'Live' bands with backing tracks

[Westsailor]

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.

Agreed 100% (I use a Voicelive Play myself). That said, while I think lip syncing (etc.) is fraud in general, I can sorta understand why the big boys/girls do it. I mean they're on nationwide/worldwide tours, performing night after night in different venues 'rain or shine'. People are paying $100's of dollars to see them perform their music exactly how the envision them performing it in their head. They simply can't have a bad/off night thanks to a sudden cold, hangover, etc.. Is it 'fraud' to 100% guarantee their fans get what they expected?

 

[craigie]

Agreed 100% (I use a Voicelive Play myself). That said, while I think lip syncing (etc.) is fraud in general, I can sorta understand why the big boys/girls do it. I mean they're on nationwide/worldwide tours, performing night after night in different venues 'rain or shine'. People are paying $100's of dollars to see them perform their music exactly how the envision them performing it in their head. They simply can't have a bad/off night thanks to a sudden cold, hangover, etc.. Is it 'fraud' to 100% guarantee their fans get what they expected?

Depends what they expect. I'd you go to see adelle and she doesn't actually sing then you just paid a hell of a lot of money to listen to what you could have at home.

 

[Ox Boris]

You may not consider it a 'live band'

You don't have to fit my criteria of a live band in order to be brilliant.
You're imbuing the phrase "live band" with an indication of quality, something I have not done.
I've also not done this:

think of what I do as fake music

Bringing that up is entirely your own doing.
I'll just sit here while you take your words out of my mouth, shall I?

 

[Westsailor]

You don't have to fit my criteria of a live band in order to be brilliant.
You're imbuing the phrase "live band" with an indication of quality, something I have not done.
I've also not done this:

Westsailor said: ↑
think of what I do as fake music

Bringing that up is entirely your own doing.
I'll just sit here while you take your words out of my mouth, shall I?

Well I apologize if that's not what you were inferring but it certainly came across that way, i.e. without a drummer it's not a real band and therefore fake compared to a real live band.

 

[Sampy123]

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?

 

[Sampy123]

I like them if used tastefully.

 

[Ox Boris]

Well I apologize if that's not what you were inferring

You should have stopped there. Unfortunately the rest of your post rather obviates the lip-service you paid to the apology.

but it certainly came across that way

You mean your paranoia made you indignant, to the exclusion of any other possible meaning.

i.e. without a drummer it's not a real band and therefore fake compared to a real live band.

At no point have I mentioned the word "real".
Take me up on something I did say rather than havering over things you're making up out of thin air.

 

[duff beer]

 

[Jay Corwin]

Agreed 100% (I use a Voicelive Play myself). That said, while I think lip syncing (etc.) is fraud in general, I can sorta understand why the big boys/girls do it. I mean they're on nationwide/worldwide tours, performing night after night in different venues 'rain or shine'. People are paying $100's of dollars to see them perform their music exactly how the envision them performing it in their head. They simply can't have a bad/off night thanks to a sudden cold, hangover, etc.. Is it 'fraud' to 100% guarantee their fans get what they expected?

This is an interesting take. I think that most people that are paying for that stuff have no clue that it's basically just the CD playing with backup dancers or whatever.

Watching the Super Bowl one year with a non-musician buddy, I explained to him that most of the whole halftime show thing was all pre recorded, and they just cut the mics on and off so performers could talk to the crowd on occasion. He was shocked. So I think in general terms, people who dig pop music don't care either way. I imagine the same would hold true for someone seeing a cover band playing their favorite hits at bar.

The fact is, that the technology has gotten to the point that you can make anyone sound great with enough application.

 

[QORC]

cover bands are not national acts or Super Bowl halftime shows. A sound effect needed for a song? sure why not? but I'm talking about when I see a duo of guitarists playing along with a track with bass and drums. to me, it's getting awfully close to a karaoke act and not something I'm interested in seeing.

 

[Sampy123]

Depends what they expect. I'd you go to see adelle and she doesn't actually sing then you just paid a hell of a lot of money to listen to what you could have at home.

 

[Sampy123]

I draw the line at Auto tune - if you can't sing on key you are not a singer.

 

[craigie]

I draw the line at Auto tune - if you can't sing on key you are not a singer.

Unless you are using it for Cher. Then it sounds awesome.

 

[FirewalZ]

I was in a long running band that played along with a sequenced backing tracks, keys, horn parts, new wave and disco stuff. It get boring after a while and it's not my thing anymore.

 

[Ox Boris]

If you can't throw in an extra lead break to extend a song that's got the crowd rocking, or follow the singer who mistakenly goes to the bridge early, you're not live. You may be "present" and you may be brilliant, but you're not live.

 

[Orlando_Lasso]

Playing with a backtrack in a live situation is always the most unprofessional thing you could do. All live, or not at all. I just am one of those people that believes in performance, not pre-recorded 'performance.' Stuff like that bugs me, especially in other settings, like at church most of our special music things during the program are people singing to karaoke backings...not dissing them as singers, but seriously, instead of having a CD put through the church PA a live piano alone would sound better than those strings, horns, and drums, which are possibly just VST samples anyway.

I have to respectfully disagree. My band does pop music and there's no way to cover all the keyboard parts even with a keyboard player. I agree that it's nice to have the live instruments whenever possible but there are just too many layers to recreate the sound without tracking. I always make my own tracks from scratch though.

 

[Joe Nerve]

Playing with a backtrack in a live situation is always the most unprofessional thing you could do.

Only read the first few responses, but found some irony in this.

I've been playing bass for decades, and have played in over 100 bands. Until the band I just hooked up with in 2017, I could count on 1 hand the amount of times I played to any tracks. The band I'm in now, we use tracks 90% of the time - and it is by far, without a doubt, the most professional situation I've ever been in. These guys pay me quadruple what I'm used to being paid (plus my expenses), we have roadies, our own truck, and we're booked solid (2-4x a week) through 2018.

If given the choice I'd always prefer to play with real musicians, but as far as being professional goes - the times they aren't a changin, they've changed. Bigtime. And I'm fine with it.

In an amusing and somewhat sickening note, there are a couple of songs we do where the backing tracks have bass on them, because that's the way they were before I got in the band, and... whatever. Anyhow, I double up the bass and it sounds fine - BUT this Saturday night I have to admit to something. One of those songs is Justin Timberlake's Can't Stop the Feeling. There's a little bass solo thing near the end, that I double up on. For some reason I brain farted this week and thought it was a stop. I stopped playing, and the bass did it's solo. The band looked at me and laughed - I think they think I did it purposely. Funny thing is that not a single person dancing noticed. I scanned the crowd as best I could. Nobody cared. Nobody knew. Ehhh.... It's a little sad, actually.

People going out to hear bands today aren't like the people who used to go out to hear bands. That I'm certain of. Will start another thread on that one day. I'm happy I'm still having fun though, and finally earning my living doing it.

 

[Jay Corwin]

Hell, most of the naysayers on here probably wouldn't have the first clue as how to pull it off anyway....

I'm pretty sure that most average to decent musicians could:

a. learn how to put it together
b. rehearse it until they are proficient with it

It's not like we're putting a man on the moon using the slide rule.

 

[skwee]

The only place I like to hear a backing track is at Karaoke.

 

[Sampy123]

Hey you like what you like - can't argue with that. But to compare a backing tracks created from scratch, to make sure it has a proper place in the mix, selecting the right instrument, the right effect, painstakingly creating the drum fills is pretty F'ing far from karaoke and only shows your lack of understanding of what us backing track folks really do. We don't buy the track and insert it. So your preference is just that a preference which us fine. But don't denigrate someone's work and passion by comparing it to Karaoke -