In this article Steve DeMott reflects on his processes to recording a full band set up remote via video link, and the lessons he’s learnt over the past 7 months of recording.

Over the past 7 months I have been recording a band as part of a livestream where the band section of the stream is all pre-recorded. Pre-recording the band allows us to edit, tune and tweak the performance to make sure it comes across as flawless as possible. In all honesty, this is a band of really solid players who know how to balance themselves and play together. We fix the occasional flub and tighten the vocals a little, but this band is tight, and there’s a lot of comfort in that.

The part that makes this interesting is that there are four cameras recording at the same time we’re tracking the audio. This means that I don’t get the separation I would really like because of the visual needs for shots and setups. We are also recording in an acoustically challenging room, and using floor wedges so that the band can hear each other. Here are some of the lessons I’ve learned over the past 7 months of recording.

Hide and Seek

One of my favorite explanations for why I do things a certain way is my patent pending (no, not really) “the immutable laws of physics.” It’s my snarky way of pointing out that I am at the mercy of the laws of physics and, despite what others may think, I can’t bend those laws to my will.

Case in point: At one point I was asked if “that mic needs to be right there in front of the singer.” Now this was the vocal mic that was being questioned. It’s not like the drum overhead was somehow blocking the shot. I was being asked if the vocal mic could be moved away from the singer. Immutable laws of physics, indeed.

With that being said, there are places where I have learned to hide mics, particularly with the drums. For instance, you can mic cymbals from underneath. A hi-hat mic works fine if mounted underneath instead of from on top. And, I can clamp a mic extension arm right to the hi-hat stand to minimize the messiness of another mic stand. In fact, having drum clamps for the majority of the mics really makes the video people happy.

The Wedge-ie

While they may still be a part of live sound, monitor wedges and recording don’t mix well. Since there is a reluctance within the band to go with IEMs, I’ve had to accept the issues that floor wedges create for recording. Luckily, I used to do a lot of live sound (and still do a little), so I had some inkling of what horrors lay ahead of me. Positioning is key for floor wedges. You have to find a spot where they are aimed into null points of microphones. Equally important is to EQ each monitor feed to focus them for what the musician needs to hear.

In general, by giving each musician an EQ’d monitor feed that highlights what they need to hear, and minimizes anything that may cause masking, I’m able to avoid having five cranked floor wedges competing for space in the middle of a full band. Adding a little compression to the monitor feeds goes a long way in helping to keep the dynamic range in a place that allows the musicians to hear everything they need to without having to crank the volume.

Embrace the Bleed

At any one time we have 12 open mics printing to disk, all of them closer to other sound sources than I would normally like, and no options for isolation or gobos because of the need to create a “live band” video from these sessions. So, what can I do? Embrace the bleed.

Normally you expect a fair amount of bleed when micing up a drum kit. In the studio you have options for isolating other sources from the drums. You can place singers in iso booths. You can put mic’d amps in another iso booth. You can even place gobos around the drums to help contain the sound. All things that are not possible in a “live performance” style video. And when your singers are directly in front of the drums with a spacing of about 6 feet from the front edge of the kick drum to the singer, you will get bleed.

All through the first session I was very nervous about the amount of bleed we were getting in the tracks. As I sat there tracking, I was coming up with plans to deal with it all at mix time. When I mixed the first recording I meticulously went through and edited the session to reduce as much bleed as possible. When I listened back, the recording felt flat and lifeless when compared to the raw tracks. So, what I ended up doing instead was finding creative ways to reduce the bleed without eliminating it. EQ came into play a lot for this. It also helped to sidechain compressors to help duck certain sounds coming through where I didn’t want them. For instance, ducking the snare in the overheads.

A trick that I leaned on heavily incorporated the McDSP NR800, a noise reduction plugin that is basically an 8 band expander that I use a lot for audio post work. Using that I was able to sculpt a lot of the tracks with gentle expanding where there was usable signal, and be more aggressive where there was excessively ugly bleed. It really helped tighten things without stripping them of life.

Another benefit to leaving the bleed is that it created a sense of depth in the recording. Since so much of it was uncorrelated, it really helped create a vibe. I’m not saying that’s always going to be the case, but it’s been consistent for these recordings (over 120 songs recorded at this point). I suspect it has to do with the spacing of those open mics and how uncorrelated they are.

The one place I do aggressively strip away unneeded sections from tracks is in the vocals. It’s the one place where I found the net result was helping the mix rather than hurting. It also helped with tuning, helping me avoid tuning the bleed, and just focusing the tuning algorithm on the vocals.

Commit

One of the other things that is necessary to make all this work, is that I have to commit to a sound from the point of capturing that sound. In other words, I am applying EQ and compression to the tracks as I record them. I’m not leaving that decision until mix time.

This is certainly nothing new. I always print a little EQ, and sometimes some compression, when tracking. In this case, I need to use EQ to help keep the tracks clean on the way in. It helps focus the tracks and reduce some of the nastiness of the bleed. It also helps shape the tracks to be pretty close to where we want them to land in the final mix.

The compression is mostly to keep things behaving, especially if a vocalist gets too “enthusiastic.” I don’t want to ruin an otherwise perfectly good take with a clipping vocal. The downside is that, with that much sound bleed all around the vocal mics, I need to be careful or the compression will enhance the bleed, and make it even harder to deal with at mix time. So it’s truly a CYA (cover your ass) compressor, and not anything for vibe or color.

Of course, if you want to commit to your sounds on the way in, you need to make sure you know what you’re after before you start tracking. And that’s where good communication and pre-production come into play.

Lessons Learned

There have been a couple of take-aways for me from this whole experience. I think the biggest one has been the reminder of how much better a band playing together makes a track, versus the process of building a song track by track or sound by sound. It’s a bit old school, but It reminds me of those great recordings I grew up listening to that originally hooked me on music, and had me fascinated with the whole recording process.

I’m also consistently amazed by the results, despite the floor wedges, bleed, a non optimal room, and having to compromise on some mic positions to please the video needs. Is it that the recording process isn’t nearly as delicate as some would have you believe? Or maybe, having that live band firing on all cylinders covers over the multitude of recording sins being committed on these sessions? Whatever the reason may be, I have definitely rekindled my love of having the band in the room together for a recording session.