Live broadcasts
Lesson time: (3min 3sec)
Course preview
This lesson is part of the course Studio to Stage: How Faithless Created Their Live Sound
Watch a preview of the full course below.
Lesson transcript:
Live Broadcasting: Key Considerations
So another thing you might not be aware of when you're doing a show is that you might be broadcast live on the radio at many festivals and shows.
Example: Radio 1 Big Weekend
For example, at the Radio 1 Big Weekend, they are broadcasting live to a radio audience as well as to the people who are right in front of us.
The Importance of Proper Mixing
Because the Faithless mix scenario is quite complicated, it's much better to have someone take a feed from our mix console, rather than someone sitting in a porter cabin mixing it themselves.
- Why?
- They don't know when things are coming in.
- They don't know which vocalists are singing on each song.
- They can't tell which mics need to be muted and unmuted.
Another thing to consider: if you are in electronic music and you collaborate, which is often the nature of electronic music, you might work with different singers. This means you have different people coming on to sing or rap different numbers, and then they go off.
Risks of Live Performances
Sometimes these artists might leave their mics on and not realize it. As a result:
- You may hear the whole show or what they're chatting about backstage coming through the mic.
- Your front of house engineer needs to be really switched on regarding who is performing what numbers.
Challenges with Radio Stations
When you work with radio stations that insist on doing their own mix, it can be really tricky. They often don't know:
- When to mute things
- Which of the lead instruments in each song should be highlighted
With a band like Faithless, sometimes it's my keyboards, sometimes it's the guitarist, and sometimes it's the rhythm section. Each musical part can have precedence within a song.
Our Solution
We got to a point where we insisted the only way we would allow our music to be broadcast was if it came from our mixing engineer's desk. This way, we knew the feed going into the broadcast truck would provide:
- The right balance of music
- The sound as we intended it for our audience
Managing Relationships
With all things in music, there's always a lot of ego involved, and you have to tread carefully. You're often working with huge radio stations that have been broadcasting for years, showcasing "the great and the good" in music.
- When you ask them to take your feed, you want your engineer to mix it because they know how the band should sound.
- Be cautious not to tread on someone's toes.
Protocol and Management
It's essential to have a protocol that's followed. It's very effective at this point if you have management or tour management in place to broker those relationships.
- You don't want to be the person in the band running into a truck to say, "I don't want you mixing it."
- That's just not appropriate and generally wouldn't happen.
Final Thoughts
You want these things ironed out because there's nothing worse than listening back to a radio performance or a show you've done, recorded for radio or TV, and it sounds horrible.
- It's really depressing because that recording lives forever.
- You want to have as much control as possible artistically, which also means sonically.
About the instructor
'Sister Bliss never stopped writing music. She's an accomplished composer for film and TV, a club DJ, and an advocate for the creative industries'. Billboard One of the most successful British dance music artists of the past 25 years, Ayalah Bentovim AKA Sister Bliss is the musical force behind Faithless. Together with iconic front man Maxi Jazz and producer Rollo Armstrong, she formed Faithless: one of the most successful electronic acts of their generation, with a career spanning more than two decades that included 8 albums (3 at number 1) and six top 10 singles. To date, Faithless have sold in excess of 15 million records worldwide and have played live to millions across the world, headlining festivals, stadiums and arenas. The band have collaborated with artists such as Jazzie B, Boy George, Cat Power and Dido, never conforming and moving effortlessly across an eclectic range of genres. Over a 25-year career that took her from the underground UK club scene to sold-out arena shows and festival headline slots around the globe, Sister Bliss has become one of British dance music's longest-standing and most influential female electronic artists. She comes off the back of releasing Faithless' first studio album in ten years, the highly anticipated 'All Blessed' - Faithless' love letter to electronic music that presents them at their very best. The album reached number 6 in the charts and the singles, along with their premiere remixes, garnered extensive support across BBC Radio 1, Radio 2 and BBC 6 as well as Kiss FM and Capital. A classically trained multi-instrumentalist, she has also scored numerous TV, film and theatre productions. Credits include 2012's film Knife Fight starring Rob Lowe and directed by two-time Oscar winner Bill Guttentag, commissions for Sex & The City 2, Chasing Amy, Danny Boyle's The Beach, A Life Less Ordinary, acclaimed British film The Hide, Crossing The Line and the BAFTA-winning TV dramas Life Begins (ITV) and The Poison Tree (ITV). For theatre, Bliss has written music for The Black Album and The Emperor Jones at The National Theatre in London, as well as composing an original piece for the London Sinfonietta, which was performed at Fuse Festival, UK. She recently had a lead role in major prime time BBC1 show 'This is My Song', mentoring the contributors and producing their final recordings. She released a new collaborative album with Rollo and Dido in 2019 under the moniker 'R PLUS' - 'The Last Summer', following a jam-packed summer of festival headline DJ sets throughout the world including sets at Bestival, Exit Festival, Glastonbury, Creamfields, Ibiza and beyond. Her hugely successful weekly radio show and podcast 'Sister Bliss in Session' is syndicated to over 100 stations and 43 countries worldwide. She recently guest presented Gilles Peterson's acclaimed show on BBC 6 Music and regularly stands in for Ana Matronic on the Dance Devotion show on BBC Radio 2. She has also presented a 5-part series on Bauer Media's Scala Radio station joining the dots between classical and electronic music, which won the Bronze prize at the New York Festival Radio Awards, competing against 30 countries. She currently teaches at Tileyard Studios' Masters MA course, including modules on songwriting, production and writing to commercial brief, and mentors individual Masters students - the same hands-on knowledge she shares in Studio to Stage, breaking down exactly how Faithless turned their records into a stadium-filling live show. read more