Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
Post Reply
Soulacybin
Posts: 12
Joined: Thu Dec 29, 2011 1:25 am

Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Post by Soulacybin » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:07 am

Can anyone provide me with info about mastering a live pa set? i want to play stems of songs so i can mix and effect individual parts, but need to have the consistent audio quality that a mastered WAV provides, and consistency between different songs' levels. Any help, tips etc would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

oddstep
Posts: 1732
Joined: Tue Feb 12, 2008 9:47 pm
Location: Plymouth the great

Re: Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Post by oddstep » Wed Nov 07, 2012 8:32 am

Get the stems at the right levels, automate volume using clip envelopes. Group the lot so you can adjust total sound in response to the PA behaviour.

timothyallan
Posts: 5788
Joined: Wed Nov 24, 2004 11:05 pm
Location: Melbourne Australia
Contact:

Re: Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Post by timothyallan » Wed Nov 07, 2012 9:02 am

You'll never get it sounding as good as an actual mastered wav... Unless you run all the mastering plugins on the master bus, swap them out each time you play a new song, and keep the levels of the stems identical to when you got it mastered. Oh, but then you'll have so much latency, you'll have to wait 2 seconds each time you turn a knob ;)

You need to decide on the tradeoffs... other than that, Oddstep provides some good info.

Z3NO
Posts: 246
Joined: Mon Oct 26, 2009 6:12 am
Location: 404 Not Found

Re: Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Post by Z3NO » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:50 am

There is no such thing as 'mastering a live PA'.
If you want good sound on your gig, get a good sound engineer who knows what they're doing, and for heaven's sake, don't go putting plugins on the master out, other than (maybe) a limiter.

pepezabala
Posts: 3501
Joined: Mon Jun 07, 2004 4:29 pm
Location: In Berlin, finally

Re: Got any advice/info on mastering a Live PA set???

Post by pepezabala » Wed Nov 07, 2012 11:54 am

unless you play your set at the testing room of an audiophile-equipment-shop you won't need to have the consistent audio quality as your mastered WAVs.

You will need an EQ on your master, so you can adjust your sound to the local PA during soundcheck.

Also you should rehearse before and know more or less what you want to tweak live and what not. Everything you don't want to tweak can get mixed down at home, so it is consistent and you don't have to mix it during the gig. So you can concentrate on tweaking what you want to tweak and not on mixing.

I have a liveset with 8 audiotracks, but there are quite a number of songs where I have mixed down everything into one, two or three channels of audio, as during concert I will only do some live stuff over it. And don't want have to mix it.

Then there are other tracks where I have 8 channels of clips and can dub, mute and remix a lot more.


Most important: Leave headroom. So you can make stuff louder during concert without running too much into your limiters.

Check your levels before - at low volume and at high volume.

Post Reply