Box for cueing backing tracks on stage

[bunratty]

My friend and I have a gig where we sing live to prerecorded backing tracks on stage, and we're trying to find a better method for cueing the tracks. Right now we depend on a sound operator to hit play on a cd player.

Can anyone recommend a box that can be triggered by a foot pedal, and can play back high quality digital audio to the mixing board? It would be even better if it had usb, and we could drag and drop .wavs into it from a mac.

Thanks for any ideas you might have!

[kittonian]

The best way to do this is to get yourself a rack mountable hardware sampler. They are a bit pricey but can be had on the used market for less. From there you connect a MIDI footswitch that you program to send a certain note that will trigger the start of the sample.

You then connect the stereo outs from the sampler to the console (FOH) and have the engineer leave the EQ flat, faders at 0, and pans hard left/right. That way from the sampler itself you enter the volume values and can have complete control over the sounds that are playing back.

Additionally, and beyond the footswitch, you can use any MIDI trigger device to trigger the samples. A lot of time the drummer will hit a MIDI pad to start the sample on the click he/she is listening to so that it's transparent to the audience.

It's a bit tedious to get everything setup but once it's up and running it works very well.

Good luck!

[stixcom92]

Qlab (Figure 53 | QLab | Live Show Control for Mac OS X)

I worked with it on some theater jobs and it is one of the most versatile playback software solutions out there. The basic version is pretty functional on its own, but if you throw down a bit of coin you can get the audio and midi licenses which will let you assign any midi note to a track or a function on the list, and outputs multitrack audio just in case you need a click or anything.

[bunratty]

Thanks for both of these great suggestions, I may try them both!

[John_McEnroe]

I use the Boss RC-3 Looper pedal. Works great and is pretty cheap.

[flyinghelmets]

Have you considered using Ableton and getting a foot controller to trigger tracks?

I use a novation launchpad with ableton to launch clips while drumming, works perfectly for me.

[plunderpot]

DigiTech JamMan series (especially using SD cards) is another possibility worth investigating!

[greyskull]

Im using a Sm pro Audio DI Dock Live at the mo and it's excellent

[rmx16]

Originally Posted by stixcom92

Qlab (Figure 53 | QLab | Live Show Control for Mac OS X)

I worked with it on some theater jobs and it is one of the most versatile playback software solutions out there. The basic version is pretty functional on its own, but if you throw down a bit of coin you can get the audio and midi licenses which will let you assign any midi note to a track or a function on the list, and outputs multitrack audio just in case you need a click or anything.

Here's another great little app from QLab
Figure 53 | QCart | Audio cart for Mac OS X
Peace

[OshMurr]

Check this out for the Ipad,,, exactly what you need

SoundCue | Live Track Playback for the iPad