How to take decision while live event audio?

Recording a gig presents a unique set of challenges. You may be a dab hand at studio recording, but it doesn't follow that you'll have an easy time recording a gig. You can't ask the band to run through it one more time! It might be similarly challenging for a front-of-house (FOH) engineer, or someone who's in a band and wants to record their gigs. Sure, such people will be familiar with the pressure of a one-chance-to-get-it-right live event, but they'll be less acquainted with the intricacies of recording, and with the threshold of acceptability: a fleeting moment of preamp distortion or feedback might annoy an FOH engineer, but it's not something most listeners will notice (never mind remember), so it's no show-stopper. Yet this sort of thing can spoil a recording.

Whether your background is in studio or live sound, or you're a gigging musician, this article aims to take you through the key issues to consider if you want to start recording live performances. I'll explore a number of options, from the simplest stereo recording to an ambitious multitrack recording that can be edited and enhanced in a post-production stage. I'll mention some post-production processes, but that's a huge subject, the details of which we'll cover another time.