Automation

[balazs rostas]

Hi

I want to mix a concert recording.  How to make a separate mixer setting for each track. Is this easy to solve with automation?

Thank for the help

[John Vere]

Not exactly sure what you are trying to do? 
I’ll assume you have a multi track recording of a concert that is continuous for a certain duration and you want to apply different mixes to each song? 

There are many approaches to how to deal with this. 

Yes you could simply keep it as one long project and use automation to mix each song. 
Or what I do is split each song into it’s own project. It depends on what was recorded and what the end recording is used for. 
 

Edited June 5, 2022 by John Vere

[Lord Tim]

Everyone's approach is different for this kind of thing.

I personally treat it all as one super long song, if it's a show with a lot of common instruments (which most live shows tend to be). If there's any outliers (eg: if you're using a basic crunch sound on a guitar and one song has a clean sound with a heap of effects pedals), I tend to cut that out and put that on its own track.

Project management is the key with this stuff. Drop markers or Arranger sections to show where each song (and each gap between the songs) are so you can see at a glance where you are. Use folders to keep your workspace clean. Use Aux tracks to sub-mix certain elements.

Then save revisions as you go.

Get your basic tracks imported first and lined up. Save. Do basic edits to clean the tracks up next. Save As a new revision. Rough out any levels and panning next. Save As a new revision. Start sculpting the tracks with EQ, etc. Save As a new revision.

By the time you get to doing the actual mix and writing in your automation, you should have a long list of different mix revisions saved that you can go back to if things screw up somewhere.

Doing it all in one go like this takes a bit of mental gymnastics to try to focus on what part of the project you need to, but if you're trying to capture the vibe of the complete live show and have consistency between each song, this is the quickest way to get to that point and the easiest to make global changes rather than going "Ah so the bass is a bit too honky, I'll just fix the EQ" on a song and then having to repeat that for 10 other songs - doing it in a global project like this does everything all at once.

But in answer to the original question, yes - you use automation to adjust your volume, EQ and effects levels for this kind of thing. Not really too different to doing a single song, ultimately.

I've done a few live albums and concert videos and this works for me, but you might find John's way of working works best for you - there's really no single right way to do this.