I realize only seven people know about this website, and of those, only three people read it, but does anybody have any experience or knowledge about what it takes to record a live show? What kind of equipment is required? How much longer does it take to setup before a show? Is another person required to take care of that during the show, or do they just plug in and start playing? Are there any legal issues with the venue?
Recording Live
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God bless you Ken. I read this site and appreciate all of the hard work you have put forth. I have a good friend that has a blues band here in my “neck of the woods.” He recently completed a live CD (it’s a pretty good one too. He held the number one and two spot on the largest blues radio station in Europe for several weeks.) and has a firm understanding on what should be done to record. I’ll touch base with him and get back to you. On another note, have you ever heard Chris Cain’s, “Live at the Rep”? I just got my hands on a copy from ebay. It is fantastic! Remember, if you want to talk about Chris Cain, I’m your man. You could talk about him all day, and I’d never get bored with the conversation. Finally, you can believe me when I tell you that I’m promoting CC to anyone that will listen. He should be a household name. |
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Hey Bo, Actually, I used to have Live at the Rep, until it got stolen... I haven’t been able to find a copy anywhere!! I guess I need to check eBay more often. I actually did a thing on Amazon where I let them know I was looking for it, and when a seller turned up, they could automatically charge my credit card for a set maximum amount that I setup. Unfortunately, my bank switched us from Visa to MasterCard and gave us new numbers, so it never went through, and I missed the email notification about it. Anyway, yes, he’s at his best live. |
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I don’t know all that much about recording live. Our show was professionally recorded once while I was in the Cain Band for a TV show in Santa Cruz. From that experience and from experiences planning and attempting to record other live shows with other bands, I know that it’s best to have a recording area outside the venue, like a mobile recording van. The engineer needs to hear as little of the live sound as possible so the tracks being recorded are at the right levels. I think it is possible to record semi-pro recordings without the mobile studio, however, you would still need a separate sound engineer team and mic every instrument twice, one for the live sound and one for the recording. The levels for the two are very different. Based on those obstacles, and the extra money involved of renting all the extra equipment and an extra sound engineer, it can be quite expensive. On top of that, most of the venues that blues musicians play in don’t have much extra room for the extra equipment. There are times when it all works out and you have a good venue where you can record a good quality recording but many musicians don’t want every note they play each night recorded and distributed. It would be like distributing a copy of every conversation you have throughout the day, there are things you may not want everyone to hear. While playing with Cain, we had a blast, the music was great, sound was great, but when we would debrief after the gigs we would all have highs and lows for the songs and none of us would want all of the songs released. I do agree that Chris is amazing live, he blew me away every gig we did. I do have a good video, the one from the TV show in Santa Cruz. It was professionally recorded and is kind of a documentary of the Cain Band at that time. I think it was recorded in 2001. I only have it on VHS but would love to transfer to DVD now. If anyone knows of a way I can transfer the file to my computer, I would be happy to try to make a couple copies. The video features maybe 3-5 songs and interviews with Chris and the band and was an hour long. It was a good production. I was thinking there may be some kind of RCA-Firewire cables out there but I couldn’t find anything like that. Any advice? |
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From a fan’s standpoint, I can say that hearing those flaws or imperfections is one of the things that makes listening to live music so great. Also from a fan’s point of view, and speaking only for myself, I think it would have to be a pretty bad night for me to even notice what the musicians might consider a flaw. Or, I might notice it, but I think rather than being disappointed or annoyed, or even recognizing it as a flaw, I would appreciate it as not being exactly what’s on the record, and again, that’s what makes seeing live shows so great. Another fan’s opinion: when I see Chris live, it’s an event that occurs so rarely (this year being an exception that probably will not be repeated), and every note that is not recorded is gone. There is a sense of loss there. I really want to be able to download and listen to every show Chris does, even if, from a musicians standpoint, they feel like they played the song the same twice. I see your point of view, though, especially coming from somebody who has played for Chris, I realize you are all top musicians and expect excellence every night. Anyway, it’s disappointing that recording live is so expensive and complicated. It makes me even more appreciative of bands like Phish that seem to record every show, or at least MANY of their shows, and make them all available for download on their website ($.99 per song). I realize they have pretty unlimited resources, though. Please don’t be hatin’ cuz I’m a Phish fan! About recording that VHS to DVD… yes, there is a way to do it. It’s going to require some new hardware probably. I could end up being a few hundred dollars in software and hardware. Unless you want to make that investment, you might try a local company than can do that. We have one in Portland… I can’t remember the name, but I’ll find it and let you know… Update: This is not the place I referred to above, but I think they can do it, and they have locations all over the place. It’s not the mom & pop type of place I prefer, but it could work… may be more expensive though. Another Update: I just found this: http://www.pcworld.com/article/112185-1/article.html and realized I have this… we bought it a long time ago to convert the video from our old camera to DVD… but it can hook up to a VCR just as easily. Unfortunately it’s packed away because we’re selling our house. I still recommend finding a local CD / DVD duplication shop to see if they can do it, or if they know who can, unless you want to invest the money and time to do this. |
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I agree with you, Ken. I like to hear musician’s play live and raw where you can hear every note played, right or wrong. It is harder to listen to when I’m the one making those mistakes though! It is unfortunate that the venues most blues artists are stuck playing are too small or impractical for live recording. I do know of a local video production company that can duplicate the VHS to DVD and it’s been on my to do list to get that done for about 2 years now. I’ll keep you posted when I get that done. On a side note, I noticed you are in Portland. Do you get a chance to see Lloyd Jones much? He is one soulful musician! One of my favorites and a good friend of Cain’s. Also Curtis Salgado is another my favorites. |
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I’ve heard of Curtis Salgado, and I think Lloyd Jones sounds familiar too. Unfortunately, I don’t get out much nowadays, because I’m busy with four kids, trying to get our house sold, and starting a business… It’s ironic, because one of my reasons for moving up here was the excellent blues festival, right on the waterfront. I read an article about Curtis Salgado recently about him being sick, but he was still touring and not letting it get the best of him. He has a great attitude. I’ll look for the article and link to it when I find it. Update: here it is: http://www.wweek.com/editorial/3231/7632 |
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Wow… I’d love one of those videos when you get it copied. That would be fantastic. |
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Wow, the thought of that video is making me drool! So I just noticed today that Chris is not playing in NY city anymore! I live in Philly and it was the only place I was going to be able to see him. He had it on his schedule about a month ago but I guess it got cancelled. I don’t know where else I might get to see him play. Hopefully it will not be his last tour on th eeast coast.
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Next time you have an extra $1800 laying around, you could always get on of these: http://www.harmony-central.com/articles/reviews/sony_pcm-d1/ |
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Hmmm, I wonder what kind of quality you would get from that… wish I had $1800 to try it out. I think we’re talking about bootlegging, now, right? From what I can tell, two of the biggest touring jam bands were the Grateful Dead and Phish, they both let their fans record freely, and it doesn’t seem to have hurt them. Is there a correlation between allowing recording of live shows and their success building huge followings and making piles of money from playing live? Wish I knew the answer to that. I wish Chris would show up on these forums and tell us it was ok to record his shows… I would gladly hand over the recordings for him to sell online or release as CDs (assuming I was able to even get a decent recording). To ramble on a little bit… when I was in college, one of my neighbors knew a guy who brought a wheel chair with a bunch of equipment in it, and he got some pretty great quality recordings that way. |
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Yeah, I was assuming recording would be allowed. Chris Cain is already underappreciated, no need to bootleg his music as well. |
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Actually, I was thinking if done right, it could help him. And in his case, his live shows are generally small, so bootlegging at this point is a way to get his music out to a wider audience. I don’t know… just throwing some ideas around. |
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Howdy.. I’m Dave, and I am an old friend and fan of Chris’s, and I’ve had the pleasure of working with him and doing his Live Sound for him many, many times. PS: you could probably pull off a neat little recording rig for a few hundred bucks these days… Sony makes a very cool little machine that records direct to HDD in PCM (CD) format… Even has built in mics! If you wanted to get a little fancier, combine a unit similar to that one along with a small mixer and some headphones. Set up your mics. in the best place you can, and see if the house sound person will let you hook up to his board as well…Then you can get a little mix using headphones and shoot it to your recorder. |
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Hi Dave, I’m interested in whatever recordings you have. You can either respond to this post, or send me an email or private message (click on my name to do that, and then click the Email or PM button). Ken |
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Ken: |
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