New SBD-AUD Matrix of Feb 16 Residency now avaialble

[yltfan]

Sorry about the converting problems!

 

For me, Trader's Little Helper worked with the the files as is, no need to rename.

[uncool2pillow]

Mostly, I just lurk when Wilco is on tour or I've read something interesting.

 

I was at this show w/ my brother for his 40th b-day and was hoping to find a copy of it, never dreamed it would be that high quality. Thanks so much!!!!!

 

The first thing I did after upgrading to broadband was to dowload this and all necessary software to listen. He and I are VERY happy.

[TakiSC]

Pardon my ignorance, but why not a straight soundboard of the show? Why the crowd noise?

[froggie]

its a matrix - where the audience and soundboard are mixed in together. you get the clear soundboard sound with the audience mixed in. straight soundboards have a dry sound sometimes. take a listen to led zep's 1980 tour soundboards

[yltfan]

Pardon my ignorance, but why not a straight soundboard of the show? Why the crowd noise?

 

I think there are several reasons to mix in the audience, or ambient recording. One is to add in the sound of the room--a little of the crowd, but also the warmer sounding acoustics of the room. It's important to realize that live sound is mixed for the room, not the tape. Often, there will be little or no guitar mixed in, depending on how loud the amps are on stage. Sometimes, soundboard tapes will be all vocals. Professional live recordings are usually done with high-end multi-track recorders, so you can boost the guitar, cut the vocals, whatever. My recording was just a straight output of the same sound going to the speakers in the room, so no way to re-mix an uneven recording. Adding in the ambient recording will help balance out the mix, so everything sounds pretty even. Plus, it's a live show, having some crowd noise in there (but not too much) is important to accurately recreate the live sound, in my opinion.

 

There are some straight soundboards tapes floating around out there--some sound great, but some sound uneven, dry, and just plain weird.

[Moe_Syzlak]

I agree that when bands play small rooms, you can sometimes end up with very poorly mixed sbd recordings, but I don't think that's the case here (or often in rooms larger than a bar). I have never understood people's preference for aud recordings, but to each his own. It's rare that you don't hear some crowd bleed through the on stage mics to give you that live feel and if I could improve on the boomy, often muddy sound in most venues and have it sound as clear as my home stereo, I would. Why wouldn't you!?! But again to each his own.

[dmait]

>There are some straight soundboards tapes floating around out there--some sound great, but some sound uneven, dry, and just plain weird.

 

I recently listened to a Dead SBD from '91 where the instruments sounded completely separated and with uneven levels. It sounded sterile, with no warmth at all to it.

[Moe_Syzlak]

That's probably more the result of the completely sterile, no warmth sound of the post-Brent GD. Seriously though, I'll be the auds of the same show sound gawdawful and I doubt you'd improve the mix much by adding aud to the sbd. Sorta like the old air freshener ads. "now it smells like BO and roses!" I feel you end up with the worst of both worlds most often.... at least to my ears.

[dmait]

>That's probably more the result of the completely sterile, no warmth sound of the post-Brent GD.

 

Yes, if anything needs to buried in the mix, it's Vince's casio.

[yltfan]

I feel you end up with the worst of both worlds most often.... at least to my ears.

 

I can see how that could happen--but the flipside is that it's possible to get the best of both worlds. I'm sure I would screw it up, but the guy that did this mix (and lots of more of my recordings) knows what he is doing. You can get the crispness of the SBD, some of the room sounds, a little bit of crowd noise, and it can sound just right. I definitely think that this mix sounds better than the straight soundboard.

 

Another reason that I will only share a matrix of both sources is because that's what the band wants--they agree that a matrix will usually sound better. That's what I have been told by people in Sonic Youth, Built to Spill, Stephen Malkmus, and others.

[Moe_Syzlak]

Well I haven't heard the straight sbd, but I do feel that I, personally, would like it better than this. This is not bad, don't get me wrong. I just prefer the crispness and the aud elements are very apparent to me. FWIW, I have very unusual hearing. I have a congenital hearing "disorder" where I hear high highs and low lows well above normal and hear the mid-range below normal. This makes it difficult for me to hear individual voices when there is a lot of background noise and causes me to very clearly hear the compression in MP3s below 256kbps (at least that is where I try to set my minimum after having done many listening tests). I have always assumed this causes me to much more critical of aud recordings than the average listener. I have NEVER heard a matrix I prefer to the sbd. If the sbd mix is crap, generally the matrix is crap too and I'd prefer to live without it. If the sbd mix is good, ANY aud mixed in generally has adverse effect for me. Also, I have never heard that bands only want matrix mixes traded. That's new to me. I know many live bands that will set up ambient mics at the sbd and mix that into the sbd feed (which I'd also prefer to do without ), but never that bands prefer fan-made matrix mixes be traded. Learn something new everyday.

[cryptique]

You're in a pretty small minority, Moe.

 

Matrices are virtually always better than straight SBD, in my experience. In fact, I don't think I've ever personally heard an example where this was not the case.

[ction]

You're in a pretty small minority, Moe.

 

Matrices are virtually always better than straight SBD, in my experience. In fact, I don't think I've ever personally heard an example where this was not the case.

 

Yep.

[keeprighton2]

I think that's a bit hard on Moe.

 

I am not convinced either way on this but I will say I will take a soundboard over audience anyday.

 

There are some bands that don't do themselves justice in the recording studio when compared to live output, and Wilco is a good example. I find myself listening to their live output almost always over the studio recorded stuff, though much of that is down to the fact that they have got better and better on the road and the songs that were recorded some time ago sound much better now live than they did then.

 

But when I listen to the live material I DO want quality, and to these ears soundboard recordings best represent that. I personally think the webcasts sound great and couldn't care less that someone's tylling me it's lossy or whatever. You can really hear the band playing in a way you can't quite do from audience recordings.

 

That said, if you want to recapture the atmopshere at the venue etc then the matrix will bring the extra dimension.

 

I know what Moe's saying about the matrix , if you want the pure clarity of the soundboard, then the addition in the mix of the audience recording will take the clarity down a little.

 

I personally think quite often there's enough crowd noise coming back through the onstage mics and I don't need the extra audience mix.

 

Nonetheless yltfan's matrix effort and the one in Oregon last summer are very good.

[fobstl]

Also, I have never heard that bands only want matrix mixes traded. That's new to me.

Not sure on the other bands but I can confirm that this is the request of Wilco's live engineer.

[Moe_Syzlak]

But when I listen to the live material I DO want quality, and to these ears soundboard recordings best represent that. I personally think the webcasts sound great and couldn't care less that someone's tylling me it's lossy or whatever. You can really hear the band playing in a way you can't quite do from audience recordings.

 

That said, if you want to recapture the atmopshere at the venue etc then the matrix will bring the extra dimension.

 

I know what Moe's saying about the matrix , if you want the pure clarity of the soundboard, then the addition in the mix of the audience recording will take the clarity down a little.

 

I personally think quite often there's enough crowd noise coming back through the onstage mics and I don't need the extra audience mix.

 

Nonetheless yltfan's matrix effort and the one in Oregon last summer are very good.

Again, I was not trying to knock the matrix at all. But it sounds like you and me are on the same page. It seems to me that it isn't improved "sound quality" that the matrix mix provides, it is a different feel. It sounds more like it did in the room. That's fine, but my preference would be for the room to sound better and not for the recording to sound worse. But, maybe it is my unique hearing patterns and I'm just missing out. Also, FWIW, I have been collecting live music since my first Dead show in '83, so I have heard plenty of all types of recordings.

[Edie]

I have heard more than a few Wilco matrices and I can say that this one does seem to have a lot of AUD mixed in. That said, it's still

[yltfan]

OK, with all this discussion, I decided to go listen to the matrix and the straight SBD side-by-side, see what some of the differences are. The main thing is the guitars--they were a little low in the mix, adding the AUD sources brought them out a bit. It also evened out the vocals, which are a little overwhelming in the SBD tape. In terms of the crowd noise, there is some present in the SBD tape, more comes thru with the AUD, but I don't think it's overwhelming. Listening to them side by side, I prefer the matrix--the mix is better, the sound is both warmer and brighter, I can pick out each instrument more, and I like being able to hear the crowd a little. But that's just my opinion. Someday, I might post a small sample of the straight SBD, so other people can do the taste test. But until then, y'all will have to keep guessing and conjecturing...

[cryptique]

I don't understand all this reverence for straight soundboard recordings. That mix is for house sound, not later playback, and it's frequently quite sterile and poorly balanced for headphone listening.

 

As yltfan alluded to, the addition of an audience source often brings out parts of the overall mix that don't come through very well on the soundboard patch. I suppose if you really want to listen to weirdly mixed soundboard-only recordings, that's your right, but I'll take a matrix EVERY time.

[keeprighton2]

I don't understand all this reverence for straight soundboard recordings. That mix is for house sound, not later playback, and it's frequently quite sterile and poorly balanced for headphone listening.

 

As yltfan alluded to, the addition of an audience source often brings out parts of the overall mix that don't come through very well on the soundboard patch. I suppose if you really want to listen to weirdly mixed soundboard-only recordings, that's your right, but I'll take a matrix EVERY time.

 

Surely the sound going through the soundboard is the same as what comes out of the speakers!? It's just recorded at source without outside interference.

[Moe_Syzlak]

Surely the sound going through the soundboard is the same as what comes out of the speakers!? It's just recorded at source without outside interference.

Yes, but as was mentioned earlier, in smaller rooms you will have a lot of the amps' sound mixing with the PA, so often things like vocals will be high in the mix to compensate. This doesn't happen as much with larger rooms. Also, I know many live bands whose sound guys WILL mix the sbd feed separately (sometimes mixing in crowd noise) for archival purposes. The Dead did this and as a result I think many live bands that have followed the Dead's lead with regard to live recording do too. As I mentioned earlier, I have heard many sbds that are unlistenable due to mix issues, but I'd rather not listen to that mix with aud added. To me, I'd rather not listen to that show at all. Same with straight auds. Well mixed sbds are my preference. From listening to this matrix, I'd say the sbd mix was pretty good to begin with. Maybe not perfect, but I can live with that.

[cryptique]

Surely the sound going through the soundboard is the same as what comes out of the speakers!? It's just recorded at source without outside interference.

That doesn't mean it sounds good when reproduced on your stereo. Live sound is a very different beast from studio-mixed sound. Sometimes in a live setting you have to jack something up higher (or down lower) to even out the sound in the room. It may sound good to someone standing there, but on tape it can be pretty awful.

 

I've heard a lot of soundboard patches where the vocals were unbearably high in the mix, or there was very little bass, or any number of other issues. These weren't necessarily mistakes by the sound guy -- he was mixing for the live audience, not the home listener.

 

Some of the Led Zeppelin soundboards I've heard are horrible in this respect ... and there's little or no crowd noise or reverb, so it makes for pretty dry listening -- the audio equivalent of stale bread.

[aricandover]

That doesn't mean it sounds good when reproduced on your stereo. Live sound is a very different beast from studio-mixed sound. Sometimes in a live setting you have to jack something up higher (or down lower) to even out the sound in the room. It may sound good to someone standing there, but on tape it can be pretty awful.

 

I've heard a lot of soundboard patches where the vocals were unbearably high in the mix, or there was very little bass, or any number of other issues. These weren't necessarily mistakes by the sound guy -- he was mixing for the live audience, not the home listener.

 

Some of the Led Zeppelin soundboards I've heard are horrible in this respect ... and there's little or no crowd noise or reverb, so it makes for pretty dry listening -- the audio equivalent of stale bread.

 

I always thought the Autumn Defense sounded like stale Bread.

[mountain bed]

I always thought the Autumn Defense sounded like stale Bread.

yep.

[yltfan]

Surely the sound going through the soundboard is the same as what comes out of the speakers!? It's just recorded at source without outside interference.

 

There are different mixes available from the SBD, but most patches are the same as what comes out of the speakers. But often that sounds terrible, since it's missing the sound coming off of the stage. I have some SBD tapes that have NO guitars, the guitar amp was not even mic'ed at this one Menomena show. One time, the SBD was ONLY for the vocals (Akron/Family). Those laptops (including Wilco's) are usually pretty loud in the SBD mix, since they mostly are not going through an amp on stage. Granted, these were at smaller clubs, but even in larger rooms, most of the SBD tapes I have are too heavy on the vocals, and dry, and generally weird sounding.

 

The other thing to point out here is that every professionally done live recording that I know of has included some ambient room sound in the mix. Throw on Kicking Television, Cheap Trick at Budokan, those live Pixies recordings from the reunion tour--they all have the equivalent of an audience recording mixed in.

 

If you want to hear the difference on another recording, I did post two versions of a Stephen Malkmus show--the straight SBD, and a matrix. People mostly liked the matrix better, but you can go compare for yourself...they should both still be up at Dime.