you teach ? How can I learn to mix live music? I'm using cubase

[@maurizioviera]

Lol, I have to record and mix a live show next week. Thanks Graham!

[@christianpaez2624]

thanks graham I can tell those are B8 cymbals haha or perhaps cheaper

[@lenoncabrini8557]

Amazing job!!!! Thank you so much for the tips!!! Helped me a lot !

[@abheekkumardas]

This is very good information and knowledge. Thanks Man! 🤘👍

[@ChrisJohnsonDrums]

Great info Graham, thanks for taking the time!

[@madametolstoy4303]

helped me a lot to improve my live recordings! thanks! :D

[@greatday558]

Wow bro you straight worked a miracle

[@FclefDweller]

Your not cheating your video title is misleading. I am recording my band and dealing with bleed. I was looking for what to do to optimize without over dubbing.

[@DanielCrawford01]

Live CCM music is 100% different than live anything else. This video is to teach you one, very niche kind of live records.

[@ChristianSnook]

Thanks Graham, for all you do!!!!!

[@gloriablackmusic3539]

Thank you for this tutorial. But how did you put all the voices together? I mean, how did you separate each sound?

[@atlastivi]

it was multitrack recorded

[@adammichaelchannel]

Thanks for this video. Do you have any advice on where you panned the instruments, especially you and Tabitha's vocals?

[@crockerrange7149]

Thanks for sharing, learned something from here, cheers bro

[@Tore_Lund]

The Alto is kind of Buried in the Wall of Sound? Was that because she wasn't available for a dub, or is IT a choice for IT to be easier to sing along to? I do church choir recordings once in a while, and there's always the artistic disagreement on how noticable the Alto tenor and bas need to be. I like the choral choir Sound, but often the congregation thinks IT becomes to unike their perception of the psalms. Also watching IT at home on a TV with sourround added, and on various phones, I might need to keep the Sound simpler?? Also you are right on top of her in your mix, a slight pan to give you some distance would have been nice, but without a Clean vocal from her, IT wasn't possible? However I'm impressed how seamlessly you are adding the crowd mics. That usually doesn't Work well for me!

[@chrisbetts6990]

Would love to see an interview with recording revolution and bethel church redding on “live” worship

[@eternalcustomchannel]

I guarantee that Bethel either uses backtracks, or overdubs something...People don't realize how common place this is...Honestly, it is everywhere...

[@chrisbetts6990]

they almost alway use both, but still is mixed astonishingly

[@scoringbits]

This is awesome very useful!

[@AlmaRockeraOficial]

Graham great studio singer but out of shape live singer. Great video thanks for all this years

[@Amatteus]

Great video ... Very instructive.

[@buffaloproducciones]

Genius

[@c-records505]

Hi Graham, any chance that you might redo what you did in this video using just the recorded tracks? I´m asking because sometimes you´re just given these tracks and can´t overdub, refering to the vocals mostly. Thanks

[@Frank19916]

thank you for sharing. this is soo awesome..bless you sir

[@jbaranowski1990]

What you suggest to make good bass sound live ? I mean I see that you play without amps - only inears which is quite popular these days. Is it good solution or it's still better to have at least small bass rig as my monitor ? What should I buy to get that in ear system chain ? How it works ? Is it good topic for your channel or not so much ? Thanks for all replies in advance ! I really like your vids :) A mine of knowledge :)

[@carlosoconjr5897]

I use reaper I would like to know how to do a live album with reaper

[@jerryocrow1]

Thank you. I record live shows and post produce them for quality assurance, training, and practice. (1) Click. You said you played to it but didn't mix to it. Tell me more. (2) Why do the post drums sound like pillows in plastic bags? EQ? (3) Do you know how to break/separate/partition the tracks at the same point for file management, sharing, etc.? (4) Tamborine at 14:30 couldn't be heard. (5) Do you publish the final including paying the mechanical license fee? (6) No Melodyne? Why not? THANK you again for your and other's comments from everyone's experiences.

[@zackfogle3690]

Hey I don't know if you check comments on older videos, but I do have a question. Do you have advice/knowledge on if you were going to be mixing live music that is going to be live streamed? Since you don't really have the chance to add re-recording or a whole lot of editing

[@Omarlopezband]

How did you get each channel separately on your DAW? Is every channel going through an interface?

[@elspanoo]

I bet he just has a bunch of microphones going into 1 interface. probably has like 12 of them

[@thelightmonkey1970]

So informative. Cheers Graham.

[@elvisgario]

Thank you so much, sir... I was getting so frustrated with how I sound after every live recording. Hahaha

[@Amatteus]

The song is fantastic !!!! Is this song yours?

[@jyun7360]

So effective movement！Got it！

[@joeygonzalezmusic4184]

Nice work graham. Sounds good. Original song? Spotify link for the EP?

[@mainaknandy6636]

HI Graham. its very helpfull. pls let us all know, how do we record the tracks individually in daw as all separate tracks live? what equipment we need to route them to the daw ?

[@aholder4471]

When you say live off the board are you referring to the two track off the board which is what was coming through your pa at the time, or are you referring to the multi track that is recorded pre eq and fx off the board?

[@andiswa1153]

How do you record like have each instrument with it's own channel mics e.t.c

[@elspanoo]

you will need a microphone for each instrument, when recording live.

[@joelbbarrios1]

Hey Graham, can you publish a video on how you record your live recording to your MacBook pro with your protools. You only publish a video on mixing the raw recording, how about the recording of the band and the congregation. Hope to hear from you on my email. Thanks.