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The Role of Modern Keyboard Players?


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FOREWORD: I'm a youngish musician who uses technology and plays in a variety of bands where I'm a necessary part. This is not a "technology is taking our jobs!" post. Many of you guys have probably been saying that for decades :whistle: It's just an observation. Saying that, I might change my forum name to "CynicalScot", but it might get me confused with the incredibly helpful "AnotherScott", which I wouldn't want!

 

After my latest semi-rant in the Yamaha YC-61 thread, I got thinking about our role in the modern contemporary band...

 

I was recently playing at a fairly big festival. This festival had some fairly big names playing at it. I spent a good 30 minutes talking to the chief sound tech, who happened to have been touring with a VERY big recognisable name earlier in the year. Naturally, I asked a bit about the sound setup. I learned a lot, but here's a couple of the things he said that I took away:

 

"In *ARTIST*'s recent tour last year, we used 56 channels of backing track."

 

56 channels of backing track. How do you even use 56 channels of track?

 

He went on: "Artist was hesitant to use wireless mics because one of her touring backing singers passingly said backstage one night that "bluetooth" mics don't sound as good [nonsense] so for all of her backing vocalists and instrumentalists (30+ people) she has asked that we hardwire each one."

 

When I asked about the keyboards, he said "Maybe 2 channels - one stereo input, or 4 if the keyboard player/artist wants to add an analogue synth. Mostly they'll be hooked up to the backing tracks using a $3000 controller (Nord) and won't do much beyond what the tracks do."

 

Later that evening, a different headliner played. Again, this guy had around 12 channels of backing tracks used. In his 60 minute set there were only two occasions when I noticed the keyboard player:

 

1) - When he started a song in the wrong key (it was obvious because it conflicted with the track, and the whole band turned to look at him as he fumbled with the Nord Stage 2, trying to find the transpose button)

 

2) - when he had a 1 min 30 solo piano piece with the singer. The rest of the time, I couldn't tell what was track and what was keys.

 

The support band played earlier. They were fantastic, but again, the only time I noticed the synth player was when he played a key riff slightly out of time to the backing track. The sequencer he had on stage was hardly being used; most of the set was being controller by the Macbook the drummer was controlling, hidden under a curtain that the audience couldn't see (I could see from the side of the stage)

 

I started to wonder...what role does the keyboard player have in the future of the music world? I'm not against tracks; I play in a band that regularly uses tracks. I've turned up to gigs having learned my part, only to hear "ah yeah, we don't need you to play that part - it's on the track. If you could filter sweep here and keep a pad going here to transition into the next song that would be great."

 

On the flip side, I have a bunch of gigs where if I don't turn up, nothing happens. But those gigs are getting rarer and rarer. A bass player friend of mine was lamenting earlier that "good" keyboard players are getting harder and harder to find. Those who programme their own sounds and learn the songs bit for bit are rare, and those who expect everything to be handed to them on a plate are too many. The bass player is old-school too though.

 

Anyone else started seeing this? (Maybe you have been for decades, and I've just caught up and have noticed. Get off my lawn, etc, etc...)

 

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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Yes, here in my scene I've been seeing it grow for a while now.

 

Certainly on "big name" tours, the expectations that accompany paying paycheck-sized cheddar for a concert ticket made "making it sound like the CD" mandatory. Keyboard Mag had a recurring feature with Mike McKnight in those days, talking about life as a Pro Tools operator for the Big Names, yes?

 

The short tour I did with a tribute act used backings and click - mostly orchestrations and additional BG vox.

 

And now it seems a lot of local bands have gone that way a while ago, as the entry price has dropped, democratizing entry into the world of tracks. Keep all the sound, lose all the headache musicians. Some gigs, like casino work, really make sense for tracks use, too. Does it matter? Audiences listen with their eyes anyway, and they don't care whether what they hear from the speakers matches with who's on the stage - not anymore.

 

But that's the way of the world. There have always been props and support and smoke and mirrors in entertainment. Every leap of technology brings winners and losers.

 

For me, it hasn't really affected me or my gig life - the folks who call me want what I can do, and clearly the folks who want something else don't ever call me.

 

Maybe I'm fortunate, or I don't play in the league those other demands come from. I'm grateful there are plenty of opportunities in my market for guys who can play, to find decent work.

 

Is that old school? Hmmmm...

..
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For me, it hasn't really affected me or my gig life - the folks who call me want what I can do

 

I think that's the key, Tim. If you can play; you'll probably get the gig. If you can play AND adapt; you'll get the gig.

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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I watched a touring Fleetwood Mac tribute band a couple of months ago. They had 2 "keyboard players", one on a Yamaha CP-Something and the other on a Nord Stage 2. I was in a good position to see both "players". Neither one played a single note for the whole show. I could see that the Nord was not even switched on.

 

So sad.

 

I'm not against backing tracks as a supplement, especially for solo or duo acts, but this was going too far for me.

DigitalFakeBook Free chord/lyric display software for windows.
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I guess I'm one of those rare players who can program the sounds, learn to play the parts, sing good harmonies, all without backing tracks. In the last couple of years I've been approached with offers but I'm having too much fun with the current band. Not just because the music is fun to play, but the personalities of the band members make it all worth it. We do a lot of ball-busting, all in good humor.
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In the local scene here very few bands have keys players, and the ones that do, the players definitely play. There"s not a heap of us around and I periodically get asked to join new projects. There"s nothing particularly special about my playing but I"m happy to do the work of learning the songs properly and programming the sounds, which goes a long way I suspect.

 

Most of the really successful regularly gigging local acts use tracks up the wazoo. I get it - less folks on stage means less pie splitting. No issue with this personally.

 

In the touring tribute world which I also inhabit, there is trickery everywhere. A lot of 'short cuts' to get that authentic album sound. Again I understand why. My feeling is as long as the person playing the instrument is really playing it, good luck to them. I have been told stories by sound engineers of ENTIRE BANDS miming apart from the lead vocalist, which I"m not as much in favour of.

 

To more directly address the question posed by Jordan, I feel like there"s still work out there for keys players who are prepared to work with their bands in a professional way. In saying this, the life of a musician is generally pretty tough so while I believe it"s easy enough to be busy, making a living wage is a different story altogether (as it has been for artists of all stripes since time immemorial).

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I think this is almost inevitable given how music is made today. If the studio is "an instrument", then one can't play the music without it being present to play its parts. Put differently, If the album/song/track is created by simply recording what humans are doing together as a band, then live can be a pretty close facsimile - or even better than the recording. But if the album/song/track is created by one or more humans simply adding things to a session file in arbitrary quantities though arbitrary complex DAW processing, then it is going to be pretty hard to impossible to recreate that live without just using the studio parts. When you see simple pop songs with 50-150 tracks and layer after layer of texture, you couldn't perform that without a symphony orchestra worth of musicians on stage. Which no one will pay for. So, the tracks are a natural consequence of the way the music was made - almost inevitable.

 

What is interesting to me is that some of the DJ's and rap acts are touring with bands now. Turns out that just pressing play and jumping up and down isn't as good a show - even with lots of lights.

 

I think for entertainment, the bigger spectacle will always win. U2, Beyonce, and so many others

 

I think for human meaning and connection, authenticity will always win. Humans need art to make sense of the world, and it will always be there. I submit Ed Sheeran. He stands on a huge stage with an acoustic guitar and a mic. No band. No tracks. His voice and a guitar, and a stadium full of people sing along on every song. Why? meaning. There's no show. No stage dives. Just a dude singing songs that speak to people.

 

Art and entertainment will be around as long as we are human. So I think that musicians will find their way over time to the right mix for them.

 

I do know that my kids do not care about tracks one bit. If someone is onstage, they think they should play whatever their part is. But they don't care if other parts are happening that no one is playing. The overall sound is what they care about. They would think it dumb for someone to mime parts or stand there not playing.

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In my main gig, we use 32 backing tracks along with 3 keyboard players. Part of the tech involves sending sound out to the live audience as well as to a streaming audience for every show. The tracks provide insurance as the investment is simply too large to take chances on.

Some music I've recorded and played over the years with a few different bands

Tommy Rude Soundcloud

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I go to Vegas every year for a seminar at Paris. A friend has a timeshare at Westgate (the old Las Vegas Hilton} so I stay there for free and take the monorail. At the Westgate they had a show group in the lounge and Barry Manilow in the main room. I passed on Manilow but took in the lounge show. Packed. All tracks. Four people on stage wearing costumes and also wearing two guitars, a bass and a keytar. I say wearing because nobody played anything, they were just props. They danced and sang their parts. It was just ridiculous, I walked out after a half hour and one drink. Now, at the Paris they have a lounge with two guys doing a dualing pianos act. Two real grands nestled together and both guys playing off each other, telling jokes, singing, working the crowd, doing stump the band. Great, really good. I watched them for two hours and the lounge was packed. Two different casinos two different acts. I have no idea about other shows but I did talk to some people and they told me about similar lounge shows in other casinos. It seems to be a real mix. I also know that Vegas lounges are like TV programmers. They'll change formats as fast as we change socks. Forum member Hardware seems to be a very busy working keyboard player in Vegas so he can chime in about that.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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I think there are people who want to hear an accurate recreation of what they're streaming and hang with their friends, and a smaller group of people who crave an authentic live music experience. The latter is definitely less profitable, it seems.

 

This is on a small, local scale, like 300 people max. More like 50-150 on a given night. Ain't no touring in my world.

 

My country club band is more of the former. Pays quite well, much less fun, and no late nights. No backing tracks as it's 50s-60s-70s stuff. Not hard to recreate live, especially with FOUR strong vocalists. I just lay back, do my bits, and listen to these people sing their hearts out.

 

My Grateful Dead-ish band is more of the latter. The instrumental jams matter. Everyone is talented. People come out to see what we might do on a given night. And most nights, we deliver the soul jam for the crowd. We create an emotional experience. Super fun. Pays a lot less.

 

But I'm not trying to make a living on this stuff. Just trying to have fun, and live my best life.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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I'm a weekend warrior in Vegas playing 3 - 4 gigs / month in old-school soul, blues, R&B, and R&R bands mainly in off-strip dives. A couple of years ago I had an offer to play in a pop band that uses tracks and I turned it down even though I would have been making a lot more money playing on the Strip, Fremont Street, and for corporate parties. I turned the gig down because I would rather sink or swim on my own skill (or lack thereof). Of course, if I had to play music to put beans on the table, I might have a different attitude. I would add that the pop band wanted to dress me up in new more stylish clothes. This effort to make me more presentable made me even less inclined to take the gig because I adhere to Henry David Thoreau's admonition: "Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes".

Gigs: Nord 5D 73, Kurz PC4-7 & SP4-7, Hammond SK1, Yamaha MX88 & P121, Numa Compact 2x, Casio CGP700, QSC K12, Yamaha DBR10, JBL515xt(2). Alto TS310(2)

 

 

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I'm not interested in doing gigs with tracks. I'm not saying I'm against maybe a sound effect or a background vocal. Why? I like to play. I like knowing the songs and having the ride wondering if I'm going to crash or make it . If all I was is a mannequin miming a performance or playing but having prerecorded safety net it would have no reason to be there. Even for money. I feel like I would be living a lie.

FunMachine.

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I was sorely disappointed at this huge church event I played where the MD insisted on using tracks to "supplement" the 20 piece string orchestra "in case something goes wrong".

Life is subtractive.
Genres: Jazz, funk, pop, Christian worship, BebHop
Wishlist: 80s-ish (synth)pop, symph pop, prog rock, fusion, musical theatre
Gear: NS2 + JUNO-G. KingKORG. SP6 at church.

 

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I was sorely disappointed at this huge church event I played where the MD insisted on using tracks to "supplement" the 20 piece string orchestra "in case something goes wrong".

 

Tracks have become the backbone of many worship events.

Hammond SKX

Mainstage 3

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I watched a touring Fleetwood Mac tribute band a couple of months ago. They had 2 "keyboard players", one on a Yamaha CP-Something and the other on a Nord Stage 2. I was in a good position to see both "players". Neither one played a single note for the whole show. I could see that the Nord was not even switched on.

That is truly pathetic.

 

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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When AWB played a festival in Glasgow a few years back on the same bill with Bruno Mars, one of the guys in his band said to us "you guys do this without tracks?" I might be wrong but it seemed to me he wasn't trying to be funny!

 

Bruno's show had tracks going. I was out by the mixing board for a while. There was a monitor with SMPTE code running. This is mostly (I presume) for the pyro, video and lights; there were all sorts of effects going on in perfect sync with the music. A computer running a sequence with backing tracks is almost an afterthought. Like most modern music tech, imo tracks can be used as an aid or a crutch. Bruno's band can all play; the tracks are not necessarily there for them to mime to, but to augment. Is it possible there was some miming? Well I and the 15000 people watching couldn't tell and will never know. And 99.999% of them don't care; isn't that's the bottom line? One must also acknowledge a truth that a live band by itself cannot possibly reproduce what a producer in a studio with 300 Logic tracks can make.

 

So today any trib, wedding or bar band can use tracks. This is the great "democratization" of music production that modern, powerful and relatively inexpensive computers has wrought. Everyone can be a youtube star now, and any band can sound amazing. You want to bitch and moan about this? Most of this forum extols the tech used to do it â in effect, we could all be part of the process that creates an audience that doesn't care if tracks are being used. It would be nice if a general audience could discern when it's a crutch vs an aid but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that moment!

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I watched a touring Fleetwood Mac tribute band a couple of months ago. They had 2 "keyboard players", one on a Yamaha CP-Something and the other on a Nord Stage 2. I was in a good position to see both "players". Neither one played a single note for the whole show. I could see that the Nord was not even switched on.

 

 

They were there as backup in case the tracks had a malfunction. Hopefully they were actually players and not truck drivers. No offense to truck drivers meant.

FunMachine.

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When AWB played a festival in Glasgow a few years back on the same bill with Bruno Mars, one of the guys in his band said to us "you guys do this without tracks?" I might be wrong but it seemed to me he wasn't trying to be funny!

 

Bruno's show had tracks going. I was out by the mixing board for a while. There was a monitor with SMPTE code running. This is mostly (I presume) for the pyro, video and lights; there were all sorts of effects going on in perfect sync with the music). A computer running a sequence with backing tracks is almost an afterthought. Like most modern music tech, imo tracks can be used as an aid or a crutch. Bruno's band can all play; the tracks are not necessarily there for them to mime to, but to augment. Is it possible there was some miming? Well I and the 15000 people watching couldn't tell and will never know. And 99.999% of them don't care; isn't that's the bottom line? One must also acknowledge a truth that a live band by itself cannot possibly reproduce what a producer in a studio with 300 Logic tracks can make.

 

So today any trib, wedding or bar band can use tracks. This is the great "democratization" of music production that modern, powerful and relatively inexpensive computers has wrought. Everyone can be a youtube star now, and any band can sound amazing. You want to bitch and moan about this? Most of this forum extols the tech used to do it â in effect, we could all be part of the process that creates an audience that doesn't care if tracks are being used. It would be nice if a general audience could discern when it's a crutch vs an aid but I'm not holding my breath waiting for that moment!

 

Some really good points Rob!

 

I also play in a band with "lots of backing tracks", so I think I can be considered a "modern keyboard player". In the beginning I was also quite hesitant toward using tracks, but actually now I just see it as a different way of making music. All the players in the band are really good players, so we really use it to complement the band. We use the backing tracks to get a sound live we normally couldn't pull off, or we had to use like 20 musicians. I try to play as much as I can, sometimes using a sampler for parts. On top of that come the backing tracks synths, but also drums, vocals, sfx. I must admit that it is easier to sound good using backing tracks, but that doesn't automatically means that whoever is using track is a bad band.

 

Last week I had a rehearsal with my jazzy pop band again since months, and I have to say, just a piano and the freedom to really interact with other musicians is nice...

 

Rudy

 

 

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I watched a touring Fleetwood Mac tribute band a couple of months ago. They had 2 "keyboard players", one on a Yamaha CP-Something and the other on a Nord Stage 2. I was in a good position to see both "players". Neither one played a single note for the whole show. I could see that the Nord was not even switched on.

 

 

They were there as backup in case the tracks had a malfunction. Hopefully they were actually players and not truck drivers. No offense to truck drivers meant.

 

 

I picture them looking just like Ron Mael. Stage presence, facial expression... the whole act!

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FOREWORD:...Anyone else started seeing this? (Maybe you have been for decades, and I've just caught up and have noticed. Get off my lawn, etc, etc...)

This.

 

I've played to sequences on a few of occasions over the years and absolutely hate it. Where possible, on a gig where I've learned my parts and programmed my sounds accordingly (usually much to the band's surprise), if the keyboard "sequence" tracks are mutable, I'd insist they mute them.

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I go to see a lot of local cover and tribute bands. Some have keyboards, If the material warrants it. Some don't, but use tracks. Its a little odd (or jarring perhaps?) when they do "Jump" or "The Final Countdown" and no one is there live playing keys, but I'm not even sure the rest of the audience even notices. Especially if the other 18 or so songs they do have little or no keys.

 

One band I see occasionally is an '80s synth-pop, new wave cover band. They're very good, but I've long felt that if they'd add a dedicated keyboard player they could expand their repertoire tenfold. Rhythm guitarist had a small keyboard on an X-stand that he'd play as-needed. I asked once, do you know such-and-such song? Sure... We love that song, but its too keyboard-heavy for us at this point.

 

I saw them again recently and they've retired the keyboard and X-stand, in favor of a bunch of tracks the guitar player activates using his pedals. And they've added new, more guitar-heavy material. Oh well. Maybe that's the direction they wanted to go.

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Everyone is free to put on a show how they see fit. I'd prefer if more people liked what I liked, but these days I try to subscribe to the Field of Dreams philosophy: "if you build it, they will come." I'm not trying to appeal to the people who want to hear something different, I'm trying to do what I like and find an audience that enjoys what I enjoy. It would be easy for me to lament "oh, these pop artists and their tracks, not like the good old days," but the Who has been playing to taped synth tracks onstage since Who's Next in 1971. It's all tools, and these things ebb and flow and go in and out of style.

 

That said (and, again, I'm not one of the people who depends on performing to make a living), I've learned to just stick with what I find fulfilling. That doesn't mean not trying something new to challenge myself and my beliefs, but what thrills me about performance is interaction, spontaneity, and the feeling that anything can happen at any time. I've never been a fan of playing to a click track in the studio, never mind having to play with something prerecorded onstage. To each their own -- for me, the fun (both as a performer and as an audience member) is seeing how a live arrangement can capture the overall affect of a song done with the ensemble onhand. Seeing "how are they going to pull this off" is part of the fun, and I find that much more enjoyable than just knowing that every song in a live performance will sound like the record. Vulfpeck's live shows are very old-school, in that they don't try to reproduce their studio performances, they find new arrangements given the players and instruments they have onstage. Plenty of bands still do that, especially in the festival/jam circuit, and people love it. Lots of shows are big-budget productions where there's no musical risk involved, either. It's not good or bad, it just is.

 

Some people probably just want to hear what they know, and that's fine. It's just not what I'm chasing, and I don't expect that what I'm chasing will change.

Samuel B. Lupowitz

Musician. Songwriter. Food Enthusiast. Bad Pun Aficionado.

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Nothing new here, but the dichotmy is real.

 

I'm trying to get both my chops up and the house thing goin. I'm learning the MPC1000 top to bottom right now. It is basically the best live MIDI sequencer in the world and still fantastic one box sampler and beat maker.

 

It's getting me back to the 4000 vinyl sides I've acrueed and I am learning all about drums, from 1910 to now. But my scales are suffering a bit. Upside is hands have a chance to get strong without injury.

 

I HATED drum machines when they appeared in the 80s. Now I get it, and I love my new RD-8. I put new thick pads in the MPC and I play it from there LOL.

 

Now, dancing around and pretending to play.......that does not attract me. But if paid enough I would try it LOL

 

I even found a rap song I like:

[video:youtube]

 

If you want to apreciate the work that went into that, use headphones.

 

On the other hand Cory Henry and many church trained players are booked solid, lionized (for good reason), and apreciated in a way not common a few years ago....as virtuosos and leaders in the direction of music.

 

This is not a zero sum game for the cream. It's crazy tough for the young breaking in though, and....well I don't have to tell you guys. Gigs paid alot better in the 80s without any inflation taken into account.

 

But look what happened to Swing Music after the civil war. Or some war. ;)

RT-3/U-121/Leslie 21H and 760/Saltarelle Nuage/MOXF6/MIDIhub, 

SL-880/Nektar T4/Numa Cx2/Deepmind12/Virus TI 61/SL61 mk2

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The tracks provide insurance as the investment is simply too large to take chances on.

 

 

...the MD insisted on using tracks to "supplement" the 20 piece string orchestra "in case something goes wrong".

 

I don't get this attitude at all.

 

I can 100% guarantee the music will sound good and stay home and listen to the CD.

Things not sounding 100% like the the recording is the nature of live music.

Earlier this year I saw an iconic musician live; his keyboardist hit a horrendous cringe-worthy wrong note in the intro of perhaps his most famous hit. It didn't detract from my enjoyment of the show and only proved to me that the playing was actually live. (Hmmm, unless it was a track with a deliberate wrong note to just make me THINK that it was live :ohmy:)

 

Nord Stage 2 Compact, Yamaha MODX8

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Isn't it ironic that lots of "keyboard" players back in the "golden ages" used to shlep 350# Hammond B3's and 150# Leslies around to a gig.........and they actually played them! Now they bring a 40# keyboard and don't even play it?? Sheesh, kids today..........

 

I wonder how they ever managed to put on a show like Woodstock with no backing tracks? :-)

 

Lou

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Almost every year my wife and I see Lyle Lovett and His Large Band. Seeing around a dozen players and vocalists performing without a 'safety net' is refreshing and inspiring. And in a perfect world I would be content to play that way all the time. But, reality. Though I currently play for two different trackless bands, and run a church gig that's essentially the same (though wearing thin due to legit, personnel gaps), that hasn't always been the case. And when a tracked situation arises again, I'll be agreeable. At this point work is work.

 

I'm not a fan of acts that have everything tracked, with instrumentalists being mere props; but that's their choice. I've played in bands and done church gigs where there was a mix of skilled, live playing and backing tracks. Honestly, I've enjoyed it. It's a relief to have the majority of the orchestral and aux keys parts covered - allowing me to focus on the more prominent keys parts and signature lines.

I temporarily covered keys last year for a band I'd gigged with steadily, late 90's - early 2000s. Part of their present advertising is a boast about being completely 'natural', no backing tracks, filler, yada yada⦠Struck me as kind of weird that the act is promoted in that way; and I'd cringe whenever it was expounded upon from the stage (referring to 'other bands' that are 'fake' by using tracks), which happened at least once a night :rolleyes:.

It's much better being in a band that sings/plays wells and mostly shuts up the rest of the time :laugh:.

'Someday, we'll look back on these days and laugh; likely a maniacal laugh from our padded cells, but a laugh nonetheless' - Mr. Boffo.

 

We need a barfing cat emoticon!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Things not sounding 100% like the the recording is the nature of live music.

Right, tell that to the forumites here that play in tribute bands. :)

 

Tracks don't have to be solely for the purpose of sounding like a recording. Putting aside the fakers that use them to mime to, isn't it really a judgment call made by a producer or bandleader as to what will sound the best, and determined by the style of music and the musical abilities of those in the band? Some people have good judgment, some don't.

 

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