HOW TO RECORD A LIVE SESSION: EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW

Live music is big business and it’s one of the key ways that fans discover up and coming singers and bands. But if you’re not equipped with an Ed Sheeran-level touring budget to hit the stadiums, then recording a live session can be a great way to show people what you’re made of.

Here’s our step-by-step guide on how to record a live session, covering all things audio and visual – as well as some of the challenges you might come acrossif you’re new to videoing your music. We’ll be covering:

• Why record live sessions?
• Videoing a band
• Location
• Prepping the space
• Lighting
• Video quality
• How to record live music
• Mics, mixers and digital recorders
• What are the challenges?
• Editing (mixing and mastering, video editing)
• How to promote your video

Why Record Live Sessions?

If you’re an artist or a band, then even something as simple as recording one of your practice sessions has plenty of benefits. It gives you instant feedback on your performance and where you can improve. If someone improvises a brilliant solo or riff, or just comes up with an idea you can expand on later, then you’ve captured it. Plus, it’s all potential content to connect with fans and get their feedback through social media.

You can film a live studio recording as a demo or use it to try out a different direction for a particular track – with moody, stripped-back lighting for something that’s usually more high-impact, for example, or to try out an acoustic set if that’s not your usual vibe.

Videoing a Band

For a filmmaker, shooting a band playing live can give you a great insight into learning how they play and flow together, and how to capture the band’s dynamics.

If you’re starting out as a filmmaker, or a video creator, then it’s great to practise with these kinds of sessions. You don’t need a huge budget, with a mass of sets, effects or costumes dictated by an ambitious concept. You can film with something as simple as an iPhone, or experiment with a three-camera set up, making it easier to vary your shots.

Location

Recording spaces can range from your living room to a practice hall or studio, or a set at a venue.

If you’re in a studio or quite a ‘blank’ space, though, you may have to work out some ways to give your location a bit of personality or atmosphere and mood, through lighting and camera placements.

Prepping the Space

Ideally, go into the space where you’ll be shooting to do some planning with your cameras and pre-lighting, the day before the shoot. If you can get stand-ins, then all the better! This means you can experiment, for example with top-down lighting to spotlight a singer.

If you don’t own a huge variety of lights, remember, you can always hire a few key ones.

Discuss with the band beforehand what kind of feel they want from the video and how it matches their track. Work out which of the band’s members you’re primarily focusing on, and what part the others are playing. How much attention do you need to give each one? This will help you to nail down the lighting and a shot list, which will make editing the final video easier.

This video has great tips on lighting live music set-ups if you’re on a budget, including utilising natural light, if you have it.

Video Quality

To give yourself plenty of choice when you’re editing the video, get a variety of shots. If time permits, then aim to get a variety of single, long takes of each band member, even if they’re not playing or singing throughout the whole take; this will give you more options when it comes to the edit. Start by shooting your priority band member, to make sure you have all your key shots covered, from wides to close ups, and then work down the list.

Harv Video has tips on using three cameras to film a band in a studio, which is a fairly standard filming set up, and enables you to capture specialist shots like drum fills or guitar solos easily:

He also covers colour and contrast grading and shot-matching during the editing process. If you have a multi-camera setup, compare your white balance, ISO, shutter speed, picture profile, etc. Try to get a uniform-looking footage with all the cameras, as this will make the post-production procedure much easier.

Low-To-No-Budget?

No budget for professional cameras? You can film on an iPhone – you’ll get the best result if you can set up multiple ones – and mount some of them on tripods for static shots.

If you’re filming a gig at a venue, then check out these five essential tips – complete with a full list of recommended cameras, lenses, etc:

How to Record Live Music

What Will You Need?

First up, make sure you’ve got all the right equipment. From instruments and amps to a laptop with DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software – for example GarageBand - you’ll also need an interface that can take multiple XLR inputs. Plus enough XLR cables. Make life easier by labelling them with each source, so the signal paths don’t get confused. And, of course, don’t forget the mics.

Mics

When it comes to recording live music, a must-have is dynamic mics for the amps, plus condenser and dynamic mics for the drums.

Musician’s Friend has a great how-to on how to mike up a standard 4-piece band, comprising vocals, guitars, bass and drums:

You can also ask in a music shop to see what mics they recommend, or check out Professional Music Technology’s advice on affordable, pro-quality mics for singers:

Using multiple mics to record the instruments means you’ll have to navigate ‘spill’ or ‘bleed’ between them. This is when one mic’s instrument is picking up the sound of another’s – particularly from drums. A hack to minimise bleed is to position your band members in a semi-circle, so they’re spaced out, but close enough to communicate. For vocals, you might want to record them in a separate session, or a stand-alone take.

Mic everything as closely as possible – and MacProVideo.com advises utilising direct outs/direct boxes whenever possible. ‘The more direct and isolated you can capture a sound, the more you can manipulate that sound in the mix.’

Audio Interface

This is a conduit that allows you to capture the direct signal from your soundboard into your recording device. This then connects to your computer, or even an iPad.

Mixers & Multi-Track Recorders

Bands need a mixer, so why not have one that’s also a recorder? Look at TouchMix or Tascam for a variety of models. Here are some tips on setting up a live band with a TouchMix:

Portable Digital Recorders

Alternatively, if you’re on a budget, you can record your instruments on a portable digital recorder, such as the Zoom or Tascam, into which you can plug mic inputs:

This video talks you through how to use the ZoomH6 and shows you the difference in audio quality between using the raw camera audio and the audio from the H6 stereo mic. It also shows you how to set up the Zoom with multi-tracks using separate mics and the results:

You can then import your tracks into the DAW in order to mix them. Plus, you can use a recorder such as the Zoom if you’re recording audio at a live gig with a crowd. This enables you to mix the live music and bring in some crowd noise, for atmosphere, without the latter drowning out the former.

Mix Engineers

If you’re working with live audio, then it’s great if you can get a mix engineer – also known as audio engineers – on board as part of your crew. Again, if you can get access to your location ahead of time, then the mix engineer can check out how the sound carries within the space.

What Are the Challenges of Recording a Live Session?

There can be all sorts of issues that come up when you’re recording and filming live sessions. Here are some things to watch out for (sometimes literally!)

If you’re filming in a studio, or a small space, then there may be a lot of equipment and cables around. You need to plan your shots and your movements if you’re using a hand-held camera, to ensure that you don’t trip over, bang into or knock anything over. Some of this equipment can be worth thousands of pounds!

If you’re doing multiple takes, because you only have one camera, then you can get your sound engineer to record the audio during the shooting from one angle. The group or band can then play over their recording for the other angles. Ideally, you always want to film the whole session live, to stay truer to the process of a live recording. But when this isn’t possible, this is one way to maximise angle changes, when you only have one camera.

If you’re filming a live gig in a venue, then there may be someone there to help you to operate the lights, who can play around with gels, colours, etc. to bring more atmosphere and add depth and interest, even on a small stage.

Jacques Gaines has useful advice on the challenges of shooting at live music events, including using cameras with automatic focusing, so that you can ‘set and forget’

He also advises negotiating your access with the venue beforehand and asking plenty of questions. Can you go backstage? Are you able to shoot from behind the drummer? What about where the sound and monitor operators are? How close to the front of the stage can you get?

Editing

If you’re using software such as Final Cut Pro, then a good tip is to label your files with unique names when you’re filming. If you didn’t do this at the time, then put them in clearly labeled folders that are easy to organise when you import them.

Then edit the audio files, mixing and editing them to get it sounding great. One of our most successful composers, Terry Devine-King, has great advice on mixing and mastering. Import the audio and then you’re ready to bring the two elements together!

Read our guide to the best editing software, followed by a cheat’s guide to basic editing cuts, and then our deep dive on how to edit music to picture if you want more in-depth advice!

How to Promote Your Video

So you’ve recorded, mastered and edited your audio and your video. Now, how do you go about promoting it?

Well, YouTube is still the go-to channel, with more than two billion users worldwide, and millions of videos. You can use YouTube ads to increase your visibility – you just need a Google Adwords account. Then choose the format of the ad and its location (in a video, via search, etc.) Create a target audience and set a budget that will be linked to the cost per click, or the cost per view.

Build a community around your band by offering additional content on your YouTube channel, from behind-the-scenes clips from your live sessions and more, to vlogs on your musical influences.

When it comes to YouTube searches, the title of your video is crucial and don’t forget to write a description and add relevant, accurate tags.

Already got a fanbase? Post up some teaser clips and let them know when your video is dropping. Plus, share your video on your personal pages, your artist page and on platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and more, depending on your audience. Make sure you optimise the video for each platform individually, as some of them have different preferred video formats.

Check out what magazines and blogs like to post about new music and reach out to see if they’d like to post yours. Ditto for music influencers. You can also target communities that love your genre – but make sure to participate in these forums and become a part of the community before you promote your video.

Beyond the Studio

If you’ve been inspired and want to expand your skills, we’ve got tons of expert articles on everything from using green screen to all you need to know about using music in YouTube videos.

Want to practise editing picture to music? Then you might want to license some tracks from our huge catalogue of original music! We've got over 200,000 wholly owned tracks from the most incredible albums, including AyseDeniz's latest release 'Patterns'.

Patterns is an emotive set blending solo piano with lyrical pieces embellished by orchestral strings. Moods range from romantic and wistful to mysterious and dramatic - take a listen below and prepare to fall in love.