Workflow for mixing stems from live show

[grannis]

I'm hoping someone has some good tips for a workflow to mix the stems from a live show. Something I've done several times, but never really landed on a way that isn't a pain in some way or other...

The main issues are that 

a) the stems are huge - 2 hours and 20-30 songs, about 15-20 individual stems typically

b) not every song needs exactly the same treatment. Chances are I want the same plugins on each (mostly) but with different settings. 

I've tried...

1. Getting to a static mix that works pretty well, then deleting  all but the one song. Rinse and repeat for 20-30 songs, and it gets painful!

2. Exporting the stems from each track, without fx, then pulling them back one by one into a template. Also time consuming and painful

3. Just using automation - but this means your hands are pretty tied on the kinds of moves you can make, and it's easy to accidentally affect the songs you are not working on.

Also, I find that after I've finished one song, let's say the 10th, there are things I wish I'd done on the previous 9!

 

Has anyone landed on a better way, or got some tips to make it more efficient and less-error prone than what I've tried so far?

[Lord Tim]

What I tend to do is do it all in the one project so if this is all the same show, you have an overall sound for it all.

For the tracks that are common to each song, keep them as their own thing and automate when it comes to mix time.

For the tracks that are different to each song, put them on their own tracks (so even if it's Stage Right Guitar, there's no need to be forced to use just a single Stage Right Guitar track, you can split that up per-song to different tracks if you like). Yes, this does add extra tracks to a project but it makes management way easier later. Folders and sub-folders are your friends here.

The best thing about doing it all in one project is you can do common effects for everything (eg: room sweetening, reverb, etc.) and balance the mix so it all sounds consistent from song to song. Doing them all in different projects makes it quite a bit more challenging.

[grannis]

yes what you say makes perfect sense.... but it's not super important for what I'm working on to have an overall "sound" for a show, just that each track we pick from it sounds as good as it can. ...but splitting tracks per song is a great tip... so you can keep common stuff on the bus, and have individual stuff on the track...maybe have each track go through its own bus....hmmm...could work...

[Jeremy Oakes]

What i do : 

- first, make a copy of the original 3 sets i recorded (just in case ………)

- each set has about 10 songs, so i split the set into songs -  i then copy each one  into its own project which i find is easier to work with than an hour long project.

- for each  new project (a song) there’s  also has drum bus, a vocal bus and a guitars bus

- once thats done, the real work starts, drums first, then bass, then guitars, then backing vocals then main vocal.

Works for me !

J

 

 

[Lord Tim]

Until we have a proper Import Mix function, that would drive me mad trying to get consistency across each song! Haha! For me, it's worth the trade-off in being unweildy having everything together for the convenience of being able to make global adjustments.

But it really does show the end justifies the means - if the process works well for you, then it's the right way.

[John Vere]

This topic came up just recently. Magic trick- Mix Recall. 

Like your example of song 10 is your best mix. Save it as a Mix Scene. You drag and drop the Mix scene from it's folder right into the track pane of the other songs and it applies that mix and effects and settings. This only works when songs are more or less identical which they normally are with live recordings. Be aware that Mix recall has a naming system that totally ignores what you try and name it.

Edited July 21, 2023 by JohnnyV