Tips on mixing vocals on a live recording

[Snarl 12/8]

Have you tried mixing from the vocal channel first? Like get that sounding as good and balanced for the entire band as possible and then bring in kick, bass DI, whatever to beef up what's missing in that mic? Instead of getting the band slammin' and then trying to bring up the vocal on top of that?

[AndersonSoundRecording]

Have you tried mixing from the vocal channel first? Like get that sounding as good and balanced for the entire band as possible and then bring in kick, bass DI, whatever to beef up what's missing in that mic? Instead of getting the band slammin' and then trying to bring up the vocal on top of that?

This is probably the Golden Rule of mixing live stuff: build your mix around the mic with the worst bleed.

Thumbs up to you Snarl 12/8.

[Burnt Ernie]

HPF and LPF. De-ess to reduce/attempt to eliminate cymbal wash,while leaving
whatever attack you can use on the drum bleed. Aux send or mult to micro pitch shift/stereo doubler you can set opposing left/right imaging,then pan slightly off center,and gate/expand those,triggered off kick/snare. Skip reverb,
it's just gonna blur everything.
If it's really brutal,multiband process-push the low and hi down,and expand the mids. Try it on a mult,and blend with original.
Nothing will help much if your singer does the street-cred-hip-hop cup the mike thing. Just turns it into an omni.
Might teach him/her mic technique,tho.
Good luck.

[cale w]

I always find that kind of mixing (starting with far from pristine tracks) really frustrating and unrewarding. Even after hours of hard work to try and meld everything together, you still end up with a mix you aren't super pleased with. What I do is pretty much what has been said about embracing the bleed. If the drums sound trashy after you eq the vocal mic, you'll have to just cut 3-5k or whatever from the drum mics to compensate.

[inasilentway]

For this, I reach for an expander. Set up two different ones, one for quiet vocals and one for louder vocals, using side-chain filtering to make sure it's keying off the vocal and not the bleed. Then use your DAW's automation to engage them where appropriate. "Walla"!

[Burnt Ernie]

Seriously. Just pretend it's a room mic in the wrong place. Yes,the bleed is your friend,but you may need to treat it as an ambient mic,and blend in,or go the other route,and compromise everything else if you are hoping for some sort of pristine experience.
You can delay/process to get more bigness,or maybe just run it through
distortion or some super heavy crushing limiter (micro limiter,dynamite,whatever),and treat it like an electrical instrument,and then blend in with the band. Try it all. It can't hurt.

[macromellon studios]

I record my bands practices frequently for referenence material and the vox are just using an sm58 during practice. Ive had good luck duplicating the track, panning one hard left, one hard right and then equing and compressing one more towards vocals and one as a room mic, sometimes you may pick up some vox in the overheads for the drums and or off the snare mic, in which case, I embrace the vocal bleed there. If I have bleed across alot of the mics, Ill pull up what I need a little bit from each mic to make a whole picture. Alot of little changes seem to equal a controllable big change.

[kevin206]

I'm listening to a band rehearsal I recorded a year or two ago and playing with the mix a bit. We set up with the vocalist looking at the drummer, so the vocal mic is AWAY from the drums. It really helped, but a live show doesn't really have that option.

I really like the suggested idea of copying the vocal track and flip the phase for the non vocal parts to kill some drums. I think that would be a fabulous idea to try.

I also like the expander idea with the sidechained vocal input.

Sorry I have nothing to offer. I'm just thinking out loud...on a keyboard.

[CalibratedRecording]

Thank you all for the glorious suggestions! Sorry I didn't catch up with everyone, I've been busy with weddings the past few weeks.

I gave up on the mixing for a bit to let it sit and stew, but I'll be attacking it this week since I finally got the film to go along with the sound.

I'll post links up once things are done.

Thank you all again!