Stems for live shows - Advices needed!

[Heabow]

Hey

I mixed the LP of a band a few weeks ago and the guys asked me to prepare stems for their live shows. It's mainly keyboards, electro stuff and maybe a few backing vocals. I thought I could bounce the tracks per kind such as synths, vocals, etc. without change anything to their processing (including fx on the master buss) nor to their automation.

What do you think? Is there important things or specific tips I gotta know?

Thank you

 

[DanLights]

I would avoid the master bus Fx, the rest I'd leave as is in the album. Just my thoughts though

 

[Audio X]

Are you setting up a click for the drummer?

 

[halcyonwayband@aol.com]

For our live clicks/backing tracks, I just mix down the keys/etc to hard left and the click to hard right. Dump them onto an iPod, then get a 1/8" to two 1/4" mono splitter. Run the two splits out into a $50 Behringer 4 channel mixer. From that, one channel feeds the drummer's headphones, and one goes to FOH. The FOH signal is mono.

I'd advise you to make the backing tracks nice & loud, and print them exactly as you want to hear them (efx,etc). make sure they're all the same overall volume or you'll have live sound issues. You basically want to be able to have the drummer hit 'play' and then the sound guy doesn't have to worry about it much.

 

[Heabow]

Thanks guys. Yes I'll print a click track.

 

[Heabow]

For our live clicks/backing tracks, I just mix down the keys/etc to hard left and the click to hard right. Dump them onto an iPod, then get a 1/8" to two 1/4" mono splitter. Run the two splits out into a $50 Behringer 4 channel mixer. From that, one channel feeds the drummer's headphones, and one goes to FOH. The FOH signal is mono.

I thought to do like that but the band will soon use a computer with an interface so the backing tracks could be stereo. Thanks for the tips tho

 

[JonWormwood]

I thought to do like that but the band will soon use a computer with an interface so the backing tracks could be stereo. Thanks for the tips tho

A lot of folks will probably say stereo is pointless live... and to a degree I will second that but I plan on going stereo here shortly. It'd probably be cool for the few in the right spot.

I know Aaron Smith does it with his band 7horns7eyes.

 

[halcyonwayband@aol.com]

I'd definitely prefer to do stereo, but don't want to have the hassle & risk of using a laptop live, plus an MBox or whatever....it would sit by the drummer, so he'd have to set that up with his kit, lots of moving parts and stuff so we stick with the iPod because it's just easier. And we can back up to iPhone, other iPods, etc (which has come in handy). I don't think it would really matter too much from a sound quality standpoint at most club gigs. Looked into options not requiring a laptop but they were really expensive....would prefer to have something HD based that we could rackmount but haven't found anything that wasn't stupid expensive.

 

[Heabow]

Hum... These comments make sense. That's right, stereo files won't make the difference live and considering a very simple and reliable gear such as iPod I think it's smarter to prep mono files... Will talk to the band Thanks everyone, it helped a lot

 

[arv_foh]

I'd advise you to make the backing tracks nice & loud, and print them exactly as you want to hear them (efx,etc). make sure they're all the same overall volume or you'll have live sound issues. You basically want to be able to have the drummer hit 'play' and then the sound guy doesn't have to worry about it much.

so many bands just don't get this.. they play me a sample that is screaming loud to begin with then they have other songs where you can't even hear there is a sample playing.. it's so annoying.. and I get that some bands want to keep their dynamics intact from the album but everything at a live show is LOUD so your backing should be loud as well

thanks for being one of the bands that "gets it"

 

[if6was9]

so many bands just don't get this.. they play me a sample that is screaming loud to begin with then they have other songs where you can't even hear there is a sample playing.. it's so annoying.. and I get that some bands want to keep their dynamics intact from the album but everything at a live show is LOUD so your backing should be loud as well

thanks for being one of the bands that "gets it"

So true, or worse, they check the quiet songs and then when they play you get a loud as fuck bass drop that clips the shit outta everything. I've seen bands get really angry with FOH guys for varying backing track levels when it's clearly they have them all bounced out at wildly different levels.

 

[JonWormwood]

So true, or worse, they check the quiet songs and then when they play you get a loud as fuck bass drop that clips the shit outta everything. I've seen bands get really angry with FOH guys for varying backing track levels when it's clearly they have them all bounced out at wildly different levels.

Different then the iPod method but I always hand the FOH 2 different lines. Backing track and subdrops so we don't have any problems with levels.