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| Your Own Live Album in 4 Easy Steps : February 2002 |
| There are many different ways of recording a gig. The simplest way is to use the bootlegger's favourite: a concealed microphone on a member of the audience. Anyone who has recorded their favourite band in this way - or worse still paid good money for such a recording down Camden Market - will be familiar with the resulting sonic turkey. Problems usually encountered include a muffled or distorted recording, unwanted noise from the idiots whooping and hollering next to the microphone, and poor stereo separation caused by the microphones being too close together. Slightly more sophisticated, and favoured by fans of bands allowing their fans to record their gigs (The Grateful Dead, Dave Matthews Band, to name a few), is to set two microphones high up on stands towards the back of the hall (usually in designated 'taping areas'), pointing one each towards the left and right PA (public address, aka 'speakers') stacks on either side of the stage. This gives better stereo separation and saves the recording from the sound of annoying fans enjoying themselves all over a nice souvenir. In a way, this method - if done properly - is the best way of capturing the band as it actually sounded on the night. This can be a problem for the band if they don't like the way they sounded on the night, or if the FOH (front-of-house) sound engineer was having a bad night in an aircraft-hanger-of-a-gig with awful acoustics. There is no going back and "fixing" such a recording. |
| Next up is the "desk tape". Many bootleg recordings claim to be desk tapes, and are usually labeled as such in the hope that the unsuspecting punter will shell out even more cash than he would for an audience tape. Desk tapes are simply stereo recordings of the final mix as produced by the FOH engineer on the way to the PA system. Although they are usually good quality, the balance of instruments can sometimes make them "difficult" to listen to. Here's why... |
| In a concert situation, the signals from the instruments and microphones on stage are fed into a distribution box. This box supplies both the FOH mixing desk and the monitor desk. (The FOH desk is the one located in the audience towards the back of the hall; the monitor desk is usually situated on-stage, out of sight of the audience.) It is important for the FOH and monitor engineers to be able to provide totally different mixes. It is the monitor engineer's job to keep each member of the band happy, giving each the balance of instruments he requires to play/sing in time and in tune. The FOH engineer, on the other hand, is trying to provide a good sound for the audience - certainly not something you would hear standing on the stage! |
| It is important to realise that although the PA system is meant to produce a nice balanced mix of the band, in practice this isn't always desirable. If the venue holds less than a few thousand people then it will be small enough that the sound the guitarist produces from his mountain of speaker cabinets can be heard from the foyer, even when the PA is switched off! This presents a problem for the FOH engineer wishing to create a well-balanced sound for the audience. The answer is simply to reduce the level of the guitar in the PA to compensate. By contrast the vocals tend to be amplified heavily in the PA to make sure they can be heard over the din coming off the stage. Not surprisingly, the audience are not amplified through the PA at all - this results in desk recordings usually having unnaturally loud vocals, quiet guitars, and an audience that's lost its voice. Recordings made in bigger venues tend to suffer less from balance problems within the band, but there is still the lack of audience atmosphere to contend with. Another problem with recordings of this type is they tend to be a bit "dry", i.e. lacking in reverb, because the natural acoustics of the venue will add reverb on the night. |
| Over the years we have recorded many shows in this way, mainly as a reference so we could make sure we are happy with the way we sound. Some of these recordings have seen the light of day as Racket or Front Row Club releases. |
| Next we have a slightly more sophisticated method. The FOH mixing desk can have up to 96 input channels, one for each individual drum, guitar, keyboard and microphone. These are usually mixed into 8 stereo sub-groups, one for all the drums, one for the keyboards, etc. This makes the engineer's job easier if he needs to turn the drums up; rather than struggling with 13 individual faders, he can simply turn the group fader up. These sub groups are a convenient point to insert a 16-track recorder. At some later date, recordings such as these can be mixed down to stereo. A recording setup like this is a cost-effective way of recording an entire tour - and as each group is separate, it is possible to bypass the unusual off-the-desk mix created on the night by the sound engineer. Also, if you set up a couple of mics to record the audience and hall ambiance, you should end up with an acceptable record of the gig...as long as the band plays perfectly. It's virtually impossible to hide or repair bum or out of tune notes, clicks, buzzes and other gremlins that are a part of playing live. You are also stuck, to a certain extent, with the sound that the engineer set on the night - which may be fine for the Ahoy in Rotterdam through a 10,000 Watt PA, but doesn't sound too hot through that boom-box in your living room! |
| Several Racket and Front Row Club releases were also recorded in this way |
| The 'top shelf' is the mobile recording studio. A mobile recording studio is, in essence, a multi-track recorder and mixing desk in the back of a truck. Many of the features and equipment usually found in a regular studio control room are crammed into a space 40ft long but only 6ft wide! Anorak in the UK was recorded using such a setup. The beauty (or trouble, depending which way you look at it) of a recording made in this way is that it's possible to replace or repair most instruments after the event. Many live albums, including some we have made, have been "repaired" to the point where they don't sound "live" anymore (I'm thinking of "Real to Reel" in our case). If you repair, say, a badly played keyboard part, you may find that it's possible to hear the original mistake as a "ghost" - this is because it will have been picked up on other microphones, such as the singer's or audience mics. You can always turn the audience down, but then you end up killing the atmosphere of the live gig. "Why don't you just play it right on the night?" I hear you ask. Most nights we do, but there's nothing like a mobile recording studio sitting outside, costing thousands of pounds per day, to put you on edge. |
| In May 2001 we took a mobile recording studio on the road on the UK and recorded Manchester, Wolverhampton, and London. Manchester was a great night, and as a consequence we compiled most of Anorak in the UK from that night. Additional tracks were added from London. Wolverhampton didn't quite have that spark.... |
| Although we compiled Anorak in the UK from two shows, we felt it was important to make it sound like you are listening to a single gig. Dave Meegan achieved this by carefully editing the audience together between the songs (a cash prize goes to anyone who can spot the edits)! In case you are wondering if any "cheating" went on back at the Racket club... I can only say that we chose the best performance from each song over the three nights. This usually meant that it wasn't necessary to make repairs, except for a few minor moments here and there. The end result, I think you'll agree, is an exciting night on the Anoraknophobia tour! If you were there, re-live the memories. If not, here's what you missed! |
| See you in the bar! |
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| Mostly Live : February 2002 |
| The Anoraknophobia tour in 2001 ended up being split into two halves. After much deliberation - and an online fan vote for the songs they would most like to hear - we dramatically changed the set list using (mainly) the top 10 results of this vote. |
| One thing that stood out for everyone was the inclusion of "When I Meet God" and "This is the 21st Century." We (the band) wished that the second leg had been recorded, and when Dave Meegan came to see us live, he wished that these two songs could somehow be included on the live album… but how to do it? We couldn't justify bringing a mobile studio out for two songs to be recorded, not to mention all the other expenses that we would incur - you know, extra sandwiches for the mobile studio staff, Lockets for Dave... We eventually came up with the idea of recording the songs at the Racket Club, where they had been originally written and recorded for the album. But to try and give some sense of a live performance and fair play, we would do a show - albeit a very small one! - to an invited audience made up of well-respected friends, and a few lucky Web Fan Club members. This is, after all, our inner sanctum, and we were throwing the doors wide open. |
| Having just come off tour meant that we were still in the "live" frame of mind when playing these songs - all the bits we do live on stage we did live at the Racket Club for these two songs as well. H played his guitars and shakers and generally grooved about, I sang my harmonies and triggered my pedals. Our live stage setup was duplicated in the studio. Dave Meegan was also there to throw his magic over the machines and guide us through the evening. Everyone arrived, and after the "Hello's" and pleasantries, we got down to playing. We were set up around the room with the "audience" in the centre. They were quiet while we ran through the songs - "When I Meet God" was first, and I believe we played three complete versions (plus a couple of takes we only got half-way through). We then moved on to "This is the 21st Century" which we played only twice (although I'm sure there's a few half-takes out there somewhere). The whole thing took a couple of hours, and at the end of it we had two good takes of each song; but there will always be the version that catches Dave's eye (or in this case, ear). He will invariably be right in his choice of best performance - this is part of his genius, and we know we can trust him implicitly. |
| So, it may not have been on a big stage, but you can certainly call it Live Under Controlled Conditions! |
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