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need help with playing to a click set up

T

Tombolino

Dec 28, 2012
326
17
#1
Hi friends,

Im trying to organize setting up backing tracks my drummer would play to a click. I use Ableton live on a Mac. The backing tracks are of course on Ableton. The laptop would be handled by the keyboard player and it would connect to the PA via USB (our mixer will have a USB port).

I am not sure of the following:

-Where do the headphones for the drummer connect? Laptop? PA?
-Thinking of having 12 click counts before a song starts.
-Regarding the backing tracks, I have read mixed things about panning and these being mono vs stereo.
-On what PA channel does the click need to be sent?
-Any suggested audio tweaking on backing drums in the software so that it sounds good on PA?

Thank you!

Sebastian
 
#2
Tombolino said:
Hi friends,

Im trying to organize setting up backing tracks my drummer would play to a click. I use Ableton live on a Mac. The backing tracks are of course on Ableton. The laptop would be handled by the keyboard player and it would connect to the PA via USB (our mixer will have a USB port).

I am not sure of the following:

-Where do the headphones for the drummer connect? Laptop? PA? Typically driven with a mix or aux from the mixer. Something like a Rolls 350 headphone amp will drive the headphones
-Thinking of having 12 click counts before a song starts. Nothing wrong there, be sure everyone is with the beat one mark, which usually a higher-pitch beat than the rest. 12, 8, 16 counts, whatever works for you
-Regarding the backing tracks, I have read mixed things about panning and these being mono vs stereo. I would go mono at first to get used to playing with the clicks and the trax. Make sur the click is well-heard and don't over-do the trax levelsjust yet. The Rolls is mono, but when you feel ready, you can do a search for stereo headphone amps. Just remember that you'll tie up two mixes/auxes when sending stereo trax.
-On what PA channel does the click need to be sent? Any input is fine, just make SURE that this channel can be un-assigned from the stereo bus (usually with a button on the channel marked "L-R". Obviously, you don't want the click in the house mix. The USB input could be a problem, unless you can assign the input from the laptop to more than one channel. How many tracks are you sending from the computer?
-Any suggested audio tweaking on backing drums in the software so that it sounds good on PA? Start light at first and work on it. Unless you aren't using live drums, I wouldn't over-do the track drums in the mix. Listen to the drum trax and tweak them like you would live drums.

Thank you!

Hope this helps...

Sebastian
Click to expand...
 
#7
usb input should be ok, since it's stereo. click could be hard panned left, backing tracks hard right (in ableton).

Then connect your "right main out" to your power amp(s). Don't plug anything into your "left main out" and you won't hear the click in front of house.
If an allen and heath zed mixer can't be configured to do what you want, it can't be done. I have one of the little zeds.

They are light on aux sends though. Getting a little zed submixer and sending it to a main board might be a good idea.
EDIT: when I was in an original band we used backing tracks for keyboard stuff. We had a hard disk recorder rackmounted by the drummer. For each song he'd hit play, then after a pause there were eight clicks -- four for him to catch the tempo and four more for him to click off for the rest of us to hear.
 
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