Live/Mastering

[Carl Mikael]

If i want to play live in the style of for exaple nosaj thing, when you have different parts of your songs assigned to different pads on your controller etc, how do i do with mastering? I want my finished tracks mastered but i want to play individual bits of different songs and mix then toether live. Do you people have any idea on how to do this?

Sorry for my bad english, i hope i could get myself understood.

Thanks.

[volx757]

I mean you can always 'master' each individual stem. It wouldn't even need to be perfect if its only for live shows, no one will be able to tell the difference between a 6 dB boost to your bass or a 5.5 dB boost on club speakers.

Or throw something like soundgoodizer on each of the stems if you just want a quick boost.

[synnack]

It's not so much important the tracks are "mastered" but it does matter that you don't have to actually mix the entire thing on the fly. Mixing via monitors on a stage in a club is no way to figure out how loud the kick should really be...

You need some headroom though if you really want to allow for improv. I normally take the completed and mixed song and build the stems after pulling down the volume a bit but still try to make sure the RMS is about the same from song to song. That way if i'm lazy i can leave all faders at 0db and it sounds good, or I can go rouge and mix and match on the fly.

[Carl Mikael]

Thanks for all the answers! Really helped a lot.

One more question that popped up, i plan on bringing other tracks in the mix, since they probably will be mastered tracks, won't my mix sound rather weak in comparison? Or won't anyone notcie since t's in a club?

Thanks.

[volx757]

I would say just test everything before the show. If it sounds decent on your monitors, it'll sound good in the club.

[synnack]

Thanks for all the answers! Really helped a lot.

One more question that popped up, i plan on bringing other tracks in the mix, since they probably will be mastered tracks, won't my mix sound rather weak in comparison? Or won't anyone notcie since t's in a club?

Thanks.

Probably. But its your job as the performer to adjust for these things, on the fly if needed. This is also a great reason you need to sound check. During sound check (through the PA before doors open) you can listen to things like this and make adjustments.