Recording quality

Preparing Music for Live Performance

One of the things we also did to prep the music for our front of house engineer, to make it as crisp as possible, was to ensure it was recorded at the highest bit rate.

Mastering Stems

Additionally, I think we mastered the stems as well, or at least some of them. This way, we had the most fantastic sounding audio that wasn't degraded by running through different systems.

Importance of Quality

• If you go through sound cards, any sort of processing can affect the sound of your audio stems that you use and put out into the world.
• Sometimes, it's beneficial to return to the studio and take the stems that make up the songs you want to perform live.
• By mastering the stems themselves and achieving a really good balance, you can fit all other elements around those mastered stems.

This approach is an effective way of transitioning what you do in the studio into the live arena, hopefully cutting down on some work for your front of house engineer.

Balancing Stems in Rehearsals

This balancing act can also be done in rehearsals. For instance:

• You might have a kick drum at a certain level from one song and then, on a different song (possibly from another album), the mastering might have been completely different, resulting in a much lower level.

This inconsistency can confuse your front of house engineer, who may think the kick drum is at a great level for one song, only to find it drops significantly on the next.

Establishing a Standard Level

Balancing certain core elements that possibly run across different songs, even if they feature different instruments, is essential. For example:

• One kick drum may come from a 909, while another could be from a chopped-up sample.
• Establishing a basic standard, such as a zero level for that dB level, makes it easier to arrange everything else around it.

It's like having the skeleton, the spine of your music. For us, it's about the groove, and those are the stems that often get adjusted in the mix.

Tip: Your front of house engineer will have far more control if you ensure your stems are nicely balanced when you're in the rehearsal space.

Creating a Unique Live Experience

Part of what made Faithless such a unique experience live was that we didn't just perform a song followed by a brief clap from the audience before moving on to the next track.

As a DJ, our music firmly resided in the realm of electronic and dance genres, although we experimented across various styles in our albums.

Transitioning Between Songs

To make the performance effective and create an exhilarating roller coaster of sound, we aimed to join all the songs together. Here's how we did it:

• We wrote Segues, or joining pieces of music between each track.
• These segues would vary:
  • Some were rhythm-based.
  • Others were simply pads.
  • Occasionally, there would be a spoken word section serving as an intro to another song that perhaps didn't exist on record.

There was immense pleasure in crafting these transitions, and the excitement in the audience was palpable.

An Exciting Musical Journey

It felt like the audience was strapping in for the ride of their lives, and about half an hour to 40 minutes in, we would finally pause to let everyone take a breather.

It was an exhilarating way of putting the set together, and honestly, I never saw any other bands doing it this way, just letting things run and run, seamlessly flowing into the next song.

This approach created an incredible musical journey with twists and turns, much like a thrilling fairground ride.

Thank you!