Live Mastering Solution

Elektron Gear
#1

Hello everyone,

i am in the process of planning and preparing my first live set. My setup will probably be an: OT, AR, Dreadbox Typhon, Erica Synth DB-01, Oxi One.

Would you recommend some end of chain processing gear, in general?

You are probably familar with the hardware options but i summarize what comes currently to my mind while im researching this:

OTO BOUM, Analog Heat, DOCtron ICM

Do you have any other hardware solutions in mind? Id be happy to read about that.

These units would not completly break my bank besides the last listed option. However i could also use an Audio Interface (either i buy a new Volt 276 or i use old Focusrite Saffire 6 USB), route signal into my DAW and put iZotope Ozone, or daw’s native audio processing at the end of the chain to achieve a similar result. The introduced latency would not bother me. I really dont care that this would make my setup not 100% dawless, i really just want to get the job reliably done and not be to quiet at the end of my chain (and by quiet i mean my current level of percieved loudness without having anything processed)

I dont wanna hung up on this decision and focus on practicing the live set since that the most important thing to deliver a good show, but it bothers me a bit i have to admit

Is anyone getting here feeling small concerns about the Ozone Solution?

Happy to read your opinons on that

#2

Check FMR Audio products.

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#3

I’ve played on a festival last year and just use a sp-404 mk2 on the masterbus of my mixer.
It has 4 efx-slots which can be set in a row, so for example, eq, comp, lofi for extra crunch… it sounded brutal on the PA.

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#4

Many topics on this already:

https://www.elektronauts.com/search?q=Live%20mastering

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#5

“Brutal” in a good way?

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#6

Yes, it was awesome. All my tracks i played at the festival had a lot of 909 drums. They sound extremely punchy through my master-efx bus… i used eq --> lil reverb --> lofi --> 303 vinyl sim.

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#7

Hey great to hear that, what festival was it? I will check out the sp-404mk2 for this szenario, i’ve read great things about it effects. But without using it as a sampler i might be not ideal for my situation.

#8

you are absolutly right, and it is not like i did not dive into that, but i will continue reading and doing my homework. Thanks for the guidance

#9

:+1:

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#10

I can recommend the Analog Heat, it sounds fantastic and is very flexible.

@DaveMech has an excellent master-bus compression/saturation preset for the Heat avaliable on his site.

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#11

I went with elysia xpressor neo, it sounds close to the plugin, i like it. It has fast attack and release times, and can also be set to dry/wet ratios.

Besides that i have a A/H Qu Pac, the build in compresaor is also good for live sound. (11 kg though)

#12

Endorphin.es Golden Master would be my recommendation for a life setup, but I am sucker for multi band compressors…

And the second video that convinced me to buy one:

Before that I was planning on using Octatrack as a compressor with three channels for each band and compressor for that band. Right now I have a different plan for my Octatrack in that chain.

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#13

I would not put ozone on the master bus you can always do that later. Easier to add something then later to remove it.

#14

The thread is about live sound: not a lot of scope for “later” :wink:

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#15

500 series has a good price to perfomance ratio. your mileage may vary. https://wesaudio.com/

#16

Hi, After reading that thread completely my GAS for Golden Master and Ghost has vanished.

What are your experiences so far?

#17

Hi!

It is new, so I haven’t used it extensively and additionally not in recent time, since currently I explore hybrid setup with restricting myself to only Elektron gear that fits my backpack. I also don’t have experience with other gear that MIGHT put it in place relative to others, but the time I tried it, I was happy with the results and felt rather happy with my acquisition. I am waiting for SSL’s G3 MultiBusComp to come with significant discount and I will be having more fitting contender for that comparison. I hope that by that time I will also have my Octatrack multi comp concept tested, so there should be three solutions checked.

Regarding some points raised, I don’t think it is good idea to fiddle with gear after sound check. I am in that regard rather of a mindset that it should be left as it is, so I don’t mind some inconsistencies while setting up. And I don’t like when sound engineer tries to polish my sound during performance. More than that: I hate that! :]

Cordially!

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#18

Since you are open to using software and don’t mind introducing a little latency I don’t see why not. Imo this will probably give you the best result. Depending on where you play it can also be good to get the sound engineer to “do the master” as they often know the room well etc. but of course you should in any case also have your own solution available.

I use Boum and I’m pretty happy with it.

#19

thanks for your reply, my plan currently is to estimate the exact latency that i will introduce to via software solution, and sort of figure out if that would be problematic or not. That would either require me to monitor directly via headphones out from my OT or learn to play with it. I will try it out, and then consider one of the hardware solutions

But i will also check if i can give the responsibility of “mastering” to the engineer, but it will be a very small venue so chances are odd. I will also ask if the PA is maybe powerfull enough to just increase that level so it is loud enough. If i tell them what level of dbA i can provide from my end, they should be able to check if thats fine. That would be by far the easiest way.

#20

The issue with PA and loudness is in my experience not the power. It is more that if the venue has set the sound to the legal limit for DJ’s then bringing something uncompressed up to that level of perceived loudness pushes the reading of their db meter past that limit so they are sceptical about doing it.

If it’s a small venue that doesn’t play very loud it’s often fine to just turn it up.

I would say latency would only be an issue for you in your use case if you are playing real-time keys or pads or something

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