Recording vs Live Performance – Which is harder?

I’ve spent a lot of time over the last few years on recording. I’ve spent time recording tracks, mixing them, and making them sound as good as possible. It’s a skill in and of itself that I can constantly improve at…

… but when it comes to recording your own voice vs doing a live performance, which is harder, and which is easier?

Well, it’s not that simple. There’s pros and cons each way. Let’s have a look at them in turn: Continue reading “Recording vs Live Performance – Which is harder?”

Rival Sons Burn Down Los Angeles – Live Performance

Hey folks

Here’s one of my favourite bands. They are a proper old school hard rock band called ‘Rival Sons’. I’ve blogged about them before, but this is to illustrate a particular point.

Watch the video below. It’s essentially just recorded “in the room”. There is some mixing that has gone on (as evidenced by the comments on the Youtube page), but it is essentially just recorded straight to disk.

What’s so impressive about that? LISTEN to it. Listen to how tight the whole performance is. Note and timing perfect. It’s incredibly close to the album version.

Why should you find that amazing? Very few bands are capable of delivering what they do on albums in the real world. There’s almost always shortcuts taken in the studio to make the album sound cool, but that aren’t replicable live.

THIS (in my opinion) is a really high standard of live performance, and if you are a live performer, you would do well to aspire to THAT level of professionalism.

But even if you’re not performing live (well, even if you are!) above all, enjoy the track!