Gearslutz.com - View Single Post - Most Reliable Live Setup for Backup Tracks

a zombie · 9th November 2009

My band is almost finished with our first CD, we've put a ton of energy into making it sound really big, and we want our release party show to be equally awesome. Until now we have never used any backing tracks in our set. but in order to do our recordings any justice we need to find a way to cover the more basic repetitious parts of our songs to free us up to play the more exciting lead/rythym parts. Our music is rich with synths and very groove based with live acoustic/simmons drums and an 80's influence.

So basically i am wondering what the most reliable, and flexible system there is for using backup tracks is. It needs to be solid and of fairly good sound quality.

So far i have thought of using a tascam portastudio 4-track cassette deck with a FOH mix on 2 channels and a Click/monitor channel for the drummers in ear monitors. this seems like it would be very reliable but not very flexible.

I have also considered using a laptop but im nervous about the reliability and im not sure if there would really be any added flexability if we messed up a change etc.

any ideas on what might work the best?

9th November 2009	#1
a zombie Gear addict Join Date: Apr 2009 Location: Seattle, WA Posts: 388 Thread Starter	Most Reliable Live Setup for Backup Tracks My band is almost finished with our first CD, we've put a ton of energy into making it sound really big, and we want our release party show to be equally awesome. Until now we have never used any backing tracks in our set. but in order to do our recordings any justice we need to find a way to cover the more basic repetitious parts of our songs to free us up to play the more exciting lead/rythym parts. Our music is rich with synths and very groove based with live acoustic/simmons drums and an 80's influence. So basically i am wondering what the most reliable, and flexible system there is for using backup tracks is. It needs to be solid and of fairly good sound quality. So far i have thought of using a tascam portastudio 4-track cassette deck with a FOH mix on 2 channels and a Click/monitor channel for the drummers in ear monitors. this seems like it would be very reliable but not very flexible. I have also considered using a laptop but im nervous about the reliability and im not sure if there would really be any added flexability if we messed up a change etc. any ideas on what might work the best?