Members Jimbo Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 I'm a guitarist/singer who plays in a duo (another singer/guitarist)running sequenced tracks for the background. I sequence the songs on my pc and then export the midi filesto a laptop for live playback. The gear we're using for the background is a JV1080 for the keyboard / bass sounds and an Alesis DM pro for the drums. Everything goes through a 16 channel mixer. Does anyone know if there are other methods of playback compared to what we're doing that are better and will sound great? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members flanc Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Some folks get the mix of sequenced tracks to their liking and bounce/render that to a CD/MP3. You can save alot of set-up time in just hooking a CD player to the mixer rather than hauling out a keyboard and drum module everytime. As far as sounding better....that will depend on the quality of your sequences and the synths (samples) involved. The DM5 has very nice drum sounds and the Roland synth you mentioned should have nice sounds too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcpro Posted June 30, 2003 Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Using what you have... 1. Pull the bass guitar part out of the main mix on the 1080, re-route it to an individual out, and run it through a bass amp. 2. Go through all your mixes and eliminate just about everything except the basics...bass, drums, and maybe horn stabs or a pad or two. The secret to effective backing tracks is to keep them simple, which allows you guys to do most of the playing. 3. I don't know what you guys have, but a good club PA with subs is a must for the drums. Your method of playback is the same as mine, which I prefer to stereo audio files or MP3's because I can individually mix drums and run the bass separately. I put my SMF's in folders according to type, and run them using Windows Media Player...I have over 450 of them and can instantly go to any of them with a couple of clicks. Unless you're using fixed sets and a small PA I don't think there is anything better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbo Posted June 30, 2003 Author Members Share Posted June 30, 2003 Thanks for the info... We also take the bass out of a seperate output from the 1080into it's own input to the board. As far as the PA, we're using Community cabinets (3 way) with a crest power amp and an active Elite sub bass cabinet. The guitars are going to 2 GX 700's, where all patch changes are done via midi and the monitoring of the mix is done using earphones. Being that we're dependent on the tracks on the gigs, I've been thinking of getting some sort of backup system, whether it be putting the tracks to audio or mp3 format or actually buying another 1080 and drum unit. It's either spend the extra money or spend the extra time for the audio conversions. I'm not sure what's best . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcpro Posted July 1, 2003 Members Share Posted July 1, 2003 Actually, my biggest concern is not with my tone modules, but the computer going down. I've been using Roland tone modules for 15 years and nothing has ever happened to them. My backup to my laptop is a couple of floppies with my most played songs on them that I can run from the sequencer on my Roland XP-60 keyboard, but I haven't had to use them....yet... Anyway, if you can get hold of a bass amp, give it a try, you'll never gig without it. Yes, I hook up a bass amp on all but my smallest jobs, it really makes that big of a difference. Even when I bleed a little through the mains, the bass notes stay distinctive and separate from the kick, and it also makes the whole system kick ass. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Jimbo Posted July 2, 2003 Author Members Share Posted July 2, 2003 Do you use guitar amps along with the bass amp, or do you run the guitar directly into the mains?We use 2 gx700s directly, so we don't have any guitar cabinets.I'm going to try the bass amp thing to see how it sounds.For sequencial backup, we use a midi file player with about 5 disks.We did have to use it once after some guy accidently spilled his bear on my laptop...needless to say the screen went dead.Thank god for the backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcpro Posted July 2, 2003 Members Share Posted July 2, 2003 Actually, I play keyboards . I run 'em straight into the PA though. I also play in bands, and I wanted the same general feel of a bass player when doing my single, and when I tried a bass amp the first time on a sequence I couldn't believe the difference...then I was hooked. I also play key bass some, and use the amp for that as well...currently a Hartke 4000 top and one or two 15 cabs with Eminence Kappa Pros in them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keano Posted November 29, 2003 Members Share Posted November 29, 2003 What up guys! I am in a band (singer/guitarist) and plan using our laptop/Cubase Sx as the sequencer. I need a click going to the drummer and also stereo out for PA system. Also need to have some sort of midi connection as I want to play live along with band using an external controller. what sound card do I need for laptop and also how do I get just a click to the drummer and not in the PA?thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tommy Tune Posted November 30, 2003 Members Share Posted November 30, 2003 Actually, my biggest concern is not with my tone modules, but the computer going down. I've been using Roland tone modules for 15 years and nothing has ever happened to them. My backup to my laptop is a couple of floppies with my most played songs on them that I can run from the sequencer on my Roland XP-60 keyboard, but I haven't had to use them....yet... I'd back it up with a good old mini disk or a CD. That way, if or when it goes down, you have a way out. It certainly can't hurt. An ounce of pevention is a pound of cure. Goofy things happen and what if it's the floppy and not the laptop itself? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tommy Tune Posted December 1, 2003 Members Share Posted December 1, 2003 what sound card do I need for laptop and also how do I get just a click to the drummer and not in the PA? Run the setup in mono. Example: Click out of the the right channel and the sequence out of the left. Run the sequenced channel to the board and the click to a headset via another small board or a headphone amp. We used to cheat and send the click to a channel and then isolate that channel only to the phones. Then we'd use the phone out to send the click to the drummer's headset. The BE had no phone jack to monitor with but it worked pretty well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members JMS 2 Posted December 1, 2003 Members Share Posted December 1, 2003 We've had bad experiences with discman type o player bouncing all over the placewhen the stage level starts to rise.Actually we've had track skipping problems with the rackmount CD-player as well. I'm currently looking for a MP3 ram player. I guess 20 songs need about 100K so a 128K should be enough ... or not ?Can anyone suggest an inexpensive (of course) rackmount one ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members sirdaniel Posted December 2, 2003 Members Share Posted December 2, 2003 Nothing is more EMBARRASSING than having you midi go down in the middle of a song... I've gone the MP3 method with excellent results. In-ear monitors for key members help Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Scodiddly Posted December 2, 2003 Members Share Posted December 2, 2003 Those 4-track cassette studio dealies are pretty cheap used these days. And the sound quality is plenty good enough for live work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GCDEF Posted December 2, 2003 Members Share Posted December 2, 2003 Originally posted by JMS 2 We've had bad experiences with discman type o player bouncing all over the placewhen the stage level starts to rise.Actually we've had track skipping problems with the rackmount CD-player as well.I'm currently looking for a MP3 ram player. I guess 20 songs need about 100K so a 128K should be enough ... or not ?Can anyone suggest an inexpensive (of course) rackmount one ? I don't think you'd want to limit yourself to 20 songs. I do the duet thing sometimes too. I've used a Creative Nomad Jukebox II with no trouble other than the display is hard to see. It lets you program as many playlists as you like and holds thousands of songs. Costs around $200 I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members mrcpro Posted December 2, 2003 Members Share Posted December 2, 2003 Originally posted by Tommy Tune I'd back it up with a good old mini disk or a CD. That way, if or when it goes down, you have a way out. It certainly can't hurt. An ounce of pevention is a pound of cure. Goofy things happen and what if it's the floppy and not the laptop itself? The sequences in the laptop are on the hard drive, but loaded into ram on powerup...all 450 of them (MIDI sequences are only 25-60 kbites each). Then I can play them in any order I want instantaneously by clicking on their names straight from the folders that contain them using Windows Media Player. It's the kind of flexability that you can't get from minidisks or cds. It's been a half year since this thread started, over 100 gigs later, and still no MIDI hangups or computer problems, but I'm thinking about picking up a used laptop for backup. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Tommy Tune Posted December 3, 2003 Members Share Posted December 3, 2003 We're gonna start to do it too but I'm not too sure what kind of soundcard I need to have the killer sound that we want. Any suggestions? We're currently using a synth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stunningbabe Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 I've just started to use a laptop. All my backup tracks are in MP3. They sound great!. I chain 3 songs in a row to perform a medley of hits....and I can do while on stage in just a few seconds by clicking the mouse. Pretty handy...it's just my laptop, my guitar and pedals. That's it.I am using this set up rather successfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keano Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 What about the drummer he must have a click track tho Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Shinbone Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 Jimbo, I am in basically the same situation as you (a duo with midi backing tracks). Like you, we were using a laptop to play the midi files but we recently switched to using a midi file player because I was worried about using the laptop in these smokey bar type situations. Its a stand-alone sequencer that plays midis off of a floppy disk. Its pretty handy and its cheaper than a laptop. We still bring the laptop as a backup though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fossil Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 Originally posted by keano need a click going to the drummer and also stereo out for PA system. Also need to have some sort of midi connection as I want to play live along with band using an external controller.what sound card do I need for laptop and also how do I get just a click to the drummer and not in the PA? You will need a soundcard with at least 3 outputs if you want to run your backing tracks in stereo. Its much easier & cost effective to run your backing track mono. Then you can just pan the Backing track hard left & click track hard right. Use a pre-fade aux send on the mixer to send the click track just to a monitor mix and not FOH. Also you can mix down the mono track (hard left) and Click (hard right) to a stereo Wav or Mp3 file and then use a stand alone player or regular media player to play back the tracks. If you're really set on trying to run the backing track in stereo start looking into 4 output soundcards with midi capability for laptops (not sure there is anything that does all that for laptops). Most of the time the stereo effect is lost on 90% of the audience because most venues arent set-up with stereo imaging in mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keano Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 Ok Stunning babeSo what your saying is you us eonly MP3's now. So I am guessign your using a sequencer of some sort. ACID or Cubase. You got your MP3 or mixed stereo WAV file in sync with a clcik is that right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keano Posted December 5, 2003 Members Share Posted December 5, 2003 Hmm never thought about that Fossill. good points on the clubs not being ready for stereo mix out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members stunningbabe Posted December 8, 2003 Members Share Posted December 8, 2003 Originally posted by keano Ok Stunning babeSo what your saying is you us eonly MP3's now. So I am guessign your using a sequencer of some sort. ACID or Cubase. You got your MP3 or mixed stereo WAV file in sync with a clcik is that right? I recorded all my back up tracks from scratch. That means all the kick, snare, toms, hi hats, cymbals, bass, guitars, back up vocals, keyboard parts etc...are all performed by me....and yes...all 100% of it. There is not a single song that I perform that does not have my own playing or voice in it. All tracks are mixed, treated with the right effects and mixed into 2 track stereo. I do not use stereo for stage performance coz there's no point trying to make it stereo when people are not sitting in the centre of the loudspeakers. No, I do not perform with anyone else on stage. It is me all by myself...so I don't need a click track. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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