Anybody do "Live to 2-track" digital recording

[Autodidact]

I was just thinking about it. I read in Tape-Op that Neil Young's song 'Harvest' was done live to 2-track. Obviously, they could have done it multitrack, but for whatever reason they chose to do it live to 2-track.

Also, reading the Bones Howe article, he said he did a Tom Waits album live to 2-track as well.

Obviously, recording digitally, one has an almost unlimited amount of space for bunches of tracks, but tape cost probably wasn't a concern on those two albums I mentioned either and yet it was done.

Are there any albums that were done this way in digital?

[CurtZHP]

Not exactly apples and oranges, but I have a pipe organ CD of Michael Murphy playing J.S. Bach that was direct to digital 2-track.

I recorded an opera singer (with piano) in Minneapolis a couple times going direct to 2-track with just a pair of mics.

[casey campbell]

i did a couple of live worship albums this way. it turned out great!

[vvv]

i did a couple of live worship albums this way. it turned out great!

Check out Frank Black (of Pixies) - I love me Pistolero, and he's done others live to 2-track - not sure was it digital, tho'.

[dgrieser]

Do recordings made with my Zoom H2 count?

The new John Mellencamp CD was one track but analogue.

[casey campbell]

Do recordings made with my Zoom H2 count?

The new John Mellencamp CD was one track but analogue.

ha ha. i've always wanted one of those for symphonic stuff.

[megajoe]

One time I was doing a multitrack of a blues band in a bar and I left the Drive for the HD24 at home... oops. I ended up doing it live to 2-track and ended up with a great recording.

I used to work for a company that did CD on demand at music festivals, so I've mixed live to 2-track hundreds of times.

My favorite part about recording that way is that you make some important decisions really quick and go with your intuition.

[trodden]

that's why i love recording band practices with a few mic's, the little mackie, and a minidiisc recorder. Live to digital two track... challenging, and if it doesn't come out totally perfect, fuck it.. it was fun... we're just making mp3's for reference anyhow!

[fuzz]

On tape sessions, I'll simultaneously print a Direct to 2 into PT through one of our 2 trk sends from the console while monitoring the Studer printing the individual tracks. This is so at the end of the day the client can get a CD or files of mixes to check out from the day and I don't have to mixdown anything from tape for them to reference. Alot of the time they'll use a Direct to 2 in some capacity because they usually turn out really nice (unless someone whacks a mic, solo automatons are missed, or the too common burp/fart occurs which everyone likes to capture)

[cjogo]

On all my live recordings - I go direct to a MasterLink > as a secondary

[ampguy]

I do this. I'm thinking of getting an akai headrush though so that might be considered overdubbing.

I have a "freeze" pedal, but that just holds a few msec of a tone until changed or turned off.

I was just thinking about it. I read in Tape-Op that Neil Young's song 'Harvest' was done live to 2-track. Obviously, they could have done it multitrack, but for whatever reason they chose to do it live to 2-track.

Also, reading the Bones Howe article, he said he did a Tom Waits album live to 2-track as well.

Obviously, recording digitally, one has an almost unlimited amount of space for bunches of tracks, but tape cost probably wasn't a concern on those two albums I mentioned either and yet it was done.

Are there any albums that were done this way in digital?

[cjmnash]

i do live to two track albums about every other month...i have a small label that takes those 1/4" masters to a pressing plant and presses records. it never hits digital!

to your original question though; it really doesn't matter that you're doing live to two track in the digital realm; your chops have to be just as good!

chris mara
www.welcometo1979.com

[Gentleman Jim]

I did some mixing a few years back for an internet startup called JamNow.com. It was supposed to be like Skype for musicians, (a less than compelling idea for me personally), where people could play together live over the internet.

However, what it kind of morphed into was a "live in the studio" performance thing with interviews after the performances. It could have been cool, but unfortunately there wasn't enough marketing money to attract sufficient audience to get bigger bands, and the whole thing kind of fell apart. Now even the site is gone... all that's left are some puffed up press releases and their myspace and blogspot sites.

But I mixed something like 75 or 80 bands live to 2 track in the 8 or 9 months I worked for them. Since all the sessions were archived and saved to the artists' page on the site, it was important to get the best possible sounds. That experience definitely sharpened my chops in terms of getting an acceptable mix together quickly, without a bunch of futzing around and trying 14 different reverbs on the snare drum.

Also, it was my first exposure to bands that were entirely the product of the studio. One of the guys who did booking had previously interned at a label that specialized in young, white emo bands that all sound like Fallout Boy's younger brothers. It floored me how many of those bands had no clue that their singer couldn't really sing like the Auto-Tuned nightmare recordings they were supporting. They'd all played so loud for their entire short careers that they had never listened. No joke, I witnessed the same scene over and over: the band freaking out while listening back to what had just been webcast live, asking the singer if he always sang like that. Some of the singers shrugged it off and 'fessed up to the power of Auto-Tune, while others blamed everything from insufficient monitors, (louder than most of the gigs they were playing), to the air in the studio being too dry, to the bass guitar being out of tune. It was sad to see the second bunch of them, because I never knew if they were aware of the obvious Auto-Tuning of their recordings. One of them boasted repeatedly that he had sung every note on their cd perfectly without any correction when this clearly wasn't the case. I spent time with him after the rest of the band left, pointing out the glaring examples of Auto-Tune just on the 3 or 4 tracks I had listened to before they came in. He seemed genuinely hurt and deflated that the producer had gone and done this without his knowledge, and the next day I heard that the head of the label asked that I not point this sort of thing out to his bands anymore. Fair enough, but I wanted to protect the singer from making this obviously false claim in a magazine interview where tens of thousands of people would think he was lying.

Live to 2 track can be a good live band's best friend or a bad live band's worst enemy.

[antilog]

I use my marantz pmd 661 often, recording at 24/96. When traveling I've been using an AT8022, battery powered XY stereo mic. Tried quite a few mics for traveling compactness and utility, but the AT was the best of what i had tried for my needs in my price range. For less mobile recordings I use a mid side array, which seems to work great and sounds good too. There are a lot of options when working with a mid side 24/96 wav file.

tangent - I'm finding when traveling, the trick is to be disciplined about recharging batteries and having enough flash storage. I need to load up on SD / CF cards...

[Marc Alan Goodman]

Yep, it's fun when people are up for it. Though I must admit nowadays I'm more likely to print the multi tracks to pro tools while doing a 2 track straight to the tape machine. I just turn the monitor off and let it roll. That way there's always a backup, which I can choose to either tell the band about or not depending on how the live mixes turn out! No reason to let them get all worked up over details if they don't need to.

Doesn't happen too often though, I must admit, due to having a small space. It's hard to fit a lot of people playing at once. In the new room I'm hoping to get to do more of it.