Im a few months into ableton now and learning at a good pace. I have a good question about mastering and how it relates or bleeds over into actual live performance. I see artist using a laptop all the time and i hear their material on the web. It usually sounds good even when i download it to my ipod for my car. I think to myself "they had to use some type of mastering techniques to save that file and let the world hear it." how do you use a whole mastering process live?? idk... What my question is is what methods do you use to preserve or mimick or recreate a mastered sound for live shows. Or do you not use this type of method live and leave your tracks bare boned???...
Is it unnecessary to use said technique due to a venues master speakers ability to boost the overall volume regarless of your master level? Or do most venues look at you like a retard when you didn't put compression on your tracks to boost the loudness? This may be in another forum but i cant find it. Im also looking into the loudness war and it makes sense but how does it all relate to live performance! Thanks
Getting a mastered or i.e. louder sound for live performance
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balance_productions
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Re: Getting a mastered or i.e. louder sound for live performance
I use a compressor in the master BUS of my live set. This is mostly for the following reasons:
1. Protection: To save me the expense/stress/bad rep of blowing a venue speaker if I get carried away tweaking.
2. Control: Helps keep the end result free of dramatic differences in volume between similar sounds (ie. particularly drums/bass)
2. Gain: To give me a little (but in my case not a lot) of extra gain.
That said, a lot of how you approach this issue is going to be about your source material more than anything else. Personally, I work mostly from samples I have created to be at an appropriate volume and quality; hence not much mastering is really needed for my live set, just a small amount of control to smooth everything together nicely, and help avoid peaks potentially introduced by fx/tweaking/etc. If I was using a lot of unprocessed analogue gear however (eg. synths, drum machines, etc), I'd be very careful about making sure these kinds of devices were suitably controlled.
In general, the responsibility of what comes out of the speakers during your set is your own, so it pays to be sure it is balanced and clear to start with, and 'mastered' to whatever extent (and with whatever devices) necessary for the source material.
Hope that helps!
1. Protection: To save me the expense/stress/bad rep of blowing a venue speaker if I get carried away tweaking.
2. Control: Helps keep the end result free of dramatic differences in volume between similar sounds (ie. particularly drums/bass)
2. Gain: To give me a little (but in my case not a lot) of extra gain.
That said, a lot of how you approach this issue is going to be about your source material more than anything else. Personally, I work mostly from samples I have created to be at an appropriate volume and quality; hence not much mastering is really needed for my live set, just a small amount of control to smooth everything together nicely, and help avoid peaks potentially introduced by fx/tweaking/etc. If I was using a lot of unprocessed analogue gear however (eg. synths, drum machines, etc), I'd be very careful about making sure these kinds of devices were suitably controlled.
In general, the responsibility of what comes out of the speakers during your set is your own, so it pays to be sure it is balanced and clear to start with, and 'mastered' to whatever extent (and with whatever devices) necessary for the source material.
Hope that helps!
Re: Getting a mastered or i.e. louder sound for live performance
turn the volume up on the mixer!
seriously, many live sets sound better than the dj because there is more dynamic range and the sound guy simply turns it up. As long as your mix is great it's guaranteed to sound better than hypercompressed CDs and/or overloud mastering.
pushing for more level if your mix isn't top notch will only lead to a degraded and fatiguing signal. This will be very noticable on a big soundsystem so worry about your mix and not about volume.
seriously, many live sets sound better than the dj because there is more dynamic range and the sound guy simply turns it up. As long as your mix is great it's guaranteed to sound better than hypercompressed CDs and/or overloud mastering.
pushing for more level if your mix isn't top notch will only lead to a degraded and fatiguing signal. This will be very noticable on a big soundsystem so worry about your mix and not about volume.