Bands using backing tracks (esp. keys) for live gigs on a laptop.........thoughts?

[BluMunk]

As Samuel says, it depends... and for me it depends on the quality and effort going on on stage (amongst other things).

I think it's also worth noting that in most contexts, audiences are looking for something that sounds like what they heard on the radio/album/spotify/whatever.

If the album uses multi-tracks and layers and achieves more instruments and a degree of perfection than the band could do live, it only seems strange to demand a band re-create that sound without the use of those same tools. 

Not to broaden the discussion too much, but it seems to me that an arpeggiator and a karaoke track are on different ends of the same spectrum, and things like backing tracks sit somewhere in the middle, along with song sampling, drum machines, and any other element where the musicianship is demonstrated by doing prep work, and then getting to the gig and pushing play at the right time.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

15 minutes ago, Lou Gehrig Charles said:

 

And didn't [Queen] also use a guy behind the curtain who played the piano when Freddie was away from the bench?  Imagine the pressure THAT guy must've felt!

I was always happy in videos from the later years when that guy (I forget his name, but it was the same guy for much of the band's run) would actually come onstage and rock out next to Brian May. I always thought "let's not let anyone see this human who is also playing with the band" was a strange choice visually, but to each their own.

[ProfD]

In answering the question of the thread, my *thoughts* are from a musician and consumer perspective. 

 

Otherwise, I fully expect that artists and musicians will continue to do whatever it takes to entertain and/or put food on their table.

 

I just don't want to see or hear any grumbling and complaining when similar to DJs taking over band gigs, those backing track artists and musicians are also replaced by technology whether it's AI or a modern jukebox.  

 

When the dust settles, artists and musicians who can actually 1) play and 2) deliver an experience will always be able to find an audience and not be easily replaced by technology.

 

I doubt that Cory Henry's gig will ever be in jeopardy.😎

[Lou Gehrig Charles]

5 minutes ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

I was always happy in videos from the later years when that guy (I forget his name, but it was the same guy for much of the band's run) would actually come onstage and rock out next to Brian May. I always thought "let's not let anyone see this human who is also playing with the band" was a strange choice visually, but to each their own.

LOL I'm just glad I wasn't the only one who remembered that guy.  There's always a little voice in my head telling me it was something I dreamed up!

 

Sadly I couldn't remember his name either but I am sure I've seen it somewhere.

[eric]

Tracks are a mainstay in most every major touring act (big stadium type things) and have been for a long time. Sometimes they are just a backup crutch to help with vocals and sometimes they are replicating most every instrument on stage. If it's a well-produced show and tracks are hard to detect, I tend to let it go. As a musician, I can pretty much always tell and some of my friends will ask me to critique the equivalent of "what's real and what's Memorex?" LOL.

 

When I see a local bar band doing really cheesy obvious tracks in place of a keyboard player, I'm a bit less forgiving and like @elsongs I will tend to walk away and not choose to listen to it.

 

[Stokely]

One aspect is money, don't have to pay another player if it's tracks.

I also hear "I've had a hard time finding players."  No shit, it's really, really, really hard to get a band together and keep it together.  Takes a ton of effort and compromise from everyone and some luck to be able to find players in time before the other people start ditching.   We've managed it somehow for 12 years and it's been a struggle, so I don't have a ton of patience with this viewpoint.  Just play a version without keys, or if the tune is that keys-centric pick something else.

[kpl1228]

1 hour ago, Stokely said:

One aspect is money, don't have to pay another player if it's tracks.

I also hear "I've had a hard time finding players."  No shit, it's really, really, really hard to get a band together and keep it together.  Takes a ton of effort and compromise from everyone and some luck to be able to find players in time before the other people start ditching.   We've managed it somehow for 12 years and it's been a struggle, so I don't have a ton of patience with this viewpoint.  Just play a version without keys, or if the tune is that keys-centric pick something else.

This is an argument that I have heard that I actually have some sympathy for. I know it's hard in medium sized towns to not only find ANY keyboard player that wants to be in a band, it's also equally hard to find a keyboardist with good enough gear and sounds and chops to do covers of pop or classic songs.

HOWEVER.......like Stokely said, my argument would be for that band to find tunes that meet the instrumental limitations.....don't do Depeche Mode, instead do another similar genre band with less emphasis on keys and more on guitar, etc.

[CEB]

‘Pressing play does not constitute a musical performance ‘. 

[analogika]

4 hours ago, Lou Gehrig Charles said:

 

And didn't they also use a guy behind the curtain who played the piano when Freddie was away from the bench?  Imagine the pressure THAT guy must've felt!

 

Spike Edney. 

[Reezekeys]

7 hours ago, rogs said:

Even the bigger dinner dance/ weddings gigs seem to have changed.

Often now they will employ  a solo player - a guitarist or a pianist  - to play for dinner, or the early reception.

They then pack up and go home, and hand over to a 'DJ' for the after dinner  - or wedding 'evening do' - dance music...

 

Sounds like the kind of wedding gig I'd like, if I was still doing them! For me, old guy that I am, the after-dinner part is the worst. A lot of it is current top 40 where only the keys are expected to sound "like the recording" – everyone else basically does what they want, since usually none of those parts on the recording were played by humans anyway. And at least in my part of the world, the dance set is expected to be "continuous"... all songs must segue into each other and the set can last up to two hours with no breaks - pure misery.

 

Yes, hire me for the ceremony, cocktail hour, and dinner set – then send me home. That's my perfect wedding gig!

[Bill H.]

Sometimes life has you making decisions you might not normally make. In 2004, in addition to the pain of losing my wife, I was swamped with medical expenses that needed addressing somehow. After a few months of wandering around aimlessly, I started putting together backing tracks in my basement using just a Roland JV-1080 (armed with the essential Pop expansion board) and an MC-80 sequencer. Fortunately I found rooms willing to take me on weeknights, and in no time I was working two to three nights a week in addition to a band on weekends. I felt very fortunate when I started working wineries on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They took really good care of me financially.

 

When the band lost it's bass player... no problem. I played key bass, and we all made a little more money. When the band lost it's drummer... well they'd seen my single act with backing tracks, and said let's use them for now until we find someone.

 

Now lasted a little longer than they thought. We played country rooms meant for full bands as a trio (with no bass player or drummer) for several years, made more money, and were more steadily employed than we ever were as a five piece. Several rooms said they liked us better as a trio because the volume was lower and the beat was steadier for line dancing. 

 

Last winter I was in a club hosting a fairly hot regional band with no keys. Keyboards would sneak into the mix at times - nothing obtrusive, but there occasionally. Then came the intro to Don't Stop Believin' with no keys onstage. "Are you kidding me?" I thought. "Are people going to buy this?"

 

Incredibly, no one seemed to notice - or care. As soon as that signature riff hit the room, the crowd of several hundred reacted positively, and as soon as the front sang "Just a small town girl' the room erupted into cheers, and started singing along and swaying with their cell phones in the air. The guy did a very credible Steve Perry, which was probably the most important thing really. I just smiled and shook my head, but given my past I couldn't complain. 

[JohnH]

I did a gig in august on keys and there were way too many tracks. I learned Get Nervous for the gig and setup one of my voices using an arpeggio I made for Blondie's Call Me and just changed the tempo. Of course, we could not play the song because "oh we don't have a track for it." Ridiculous. I guess I should have spoke up, don't need a track, that's what I'm here for. But, not my band, I was just the sub.  NightRanger are one of the best live bands in the US, but now even they have backing vocal tracks for still rock in america and Sing me away. I can tell those are tracks, because the backing vox are just fake sounding. Way too big and processed to be real. And ten times louder than the rest of the vocals in the set.  Since Glenn Hughes did the backups on SRIA, I guess that's the only way to replicate the voice of rock.  On top of that, on these canned back up vocals, there were members that stopped singing before the last few words and there was no volume or voices dropping out- a sure sign it's fake! Here's RIA from the show I saw. They only did it on these two songs.

 

[analogika]

 

This is one of my main gigs. Impossible to do without backing tracks. 

 

I mean, there's parts where I'm literally led off the keyboard riser on a leash and beaten into a steel bathtub (to be later doused in fire and emerge in a different outfit), and the pads keep playing for the rest of the song. 🤷‍♂️

[yannis D]

6 hours ago, SamuelBLupowitz said:

I was always happy in videos from the later years when that guy (I forget his name, but it was the same guy for much of the band's run) would actually come onstage and rock out next to Brian May. I always thought "let's not let anyone see this human who is also playing with the band" was a strange choice visually, but to each their own.

I remember in Queen's famous Wembley concert, Freddy's climbing up the lightning tower and the camera that follows him, shows a very detailed image of the keyboard guy, surrounded by countless keys off stage. It was a shock the first time I saw it (I was too young to understand the meaning of public image if a group) and I feel a little better now that I read about him rocking out on stage with Brian May...I think his name is Spike Edney 

[Reezekeys]

To me there's a difference between using backing tracks to fill in "secondary" parts that cannot be played given the number of musicians on stage or their instrumentation, and miming to a track that's playing what you want the audience to think is you. A BIG difference.

[analogika]

44 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

To me there's a difference between using backing tracks to fill in "secondary" parts that cannot be played given the number of musicians on stage or their instrumentation, and miming to a track that's playing what you want the audience to think is you. A BIG difference.

The line between the two is surprisingly flexible. 
 

It took me a while to get my head around the idea that „show“ and „performance“ are what the audience pays for, and as such take precedence over any other concerns. My goal is for fellow musicians not to be able to discern what’s live and what isn’t. 
 

Stuff is obviously sequenced, but for the other stuff, if you can’t tell what exactly I’m playing, what’s layered, and what’s tracked, I’m already batting higher than the „original“. 

[Reezekeys]

24 minutes ago, analogika said:

The line between the two is surprisingly flexible.

 

Not to me. Miming is faking. Whether or not an audience can tell is besides the point, in my opinion of course. Whether or not it "works" from an audience perspective is also besides the point. It's just so different from a band playing along to tracks of instrumentation that are obviously not being played by anyone on stage.

 

I'll give you this: if the point of the performance is theatrical, and it's acknowledged somewhere that this is miming, all good I guess. But if I walk into a bar and see a band playing a cover tune with a prerecorded guitar solo going and a guitar player pretending to be playing it, it's just sad. IMO, again.

[Baldwin Funster]

Alright, a new normal is propsed. Cardboard cutouts of musicians that are heard via tracks should be set up on the stage with sequenced spotlights that shine on the cutout reps when their playing is heard. And of course the flesh and blood musicians would have their lighting as well. I actually think the audience would support this or at least be dazzled by the lights. 

[Reezekeys]

1 hour ago, analogika said:

It took me a while to get my head around the idea that „show“ and „performance“ are what the audience pays for, and as such take precedence over any other concerns. My goal is for fellow musicians not to be able to discern what’s live and what isn’t. 
 

Stuff is obviously sequenced, but for the other stuff, if you can’t tell what exactly I’m playing, what’s layered, and what’s tracked, I’m already batting higher than the „original“. 

 

I have no problem with this, just really obvious faking like solos with a performer up front. Didn't mean to sound so judgemental in my last post. Of course there are performances where the visuals are key and the kind of staging I see in your video (which is very impressive BTW!) definitely demands extra help with parts! I'm all for using the tools we have to make a performance better. You simply cannot put a band of 5 - 8 musicians on a stage and recreate what a lot of today's studio-manufactured (or multiple-overdubbed) music sounds like. Impressing an audience so they tell their friends and come back to see you again - it's about keeping the calendar full so you can put bread on the table. A simple fact of life for any musician! 

 

3 hours ago, analogika said:

I'm literally led off the keyboard riser on a leash and beaten into a steel bathtub (to be later doused in fire and emerge in a different outfit)

 

Any video of that? 🙂 You have my admiration - I hope you're getting a little extra in your paycheck there!

 

I'm very lucky with my dinosaur gig - the material AWB plays predates the studio-centric in-the-box stuff with tons of effects, synth parts, etc. I do cover multiple parts sometimes, but they're simple splits - horn lines with rhodes comping in my LH, or playing guitar & organ or clav & organ. The closest we get to playing with tracks are a few percussion loops I trigger. I'm not sure I'm cut out for the theatrical experience like what you're doing!

[RABid]

It is nice to see a musician for every track, but I'd rather have backing tracks than empty music. 

Faking it, totally unacceptable.

 

But one that really makes me mad ... In 1978 I watched The Who. I think it was their first tour after the death of Keith Moon. We were sitting far enough to the side that I could just see a keyboardist hidden behind a stack of speakers. He played a lot of important parts but they never acknowledged him the entire night. I remember thinking "I'd hate to be him." It make me really mad. If you are too good to share a stage with a keyboardist, don't put keyboard parts in your song.

[ElmerJFudd]

I was suspicious when they started hologramming deceased and fictitious artists that it was going to steal some % of “live” artists’ gigs.  Or that Covid was going to cause people to prefer viewing “live” artists at home.  
 

However - it would appear that people do want to go out and see “live” artists at the very least being present, in person, regardless of how much of their show is pre-recorded.  

[niacin]

If I can't do it live, well I've used bass & drum loops - often mixing obviously electronic drums with samples of a real drummer typically for hats or ride - cause that's the sound of trip-hop or electro-jazz.  As noted above Peter Gabriel uses tracks for textures and sometimes that's an obviously electronic drum loop.  No different from Eurhythmics using arpeggiators on stage in the 80s.  

 

OTOH, about 4 years ago I met a drummer interested in putting together a Pink Floyd Tribute.  He showed me a ton of samples he'd pulled off the net that he'd run from a drum pad.  Including a stem for the sax solo in Money.  I said no.  We got a sax player in for the few songs that required it, and now she's doing b.vox and some keys parts to help me out as well.  If we can do it live, we're gonna do it live.  Have had more than few arguments with the bass player who took on running samples when the drummer left.  He can't tell the difference between a sample and a synthesized sound.  So he rocks up to rehearsal with a sample somewhere in the ballpark, and I rock up having programmed the sound to within an inch of the original and explain that its a keyboard part, thanks but no thanks.  If I can't find some joy in nailing the sounds and playing the parts what's the f^*king point ?  I'd rather stay home and work on Bach.

 

Full time musicians trying to make a living, well that's a financial choice not a musical one, and if I don't like karaoke, well it's just not for me and I can go elsewhere.

 

[Docbop]

People want live Music Videos a whole production of staging, lighting, props, dancers,  and special effects and the artist is just an actor in their own music.  That's modern music biz. 

 

What the thing is you need to convince an audience there's a difference and add it will increase the ticket prices to pay for extra musicians.  Not going to work because all they want is a beat, the lyrics to sing along with, just something to remind them of when they first heard the tune and liked it.   Even bar gigs they just want to dance they could care less how much it's like the record as long as it's a beat they can dance to.  

[niacin]

I've recently been subbing in an 11-piece band.  The MD has multitrack stems for rehearsals cause with 11 people there's always someone away.  Instead of the usual Youtube or Spotify song list link, he sent me all the tracks with keys panned to one side and the rest of the band to the other.  Not sure if they're Jamzone - seems to be popular around here - or what, but some of them are laughable.  One soul tune from the late 60s he's sent me two tracks, one with a 'string synth' part panned to one side.  Learn that.  Yeh right.  Whoever recorded it either couldn't be bothered transcribing the string orchestra and recording it with a sample library and/or couldn't justify doing so given the time:money equation.  I told him he needs to stop smoking these stems, they're not good for him, listen to the original ffs.  Some of the synth sounds have obviously been found/programmed in a hurry, they're just not even close.

[ElmerJFudd]

“An actor in their own music” - that’s an interesting thought and a good description. 

[ElmerJFudd]

2 minutes ago, niacin said:

I've recently been subbing in an 11-piece band.  The MD has multitrack stems for rehearsals cause with 11 people there's always someone away.  Instead of the usual Youtube or Spotify song list link, he sent me all the tracks with keys panned to one side and the rest of the band to the other.  Not sure if they're Jamzone - seems to be popular around here - or what, but some of them are laughable.  One soul tune from the late 60s he's sent me two tracks, one with a 'string synth' part panned to one side.  Learn that.  Yeh right.  Whoever recorded it either couldn't be bothered transcribing the string orchestra and recording it with a sample library and/or couldn't justify doing so given the time:money equation.  I told him he needs to stop smoking these stems, they're not good for him, listen to the original ffs.

Interesting. Does he prefer the players play the stem arrangements for consistency no matter who is on the gig?  Does he use the stems live for gigs with fewer players on the contract? 

[niacin]

Exhibit A, Your Honour, a song titled On the Run, played live (starts at 3:13):

 

 

 

[niacin]

1 minute ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Interesting. Does he prefer the players play the stem arrangements for consistency no matter who is on the gig?  Does he use the stems live for gigs with fewer players on the contract? 

 

2. No - the drummer doesn't use a click live.

1. No - the stems, pulled from something like Jamzone, are usually the original arrangement, and the MD sometimes changes things up - often the endings - so the stems are useful to a large degree but don't quite replace in-person rehearsal.

[Docbop]

I've said it before I miss going to concerts in the 60's and 70's.   Band would just stack gear on stage,  dress as casual as they wanted, use just the house lights and spot light nothing fancy.   They would of made live arrangement of tunes so if a ton of overdubs on the albums no one would play them.  They played and people listened and dug the music.   Thing started going bad when it started growing into productions and touring got so expensive bands had to get an advertisers to underwrite the tour and plaster their name around the stage.   Things kept growing to bigger an bigger productions and audience came to expect it and things hit the point of no return.   Shows got so dam big the big acts would need more than a day to setup so the large acts had two complete sets of gear on the road so one set would be doing a show and they other be in another city setting up.   The bigger yet Las Vegas residencies became a thing and even bigger shows.   As I said the artist and musicians became actors doing their own music.   You all asked for it now you don't know how to get back to just being about some musicians playing on a stage doing live arrangement of their tunes. 

[Tom Williams]

Early in the 1990s I saw ELP on their Black Moon tour.  Years later I was heartbroken to learn that a lot of the contrapuntal stuff (like the end of the title song) which had been overdubbed on the album was, well, faked -- either sequenced or played from a tape.  I felt cheated, especially because in an interview that raised the issue, Emerson had implied that he would just have to work hard to cover all the parts.  (This may have also been a period during which his right hand was already failing him, BTW)

 

Somewhat hypocritically, I used sequenced bass and drums in some solo concerts that I played later that decade.  But darn it, I never pretended I was playing those parts. 

 

In my current band I've forbidden sequences and vocal harmony processors.