Sampler for live backing tracks....

Our band is starting to play to backing tracks on a few songs. Nothing fancy, I've just mixed the instruments panned to one side and a click panned to the other for our drummer to listen to, then I send the house the backing side only.

For now we've been using an iPod, but I want something a little more stable, where he can just press a button and start the song.

Will one of those Boss units work? I need at least 20 minutes of cd quality stereo sound.

Please help, I'm just a guitarist! Thanks.

Actually, your iPod is not a bad solution. those BOSS units, i believe, use audio compression to get the sound quality you want..

if the quality of the output from the iPod bothers you , you might want to look into a M-Audio Microtrack. Ive got one, and I can vouch for its good sound quality. You can put up to a 4gb memory card, which should give you a coupe of hours at cd quality recording/playback. Its got quarter inch and even digital output, so its got better interfacing than the iPod.

I should mention that I use mine primarily for field recording and not live use. That said, I see no reason why it wouldnt work great.

Akai s5/6000?

i think the boss sp line would do just fine.

I use a boss/roland sp-404 for backing tracks and it works really well. It can stream tracks off a compact flash memory card and it supports up to 1GB so you will get 20 mins CD quality no problem. Tried the IPOD thing but like you say reliability is a problem. Have a look on ebay for the sp-404 as I got one which was new (ex-demo) for less than half the price. It didnt come with the manual or power adaptor, but universal adaptors work with it and are cheap plus you can download the manual for free from the boss/roland website.

I bought the sampler, universal adaptor, 1GB flash card, USB card reader and it was still cheaper than buying the SP-404 new without the extras!

Which is something I use.

I can call up any song I want on my S5000 from my Triton Studio using a simple program change command, and the audio is then streamed off the S5000 internal hard disk.

So I can still use it as a sampler live on the night as well as streaming my audio all at the same time.

Zero loading times :-)

Kind Regards.

Sharp.

Essential! something the sp-404 also provides

What's wrong with the iPod's reliability????????

I would have thought that or a minidisc would do just fine.

Have a lot of mates who do what you're doing with either and ipod or even more commonly Sony MD and they have no problems whatsoever.

Also, you might find later on you want a little more than just a sampler for recording peices like this. You might want to look into a recorder like a Korg D16 or Akai DPS, Yamaha AW16 or Boss BR stuff. You'll be able to do a lot more with the recording and plus they'll be good tools for mixing tracks.

We started out using a Roland multi-track (I forget the model), but it was dreadfully slow and the sound quality was rather unfortunate. We switched then to used a Tascam DA-20 studio DAT, which sounded great, but required a pretty monster rig to support it.

Honestly, I really think the iPod's the way to go these days. Everything else is slower and, well, let's face it, heavier

Minidisc has the potential to skip which is something most people arent prepared to risk. ipod's have slow response times and although they wont skip its a pain having to navigate through the backing tracks with the track skip button. Combine the slow response times with the track skip button and you might skip on two tracks instead of one. A sampler has a dedicated button for each track and responds instantly.

I'm not sayin MDs and ipods wont work because they will, but using backing tracks puts lots of reliability on technology, so IMHO you want the best possible technology for the job.

MD's or Ipod will work but stage do not always provide optimal lighting conditions for operating.

Boss SP samplers have illuminated buttons, red led display etc plus it actually plays the sample when you push the button. Add to that the ability to gate, loop, reverse samples and use the filters and effects on the fly and to me this is a no brainer. Probably plenty of used SP303 on ebay for cheap since introduction SP404. Smart-Media cards can hold upto about one hour of audio if I remember correctly.

I suppose if you only need 20 minutes that's fair enough.

A sampler which takes a 1GB memory card can play a lot longer than 20 mins at CD quality...

I use the SP-404 in my band for this on several songs.

But no-where near as much as an iPOD. If i had heaps of backing tracks there's no way i'd be forking out for heaps of memory cards.

3.5 hours of CD quality stereo audio per 1GB card is plenty for me.