Mixing live music

A

andrew00

Well-known member
Hey,

I recorded these bands recently and charged one person with the task of recording the music to a zoom h4. He was meant to record in one input the desk and in the other the audio from a ceiling mounted mic. Turns out he messed up the desk feed so I've only got the audio feed now from the overhead mic. The same guy was then meant to be mix the audio, but he's backed out (I'd imagine from embarrassment of realising he screwed up), which means I now have to mix the audio as well as doing the video!

Needless to say I'm not thrilled about it, especially as I've never done audio mixing before.

Please therefore would someone please help me with how best to mix the audio that I do have, one stream from an overhead mic.

The quality is ok, I guess, although the drums, esp the snare, is much much too loud, and the guitars and vocals are too quiet.

I edited on Sony Vegas 8 (w/multi cam which is great), and have Soundforge 8 too. So far I've tried adding a Compressor and fiddling with some EQ stuff.

Truth be told though, I really have no idea what I'm doing, so would you geniuses please help me out, I'd very much appreciate it!

Cheers!.
 
What is there to "mix" if you only have the mic recording?

Is there a studio recording of the music these bands were playing?

If so, get it, and mix it with your live stuff. There's NO way to fix the levels on the recording you have since none of it is separated.

.
 
I'm not really good on the terminology. What I meant was - what can I do i.e. eqing, compressor-ing etc, to bring out the vocal and guitar more and lower the drums (esp snare) more.

I.E. something frequency-y or something compressery-y.

For example, I was thinking I could limit the sound, I don't know how, so the snare doesn't sound so loud.
 
andrew00 said:
I'm not really good on the terminology. What I meant was - what can I do i.e. eqing, compressor-ing etc, to bring out the vocal and guitar more and lower the drums (esp snare) more.

I.E. something frequency-y or something compressery-y.

For example, I was thinking I could limit the sound, I don't know how, so the snare doesn't sound so loud.
Click to expand...

You're talking about what would be called mastering, not mixing, and it's not something that can be learned by reading on the internet. I do music mixing and mastering for a living.

The basic tools are indeed equalizers, compresors, limiters and so on, but unfortunately it's a lot easier to mess up the sound than to fix it, and in some rare (but not *that* rare) cases there's nothing worthwhile that can be done.

If there's an audio mastering studio in your area you might look into having a professional help you with it. Otherwise, as someone else suggested you might see if there's an existing studio recording of the song that you can lay in. The trick there will be sync, since it wasn't shot to it, but you may be able to cover that by using frequent picture edits.

Best of luck
 
There are some nice "spatializer" plugins that will help you to make a mono recording sound sorta like stereo... the good ones are pricey. Again, best to try and hook up with someone who has some of the tools and knows what s/he is doing!
 
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