Any band use backing track on stage?

[Andier]

Well, don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about how to fake it.

 

I mean, there are songs with piano or strings, and we don't actually have a keyboard player. I've been thinking that, it could be nice if I make a backing tracking before hand. But problems arose.

 

First, in order for the band to follow the backing track on beat, the backing needs to be continuous, so i plan to keep the drum track throughout the song. But if the volume is too low, no one can hear it. If too high, our drummer on stage will be very embarrassed if he plays any note wrong...

 

Second, besides the tracks of the instruments we dont have on stage, will it be nice if more tracks is included? I mean 3 or 4 guitars will probably sound better than just 2. But if we've gone too far on this idea, that would be a real faked show...

 

Well.. Could you guys give any advice? Anyone doing similar things? How do those 4-piece bands play songs with instruments more than drum, guitar and bass??

 

Any feedback is appreciated !!!!

[death metal jim]

I run sound for a lot of gothrock/dance groups. They do this alot ,but most of them dont have drummers.a lot of these bands are like karaoke with guitar keyboards and vox. One band I ran sound for had a drummer but I was instructed to keep him down in the mix.

I have seen some metal bands do back tracking. Nile is one , even if you hate metal but want to check out some good back tracking this is the band you want to see. One of the guitar players has a big keyboard pedals what ever. at his feet.and bunch of other effects and a computer.

There is a local band and what they do is use the back tracks for intros and the drummer controls them.

[Andier]

poor dummer...

 

they say you can make two backing track, one of which is processed so that every beats is aloud and clear; whenever there is a gap, they fill it with someone speaking "One two three..." . You send this to the drummer, and play the clean version via the mixer. Synchronization is achieved by software on computer. But... this is a huge on stage system... not practical for small venue.

[GCDEF]

If you have a real drummer you don't keep the entire drum track typically. You'll have a stereo backing track. One channel will be the music and the other will be a click track or metronome. The click will be fed to the drummer's monitor so he can keep time and the other channel with the actual backing tracks is sent to the house and whatever you feel is appropriate in the monitors.

[deepblue]

Never underestimate the inattentativeness of your audience.Most times mistakes made on stage blow right by the audience unless some one on stage draws attention to it...

[Andier]

Well done!! GCDEF(Nice name ah...but hard to remember.)~~ You just elucidated a practical way of backing the band.!! I'll definately try this on the next show.

 

 

and hey deepblue, I can't agree with you anymore... we've been trying to play calm all the time Good luck~

[Rick6]

I recently saw a show at Yoshi's in Oakland CA where the band used a backing track. Someone told me they advertised it that way, but I didn't see that for myself.

 

It was Paula Morelenbaum, who is well known in Brazil. She came out with a quartet. The drummer controlled the backing tracks from a laptop.

 

On the positive side, at the end, the audience stood and applauded.

 

On the negative side, the musicians I was there disliked it about 8 to 1. Some were quite intense about it. Reasons included no dynamic range (were the tracks compressed for the CD?), generally feeling cheated about paying live ticket prices to listen partly to a record and (mine) that the interplay between the musicians was simply absent. The guys on stage were just playing along with the radio, more or less.

[jasonbradley]

My band does this.. and I'm the drummer... we only use it for a few songs right now... Mainly weird effects... Like big "booms" and synth stuff..

 

I use my laptop... click panned hard right... track panned hard left... Works really well. If your drummer isn't used to playing to a click.. it will mess his world up bad!!! And some drummers to lose that grove while playing to a click.?

[ArrMatey]

I despise backing tracks.

A few times they are well done and well used but the biggest problem then is that they are not mastered so you can keep the same level all the time. This results in the band asking always more or less in the monitor.

 

I've had to deal with cunts who thought it was my fault their backing track was being all dodgy.

 

All I can say is that keep the backing to a minimum. Don't "reinforce" your guitar sound with backing track, it's poor live musicianship and not very credible I think.

 

If you haven't got the ppl on stage, fair enough but if you have actual instrumentalists "miming", that's sad. Very very sad.

I've had to do too many "backing track" karaoke-like goth bands. No good.

[Andier]

I despise miming, too...

 

but I'm still curious~~

 

first, Jason, how do you send two channels out from you laptop?~ How do you hook everything up~?~?

 

second, how does decent band solve this dilemma??~ like u2 in Boston.

[JIM683]

I mixed for Decyfer Down recently and they travel with a laptop loaded with Pro Tools with 6 channels of guitars, effects, and backing vocals. A click track is sent to the drummer and the 6 channels fed 6 channels on the console. They did sing back up vocals and played the guitars live, but the added channels really made their sound big.

[Ear Abuser]

A lot of the "festival bands" seem to be doing backing tracks around here. I'm a traditionalist- I think if you're playing live, you should be playing live. But it's just trickledown from the big boys, and a crowd that wants it to sound "Just like the record".

[jasonbradley]

Hey..

 

I just use the stereo out.. but when I mix down the audio, I pan the track hard left and the click hard right..

 

I then go out from my laptop into a DI box.. one side goes to FOH and the other goes to my little mixer... That way I can mix how much click I'm hearing!

 

Pretty simple setup. I don't want to ever get the point where we have multi tracks... I know of a great band... They play 230 PLUS shows a year.. all at 3000 dollars or more.... They have over 12 channels of backing tracks.. vocals, guitars, drums, leads.. whatever.. They always sound amazing.. I don't agree with it... but we have to remember.. 99 percent of the paying crowd doesn't give a damn!

 

That, and I'm not willing to be in a 9 member band!! THE PAY SUCKS!

[flanc]

I was in a band in the 90's that used MIDI backing tracks for extra percussion..bells, whistles, chirps, etc. We also totally sequenced all the bass parts (no bass player). We sounded amazing...but took alot of heat from other local bands. Now mind you, we played alot of key's, guitars, drums etc., but were often labeled a "Karaoke" band by those other band members in attendance . After leaving that band, my wife and I decided it wasn't worth the kick to our rep to deal with backing tracks. Also, it you really need to stay strict to the song. For instance...if the dance floor is hoppin' we'll repeat a verse or two on a song. That's real hard to do with backing tracks!

 

Oh...and we did it exactly as others have described. We had a metronome (closed hi-hat sound) that worked as a click track. It was panned hard left..the other stuff hard right and we mixed the click in the drummers monitor. He used to have it obnoxiously loud which didn't make it very subtle.