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

[Reezekeys]

When you're at a live show watching a band on a stage, imo backing tracks with the "extras" are fine if that's what's needed to make the sound happen; faking your playing along to a track doing "you" is not so cool. Videos? I don't think anyone - musician, techie, punter in the crowd - cares if they don't see a cable coming from a guitar or keyboard. You're supposed to watch a video; listening to it, well that's gonna happen too of course, but the visual is the main point. The punters don't know, and we musicians shouldn't care – it won't do any good 🙂! My 2p.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

On 11/9/2023 at 10:43 PM, Docbop said:

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. 

Fortunately, there are still plenty of bands on the road who just play on a stage, doing live arrangements of their tunes. Tedeschi Trucks Band, Dawes, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Theo Katzman, Brandi Carlile, the list goes on.

 

Do they play stadiums? Usually no. Does playing a stadium actually sound like that much fun? I mean, I'd love the money and that many people wanting to see me, but we all know it's not the best acoustic or visual venue for live, interactive, intimate music. That's what theaters and clubs and even smaller arenas are for. And the tradeoff for the ticket sales of a massive venue is that you need to make the show worth it for the people in the nosebleeds who can't see you playing, which is how we got this escalation of production over the past 30+ years.

 

Of course, the economics of being a smaller band are getting harder and harder. I think that sort of systemic problem is particularly worthy of our collective effort and attention, rather than placing the blame on individual artists who, for various reasons, are better positioned to adapt to the climate.

[David R]

My 2 cents: for whatever reason, the semi-live bands with really obvious tracks bother me more than a full on DJ & vocalist or soloist & tracks set up. Seeing some of the corporate cover bands on stage as a guitar power trio when keyboards & horns are everywhere sonically is just… strange to me. For the time you’re investing into tracks you could hire one keyboard player just to make the image more convincing. 🤷🏻‍♂️

 

Years ago I saw Angelique Kidjo and she had all her backing vocals on tracks. That seems really odd to me. Her band is stacked with amazing players, and I would imagine it handcuffs them in terms of being able to really play.

 

I didn’t see this concert but at Aretha Franklin’s final performance in Montreal (jazz fest, place des arts no less), she also had her backing vocals on tracks. Her engineer or playback person cued up the wrong BVs for the song and it was a train wreck. Aretha left the stage and threw her wig onto the piano as she left.

 

I saw another artist whose tracks I really enjoy. It was just her and her DJ; the DJ was having technical issues and the artist had no charisma or skill to do something a cappella to hold the crowd. One of the most disappointing shows I’ve ever seen. 

[Stokely]

"Strange" is putting it a lot nicer than I would.   

At least a DJ isn't pretending to be live music.  But everyone has to do them, and end of the day the audiences of today largely don't give a crap if it's people or max headroom up there.  If I don't like it, I can quit (I'm not too far from the end), and if my band can't get gigs because our imperfect harmonies can't compete with tracks, so be it.   It's not as if my complaints will reverse the tide.   I certainly won't pay money to go see it either.

[Docbop]

16 minutes ago, David R said:

For the time you’re investing into tracks you could hire one keyboard player just to make the image more convincing. 🤷🏻‍♂️

To me having a keyboard player playing sample of brass and strings is no different that playing tracks.   In fast the tracks are most like real strings and brass and recorded properly, versus a keyboard with samples.     The only difference is the gig went to (a new term in touring crews to me) a Playback Engineer  instead of a keyboard player. 

[o0Ampy0o]

Take a picture of your screen powered up and get a color print made to paste on the screen. Use fluorescent orange tape to represent lit up buttons. 

[obxa]

I have my foot in both secular and worship waters.   Tracks have become more ridiculous in the latter.  I made a strong decision to pull the plug with everything I do. It's the first order of business when I took my current &  previous ministry gigs  The current one is contemporary,  The prior one was orchestra!!! 

 

I think the audience can always sense it when it's not authentic.  

 

I'm absolutely 100% for click and occasionally cue tracks for  musicians.   

 

But for the audience (or congregation..).   I do minimalist performance tracks.  Those typically just involve some percolating arpeggio things, shaker and some intro pads (to fill the dead air during count-ins...)..   They're nice if they are there, but not critical if they get turned off.  I purposely leave any of those as  repetitive stactic-loops, so worship leaders/singers can go off the arrangement if they wish- something you can't do with pre-determined tracks. 

 

In Secular world-  If doing pit band with full score, I'll find a way to re-arrange the music by adding another keyboardist, or asking woodinds/brass/strings to take the part. 

 

I also work in oldies world, where as lowly MD I sometimes don't have any control over what the artist mandates.   Because they're so used to crappy back-up bands, many  acts have a ton of their show recorded and ask for the band to mime- or play along.   On multi-act shows, I just let the artist know we'll be taking a break and they can do it karaoke.     Some of the better prepared ones at least have selected stems (e.g. just vocals, brass) with click.     I can't mention names, but it amazes me bands that had signature iconic hooks with sax/brass  or other instruments won't budget for it. 

[kpl1228]

1 hour ago, Docbop said:

The only difference is the gig went to (a new term in touring crews to me) a Playback Engineer  instead of a keyboard player. 

OP here.

I had to Google this. I can't believe this is a legit thing. Man oh man am I outta touch.

It's even mentioned on the Berklee website as a career field. I must have been living under a rock for the past decade.

https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/live-playback-engineer

[Docbop]

31 minutes ago, kpl1228 said:

OP here.

I had to Google this. I can't believe this is a legit thing. Man oh man am I outta touch.

It's even mentioned on the Berklee website as a career field. I must have been living under a rock for the past decade.

https://www.berklee.edu/careers/roles/live-playback-engineer

 

I know the feeling.   When I was getting back into recording I picked up a gig in a ProTools shop, so I took a ProTools class at a local studio.  First thing in the class we had to introduce ourselves and say what we do.   One of the guys in the class said his job was Elton John's Time Keeper, needless to say everyone said what is that???  He said he sets up and runs all the sync clocks for lights, audio,  video, click, and other devices that need to be insync.    Big shows today are pretty much all computer driven and humans are just Meat Puppets on stage. 

[CyberGene]

Go to a classical concert. No, not the ones performed in big stadiums. In a concert hall. You’ll hear 100 people who “trained” hard everyday for the last 10-20-30 years how to play in sync without a playback engineer. OK, there’s a playback engineer but he’s called conductor 😉 

[Docbop]

2 minutes ago, CyberGene said:

Go to a classical concert. No, not the ones performed in big stadiums. In a concert hall. You’ll hear 100 people who “trained” hard everyday for the last 10-20-30 years how to play in sync without a playback engineer. OK, there’s a playback engineer but he’s called conductor 😉 

That's why a lot classical guys don't get studio work they are too dependent on the conductor being their beat source, they have trouble in a studio playing to a click 

[RABid]

Sunday we had a 5 person group preform at church. First thing I noticed was a laptop set up next to the drummer, just behind his floor tom so it was easy for him to reach. First song had a lot of tracks: pedal steel, banjo, drum beat instead of a click track. None of the musicians used in ears so they relied on the drum beat with a heavy bass drum to stay together. I was worried and trying to figure out who was actually playing. One thing did give me hope, the guitarist was scrambling frantically trying to get things dialed in on his pedal board. It was a full, old school pedal board with lots of individual pedals. No digital master from Line 6 or any other company. The bass player was the same. If he was not actually playing he would not have been so frantic to get his settings dialed in. Each song they played relied less and less on tracks and by the fourth song they were done with the tracks. I would have left those parts out but they have 10 CD's and I guess they are trying to sound like them. The tracks never came back until a song towards the end where a guest singer was on the screen singing a duet with the lead singer in the band. The singer did announce his intention to sing along with the video before starting. Then they were done with tracks. I'm guess me and the music director were the only ones in church paying attention to the use of tracks. There were a lot of young people in the audience. They did not seem to care. They stood, clapped and sang along to some of their favorite songs.

[MPN21]

Bad musician sound bad either with or without backing tracks/arranger.    Good musicians will learn real quick how to interact with backing tracks.  Once I heard a top notch Jazzer talking to a "long-time" musician who has to have his arranger for his performance; don't fight the machine.  Let it do the work for you.   The arranger musician couldn't even hide himself behind the arranger backup.  He was "fighting" it.   It will drive you up the wall.   The Jazzer himself used the Roland VA-7 arranger keyboard years ago.   Of course, he is very skillful in interacting with the machine's backing and the long ending.  He made the machine sound better than what it is! 

[pinkfloydcramer]

NOTE: Following rant only applies to local, small-time music scene, not the Really Big effing Shews. But.. 

 

I despise backing tracks. I wouldn't walk across the street to see even a good player perform with backing tracks, I would rather dig ditches than resort to that (and have had that wish granted more than once). It's a shame to see a good guitar player, for example, quit playing with bands and put themselves out to pasture doing nothing but solo shows with BT's, just for convenience's sake. I also disagree that audiences can't tell the difference, in the energy level and other factors.  No one is enthralled with someone's virtuosity in hitting the "play" button. 

 

The only time I have been tempted to renounce my one and only scruple, is in the case of a local BT guy "Big Earl from Pearl" who has scored a yearly gig playing in Waffle House parking lots on Christmas day. The rest of the year he does things like wild hog hunts, etc. I'm a little jealous of those too. 

 

No judgments! Carry on. I hope to read here, with as open a mind as I can muster, about KC'ers experiences using modern day technology for organic sounding, non-cheesy, interactive BT's that don't lock you into going from point A to point B with no deviation. Anyone? 

 

    

[Reezekeys]

 

 

1 hour ago, pinkfloydcramer said:

I despise backing tracks. I wouldn't walk across the street to see even a good player perform with backing tracks, I would rather dig ditches than resort to that

 

I think you should consider that not all track gigs are the same – and I'm taking about the "small-time music scene" which is definitely the space I occupy when I'm not on the road. On my (very) occasional local gigs doing solo piano background music, for say a brunch at a country club, where I bring my rig - i.e. there's no piano to play – I'll do maybe 3 -5 tunes with some backing tracks over the course of a few sets. I do it because it's fun. A few of the tracks I programmed myself, with some decent sounding plugins. They're just bass and drums or afro-cuban percussion. A few of them are actually Jamey Aebersold playalongs - the one with Adam Nussbaum on drums and Jay Anderson on bass (the jazzers here may recognize those names). Cheeze those are not.

 

1 hour ago, pinkfloydcramer said:

It's a shame to see a good guitar player, for example, quit playing with bands and put themselves out to pasture doing nothing but solo shows with BT's, just for convenience's sake.

 

I agree, if that's all they're doing. The gigs where I play with tracks have always been solo piano gigs to begin with - not gigs where the clients used to hire a band and wanted to save money. Not gigs where the money was good enough to let me hire more musicians (assuming the venue was OK with that). These are strictly solo gigs where I'm choosing to add a little extra sauce for part of the time. I will never do this kind of gig with tracks for every song - that's cause I enjoy playing solo piano too! The point is that for me, tracks are not a gig requirement – they're a way for me to enjoy myself more!

 

I know there are gigs that are strictly solo with tracks for the entire gig. I saw a guitar player doing that at a casino I was playing with AWB. He had a pretty sophisticated setup - a serious pedal board, looper, etc. Yes, hearing a 10-piece horn band blaring out of a crappy PA with a lone guitar player shredding over it is not my idea of a good time - but as a full-time player I am very familiar with these two aphorisms: 1) "a gig is a gig", and 2) "it beats a blank." 🙂 

[pinkfloydcramer]

No one should be too concerned about my opinion as I freely admit to being a nobody, eking out a happily squalid existence with mostly low-level gigs in spite of a hearing disability. And I don't think someone is not talented, or that they suck, because they choose to work that way. They're just not for me.  

[Tom Williams]

9 hours ago, Docbop said:

To me having a keyboard player playing sample of brass and strings is no different that playing tracks.   In fast the tracks are most like real strings and brass and recorded properly, versus a keyboard with samples.     The only difference is the gig went to (a new term in touring crews to me) a Playback Engineer  instead of a keyboard player. 

Meh.  I used to play pretty much every brass, percussion, and keyboard instrument you could name.  I transcribed and arranged Chicago tunes when I was in high school (a different millennium).  Now I pretty much only play keyboards and drums.  One of my (self-proclaimed) musical strengths is the ability to play other instrumental parts idiomatically on the keyboard, be they trumpets, violas, or steel guitars.  It's a skill -- not a cop-out -- especially for those of us who can't casually find and retain a horn section or even a violinist / fiddler.

 

It's also why I prefer a Kurzweil over most other Sample-players.  The string and wind instruments are pretty durn good.

[o0Ampy0o]

11 hours ago, Reezekeys said:

When you're at a live show watching a band on a stage, imo backing tracks with the "extras" are fine if that's what's needed to make the sound happen; faking your playing along to a track doing "you" is not so cool. Videos? I don't think anyone - musician, techie, punter in the crowd - cares if they don't see a cable coming from a guitar or keyboard. You're supposed to watch a video; listening to it, well that's gonna happen too of course, but the visual is the main point. The punters don't know, and we musicians shouldn't care – it won't do any good 🙂! My 2p.

 

Music videos are just another way to present music (and to get your music on a visual format like MTV). What you are doing is watching music. What the band chooses to offer as the visual to the music can be all or nothing of relevance to the song. The visual is just eye candy. Anything to get people to tune in for the duration of the music. You might only like the visual and don't even have to like the song. By now lots of things have proven acceptable and even if they induce the urge to cringe that is part of that particular music video experience, cringing like getting scared watching a spooky movie.

[murphybridget]

11 hours ago, RABid said:

Sunday we had a 5 person group preform at church. First thing I noticed was a laptop set up next to the drummer, just behind his floor tom so it was easy for him to reach. First song had a lot of tracks: pedal steel, banjo, drum beat instead of a click track. None of the musicians used in ears so they relied on the drum beat with a heavy bass drum to stay together. I was worried and trying to figure out who was actually playing. One thing did give me hope, the guitarist was scrambling frantically trying to get things dialed in on his pedal board. It was a full, old school pedal board with lots of individual pedals. No digital master from Line 6 or any other company. The bass player was the same. If he was not actually playing he would not have been so frantic to get his settings dialed in. Each song they played relied less and less on tracks and by the fourth song they were done with the tracks. I would have left those parts out but they have 10 CD's and I guess they are trying to sound like them. The tracks never came back until a song towards the end where a guest singer was on the screen singing a duet with the lead singer in the band. The singer did announce his intention to sing along with the video before starting. Then they were done with tracks. I'm guess me and the music director were the only ones in church paying attention to the use of tracks. There were a lot of young people in the audience. They did not seem to care. They stood, clapped and sang along to some of their favorite songs.

Things only a skilled drummer/musician notice.

[erik_nie]

I see lot's of people responding from a musicians point of view. I also focus on all kinds of technical items like backingtracks, used equipement, how to solve studio stuff live, technical skills of the musicians, how they interact.
Same as with my audio system at home, every plug, cable, speaker, amplifiers is checked, upgraded....
In the end the audio system of a friend (cheap, old stuff) sounded 'nicer' then my high-end set.
Now I listen to music. Watching a live band is much more difficult to "just enjoy"

I'm sure that the major part of the audience doesn't care and only listens/looks at the singer.

In my wedding band, we play many songs, also current repertoire. That is loaded with sound effects, arpeggiators, synth  layers,  percussion and processed backing vocals.

Sometimes these songs are played only a few gigs. Therefor in the 70+ song repertoire, I made backing tracks for around 8 songs. We tried to get it working without, but just sounded to empty.  

Sounds better and more professional, nobody minds. The tricky part is that everybody in the band started to ask: can you add that break, loop, solo, clap, in a backing track. I just refuse to do that. 

Funny story:
few day before a wedding they called if we could play "viva la vida", no time to rehearse. I played a karaoke version and de singer nailed it. We all faked on stage. Didn't feel right, but we were asked to play it again as an encore...
 

[Montunoman 2]

8 hours ago, erik_nie said:

Funny story:
few day before a wedding they called if we could play "viva la vida", no time to rehearse. I played a karaoke version and de singer nailed it. We all faked on stage. Didn't feel right, but we were asked to play it again as an encore...
 

No issues with this, you do what got to do to keep the client happy…. Just curious what did the drummer did? Acoustic or e-drums? 

[Docbop]

9 minutes ago, Montunoman 2 said:

Just curious what did the drummer did? Acoustic or e-drums? 

 

Made remember early days of Rock TV shows and the artists all faked played to the playback of their records.   The drummers were told you can lightly hit the drums but NEVER hit a cymbal.    So funny seeing drummers play but stopping a couple inch above a cymbal or drum.   Guitar players with no guitar cords and amps not even turned on.   Fun to watch. 

[Montunoman 2]

3 hours ago, Docbop said:

 

Made remember early days of Rock TV shows and the artists all faked played to the playback of their records.   The drummers were told you can lightly hit the drums but NEVER hit a cymbal.    So funny seeing drummers play but stopping a couple inch above a cymbal or drum.   Guitar players with no guitar cords and amps not even turned on.   Fun to watch. 

I’m a drummer, and have done some local TV shows doing play back. I used brushes so at least I could strike normally and still hear the monitors and not be too noisy in the TV studio. 

[RABid]

This would be a good reason to use V-Drums. Leave them turned off and bang away.

[Montunoman 2]

25 minutes ago, RABid said:

This would be a good reason to use V-Drums. Leave them turned off and bang away.

Now they have very low volume acoustic cymbals, and mesh heads that can mount on acoustic drums, and even V- Drums that have traditional drum shells, so probably a lot drummers in play back situation’s, are using those options.

 

 

[stoken6]

You can count on Nirvana to subvert the establishment rules.

 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[erik_nie]

12 hours ago, Montunoman 2 said:

No issues with this, you do what got to do to keep the client happy…. Just curious what did the drummer did? Acoustic or e-drums? 

At that time we had a drummer with Roland V-drums and real cymbals. So easy to do.

[Docbop]

I think it relates to this thread on the new QuestLove series of interviews he talks with Fab Morvan of Milli Vanilli all about how they came about, but also how what they did thirty-five years ago is how records are made today.   It is a long interview a hour and twenty minute but really informative of Milli Vanilli and later Rob Morvan as a solo artist.    At one point Questlove says he just saw Duran Duran in concert and he backstage was eight MacBooks with terabytes of background tracks that were played. How they were in forefront of sampling other records to create their own and live were using Fairlight and Oberheim.  They said a lot of this is discussed in a new documentary on Milli Vanilli that is just coming out.   So if you got the time or like me used to listening to speed up Youtube to cut the time it worth a listen.   

 

 

[cassdad]

So I can’t help but think of all the opinions in this thread as I read the other thread on the new Genos 2!  Seems to me that playing the Genos is some kind of variant of using backing tracks, or looping, or maybe even using a drum machine, etc….

[linwood]

Soon we'll long for the days of backing tracks.