Record a live show on 6 tracks

Question

I'm planning on recording a live show this weekend.

I have free subgroups I can route freely to.

Band is: Drums, Bass, Git, 2 Acoustic Gits, Keys
4 Backing Vocs, 2 Lead Vocs
I have 3 stereo FX returns: 1 drum Verb, 1 Verb for Vocals & Acc Git (TC Electronic M2000, 2 engines summed) & the occasional Delay.

How would you suggest I submix all channels to just 6 tracks?
Is there an established way of doing this?

My thoughts:

• track 1 2: all instruments
• track 3 4: all Vocs
• track 5 6: all FX

An alternative I had in mind was:

• track 1 2: stereo instruments (Drums, Keys)
• track 3 : mono instruments (they're roughly not panned)
• track 4 : backing Vocs
• track 5 : lead Vocs
• track 6 : FX (stereo summed)

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Can you post-process anything after? If so, avoid the FX and:

1. Snare
2. Kick
3. Vox
4. Backing Vox
5. Everything Else L
6. Everything Else R

The kick/snare and vox are what people connect with, so keeping them on their own tracks gives you flexibility to bring them up later. Also separating the lead from backing vox allows you to kill the backups if there's tuning problems.

I can't vouch for this being "standard", just what would make sense to me.

Answer 2

I agree with Dave for the most part. When I do live recordings I go in the following order of importance:

1) 2 channels: Left and Right Drum Overhead; If I can't get the whole kit independently a stereo mix is best. 2) Guitars as one channel 3) Vocals as one channel 4) Bass as one channel

I'm working on a 16 channel live recording setup. The more live channels, the more expensive the solution.