What is a live session?
A live session is the opposite of a mimed music video. The band plays, the microphones record and the cameras film at the same time, so the audio in the finished video is the performance itself, mixed but not replaced. Sessions are usually stripped back: a few songs in a studio, a rehearsal room, a living room or an empty venue, filmed so the viewer feels like they are in the corner of the room. The camera's job is to witness, not to perform.
The term covers a family of formats. A studio session is a short set recorded in one space. A concert film captures a full show in front of a crowd, usually with a larger crew and more cameras. A livestream performance broadcasts the set in real time to an audience online, sometimes ticketed. What they share is that the music is happening now, and the video is there to witness it.
Why it matters
Why a live session matters
Live sessions prove the songs. A recorded single can be built in a studio over months; a session shows that the artist can deliver it in one take, and audiences trust that. For a new artist it is often the most convincing introduction there is, and for an established one it is a way to show a song in a new light: slower, quieter, rearranged. They are honest in a way audiences value, and a wrong note left in can make a session feel more alive, not less.
Sessions also travel well. They give a release more to share between music videos, they suit longer viewing on YouTube, and they cut naturally into short vertical clips of the best moment in each song. A strong live performance on video is also a calling card for anyone deciding whether to book the act.
In practice
How a live session works in practice
- 01
Sound leads. A live session is an audio recording first, so the engineer and the director plan the room together: where the musicians stand, where the microphones go, how much of the room's own sound to keep, and where the cameras can sit without appearing in each other's shots or adding noise. Every input is recorded to multitrack so the songs can be mixed properly afterward. Cameras are synced to the audio with timecode, and multi-camera shoots are the norm, because there is only one real take of each song to cover.
- 02
On the day the band plays each song through, often two or three times, and the director chooses the best performance rather than building one from pieces. In post the songs are mixed, the picture is cut to the chosen take, and the grade sets the mood of the room. A livestream applies the same thinking in real time: a switcher, a live mix and a reliable connection, as with any live stream, with the recording kept for release afterward.
At RIOT
Live sessions at RIOT
For Wild Rivers we filmed "From The Sidelines" live at Le Poisson Rouge in New York, shot and edited by a small team for a global Moment House stream. In lockdown, Old Sea Brigade and Luke Sital-Singh staged a live EP session with us. Both sit within our music video production, and for sessions in the city we have our own studio in New York.
Watch out
What people get wrong about live sessions
Treating it like a music video with the sound left on. A session lives or dies on the audio, and a beautifully lit room with poor microphones sounds like a phone recording. The second mistake is too many cuts. Viewers want to watch the performance, so the edit should let a take breathe and cut only when there is something new to see. The third is overdubbing until it is no longer live. Fixing a broken string is fine; replacing every vocal in the studio afterward turns an honest session into a mimed one, and audiences can usually hear it. The fourth is ignoring the room. A space that looks great but rings like a stairwell will fight every microphone, so choose the room for how it sounds as well as how it looks.
