How to Film Live Music 

Very helpful video Simon! So happy you touched on this subject (I really learned a lot from this video)! :D

I film a whole lot of videos if concerts etc for my school and have learned a few things that I'd like to share. The more cameras the better. In the past I have mounted go pros of lifting bars and even hidden them on stage to get some great angles. It also means that there is always a backup if something goes wrong. Another thing that I have figured out is that depending on how the band is miced and if you want audience sounds, you can usually get a much better sense of the environment and an overall better sound if you stick a zoom h4, rascal dr40 etc centred in the audience about 3/4 back. The usual stuff also applies like tons of ad cards and spare batteries. Anyway, I hope someone can find this useful and yeah, I have invested a lot into audio and mics and the change in audio quality is phenomenal.

Just discovered your page, love how informative and professional you are. Really accessible as well. New fan!

Thank you very much for this video! I was perusing videos using DSLR's and came across yours. This was very eye opening and gave me some ideas of things to think about. Thank you very much!

This was extremely helpful! You did a great job! Thank you for sharing.

Very helpful. Been searching for a while and the tips you provided were right on the money. Thank you.

Very well done. I'm amazed at the great sound you got both live and in the bedroom. I would have thought the stereo line out might not have been a good mix because the soundman usually mixes for the room, but it sounded great and well balanced. By the way, the band sounds excellent. Good job. Marc Trainor

I love your honesty and input.

Informative video and you seem like a really nice guy! Great, measured delivery. Thanks bud!

As always, well done man!

Great video simon thanks for all the helpful videos you're providing for everyone. To be honest without you I wouldn't have any knowledge whatsoever about anything LOL

Once again an amazing episode Simon! Keep up the good work!

Cool - thanks for posting this. I just did my first live band recording last week and was thinking about how I could do multiple cameras the next time. I'm going to go for the single centered wide angle with my "good" camera, then take my older camera around with me to get clips to edit in.

I'm not planning to film any live film music, but for those who are this video am had to help them out a lot, awesome video anyways!

I'd like to see you revisit recording live bands again (Preferably live on stage and less about recording the audio) knowing what you know now. The forever changing lighting in a dark set up I feel makes it almost impossible to ever produce something I'm happy with.

I take it back, I love your Intro now :D

This helped heaps seeing as I do a lot of live music recording for school. Great job!!!

I capture audio the same way you did I link up to the board, but I also use another recorder out in the crowd and mix both in post so you have the live music plus ambient sounds of the crowd instead just the compressed audio from the board

I am not fan of music video shoots and events, but if i ever decide to do so then i learned something for that. But just for filmmaking in general this episode was good as always.

I use my zoom left and right to my earphone jack and make my volume little before half to not distore and i get all the fx and revers and cality from my mixer just make sure the audio going in is not as loud and not distorted any track i use xr18 tells me where each frequenzy comes out

Great vid, thanks. What about syncing the audio recorder with the cameras. Did you link the two systems during shooting or just sync in post?

Great look at music this week..

You seem more confident here. Keep up the good work,kid.

Another great video! (:

Thanks mate! Very helpful.

Thank you for a great informative video!

so that same banding happened to me when recording a show the other day, do you know if theres any solution, cause sometimes i have no say in the lighting when it comes to shows. Thanks!

awesome to see Graham in the audio tutorials hahaha he's legit!

I have a zoom h6 debating on using the external xy mic and adapting it to my camera or hooking it up to the mixing board. Previous attempts have been difficult due to the mixing for the room instead of mixing for the record. Any suggestions? Thanks

The live sessions I have recorded have all had the sound guy recording multi-track and either doing a mix-down himself, or someone from the band taking care of it themselves then giving me a stereo mix WAV file.

Thanks for the video! It seems that the blog post is no longer available...

Great episode Simon, awesome as usual! It looks like we've got the new filmriot over here!

Thanks, super helpful!

Cool video. I hate them using the blue light always messes up when filming a live band. And when too dark is the other extreme.

Here's a point: recording a second time does make sense because you are only looking to get new video footage at the second camera angle. Use the audio from the first camera angle then the second time you play just use that footage without the audio.

So you sync up the audio and video separately? Isn't it really frustrating to get them to sync up?

Can someone help me out, I have to shoot a TedTalks and I am not sure how I should record the Audio.

Awesome stuff

Simon, on the blog post in equipment section there are 2 tripods. What was used for wide shot, and what for close videv?

TIP: There are some deflickering plugins available for FCP like Flicker Free, that make a really good jod wiht those lighting situations. Cheers!

great video man

good tips! thank you!

Hey man! Great stuff as usual. I have a question. If you were to record the music to the sound recorder which I intend to do, what about the crowd? Where would you put the mic and which mic would you use? I am planning on using my Blue Yeti for that. But where would you put it in the amphitheater or event location? Thanks!

Do you mic up the camera at all?

Lucky! I'm trying to think of the best way to record a live metal show ha audio wise that is, video shouldn't be too bad hopefully as long as they don't go crazy with them strobe lights, that's always the death of me ha I'm using a Panasonic Lumix LX100, it records in 4K, i've gotten pretty great video and stills from it, and I've seen some extremely impressive 4K original content from other videos on RU-vid from it directly, hardly any editing i believe, was curious if you've looked at it or researched it? Was thinking I may have to get something like a GH4 down the road to have 2 cameras in total, and to have a camera where I can actually remove the lens ha But that Leica lens is a pretty great lens to have if you HAVE to have a fixed camera lens ha

Where is the video from the concert?

Thanks much!

The sound guy could've definitely given you the individual tracks if you had a USB handy. Not always, but almost always now days, depends on the venues gear mostly

would you use the same technique to film an operatic performance?? as i am making one of them soon ..

What camera r u using

no hate i love the videos but are his hands small or is his head big

What font did you use for the simple/squarish font in the music video?

If you are filming a performance to go with an already mastered track you can just have the track play over a sound system so they can sync to that audio and then get all the coverage you need by running through the song as many times as needed. I just did this with a local band. they wanted to shoot in their studio but it is very small and tight with the drummer / singer right up against a wall (making lighting ... difficult). The ceiling is also un-even and VERY low (forget bouncing off the ceiling). So I added thee beats to the start of the track to help line it up with my production audio to sync up the video with the mastered track (see 3 spikes on the waveform in both the mastered track and the production audio). Did 2 or 3 takes with each band member. This allowed me to get some closeups of the guitar during solos, closeups of high hat hits, closeups of the band members coming in close to the microphone to do backups on chorus lines ... Obviously that doesn't work for live performances. BTW, your cinematography is SO MUCH BETTER than mine ... you are so much better at lighting (and most other aspects of film making) than I am. :( For the audio. Did you think to ask the venue if you could simply plug a recorder into their board? I'd hate to have to worry about levels and so on during a live show when also doing cam op on multiple cameras. EDIT: OOOPS! forget it ... I hadn't finished listening to the video before commenting about the audio! LOL

Could you explain or link me to a video of how you connected your audio recorder to the venue's sound board? I'm confused on how this was done and am shooting an upcoming concert.

blog post link isn't working

Should do a tutorial for color corrections for music editing or just in general.

Hey Simon! I have a question, I saw in the comment section under a old video that you're living in Cambrideshire. I know that you wanna go to the university. Do you wanna go to Cambridge University? That is also my dream btw. The only problem is that I'm living in the Netherlands.

Hi Simon, what cables are you using to plug the zoom into the mixer? is it just two xlrs?

Hey simon, I was hired to shoot some live music, and it's on stage so they have mics already setup with a sound board.... My problem is that i don't have an external audio recorder and I'm on a strick budget if you could come up with any ideas or anything that would be a great help.... Thanks

where is the video of the gig?

Will you be uploading the live gig video?

Why didn't you throw your Zoom H1 on the drums?

Shout out to Brady Toops!!! Great artist!

God. Again, I love your color grading SO MUCH. Advice : if you have money ( $ 49.90 for the normal version, $ 99.90 for the pro version ) you can buy a plug-in named "Neat video". it removes grain without losing any detail. I tried the demo, maybe you should try it too, cause it could be really usefull for you ( at high ISOs ) and it's really impressive ;) ( again, sorry for bad english )

sana ol

DSLRguide Hey Simon / (anyone), I'm a photographer, slowly working my way up to cinematography slowly. One quick question, how do I get this (prntscr.com/5x0ju8) to become a regular pictrure / a viewable picture?

"It doesn't really work at a live gig or event because you can't play the song over and over" On RU-vid there are some videos of Jay Z and Kanye performing 'Paris' live in Paris, and since they were going to use the footage for the music video, they decided to perform the song...eleven consecutive times. They spent a solid 54 minutes of their gig performing Paris repeatedly. Almost defies belief. And great video, plenty of really useful tips! :)

Your getting close to 20,000 subs so will you do a 20,000 sub special

Well done sir....This is going to sound counter-intuitive, but you went the wrong way with the sound. When you are short on mics, use one on the kik drum, one on the snare, and direct lines and the camera audio for the guitars. Move the amps closer to the cameras. If you are out of track inputs, point the bass toward the kick drum mic and do a test recording to see if you have to lower the mids to let the kick come through. Then your multitrack would have kicked way more ass.

It would have been good to have a mic on the audience for the live gig sounds good but sounds like there is no audience

3:10 - 3:39 That frustration you get b/c you don't check with the crew beforehand. Aagh.

Under 300+ Club!!

What is the deal with lighting guys and the color blue. That's all they want to light with. This accounts for 95% of them.

y always in hurry try to explain slowly