Hey how's it going? Sure I agree except there are lots of musicians who play live without a drummer such as two guitars or a guitar and piano etc. What it really comes down to is that music isn't a one size fits all business. Right my friend?Good, so you agree
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'Live' bands with backing tracks
- Thread starter Buzzgroove
- Start date
Guess you don't see many bluegrass bands, string quartets, etc. But, yeah: if you don't have a live drummer, you're not a traditional rock band.
Of course, not everybody wants to be a traditional rock band these days.
For me context counts. I just saw a group at the Montreal Jazz Festival that consisted of a singer/rapper, a drummer, a conga player, a girl behind a computer and two dancers. Keyboards, guitar, bass, horns - and probably some other things - were all on backing tracks. The girl behind the computer was basically there to press the play button. It's not the first time I've seen this kind of thing at the Montreal Jazz Festival. Lame. Even worse was the singer I saw last year at the Vancouver Folk Festival. She was accompanied by a guitarist and a backup vocalist. Everything else (this was supposed to be African "electro") was on the backing track. "Electro" need not be a euphemism for "too cheap to hire actual musicians" but I'm seeing more and more of this. As far as I'm concerned it's one step away from outright karaoke.
Thanks for responding - I enjoyed tea ng your post and hearing your opinion. I would only say it is several very large steps away from Karaoke - my show has a level of professionalism and polish that exceeds most cover bands out there with a poopy song selections, unimaginative arrangements, crappy vocal harmonies and guitar players who only have one tonal sound. As I said previously I would much prefer being in a seven piece band with a killer bass player, drummer and horn section. I play original songs as well as covers from the Stax, Atlantic and Muscle Shoals song catalogs - so until my seven piece band is feasible I guess I have to stick with what I got.
Anecdotal ramble time. Not sure if there's really a point to this.
A singer I recently produced a track for tried to do things the old-fashioned way, with real musicians playing everything. After spending a few months, she decided she doesn't want it to sound like that, and the track ended up quite a hybrid of edited real instruments and programmed samples. The bassline was DB back when I played live for her, the first recording was a bass guitarist that the pianist knew, then it was programmed using samples of three tubas and three cimbassi, then it was rerecorded by a sousaphone player, and in the end I time-aligned the sousaphone part to the tubas and cimbassi and mixed them together. Maybe 20 seconds of the drum part got cut up and reused as loops, and the kick drum is a sample from elsewhere. None of the real instrument parts are really completely what the person played, though in the case of the piano it's just muted during some moments.
Now she's going full electronic and not planning to hire any live musicians for performances, because it's too much work to coordinate that many people and get them to learn original material. I wouldn't be surprised if she does get a live violinist and/or pianist at some point, so I rendered all the tracks separately - that way she can always make a backing track minus the musicians she wants to have live.
But at that point we're not looking at "this song had real musicians really playing parts some of them were replaced by backing tracks for live performance". It's more like "this song was a bunch of tracks, some of which originated as people playing this song and some of which didn't, and now some of them might be replaced by real people for live performance".
A singer I recently produced a track for tried to do things the old-fashioned way, with real musicians playing everything. After spending a few months, she decided she doesn't want it to sound like that, and the track ended up quite a hybrid of edited real instruments and programmed samples. The bassline was DB back when I played live for her, the first recording was a bass guitarist that the pianist knew, then it was programmed using samples of three tubas and three cimbassi, then it was rerecorded by a sousaphone player, and in the end I time-aligned the sousaphone part to the tubas and cimbassi and mixed them together. Maybe 20 seconds of the drum part got cut up and reused as loops, and the kick drum is a sample from elsewhere. None of the real instrument parts are really completely what the person played, though in the case of the piano it's just muted during some moments.
Now she's going full electronic and not planning to hire any live musicians for performances, because it's too much work to coordinate that many people and get them to learn original material. I wouldn't be surprised if she does get a live violinist and/or pianist at some point, so I rendered all the tracks separately - that way she can always make a backing track minus the musicians she wants to have live.
But at that point we're not looking at "this song had real musicians really playing parts some of them were replaced by backing tracks for live performance". It's more like "this song was a bunch of tracks, some of which originated as people playing this song and some of which didn't, and now some of them might be replaced by real people for live performance".
Sorry i was poking fun at your wording of "can't be hard pressed." I actually thought you would disagree with his statement.
I actually agree with you. Plenty of styles of music that don't feature a drummer, and it's still a live band. I've played in a couple projects with no drummer myself, where i was the primary time keeper on bass.
[Deleted as overly harsh]
Our drummer is getting a DJ thing together and one of our singers also does karaoke. They don't need any musicians at all. They still try to fit us in occasionally. Probably pity.
Our drummer is getting a DJ thing together and one of our singers also does karaoke. They don't need any musicians at all. They still try to fit us in occasionally. Probably pity.
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Nope. Even in a tiny venue with five people in the audience, and extremely simple bass parts which I could easily play "right", I'd rather program them.
On the other hand, I just talked to some friends yesterday who plan to go see Deadmau5 at Red Rocks. That would be a situation where a dude is standing there and, as far as I can tell, is shamelessly pushing buttons to cue in various pieces of music written and performed by other people in some other place at some other time.
I'm told that these high-end DJs create music in the way they combine existing music into new things, which I'm struggling to quite accept as art. But I guess it's 2017, and these guys are packing arenas doing this. There might not be an actual musical instrument on the stage that night.
I'm told that these high-end DJs create music in the way they combine existing music into new things, which I'm struggling to quite accept as art. But I guess it's 2017, and these guys are packing arenas doing this. There might not be an actual musical instrument on the stage that night.
My band uses a backing track for our original music. The drummer controls it from an Android app using a tablet. In the left channel is a click track only for the drummer. The right channel goes mono to the PA and contains the extra recorded keyboards, guitars, backing vocals, etc. that help to fill out our sound live. This ain't Milli Vanilli, here....we all still sing and play our instruments the whole time. We've found this is an excellent way to play our songs as they were intended to be heard. We do also rehearse without the backing track....because we know sometimes technology and FOH can fail us.
Seems to be par for the course with DJ's these days. Push play on the laptop, bob your head and look like you are doing something. They try to make up for it now with more impressive lights/projections/visuals. Very boring concept to me, but hey people seem to love it. I will say a guy like deadmau5 does indeed produce the tracks he plays live so he is playing original music. It is just all prepared in advance not really recreated live.
So how do you feel about vocal processors that add real time multi part harmonies, doubling ("double tracking") and even choirs to the lead singers vocals?
Didn't read all the posts,so I don't know if they've been mentioned.
But Animals As Leaders uses backing tracks while performing live.
Electronic noises,percussion and stuff going on.
But Animals As Leaders uses backing tracks while performing live.
Electronic noises,percussion and stuff going on.
I played with a singer that was using samples and I hated it so much to the point that I will not accept another gig with that format. Nothing replaces the real thing, it sucks the fun out of it.
My opinion is if you pretend to play or sing it it's fraud. If there's no open deception that's simply using the tools available.
I sing the harmonies I can and many more are covered by a voicelive GTX. I don't move my lips and pretend to sing lol. That would be fraud.
There is deception. The artful deception of the performer that gets people carried away in the performance and makes it more that the sum of its parts.
When we play walk of life people don't care where the organ and drum parts are coming from. They're too busy dancing and having a great time.
I live on a boat, sail around the Caribbean, hook up with other musician sailors. Oh maybe a Djembe or bongos here and there but I've yet to come across a sailor carrying a whole drum kit on board. So we play with a Roland drum machine or backing tracks. The people we entertain certainly consider us a 'live band'.
I arrange/record/mix/master my own backing tracks to solo as a OMB. Nothing I use is commercially available. Most of my backing tracks incorporate recorded tracks of the better musicians I've played with in the past (and I make it a point to give them due credit). Each instrument is recorded on a separate track. If a musician shows up, say a guitarist or keyboardist, I can mute the guitar or keyboard track in the DAW and remix the backing track sans guitar or keyboard.
Point being, as others have pointed out it depends on the situation. Would I rather be in a stable, long term situation playing bass with a guitarist/keyboardist/drummer/etc.? Of course, been there/done that, but now I don't have that luxury. I play because I enjoy playing to entertain and thus I will 'compromise' however I need to do so. You may not consider it a 'live band' or think of what I do as fake music but try standing up in front of a crowd singing whatever with only a bass to accompany you, see where that gets you. I do what I have to do to play.
