Bands using "Backing Tracks"

[engage757]

Well, that sux!!! Who wants to hear a live show that sounds just like the cd? I can stay home and listen to the cd, in that case. I pay money to hear a *live* show...passion, sweat, warts, and beauty...*all* of it.

That tears it. "Big" shows are no longer worth the exhorbitant sums they command. If its not live...if the artists are playing and singing along with a pre-recorded track...then it is worth nothing to me, and I won't pay for it. Nor will I give my kids money so they can go, either.

Major labels suck. They are ruining music. "Make it sound the same"...BLAH!!! BORING!!! PLASTIC!!!

I'll never go to a show that isn't in a bar again. Not one I have to pay for. Its not live, so I ain't payin'.

Cherie

I have been touring in numerous bands, including several Larger names in country and Christian rock, and I cn tell you that it is fairly rare for what you have always been hearing to all be played actually on stage. This has nothing to do with the labels, it is cheaper for a band that is NOT on a Garth Brooks level to not want to tour with all the musicians needed to provide the music up to the album's standards. it often comes down to bands not making enough (or as much as they would like) money, to not want to take any more than the bare necessity musicians out with them.

 

[Billnc]

IMHO a performance should be arranged so that it sounds good with the available musicians. Anything else is a fraud.

 

[Luke19Boarder]

as long as the musicians are all playing their respective instruments, and that's the majority of what you hear, why does it really matter what else is playing as long as it sounds good?

 

[longfinger]

Hacks...they're already here. Britney is the prime example.

There's a chick who performs locally...she won't perform without her backing tracks and her vocal effects. She thinks she's the queen bee, but I have yet to find anyone who respects her. She has a high band turnover, too. Treats her bandmates like underlings. The only reason anyone thinks she's any good is because of her backing tracks and effects. She sounds thin and crappy without her "toys".

If she didn't have them, she wouldn't be singing at all.

Cherie

Hopefully there will be truth in advertising.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/afp/091106/entertainment/entertainment_us_music_australia_spears

The advertising should be clear. Are ticket buyers paying money for a live musical performance with live dance routines+lights, or are they are paying for a live dance+lights show, to pre-recorded music?

In the above case, when the lead singer uses pre-recorded tracks and lip-synchs, people should be officially made aware of that that before paying for tickets. And the ticket prices should be priced accordingly.

 

[pbass2]

Playing along with sequenced tracks and making it sound good and full of energy is a skill too.

+1000
If you're out there as a working pro freelancing for different kinds of acts these days, it very much behooves you to learn these "chops"---it's not as easy as it might seem. One player in the band that can't hang well with the backing tracks and make it feel good, or know what to do when things go awry (and they can!) can derail the whole thing.
While I think it's all good, as long as the MUSIC is good, I still think it's best to use the minimum amount of backing stuff you can get by with even if it means re-arranging parts regardless of how it was recorded. In fact, I think the less you're a slave to the recorded version, the better. And sometimes musicians don't give audiences enough credit for what they'll dig---people have pretty big ears these days . . .

 

[Trapezius]

I play keys live, and often split my keyboard in many zones, using tons of pedals and weird tricks to make it all happen.. where most people would just have another guy or a backing track. It's fun and challenging. Of course I have to sing while doing that.

But... I don't mind backing tracks at all. Sometimes there might be a programmed loop or something that just can't be played by a human being, and it's cool to have that element in there.

Backing vocals, extra rythm guitar etc.. I don't think it's cheating if you played it in the first place. It's often a better solution than getting another guy who has to be paid. Most musicians don't earn a lot of money.

Don't overdo it, that's the key.

 

[Rattman]

I think backing tracks, harmonizers and other such tricks are blurring what is live music and what is essentially a karaoke act. I have no respect for bands that use either. You're either creating the music and harmonies entirely yourself, or you're not.

Unfortunately, you're seeing the future -- and essentially the death of live music as we know it now. *shakes head*

You can thank the advent of CD copying and powerful PC's with music/data-copying software for some of that.. That's also contributing to the VERY evident slide in original music and decent song arranging as well.. the 'death knell' for copywrited music started first noticably sounding around 1983 or so.

 

[ForSix]

What's to stop the sleazy bar owner from making his own tracks and then getting a bunch of strippers to lip synch them.

The strippers would work for tips.

 

[ric stave]

What's to stop the sleazy bar owner from making his own tracks and then getting a bunch of strippers to lip synch them.

The strippers would work for tips.

Nice! Thanx for the idea for my new band!!

 

[Rowdy]

Not surprising that the folks who make their living playing in cover bands are apparently the biggest defenders here of pre-recorded "tracks" onstage. They're already professional fakers by definition *shrug*

That's a brutal statement. A person would be hard-pressed to find a modern era musician that has NEVER covered someone elses tune. But I digress....

For me, it's all about integrity.

I play in a 3-piece group: guitar, bass, drums. We cover alot of tunes that originally had any number of other instruments in the original recording, but we would NEVER use a backing track. Period. If we can't work around it we simply would move on to some other tune we can do.

When we are playing, for example, a Billy Joel tune, nobody misses the piano. Hell, the audience is probably hearing the piano in their head anyway because they are so used to it being there, but it's not being missed from the stage. Adding some backing track to fill that in would do nothing to enhance our performance. Like many of you have stated (including those that do use backing tracks) if the level of energy is there, that's all you need!

All our songs are adjusted to fit the instruments we play and to the level that we can play and sing them. And quite frankly, we do a good job of it. Playing live is just about that: playing live.

Others may not have any issues using canned music in their shows, but I personally could not look myself in the mirror knowing I was using it. And I don't think it matters WHO canned the music. Just because you may have done the track yourself.....well, it's still canned.

Nothing bores me more than to see these one-man bands in a club. (My apologies to those of you who have bored me in the past....you do what you must, I suppose)

 

[AndyLES]

This thread is dumb. So, by the definition of the people who stand for "integrity"...Rush must be Karaoke, right? The who, whenever they play "Baba O'Reilly" are "killing music?"
I saw U2 in Giants stadium a couple of months ago, and when the Organ sound for "When the Streets have no name" came roaring over the PA, not ONE person walked out to take a stand for "integrity."

Unbelievable. Sequencing is a tool, like your delay and chorus pedals (which, BTW, also replicate sounds that aren't there). When it's used to fill out the sound, I have no problems.

 

[ChrisB2]

^+1

I mean, do the people being entertained care? Please. Give us a break. It's entertainment. Have you ever watched a magic show? Wait... you left in disgust and demanded your money back when you saw the strings... right? Because, it's SUPPOSED to REALLY be MAGIC and that guy's a FAKER!! No, you realized that it's entertainment and just accepted it as that.

Now, there has to be some level of skill and/or interesting use of the technique. No one wants to see a magician who isn't skilled at illusion. And it can't be too outrageous, ala Britney doing cartwheels, handsprings and backflips from one side of the stage to the other while belting out perfect pitch and breathing normally; IMO, the one-man-band strumming and singing to a recording of a full band is taking it too far. But c'mon... let's lighten up and have a little fun. Sheesh!

I guess all the Pink Floyd live shows I saw in the 70's were Karaoke.

No, when performing Money, they actually had three people all dropping coins, ringing cash registers and pulling bills to make the opening sounds. Right in the front row. How did you miss them???

Uh, I'm making that up. Actually, this is the only song my cover band uses any prerecordings for... so far. We do use a CD for the opening sounds on Money (and that is only the clinking coins, etc. sounds, not the bass line or anything else. I made a track of just the sound effects for this purpose). But, if we add songs that need similar effects... like a jet taking off, ocean sounds, wind, thunder... IMO that really adds some pizazz to our show. And if a musician happens to walk out because of it: that's fine. I don't really like performing for musicians anyway; they're usually too snotty about watching bands... and I include myself in that group.

 

[QORC]

there is a vast difference between using some occasional sound effects that everyone knows you couldn't reproduce live and using backing tracks for major parts of songs that are essentially in place of placing the musical instruments live. Harmonizers are especially bad. You have people up there with, presumably, voices. Using a harmonizer is the worst kind of fraud, outside of a Milli Vanilli concert

But I figured people would come up with ridiculous red herrings to justify themselves.

 

[pbass2]

Not surprising that the folks who make their living playing in cover bands are apparently the biggest defenders here of pre-recorded "tracks" onstage. They're already professional fakers by definition *shrug*

Wow. I never knew I've been guilty of being a "professional faker" at times in my career. I make a living at music, and while I don't play in cover bands now, I sure have, and I would do it again if I had to, to stay as a full-time musician. Plus you learn a hell of a lot about music, songwriting and how to entertain people in cover bands, backing tracks or not. But what do I know, I'm just a fake . . .

 

[Marley's Ghost]

What's to stop the sleazy bar owner from making his own tracks and then getting a bunch of strippers to lip synch them.

The strippers would work for tips.

I'd pay to see that.

 

[AndyLES]

there is a vast difference between using some occasional sound effects that everyone knows you couldn't reproduce live and using backing tracks for major parts of songs that are essentially in place of placing the musical instruments live. Harmonizers are especially bad. You have people up there with, presumably, voices. Using a harmonizer is the worst kind of fraud, outside of a Milli Vanilli concert

But I figured people would come up with ridiculous red herrings to justify themselves.

Red herring? How so?

 

[MazeMouse]

I play in a symphonic metal band and we currently have all our synths on a backing track.
Mainly because we don't have a keys-player at the moment (still looking for him/her )

And even with a keys-player parts will have to be put on backing tracks. Because we are layering the crap out of stuff so if we want to REALLY put this into live-performance we're gonna have to drag a full orchestra out to all our gigs. And we simply cannot afford that.

Are we "fakers" yeah maybe but so far from other bands in the genre (big names too) we're using the same setup as theirs.
And we're not faking the drums, not faking the guitars, not faking the bass, not faking the vocals. Essentially the only thing we are "faking" are the instruments we just can't play ourselves but we need to have in there to achieve the full effect of our music.

 

[73jbass]

I just left a corporate band over this very issue. We couldn't find the right keyboard player,so the leader decided that we were going to use backing tracks for all the horns,keys,synths,etc.,and have one of his friends who is supposedly a keyboard player to fake playing keyboards. There are times where a midi track is fine,for special effects or sounds you just can't duplicate for some reason,but to use them full time in place of a keyboard player was,to me,going too far. I used midi sounds in the past triggering them with pedals or a synth,but thats a bit different. I just think that the music should be done by musicians,and anything over that can be done with midi triggered by someone on stage. Just my .02 worth.

 

[MNAirHead]

I used to be against them.......until I realized one day that NO ONE in the audience has a clue. The musicians do.......but the working musicians understand you gotta do what you gotta do. And when you live in an area where drummers are flighty, well, out comes the backing track.

I do admit, one group I'm in does all of its own programming. And trust me, it's more work to midi a drum track than it would be to just play the sucker live......a lot more! Guitar parts and all that are done by us too. It actually works out pretty well.

I saw a national act, really good one, 6 piece. Realized I was hearing keyboards and realized I couldn't see a key player, got up and moved around and nope, no keys. So after the show I went and talked to the bass player-he told me they had a keys player, but he couldn't always come on tour so he recorded his tracks and the drummer uses a laptop to trigger them. Like I said, the audience didn't care!

I've also seen it fall flat on its face... and I can also tell you you better have a good sense of timing because unless you record it with the speed ups and slow downs, it's not moving. Keeps you honest on your timing!

As for a blues band using them? I've yet to play in one where the timing is spot on enough to use one, everyone gets too excited .

Paying audiences now have a higher expectation of a baseline. There are more bad bands.. it's much easier to be a stellar band while embracing the technology stuff.

Not my first choice.. there are plenty of places where a good back track adds to the mix.

I do prefer if the band does their own backing vs buying midi tracks (they seem to be very generic)

 

[Kenner]

Our keyboard guy recently quit. Guess the extra 8 grand a year wasn't enough.....

We haven't been able to find a quality key guy to play and sing, so we have been spending a ton of time programming the keys and they sound great. We are getting the correct tones for the songs we are covering (only about 7 songs of the 50 we do a night [cheaper than hiring a new key guy]). Instead of using a harmonizer for the missing voc's, I've been (singing) recording the missing harmonies instead of using a harmonizer. I think it sounds really good because it is actually one of "our" voices instead of a program, or even a harmonizer.

(we never really realized our key guy was as bad as he was till now.......)

Yes, we are band, but actually an entertainment company first...........