If you've been to a major concert in the last 30 years, then you've heard backing tracks and been blissfully unaware...
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Backing/click track cover band support group needed
- Thread starter Marley's Ghost
- Start date
and how very sad and pathetic it is....bands with backing tracks are able to play with very people and undercut opportunities for real bands that actually play their music
Michael Schreiber
Commercial User
Samples and stuff are more a red rag to me. Just like playback vocals. That's definitely cheating, IMO, as long as it's not done out of sheer necessity; like triggering a kick drum in some speed black death metal.
Sound effects or even a synth playing along, I find OK, as long as it's obvious where the sound's coming from.
Same for looping a rhythm guitar; as long as the looping section has been played live at the gig, beforehand.
As said: I don't consider it cheating when it's clear where the sound comes from; not prentending something's live when it isn't.
I play in an early 80's tribute that uses a lot of Keyboard backing tracks (hard to find a good keyboard player these days that doesn't flake early on). We use a laptop loaded with Ableton Live and create sets. My drummer has it on a shelf clamped to his kit. He triggers the start and stop of every tune we play. With Ableton, when you start a song, it will automatically cue up the next song in the set. All he has to do is hit the trigger to start the next song. Eliminates a ton of the lag between tunes. We can still change songs up on the fly, however, that does take a couple of seconds to do......
oh... and he has an iPod on hand for backup if the computer drops a turd mid set......
oh... and he has an iPod on hand for backup if the computer drops a turd mid set......
Lovely high horse to be on. But if you're trying to actually get work as a cover band, and be relevant playing current hits, you may very well find yourself looking for ways to reproduce a pop tune that has 43 tracks of stuff going on. And in the current gig economy, said cover band is not going to be hiring twelve people to go around playing them. I'm not a big fan of tracks either, but it's not as though the band members are NOT playing or singing when the track is on; we're not talking Milli Vanilli here.
The main local band I know that uses tracks is a four-piece (two guitarist/singers, drums, and bass). The drummer cues backing tracks and has in-ears, so they're effectively also a click track for him. Everyone else follows the drummer. Yes, to one earlier comment, you have to be tight or you get a train wreck (these guys don't).
To the OP, I would avoid taking requests (or put them off till the following set if you have to take them), and rehearse transitions so that you can move from song to song seamlessly.
My own cover band (a modern alternative/indie trio), we don't use any tracks, but the guitarist and I are each starting to experiment with loopers for particular songs to get enough of the layers in on particular songs. So far it's only two songs; he uses one for Modest Mouse's "Float On," to set up chords before doing the melody, and I'm starting to practice with one for Death Cab for Cutie's "I Will Possess Your Heart," to keep the bass line going while I play some keys on the intro.
As I said in the other post - no, it isn't. The players are still playing. Do you want to have to pay a cut to a keyboard player to hold a single chord for 16 bars at a time on only three songs over the course of a night? Nobody's getting "undercut" except, I suppose, some very bored keys players.
We sequence every song
5 piece band playing Motown RnB pop funk
We run sonar for sequences and we make a playlist for each set
Once its qued up the 13-14 songs run right in a row with 1-2 seconds in between songs to tell us what the next tune is (through our in ears ) the singer records his voice to tell us which song is next on a separate track
Works PERFECT !
No down time in between tunes at all
It's a playlist that runs right through
Lol areal band ?
That's funny
Don't knock it till you try it
We are booked 8-12 times a month
And have no open dates for 6 months in advance
People could care less about sequence tracks they are there to dance
thats pretty funny
I love when people say this it generally makes me giggle
A real band ??
We all have been playing for 30+ years each
The ONLY people who diss sequencing are other musicians but it's funny because those other musicians would LOVE to have our calander
8-10 gigs a month and booked 6 months in advance
So don't knock it till you try it
Michael Schreiber
Commercial User
Not speaking/writing as musician; but as one of those in the crowd.
I have nothing against if a band needs to replace a missing position by a backing track. Saw Alestorm withut their drummer, still it was fun to my surprise.
But I'd like it way more to see "real" playing. I enjoy seeing how others play.
That's why I also encourage any band to try to get as many players as needed, if possible. Not easy, I know.
But in my opinion very worth it.
And as for "real band" - I wouldn't see it in an offensive way.
No one would consider 20 synthesizers an orchestra, right?
A band is a group of people banded together for the same goal, I take it. With that definition in mind, I can understand if someone doesn't understand, how a computer would fit in, not just as a player, but as a band mate... I wouldn't see it in a negative way, just different opinions on what a "band" is in someone's eyes. You still obviously are an awesome ensemble / band plus some machines or whatever label someone might find suitable for it; doesn't matter much, does it?
But the argument; we're successful, so we are a "real band"... don't know, to me one thing has nothing to do with the other. In contrary, a real band sticks together, even when times are tough, and success seemed to be far away. But that's just me; old-school me
You need a front man to tell risque jokes between songs... so you don't lose the crowd. 
Yep, Kiss was using backing tracks in 1976! I guess they should've brought a piano player and an string quartet for that tour, or any subsequent tour where they played that song live right?
Slippery slope:
If I play all the parts myself while recording a backing track, is it cheating?
If a keyboard player plays some parts of a song but sequences other parts of the same song, is it cheating?
If a guitarist uses a harmonizer, is it cheating?
If the vocalist uses a Voicelive device to add harmonies, is it cheating?
Where do you draw the line? And who's to say where the line is drawn?
Slippery slope:
If I play all the parts myself while recording a backing track, is it cheating?
If a keyboard player plays some parts of a song but sequences other parts of the same song, is it cheating?
If a guitarist uses a harmonizer, is it cheating?
If the vocalist uses a Voicelive device to add harmonies, is it cheating?
Where do you draw the line? And who's to say where the line is drawn?
Michael Schreiber
Commercial User
To me it's cheating, when pretending it's live while it isn't.
If it's clear what's live and what's not, then I wouldn't consider it cheating at all.
The clearest example would be playback "singing"... I understand that in TV shows they said, it's better quality for the audience behind the TV.
But if your on stage, just posing to a playback, pretending to play/sing, then it's clearly cheating, in my opinion.
Sadly, even (don't laugh, I like his music) Ric Astley did playback performances, in Moscow IIRC. That was underwhelming, especially since the playback was the original record from 30 years ago
Don't know if he had to. But he obviously also did live performances.
When bands are talking about backing tracks, this isn't usually what they mean.
Michael Schreiber
Commercial User
You're right, I wanted to bring up an example as clear as possible. That's an exaggerated example, of course, if not OT.
What is your opinion on that. Are there kinds of backing tracks you would consider as cheating?
I agree. I have, as I said, used them. However--I am now doing something unusual and people assume I am using backing tracks. So--I definitely don't use them in my "original" band. I see them used often for secondary rhythm guitar or keyboard/synth parts.
Drummers that actually keep time are hard to come by so I often fantasize about a thrashing robot drummer that I can program---just for the visual effect. Drum backing tracks suck--audiences love to see live drummers....but, they rarely realize the live drummer is usually literally sucking the life out of the bassist. If U can't keep time why U play at music?
...and if an actor plays his part to be recorded on film, and the audience only gets to see the film projection while in reality he's taking a vacation in Tahiti, is he "cheating?"
Apparently not - not as far as audiences are concerned. They still go to see movies, and don't insist on seeing the actor live for every performance they want to go to.
To be sure, there's a big difference between watching a movie and watching live theater. And there's a difference between listening to a recording of a band, say on an album, and seeing the band play live. The very fact of the human being producing their art there in front of you is magical.
But today technology allows us to blur the boundaries - you can have a stage play with images projected on a screen or a recorded voice speaking. But as I was indicating before, the fact that the performance incorporates recorded material doesn't mean the live actors who ARE there are NOT acting. They are, and their performances may be quite compelling. If a band plays with prerecorded tracks or samples in use, they are still playing themselves - they're just not playing EVERYTHING you hear.
Whether it works or not is very much case-by-case. Relying on recordings can be canned, or corny, or obscure the live performance. I've been very turned off, mostly in church or school situations, when a singer sings to a track and I KNOW there's a perfectly capable pianist there in the room who could have played accompaniment if they had been more organized, and the live interaction between singer and accompanist would have been more compelling than half the equation being prerecorded.
But as I said, for a lot of situations, it doesn't bother me much.
