Off topic, but what kind of tone do you use on that? We play it too. PM me if you don't want to hijack.
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'Live' bands with backing tracks
- Thread starter Buzzgroove
- Start date
- Oct 7, 2000
- 18,619
- 38,939
- Disclosures
- Endorsing artist: Musicman basses
All the tone (effects) is in the track, that's why they kept it :/. I'm just going straight through, adding clean bass underneath. It's actually a great exercise for my chops, cuz I have to nail it bigtime. Need to be dead on with the track - for me, anyway. As I said, if I weren't nobody would even notice. I'm pretty sure the guy before me just played roots.
They do the same thing with 24 Karot Magic.
This week we're working on a bunch of Motown tunes we're adding to our repertoire. THERE IS NO EFFING WAY they're putting any tracks with bass in them. I'm super psyched, and really getting into Jamerson's style. I'll quit it with this though cuz now I'll start really derailing....
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No foul there, Mark King made a career out of doing that and he's a legend.
There is a fairly successful band in my area who does this. You see them live, one singer, drums, bass, gtr. They start playing and you hear keys, more than one gtr, and backing vocals that clearly aren't being done with a vocal processor, which is still a cheat.
All the tone (effects) is in the track, that's why they kept it :/. I'm just going straight through, adding clean bass underneath. It's actually a great exercise for my chops, cuz I have to nail it bigtime. Need to be dead on with the track - for me, anyway. As I said, if I weren't nobody would even notice. I'm pretty sure the guy before me just played roots.
They do the same thing with 24 Karot Magic.
This week we're working on a bunch of Motown tunes we're adding to our repertoire. THERE IS NO EFFING WAY they're putting any tracks with bass in them. I'm super psyched, and really getting into Jamerson's style. I'll quit it with this though cuz now I'll start really derailing....
We also do that Justin Timberlake song and I made my own backing track for it. I used Renoise to make it. Does your band have a website or any videos? We're just a local Canadian cover band but I'd like to take it further at some point.
There is one band in my general area that does just this. The Vox are live, but everything else is canned. They pull in big $ bookings too. It all went to hell when their laptop crashed at a gig. I'm not above using a backing track on a couple of songs if you need to add one-off instrumentation, but clever arranging can get around that. I once even heard a three-piece pull off Tower of Power's "Don't Change Horses".
Sounds like a whole bunch of manure to me. There's two well known "tribute" style acts that tour Texas and the gulf coast. They pack it in at $15 a head, and virtually play none of their instruments other than to make an illusion that they are. One 80s nerd band, the other a hairband act. I get repulsed that they can push that junk.
it wouldn't make any difference to me, with or without backing tracks: a show is a show. show business is what it is. if you want to play 'reality' in real time = play jazz with a group of exceptional players and be prepared to deliver something special/unique/difficult to copy. (my favorite real experience!)
backing tracks are old news. most folks cannot do it correctly, IMO. with backing tracks: the role of the bass is to help smooth out, and make seamless, the fact that the tracks exist in the first place....it's not just playing along with something you might consider 'fake'. a value judgement about the phenomenon, without the experience of actually participating, is shallow and naive.
playing with backing tracks is not my ambition, but it is a skill: if you can't do it = you're missing out. if you can do it, but won't = you limit your income possibilities as a professional player.
in the studio: serious radio-play contenders use a click = the first step in the production which will produce the need for backing tracks for someone, somewhere, sometime! ha!
learn to play with a click. it's a real skill. the need for backing tracks, in a live playdown, will take care of itself, depending on the objectives of the production goals and the audience's expectations. some of you (here on TB) are just making value judgements without the experience itself (my favorite pastime, too. it's easy...and requires no chops whatsoever!)
just sayin'.
backing tracks are old news. most folks cannot do it correctly, IMO. with backing tracks: the role of the bass is to help smooth out, and make seamless, the fact that the tracks exist in the first place....it's not just playing along with something you might consider 'fake'. a value judgement about the phenomenon, without the experience of actually participating, is shallow and naive.
playing with backing tracks is not my ambition, but it is a skill: if you can't do it = you're missing out. if you can do it, but won't = you limit your income possibilities as a professional player.
in the studio: serious radio-play contenders use a click = the first step in the production which will produce the need for backing tracks for someone, somewhere, sometime! ha!
learn to play with a click. it's a real skill. the need for backing tracks, in a live playdown, will take care of itself, depending on the objectives of the production goals and the audience's expectations. some of you (here on TB) are just making value judgements without the experience itself (my favorite pastime, too. it's easy...and requires no chops whatsoever!)
just sayin'.
I would never play in a band like that. What's the point?
Thanks for exposing them for the frauds that they are!
Pretty much, yeah. If you can play with a click live, you can play with backing tracks. If you can produce music, you can make backing tracks. If you can DJ, you can control the form and structure of backing tracks live, and mix seamlessly from song to song.
The Wall tour in 1980 had several 24 tracks doing backing tracks and fx triggers and such. One of my workmates back then got the tour of the FOH system. This stuff has been going on for decades.
we're not talking about massive, national extravaganzas. We're talking about mostly local bands playing in small venues and where the line is between "live" and "karaoke". pretty obvious why some national acts do it - you can't replicate the studio in many cases and the fans are paying big $ and expect to hear the music exactly as they know it. "The Wall" would be impossible to do live without one heck of a lot of help.
total apples and oranges.
Where is the line between using a few sound effects and essentially becoming Milli Vanilli except with instruments as well as voices? That's the debate here
total apples and oranges.
Where is the line between using a few sound effects and essentially becoming Milli Vanilli except with instruments as well as voices? That's the debate here
Just thinking outloud here.
On the other hand, bigger pop acts are using real musicians for at least some parts, even when that means sounding a good deal less like the studio, and just using a DJ would sound objectively more like the original. It's kind of a luxury only the most successful can afford, and it also does add a bit of sloppy uniqueness to every performance.
It's as if what most people really want to see is a performance which is beyond the capability of humans - but only partly, not completely.
Out of interest, I saw a band recently who used backing tracks. It was kind of synthy indie pop, 5-piece line-up (drums, bass, gtr, keys, vox). As far as I could hear, the backing track added:
- layered/effected backing vox
- extra synths (as in, additional to what the synth player was playing)
- additional electronic drums/percussion (mixed in with the live/acoustic kit)
The whole band were playing their instruments live. Overall it as a pretty good use of backing tracks for little extra production touches, while keeping a very much live feel.
The audience didn't seem to care about what was a backing track or not, and were dancing away.
- layered/effected backing vox
- extra synths (as in, additional to what the synth player was playing)
- additional electronic drums/percussion (mixed in with the live/acoustic kit)
The whole band were playing their instruments live. Overall it as a pretty good use of backing tracks for little extra production touches, while keeping a very much live feel.
The audience didn't seem to care about what was a backing track or not, and were dancing away.
That's the key right there. There's a big difference between adding a little sweetening to your live playing and being a karaoke act. I've seen bands where it's basically all "Chip" and the band is just along for the ride and I agree it's misleading. I've played a bunch with tracks and it requires some skill and concentration. And yes it makes it a bit tough to improvise but that's a tradeoff for having a tight show.
Also you would be amazed and surprised at the big artists that use some sort of tracks and I'm not talking about the obvious pop acts.
