Live Sessions: Making It Work In A Clean Way
A live mixer explains capturing recordings of Prince
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For the recent “One Night Alone” tour and subsequently released box-set recording of the same name, I connected up with Prince again after a long hiatus away from Paisley Park. As his former drum tech of four years, I understand quite well Prince's preferences for mixing as well as his conceptualization of musical sound. My touring experience as a FOH mixer occurred after my tenure at Paisley Park, a time when the seeds of mixing sound were planted and rooted in my experiences with Prince. |
I captured Prince’s performance with his band, the New Power Generation,
for the live-recorded box set via a Midas XL4 console direct to a two-track
Panasonic SV-3800 DAT recorder. This simple setup proved quite successful.
The recordings capture the proper relationship between technology and
art in this business. Similarly, the Midas XL4 balances modern digital
operation with the warmth of analog. Simply, the idea was to capture the
energy and nuance of this truly dynamic live artist and band on a recording.
ALWAYS THE SAME
For all recordings, the setup remained the same: direct from console to
DAT recorder. The XL4 allowed me to become a recording engineer with relative
ease proportionate to the integrity of the recording. For example, running
an outboard finalizer and adding the low end back on to a recording inevitably
provides a very processed ‘live’ sound that can be distracting - too polished
to be convincing as the warm sound of a live low-end signal.
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During the tour, the mix was straight out of the console for both
FOH and recording, with no extra EQ or processing involved. The
XL4 analog mixing console provided digital control of almost all
console switches with snapshot automation. I utilized 56 microphone
inputs, 8 aux sends for effects, and 16 sub-inputs for effect returns.
The outputs for FOH were matrixed 1-8, and grouped into four stereo
zones. The Midas went straight out of “Record 1” to DAT and straight out of “Record 2” to Prince’s video camera. And that was it - straight out all the way, no crowd microphones or anything else of this nature. |
I asked Prince if he wanted crowd mics, and his reply was that he preferred
it to sound just like a studio recording with the caveat of the punchiness
and dynamics of a live show. I think all of this was much to the dismay
of Joe Lepinski and Femi Jiya, Prince’s studio engineers. It was their
task of cross fading from one night in Portland to the next in L.A., and
to do this seamlessly. They were looking for a much higher bit rate. However,
with the decision being made to release the recordings after they were
done, there wasn’t much choice.
AFTER THE SCENE
Discs one and two of the box set are the live shows from the North American
and European legs of the tour. The after-shows are on the third disc,
cut from various brands of consoles that were either in-house or hired
for use at the clubs. I’m proud of how consistent the after-show cuts
sound, as they were taken from various nights.
It proves that if the right approach is taken, it’s possible to get clean,
great sounding show recordings no matter the gear. (Well, within reason!)
I’m particularly proud of the after-show CD. We had absolutely no set-up
or soundcheck at any of those late night gigs. It was straight from the
concert to the club. We put a DAT in the recorder and away we went.
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I didn’t find out until about the midway point in the tour that these recordings were going to be released. However, this information didn’t much change the way I mixed. I made some real-time adjustments for effect, like muting the PA and inputs when Prince left the stage just before the encore, and pushing up just his vocal mic to record some crowd sound. I had a patch on the XL4 called “crowd,” and all the VCA’s would move down except for Prince’s vocal, which would go up. The engineers back at Paisley Park then processed the crowd sound and edited it to provide some between-song ambience. |
It’s very difficult to tell that the songs were recorded in different
cities across the U.S.
WHERE THE MAGIC LIVES
Prince operates entirely on the premise that the magic resides more in
the music than in the gear. Particularly after this project, I’d have
to say that I agree with him. There are a lot of mixers that think if
they have a Midas (or insert name of favorite high-end console here) on
the gig that all will be well. But rarely are the consoles the weakest
link in the chain. (Don’t get me wrong - consoles can be a great source
of transparency in terms of a good front-to-back mix.)
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It’s more about the source inputs, along with an intimate knowledge
of the musical material, where the battles are most often won or
lost. I know every one of Prince’s songs intimately, and know, for
example that on “Pop Life,” the lead vocal is panned right to 3
o’ clock, and there’s a 227 millisecond delay with one repeat at
100 percent volume at 9 o’ clock. The transparency of the mix is
so deep from front-to-back that you don’t need to use volume to
get clarity. |
Prince told me he’s quite proud of these recordings, and I have to admit,
I agree with him. We were able to document the performances of a seminal
live artist doing what he does best on stage, in a simple yet effective
manner, unadorned by studio trickery. n
Editor's Note: As of press time, Scottie reported he had just
finished work on a similar five-CD set of live shows for Duran Duran.
It was the first time the five original members played together since
1985.
Scottie P (Pakulski) is a hard-working live mixer and can be reached at ScotlandP@aol.com
November 2003 Live Sound International