Effects of Sound Mixing on Live Performances of a Performance at SeisMic Sound in Nashville: “It’s a Sitcom and a Fun Track”
The tone of the room is used to filter out the raw sounds recorded onstage by the artist. This filter, known as impulse response, takes readings from actual physical places, then “synthetically reproduces the sound of a real space like a club or stadium,” said Jake Davis, the lead mix engineer at SeisMic Sound, an audio facility in Nashville that specializes in concert films.
A sense of reality is important to the appeal of a live show, even on film. Jake Davis said that the mix was designed to increase theenergy of the performance that existed. “You maintain some element of rawness while taking out things that are distracting, the nuances of a wrong note or a background singer being a little bit off.”
It is possible to make the audience sound like they are cheering more than they are, because sound mixers record them with microphones hidden around the arena. It is a dirty secret, according to Davis. “But the sound of the real audience is weak. It’s not enough. You pump it up by adding it. Hearing other humans have a good time and reacting is like a sitcom and a laugh track. Jake Davis said that the ideal balance is to start with the real reaction and then make it bigger and more obvious.