Just finished my first live session.

Posted on Aug 11, 2012 02:18 am
J-bot
Byte-Mixer
Member Since: Dec 04, 2007

So, all in all the session went okay.

It could have gone better.

I had an issue that was unexpected (but isn't that always the case? hah) So, everything is going fine during the first set, and then BAM! The device freezes up, and the recording stops mid-song DOH! I've never seen this happen before, but then, I haven't tried to record continuously for extended time periods either.

I just had to reselect in the preferences to get it started again, but it happened again during the 2nd set twice, once about 20min in, and again about 10min after that. I set the preferences to ignore ASIO reset messages, but that didn't seem to help. I also turned off the limit tracks to 1024MB, still nada. I wonder if something overloaded. I didn't see any indications on the mixer though. Everything was pretty much between 0 and 4dBU. It's driving my OCD nuts >_<

Anyway, The band, (The Kansas Thorp Band) was good, and I think I managed to get a decent sound overall for a first time doing a live session. The guy that got me involved, Robbie Youngland, used to play in a band called Black Diamond along with the drummer. There were some issues on their end as well. The wireless mic wasn't exactly reliable for a song or two in the second set. Since he has a basement studio, I can probably get him to send me another take as an overdub. He told me he was going to record their keyboardist after they decide which songs would benefit the best from adding keys, and I'll probably get that to mix in later as well.

I didn't have much room to work with, and the bar doesn't have its own PA, so the band brought its own PA and lights. They relied on the amps and drums themselves for the sound, and just ran vocals through their PA. So I ran vox to my board, but it was an unbalanced signal, so there is a smidge of hum, not -too- bad, but I can gate it/filter it without hurting the vocals too much I think.

I mic'd the bass/guitar amps. I didn't really have a 2nd low-end dynamic with me, so I tried a 57 on the bass amp, which I think turned out okay. The electric guitar came through having a really nice warm clean tone. (due to limited room) kick mic on the beater side of the drum, and an overhead angled toward the snare, but on the cymbals side. It turned out okay, though I'm gonna need to EQ the kick a bit as there is a little bit of a "pong" to it. I was going to put up a 2nd overhead, but there really wasn't enough room. It came out okay though. (I need to get some shorter stands for the kick in the future)

I'll get some tracks posted when I get 'em mixed. Overall, I think it will be an okay sound. It was certainly a learning experience though. After having been through it once, I think I know a few things I would have done differently, as well as some things I'll need to consider getting to be a little more prepared for events like this in the future.

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