Gigging with a Laptop?

[88Fingerz]

In an earlier post I asked the community about a replacement for minidisc playback of my pre-recorded tracks used in a musical duo act.

 

Any thoughts from anyone who works this way regularly?

 

I have an IBook....are we talking simply "I-Tunes" for playback or can anyone recommend a better program for this?

 

I need to not only accurately trigger the songs but also cue up for the following song so there's no gaps of silence in the show (when required).

 

I'd like to play back .WAV files as opposed to MP3s (which I'm opposed to...).

 

Thanks for your shared experiences!

[GCDEF]

When I did that kind of thing I used a Creative Jukebox and set up playlists for sets. As long as you don't use a lot of compression, you won't be able to tell the difference between a wav and an MP3.

[Danny (NS::U)]

Itunes seems like a fine program for just doing playback. I can't imagine that it would have any trouble playing .WAV files.

[hrxmike]

My band is a two piece with a laptop

Our laptop is a PC and we use cakewalk to build our sets in

As far as cueing songs goes we just hit play once then we are slave to that

[Artur Meinild]

Check this out, just for {censored}s and giggles... (view the video)

 

http://www.nativeinstruments.de/index.php?id=timexile_us&ftu=eab819d540

[GZsound]

Just a possibly dumb question, but is there a difference between "gigging with a laptop" and Karoake?

 

Seems the lines are getting blurry...

[hrxmike]

 

Originally posted by GZsound Just a possibly dumb question, but is there a difference between "gigging with a laptop" and Karoake? Seems the lines are getting blurry...

 

 

Yes this is a dumb question and an even dumber reply to this thread. Why did you click the reply tab on this one. Were you trying to "start something." The truth is, people have been gigging with laptops and sequencers for years.

[88Fingerz]

Thanks to all for the helpful replies.

 

My particular situation is not Karaoke, nor is the line blurred.

 

The backing tracks in question were all performed and recorded by myself.

I played drums (for the most part, Live off the keys with C as kik, D&E snares, F#,G#, A# hihats opened and closed, etc....), bass, string sections, brass, etc..all the while playing a stack of 2 synths.

I leave the parts I play live (usually piano, organ, sax solos, etc...) out of the mix so I'm actually needed there musicaly speaking and can sleep at night with some dignity.

My female partner plays all the percussion she can reach and both of us are singing lead and harmonies.

 

It's a Faaaaarrrrrr cry from Karaoke to be sure!

 

Anyway, It's off to Laptop life and I'm looking forward to a good, musicaly reliable relationship!

 

Peace in the Valley, 'Ol 88

[THB]

Originally posted by hrxmike Yes this is a dumb question and an even dumber reply to this thread. Why did you click the reply tab on this one. Were you trying to "start something." The truth is, people have been gigging with laptops and sequencers for years.

 

No need to be a {censored}ing asshole about it Mike. It wasn't a dumb question at all. Yes, people have been doing seqeunced shows for a long time, and yes, it does bear striking similarities to karaoke. All the tracks are there for you to play rhythm guitar with and sing along...yeah, that's not like karaoke at all.

 

Take your arrogant attitude to Open Jam; they like your kind of {censored} there.

 

[mrcpro]

When I'm not playing in a band, I use Windows Media Player to play back my Standard MIDI Files on my HP laptop. Windows Media Player is totally rock solid...never hangs, or even hiccups. Plus keeping the tracks SMF I can mix and EQ kick, bass, and snare to the room because they're pulled out of the main mix. Just click on a file in a list and it immediately plays, or build setlists.