Topic: Low vocals, but the instrumentals are crystal clear-what happened?

[toolrep1]

Wow, thanks for the great advice everyone!

[run_run_run]

Stage lip monitor bleed

[Audioarchivist]

Wow, thanks for the great advice everyone!

Yeah, the only other thing I can think of besides some 1-2k eq boost is to use a multiband compressor and similarly boost the 1-2k range (that's about where vocals sit)...

Or, wait for the DVD and make a matrix mix merge of their audio with yours. Actually I always find this an interesting thing to do! neat to hear the "professionally mixed" soundboard along with the real live audio experience!

Or, be happy that I taped the next two shows almost perfectly! haha. I did notice that vocals weren't mixed too heavily in the mix, and i was in prime taper locations...

Maybe I can mess around with your source tapes and come up with some slight fix?

[the_artist]

We have a venue here that has average sound to say the least.  I went up close at a Yo La Tengo gig and was quite close to the stage in front of the the guitar and got good instrumental sound but half way through i realized i could hear the vocals basically behind me and 20ft up.  The PA speakers are way high in a very tall room.  So I have a great Yo La Tengo karaoke tape if anyone is interested

[yltfan]

We have a venue here that has average sound to say the least.  I went up close at a Yo La Tengo gig and was quite close to the stage in front of the the guitar and got good instrumental sound but half way through i realized i could hear the vocals basically behind me and 20ft up.  The PA speakers are way high in a very tall room.  So I have a great Yo La Tengo karaoke tape if anyone is interested

 

[digitallive]

eh, one time in WV we were taping Karma to Burn, Treasure Cat, and West by God - the first 2 acts being instrumental. the snbd of West by God had NO vocals in it. was glad to have ran seperate AUD audio, mixed about 25% of the snbd w/ 75% of the aud, the other 2 bands of the night were about 50/50, but to not have the vocals sound extremely low in the mix had to boost the audience.

[yltfan]

the snbd of West by God had NO vocals in it.

How were there no vocals in the soundboard feed? Where were they?
No entiendo...

[it-goes-to-eleven]

I once had a Great seat to a Jeff Beck show at a seated theatre/opera house... 2nd or 3rd row. I was really looking forward to it...  I've made great front row recordings from that venue.

I was hugely disappointed to discover his amps on stage were for mostly for appearance and there was almost no volume...  Worse, the dudes in the seats behind me were playing the "name that tune" contest over the start of most songs...  So I bolted and switched seats with a friend... which was pretty awkward in that venue...  Unfortunately he was seated a couple seats away from a drunk woo-woo dude.   And even in the sweet spot, the show was too quiet.  So the recording still sits. A few hours of work would mostly fix the woo-woo dude, but the results that night were very frustrating.

Regarding the OP's show.  There are some post techniques that could bring up the vocals.  Vocals tend to be mono vs the music in stereo.  That can be used to isolate the vocals, and create a vocal track which can be EQ'd and re-mixed.  It is difficult to do well, time consuming and the probability of a good result is low.