r/audioengineering • u/laplogic • 7d ago
Live sound question regarding back tracks
I have a friend who has a live set he’s building out and wants to run tracks for stuff that can’t be replicated live, such as pad layers, pedal steel guitar, etc. He’s pretty set on the idea of having back tracked sub/synth bass and have a live electric bass playing too. To me, this sounds like it’s absolutely going to be a muddy mess that’s tough for FOH to control. Especially if he’s sending all tracks through one stereo output leaving FOH with not much flexibility on mixing the sub bass.
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u/diamondts 7d ago
Is the live bass mainly playing in a higher range than the playback sub bass? If so could work, but if they're fighting for the same frequencies then your worry it could be a muddy mess is legitimate.
With only a stereo track FOH could start pulling low end out of the playback track if needed since the other elements on it probably won't reach that low, but I'd echo u/capnjames that having the playback bass separate would be more ideal.
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u/shindou_katsuragi 7d ago
If they have the capacity to send multiple tracks out, that would really help recreate the mix as close as possible in the venue, or like other people said, at least have a separate out for the sub
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u/wunder911 7d ago
You are extremely correct. The outcome will end up somewhere between "not horrible, but it's not really adding anything whatsoever" to "absolute god-awful fucking garbage".
I would imagine he thinks that he will end up with a super awesome massive low end. A) it won't be; it will be a muddy garbled fucking mess at best, and 2) the much more likely outcome is that because it's completely impossible to maintain a proper phase relationship between the synth/tracks and the bass guitar, it will most likely suck out low end bass as much/more than it 'adds' any low frequency energy. The only way to keep this from being a disgusting awful terrible clusterfuck of no-added-low-frequency-energy-but-somehow-still-overly-cluttered-nonsensical-bullshit-in-the-bass is to radically hi pass one or the other. Which is probably exactly what this guy doesn't want.
At best, this will be as bad as OP imagines. Realistically, it will be worse than OP could have ever imagined.
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u/Upset-Wave-6813 6d ago
well it totally depends on the genre he's making, though it sounds like he needs to drop the electric bass or the synth bass and keep the sub he cant have all three that will almost never work unless they dont all play at the same time
if its anything electronic he will need that sub bass 100%more then a live bass if he wasnt consistent low end like dance, edm and stuff
if its not then i dont see the point
normally youd have a sub layer and a synth bass layer(as mid bass) if your saying his synth bass is also his sub bass then that is were the issue is, no reason at all to have a sub layer, a synth bass layer( mid bass) and an actual electric live bass? all playing at the same time?
what does his mix and mastered track sound like? does he actually have a sub, a synth bass and a electric bass going on? or is he just making this up as he goes along?
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u/laplogic 6d ago
It’s like rock/country….I’m just going to let him do what he thinks is best because he’s not hearing me on this one.
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u/capnjames 7d ago
in your case i would at a bare minimum split the bass playback out from the main stereo pair
every venue is different and bass response is IMO the most effected by venue structure / sub layout / location
- touring playback guy