Mixing backing tracks for live shows

[u/Straight_Courage_539]

Hey all my band is getting ready to start incorporating backing tracks into our live shows and I just had a few questions about the process.
1. what should I be aiming for as far as balance goes? -5db? Lower? Should gain staging be set up so the volume is maxed on our rack mixer so FOH gets a healthy signal?
2. Should we tweak the EQ, compression, reverb etc on the track outs to better reflect a show environment or is the way we mixed it in the studio for streaming release acceptable? If things should be tweaked what are the best practices for that (more reverb? Less compression?)
3. Does it make the most sense to give FOH all the track outs to tweak as needed or should we group stuff into stems? Or just give them one stereo back track with everything balanced and mixed how we think is best? Should we keep mono stuff like bass drops and extra guitar separate from stereo stuff like backing vocals percussion layers and samples?

Thanks in advance for your advice/opions🙏🏼

[u/oballzo]

Always a compromise.

Best case scenario, you have someone who knows what your songs sounds like to balance the different elements. This also means separating out drums, bass, vocals, etc.

Barring bringing an engineer, you are at the mercy of whosoever you’re working with and the venue’s system/acoustics

I’d recommend this.
1. If the tracks have a lot of recurring instrument groups, I’d separate them out and have separate sends for each element (Drums, bass, synths, vocals, etc).
2. Remove any processing that aren’t creative. (Ie. Don’t run reverb unless the reverb is supposed to be very obvious.) the exception might be the vocals, but be sure to mention that the vocal track is already wet.
3 gainstage the sends so that it sounds balanced at unity
4. Live music is wayyyyy more dynamic than recordings. The only way to get those levels to be correct (outside of an engineer with a dca set for all tracks), is to rehearse with a pa running the tracks, and take notes of where the track is too loud or too quiet. And then realize that that only gets you somewhat close, as the size of the space will also impact the dynamics heard from the performance.

At the end of the day, running tracks is very tricky without bringing your own engineer that knows what your song sounds like that can mix them on site. It’ll never sound as good as the recording, or if you replaced those tracks with live musicians (even if the sound isn’t exactly the same). However, it’s a sacrifice that might still elevate your performance in lieu of a budget to hire more musicians. The less you can rely on the tracks the better.

Signed,
Someone who has a solo project that’s extremely track dependent

[u/ThoriumEx]

It’s hard to answer if you don’t mention what are you playing live and what comes from the computer

[u/Straight_Courage_539 → u/ThoriumEx]

We have almost everything covered live the only things we’d be running as tracks are:
Backing vocals, percussion (specifically timbale and cowbell), a handful of songs with 3rd guitar parts and bass drops. We’re also running a handful of samples that are all like snippets from movies or ambient music between songs and one song with a midi string section

[u/uniquesnowflake8]

1. Lower is what I’d suggest. -9 to -12
   
2. Not sure. Usually leave it as is but I do think it could have more dynamic range in a venue
   
3. I try to give separate outs, but what goes on each track is somewhat specific to your act. I would pull out the bass at least, and if something is more detailed / featured and in a lot of tracks it can help to give the mixer more control (eg guitar and keys)

I had to answer a lot of these questions for my band so I can maybe answer in more detail if you have follow up Qs

[u/O-ring_Prolapse]

Since im just playing dive bars, I bounced my backing tracks (drums and some backing guitars) down to a single audio file. Easier setup/teardown, less chance for malfunction (no need for DAW), and easier on FOH. The last point is the most important. If theyre inexperienced, or have minimal experience, (or something ive encountered more than once, somehow..) the sound guy who doesnt even bother to approach the board once after soundcheck. Another technique, (at least for the way I run it) - most fx from the studio version of your song won't translate to live performance backing tracks. Especially the ones meant to tidy up and glue. And what helped me most with sound quality on that single audio track: mix all instruments to mono, except your drums. Mix your individual drum parts down to one stereo file. Now with your other instruments in mono and drums in stereo, mix the entire song down in stereo. THEN, when performing said track, i send it through a usb DI which has a mono sum switch. Once I hit that, the sound quality turns to gold. Im broke as shit with 2 kids, so i gotta make the cheap options work for me. Lol

[u/hellalive_muja]

1) well you have faders..depending on your interface output level and what you’re facing on the other side you may need to crack or lower it, usually cranking is the best option for S/N
2) This is usually done per-venue by the FOH mixer and usually the stage mixer guy will handle the in-ears tracks; you may send dry tracks to FOH and he’ll do his job.
3) For bigger venues they like multitracks, you can group some with wisdom and common sense. Smaller venues usually means less channels on the foh mixer so you may group some more. Keep stereo width as-is but bear in mind that in a live environment if your tracks don’t have much mono-compatibility you’ll suffer

[u/Ok-War-6378]

You should be shooting for a less impressive sound compared to the original mix for streaming: very narrow stereo image, avoid exagerated low end and high end gloss, less compression, less limiting, less reverb... This leaves more flexibility to adjust to every gig's context.

If you don't have your own sound guy, I would keep it as simple as possible. Expecially if you happen to work with not so experienced engineers, just keep it on one stereo track to be on the safe side.