Tips on mixing vocals on a live recording

[CalibratedRecording]

I recorded a live show this past weekend, and I'm having trouble getting the vocals to shine through without destroying the quality of the drum sound.

To put it simply, the drums are bleeding through the vocal mic (SM58), and the singer wasn't real consistent with his volume level. All the audio feeds were split before hitting the live console.

Some things I have tried:
- Gating doesn't help, because the drums trigger the threshold since it is set so low for the quieter vocals.
- Compression on the vocals also brings up the drums
- EQ'ing the vocals for their range makes for a trashy drum sound when the vocalist isn't on the mic.
- Muting the vocal mic when he is not singing creates a change in sound when the vocals come back in.

Any other tips/tricks/thoughts? Thanks in advance!

-Steve

[Snarl 12/8]

Do you have any drums with no vox in them? Are you in a computer? I wonder if there's some crazy thing you could do where you take the drums and put them out of phase with the vocal track to cancel them out of there. You probably want to do this with as little eq on either track as possible (before the cancellation) and you might have to nudge the drum track you're using to do this around on the timeline a bit to find the right phase (exactly out of phase though) with the drums in the vocal mic. Good luck, that sounds like hell.

[chris harris]

Sounds like one of those situations where you just embrace the bleed, and let them blend as naturally as they can. You're probably not going to get a good clean vocal signal to mix from a recording with a loud band on the same stage.

[vxboogie]

Per Carl's suggestion ^, if you can create a track that gets some drum cancellation, even if it sounds like crap, you could use that to key the real vocal track.

If found in some of the live recordings that I've done, I just have to embrace the bleed, because it sounds weird that the wash is there during vocals then gone when the gate kicks in. This was especially true of BGVs that were gated most of the time. In most cases, I end up using a downward expander and don't have it reducing a ton. Its kind of a compromise.

[CalibratedRecording]

Thanks for the ideas!

I will try the phase reversal later this evening to see if it does much.

The bleed doesn't bother me that much, it's just trying to figure out a way for the vocals to punch more when they come in, because right now they are just buried. It might be something I'll have to live with since the singer was so quiet at times.

[drumsound]

I did a live record years ago and realized that you can't mute the vocal because of the inherent sonic changes, and that you really have to EQ and compress with the idea that it's the vocal AND drum room mic.

[Snarl 12/8]

Have you tried side-chaining an EQ on the vocal compressor or using multiband compression?

[Brett Siler]

Re-record vocals?

[kslight]

I get the same thing...some vocals have good mic technique and some don't. You have to get creative, I tend to do some LPF and HPF, subtractively EQ considering the mic as a room and vocal mic, and some level of limiting or compression. Sometimes I have a separate track with some sansamp and/or doubler effect on it. Its always a bit of a compromise...anyone selling "perfect" live records have cheated and re-recorded everything and/or used sound replacer. If you want to keep it real (and I do!) then you just have to find the most work-able compromise.

[cgarges]

I mixed a live record recently where the guy who tracked it just obliterated the vocal mics (all three of them) with loads of compression. Any time one of the guys wasn't near his mic, the drums were louder in the mic than his vocals were. When the guys were singing, the compression pulled the drums down, but they always popped back up quickly after the singing stopped. Best solution for me, tedious as it was, was to go through and bring the volume down (not completely out) on the vocal mics whenever there were no vocals present. I just set up two macros (one at like -6db and another at like -16db) and did it space-by-space. Took forever. There are times when the drum sound changes a bit, and of course I'm going to notice it, but it made the whole thing MUCH better. I tried every trick I could think of before coming to the conclusion that this was the thing to do.

Chris Garges
Charlotte, NC

[vvv]

We just gotta new bassist (thank you-thank you!) and have been recording practices with just a Zoom H2.

FWIW, radical EQ is the way to go with the two-track. On Sunday, to make quick performance-reference mixes, I pulled 7dBu out at 450 and added 4-6dBu at 2.2kHz and 4.5kHz (all with 1.3 Q).

The result sounded nothing like the original recording, but there was much more clarity and vocal presence, the bass stopped rumbling and the drums cleared up also.

My point? Do what you have to do to get the material sounding as best it can, even if it doesn't sound quite how you want.

And FWIW, with live multi-tracks with bleed in the vocal mic, I prefer reverb to discreet delays on that track.

[Recording Engineer]

What I've found is that an SM58 is the worst mic I've used for main vocals in a live recording, when it comes to bleed (sound-aside, which I personally have never accepted as "standard", even though it is.)

Oddly enough, I'm floored that both studio-type side-address condensers I've used live for main vocals (Audio-Technica 4040 and Rode NT1000) have absurdly better rejection than anything other live mic I've tried (which honestly hasn't been a lot). Unfortunately, a lot of people consider them too large for a live vocal application.

A year ago I did a live recording of AWOLnation and they brought their own vocal mics. Don't remember what they were (maybe someone can recognize them in the video). They sounded good, but also had quite a bit of bleed (not nearly as bad as 58s though). On Aaron's vocal, I cut-up the track absolutely everywhere he wasn't actually singing and as close as I could get away with. And then I put layers upon layers of compression, EQ, etc.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... iasxlBPSKw

[vxboogie]

Don't remember what they were (maybe someone can recognize them in the video). They sounded good, but also had quite a bit of bleed (not nearly as bad as 58s though).

Hard to tell, but my first guess would be Sennheiser e8xx series.

The best mics I've used live for bleed and feedback rejection are the Audix OM series, specifically OM7, but they have to pretty much stay right on top of the mic. You'll lose the vocals if they start pulling back from the mic.

[kslight]

Not to derail but what WOULD you consider the best live handheld vocal mic to be (as far as a good compromise between rejection and clarity...but I don't want something that rejects so strong that the vocals disappear with poor technique)?

[AndersonSoundRecording]

Hard to say anything for sure without hearing how bad the bleed actually is, but here are some things that might help

1 - bleed is part of life - you will have to embrace it to some extent. Understand that you don't get the "drum sound" solely from the drum mic's on a live record - it is made up of every single open mic on the stage. You have to figure out how to get it to work for you - do your best to make the bleed sound good without having to move the fader.
2 - If you can help it, don't smash the vocal mic with compression - every time it pumps back up, the drums will come with it; however, see tip 4.
3 - if it's really bad, and an expander really won't do it (gate is usually too severe) lots of fader riding might.
4 - a tip on the two above, if you must be heavy-handed with compression, if you can set your expander to kick in at the same point where the compressor kicks out, you can sometimes get away with murder on both counts.
5 - creative editing can sometimes work wonders
6 - parallel compression and EQ can sometimes work wonders
7 - watch what kind and how much reverb &c. you put on the vocal, 'cause it's going to gather some of the bleed as well.

Also remember that mixing is partly illusion - if you can focus the listener's attention where you want it at a given time, sometimes you can get away with things; meaning, if you have the focus on the singer, you might be able to shift the focus when the singer drops out, and perhaps the change in the drum sound may not be as noticeable or disturbing as you fear.