Equipment Used For Backing Tracks in Live Performances

[PopRocker]

I have a few questions for those of you who use backing tracking when you play live.

 

What equipment do you use to play back your MIDI files when you play live?

 

I'm starting a 2 piece Lounge/Club act that will use MIDI bracking tracks.

 

We do want control over effect changes for vocals and some other possible changes as we get more into the set-up.

 

I'm new to this and am trying to figure out the best way to get there.

 

I play guitar, not keyboards, but my partner has a keyboard and plays a little.

 

If we go laptop, and it looks that way at this point for control of the effects parameters, would most any laptop do the job?

[GCDEF]

When I did it, I just recorded the MIDI tracks and put them on a Creative Nomad Jukebox, set up a playlist and hit go.

 

Live isn't the place to be doing a lot of tweaking. Get everything set the way you want, record it and play.

[ATOMICDOG1]

I do sound for several bands that do backing tracks.

One band uses a Mackie MDR 2496 24 track recorder. They only have three backing tracks plus a click that goes only into their in ear monitors. The tracks are #1 percussion, #2 synth, and #3 Bass loop (in addition to the bass players part, mostly for hip hop songs). Each track comes out of the recorder seperately so that I can mix it like a normal track in the FOH mix. It also gets split to the monitor mixer so that each member can have as much or as little of each track as they want in their monitor mix. I have also done the same thing with a band that uses a laptop and protools to play back some recorded tracks. Its best if the tracks can come out with seperate tracks for each part.

 

I have also worked with bands that have done their parts with midi. Its ok that way too. If the parts are seperate its just like using the recorder method.

 

If the parts are all put together (with any method), its not as good generally because sometimes the way things sound in the studio is rarely how they sound when you are mixing them with live instruments. Sometimes you have to eq the different parts seperately to make room for them in the overall mix. If the parts are not seperate, it makes it more difficult because sometimes the eq fix that would bring out one part might kill the other part and screw up the overall balance.

 

Just my 2 cents