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Volume Of Recordings


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When we record a song as souncheck so that I can mix the band, the recording sounds much higher than the life play. So I have to turn the monitors and the main out way down to work on the mix.

 

Once I put a limiter on the lead guitar because the soloing was a bit to loud. This worked as I wanted it, but only on the recordings, not on the life performance.

 

I also put a gate on the guitar to take away the noice when he was not playing. This worked well on the recording, but life when he was playing softly there was no noice.

 

Is there a way to fix this?

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My guess, and it is just a guess, is that you are playing in a small stage and when the band is actually playing live there is a lot of things going in to every mic. 

When you are playing back the recording you are getting a better separation in each channel. 

 

Hope that makes any sense... 

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You have to remember that the recording will not reflect any of the sound from the backline amps or drums.  So you have to be careful to consider the differences.  A gate that you use on the mixer will not affect the stage amp so if in the room you are hearing 1/2 the sound from the amp itself and half from the system for example then the gating effect will probably not make much difference live in the room.

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I also think he was saying the the recording was louder than the live play, do even if there was back line amps, the recording should sound quieter since the backlines would no longer be at play.

 

My band also uses no backline and electronic drums. And it has been out perception as well that the recording played back at sound check is louder than when we are actually playing... I've been meaning to try to check this with a decibel meter but haven't gotten an opportunity due to time constraints. Like I said so far it's just out perception, theoretically it doesn't seem possible.

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We noticed this as well we did our first inside gig last night and then played there again this morning sounded like it was a whole lot louder on the monitors and on the mains......

 

When I saw this thread I immediately thought it was about the level of the wave files which when I drop them into ProTools have to add 10 to 20 dB of gain to get them up where my 11 rack levels are we use electronic drums and bass plugged directly in to the system as well as my 11 rack, The main mix is even lower than the rest. I must say however that the mixes and the sound quality that I am able to get in ProTools with very little tweaking his phenomenal!!!

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We noticed this as well we did our first inside gig last night and then played there again this morning sounded like it was a whole lot louder on the monitors and on the mains......

 

This is one of those things that would lend itself to measurement just so we know exactly what we have.  I often get in my car in the morning to find my stereo blazing ... but that's where I left it when I turned the car off from the night before.  That's common threshold shift.

 

AS far as turning up the wav files I wouldn't find that uncommon.  There is likely a lot of gain being added in the presets ... EQ, EFX and compressor make up gain aren't printed onto the SD card.

 

"I also put a gate on the guitar to take away the noice when he was not playing. This worked well on the recording, but life when he was playing softly there was no noice."

 

Same thing here.  The gate in not being "printed" onto the recording only on the playback.

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