I recorded 3 concerts last week at 2 separate venues with roughly 20k people. Big loud rock and roll shows. I’m overall happy with my recordings, but they can definitely be better. I didn’t experience any major clipping/ peaking but I can hear crackles and pops that I’d like to try and eliminate.

I would also like to just “clean them up” in general. Boost the levels on guitar solos and try to make the overall recording sound crisper. Right now it sounds like a recording, I want to try and make them sound like a concert. I feel like you guys on this sub will get what I mean.

I used audacity for tracking, and I tried to make some adjustments to the sound itself but I’m just so lost. It seems like everything I try makes it sound worse rather than better. I’m looking for either:

A) a good resource for beginners geared specifically towards live music recordings (either with audacity or with another free/ somewhat affordable program)

Or

B) a program that is more intuitive for beginners (doubtful this exists)

Mad respect to all of you who do this for a living this shit is not easy at all. Music is my life so thank you to all of you who work on music in any capacity.