My mental Venn diagram of purists and bands playing Mustang Sally for beer money is a perfect circle.
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Tracks.. at what point do you draw the line.
- Thread starter pepj
- Start date
I just personally can't fathom a situation in one of my original projects where I'd want or need this.
Well, I think I made a pretty strong case for them earlier. But also it depends on lots of things. If I didn't need keys it would be one thing, but I do. Or FXd vox, or synth bass. Etc.
If it was a 3 piece punk band, no tracks. What would be the point?
But it's not. It's like electronic-y, grungy, punky, rock-y.
But like there's bits eg one song stops in the middle of a verse and it sounds like a radio is being tuned in, and then a completely random C section starts.
That part is 808s and a guitar solo freak out thing...
The amount I'd have to sacrifice to not use tracks would not be worth it.
And frankly I spent a year auditioning keyboard players, and they all sucked. Lol.
It's too varied for a studio head to do easily and good players want a lot more money than I can pay them to invest the necessary time to do it right.
The way we use tracks means we can sound the way we want, we can afford to play gigs, we can control it all and not rely on others less... Committed...
And we played/sang everything on the tracks, so you know, it's not fake, it's just that we have finite hands and feet and voices.
I’m just here to see all the virtue signaling.
Carry on….
Carry on….
That's fair. I was questioning the economics, but I certainly don't know the details of every situation. I also don't expect band economics to make complete sense. There are no bands in my area that are doing that kind of work.
I'm lucky that I live somewhere that's obsessed with music, but also somewhere that forces you on the road to survive.
So people here are basically playing other countries as part of a circuit from early in their careers.
And that focuses the mind re expenses and travel.
Agreed. My previous wedding band used a lot of tracks, and it was super awkward when the iPad that ran them crashed and we all just stood there looking stupid between songs.
I definitely wouldn't use an iPad for tracks. Or a laptop. Seen them fail too many times.
I think they changed to a new system after I left, but I still don't like the idea of depending on too much tech to get through a show.
Well... All music is tech, even acoustic instruments are tech.
I just wouldn't use tech designed to sit on a desk or on the couch, but tech designed for the stage.
Never had a single crash or technical fault with the SPD.
On the other hand the singer in my thing is the drummer in another thing that is very successful - headlining festivals around Europe. They carry 2 mac book pros and I've seen why. On two seperate occasions the in use one was crushed on stage.
To me, unless you need to send individual stems to FOH, I would avoid consumer products live. Or at least bring a back up.
My less than 2 cents: I've never played a gig with backing tracks. And when I see live music, I feel like the live performers are "cheating" somehow if they use tracks. In the case where people are there to see the band, it seems dishonest not to be truly live. And if the music is just background noise while they eat or chat, nobody's paying enough attention to care if there is a backing track, so why bother? (Of course, I think loopers are just for pratice, and not performance, too. Call me a dinosaur.)
That said, the above applies to playing covers, which is 95% of the live music in my part of the world. If you are playing your own originals, and you have personally recorded all the tracks, although I would prefer seeing all the parts played live, I can't fault your artistic integrity. I mean, you've only got so many hands! Even Rush (when I saw them) traveled with some extra backup musicians to fill in parts they had recorded in the studio.
Perhaps we'll soon be in a world where all acts are solo acts with AI generated backing tracks. And Timothee Chalamet will compare us to opera...
That said, the above applies to playing covers, which is 95% of the live music in my part of the world. If you are playing your own originals, and you have personally recorded all the tracks, although I would prefer seeing all the parts played live, I can't fault your artistic integrity. I mean, you've only got so many hands! Even Rush (when I saw them) traveled with some extra backup musicians to fill in parts they had recorded in the studio.
THIS is the problem. It's very hard to make money as a musician today. While emotionally I might feel that using a backing track is putting a musician out of a gig, intellectually it's clear that few venues/agents are willing to pay for a 5 piece, or bigger, band. There is more supply than demand for musicians. In an era where Spotify or Apple Music can give you "a gift beyond price - almost free," the number of folks willing to pay for a live performance is dropping.
Perhaps we'll soon be in a world where all acts are solo acts with AI generated backing tracks. And Timothee Chalamet will compare us to opera...
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Indeed, in my own case, I don't travel for gigs. It might actually be harder in the US because distances are greater and the transit options fewer. The last "out of town" band I saw was a trio of two fiddlers and a guitarist. In Europe, I imagine they'd be traveling by train. Here, they have to figure out gig schedules that can keep them in one region for a while so they can use rented cars while avoiding the longest drives.
Bands have a problem -- if they're successful enough, then they saturate their own local market. Contemporary bands deal with this by traveling. Jazz bands just keep forming different bands.
I'm fortunate that within a mid sized town, I can stay busy enough. But not with a single band. The stagnation of the gig economy is painful, but the local bands manage it in other ways, especially by holding gear, travel, and setup time, to an absolute bare minimum. There are some gigs where I don't leave my house until 30 minutes before showtime.
I have a "wait and see" attitude about tracks, since they haven't made their way into the jazz scene, that I'm aware of.
If you go to big shows, there is a high chance you'll be disappointed..because any production will be clocked and sequenced which is ample opportunity to run tracks..even lead vox from bands who basically made their name from having excellent vocals.. its pretty well known who is charging $600 for tickets and miming big parts..
I've made peace with the fact that big shows are not related to what I do.
Both my main bands use tracks extensively. The line is a simple one - there are five of us in the band, and we're all playing our parts 100% live. Anything on the track is something that would be physically impossible otherwise. No one is mining or faking their playing.
One of the bands is a symphonic metal tribute. To play those songs without a track literally requires a full orchestra. Not only can't we afford a full orchestra, in most venues there wouldn't be any room for an audience! The audience want to hear the songs they love, in their original form including the orchestral parts (rather than a bar band interpretation). If they were missing we'd have a room of angry people demanding refunds. We looked at how the band we're copying ran their setup, and we copy that as closely as possible - using tracks is "authentic". If anything we cover more slightly with keyboards than they do!
One of the bands is a symphonic metal tribute. To play those songs without a track literally requires a full orchestra. Not only can't we afford a full orchestra, in most venues there wouldn't be any room for an audience! The audience want to hear the songs they love, in their original form including the orchestral parts (rather than a bar band interpretation). If they were missing we'd have a room of angry people demanding refunds. We looked at how the band we're copying ran their setup, and we copy that as closely as possible - using tracks is "authentic". If anything we cover more slightly with keyboards than they do!
This, exactly. As long as everyone on stage is playing everything they an live, adding tracks is not an issue. No one is faking anything
I'm a big enough curmudgeon to where I only want to hear live musicians working.
However.
What others do is none of my business. I've seen enough musical situations where when I walked in I said 'That's NOT gonna work', only to see, you know what, THEY made it work just fine.
If that's how someone wants to do it, and they can pull it off in sync and everything works, who am I to say?
However.
What others do is none of my business. I've seen enough musical situations where when I walked in I said 'That's NOT gonna work', only to see, you know what, THEY made it work just fine.
If that's how someone wants to do it, and they can pull it off in sync and everything works, who am I to say?
I mean, no hate to doing it if they want to, but it does sound like the orchestral parts are indeed being faked. It's just an accepted norm in the genre and the fans don't have a problem with it. There are plenty of other genres where it would not be accepted by the fanbase and make the band look quite foolish.
