Playing live to backing tracks

[necro2607]

My band runs our backing trax off an iBook with external firewire drive and firewire audio interface. I write all our drums and backing synth stuff (usually bass) in Logic and I just run that on the laptop, with everything mixed down to just a few audio tracks.

This way I can assign each part to a seperate output on my audio interface, out to an analogue mixer. Makes for very good fine-tuning of the mix while on stage, and of course I've got the obligatory 3-band EQ on the mixer to help out a bit.

At this current point in my band's career we're not big enough to warrant having a dedicated sound guy off-stage, and decent in-house sound guys at venues are few and far between, so this solution is working out the best for us so far.

Ideally everything would be mixed down to just a single track of some kind, perhaps even a tape machine as mentioned in previous posts, but having things running on seperate tracks out to my mixer allows for a little more "live" aspect in the music, such as sending the drum tracks out to a reverb or delay for some added coolness.

Of course if you've got just basic backing stuff that never needs to change in any manner, and is already perfectly mixed, you can definitely go with an iPod (export high quality WAVs or AIFFs for best results), or even some kind of tape can work very well. The biggest concern I would have in this situation is if the mix is just not "fitting well" in the venue, perhaps the bass is a little too much, that sort of thing, in which case you're kind of screwed if the FOH doesn't have a decent EQ...

[Meriphew]

Originally Posted by necro2607

I know a pretty famous industrial band that does this (not going to name names of course haha)

Vancouver BC..... Hmmm... I wonder who that could be.

[cajonezzz]

Originally Posted by strawdps

My new band is trying to play with backing tracks live (with a click track)
I did a search but couldn't find any information. Somebody was telling me about saving the music as a wav file and panning the music hard left and the click hard right and then running my IPod into a small mixer.
I was thinking about bringing a laptop and my 002 but that might be too much of a hassle

I want to get the best sound sound quality under my budget
(around 400$)

Any suggestions

We've used ( on lot's of big pop tours) and still use, the Akai HD4/8 as playback.

Rock solid, easy to cue. It's usually chased by the computer rig.

they can be found cheap now.

[Ramchandra]

My band used an ipod on our last tour. It worked but was kind of a pain. We then got a laptop and used sound forge it was a bit easier that way. just used the out on the computer and hoped the clubs had a good DI.

The computer is more organized and easier to navigate. I like it much better

[Meriphew]

I think I've decided that I'm just going to run a Mackie MDR 24/96 (only 8 tracks total). I'll shoot the outs through a Radial JD6 > FOH. That way I can still midi sync stuff, and have control over volume/eq/panning the tracks live.

[necro2607]

Originally Posted by Meriphew

Vancouver BC..... Hmmm... I wonder who that could be.

hahaha well even your wildest guess has about a 50/50 chance of being correct.... guess I shouldn't say too much, friggin small city...

[Stick]

I do this at church for our worship music on some tunes. I started doing it with an ipod, which was fine, as long as I remembered to pause the dang thing after a song. Now, I bring my laptop and run the tracks right out of iTunes. If you uncheck the box next to the tune, playback stops after that song. I just run out of the 1/8" plug and into a nice DI. Sounds fine, works fine. We've got the Aviom headphone mixers, so we just have a slot for click and a slot for track and you can dial your own balance. Works great. And I figure the likelihood of crashing iTunes is pretty small compared to trying to run Logic or something "bigger". The only problem I have is when I forget to bring my power adaptor, and it gets down to the "low battery" screen. The "BEEP" sounds really loud, and I haven't found a way to disable that.

[necro2607]

I don't know how true this is but I've heard around that the preamp in the iPod is pretty ghetto quality and will give shitty sound out of any speaker system.. I've never really experienced that myself but then my usage of an iPod through PA speakers was merely listening to some tunes while my band set up our gear when rehearsing for shows at a local rehearsal space.... Anyone heard about the iPod preamp being sub-par? Any details to back up these claims I've heard elsewhere?? Not that I care for my own situation, but I'm sure people would be interested to hear further details.

[Meriphew]

Originally Posted by necro2607

I don't know how true this is but I've heard around that the preamp in the iPod is pretty ghetto quality and will give shitty sound out of any speaker system.. I've never really experienced that myself but then my usage of an iPod through PA speakers was merely listening to some tunes while my band set up our gear when rehearsing for shows at a local rehearsal space.... Anyone heard about the iPod preamp being sub-par? Any details to back up these claims I've heard elsewhere?? Not that I care for my own situation, but I'm sure people would be interested to hear further details.

I have a charging/docking station (has RCA outs in the back) for my iPod that is connected to my home stereo. It sounds just about as good as when I play cds. No complaints.

iPod Dock

[strawdps]

So I think I will go the IPod route .... should I get a powered mixer or just an analog mixer? I want it to sound good so I should get the powered one with the better pre right?

[mdaane]

Stumbled on this thread and thought I'd contribute.
The two main issues we deal with in my band's backing tracks are Reliability and Sound Quality. The best solution we've come up with is our old friend the DAT. You can get a really nice used pro DAT player for nothing these days and it will have great Converters and Balanced Analog Outs. You can mark start points for easy navigation. We have also started to use Pro DVCam tape decks for our shows with Video. Edit the show with tracks in Final Cut and output firewire to DVCam. Instant synchronized show that won't crash or skip. The pro video decks also have nice converters which makes a huge difference. The sound difference is very clear when we've compared ipod tracks vs. the pro decks.

[SLProductions]

Originally Posted by kittonian

I've used a Roland VSR-880 (it's a 2U hard disk recorder with 8 individual outputs). I put the click on channel 8 and all the other tracks are spread across the available 7 channels. I run the 8 outs into a small mixer and the drummer plugs his headphones into the mix where the click track is routed to the headphones as well as whatever other backing tracks he wants to hear (basically he has a separate headphone mix going on).

The main outs of the small mixer are set to go to FOH and/or we have the direct outs on the rear of the small mixer going to individual FOH channels.

You need to make sure that whatever you use (and I'll just speak about the Roland) is completely sync'd to your main DAW so that all the tracks and the click line up perfectly. Make sure to put 8 clicks prior to the point at which each song actually starts so that the drummer has a "1,2,3,4,1,2,ready,go" scenario on stage. Also, it helps a lot to find a solution that allows you to incorporate markers that you can jump to so that once all your songs are loaded onto the machine, the drummer can control which song is played by choosing the right marker (this why you don't have to have the exact same set list every night).

You may be able to find a used VSR-880 on eBay for a relatively cheap price. For the small mixer you could go with a Mackie 1604-VLZ (or any mixer that has busses so you can make the separate headphone mix).

The other solution to this that won't require either the Roland or the mixer would be a Digi 003R and a laptop. Just make sure the laptop is really powerful so you don't have issues when you're performing. You can do a separate headphone mix as well as direct and main outs, automation, plug-ins, etc. with this solution (although it's a bit more pricey to go with this, you'll have both an on stage solution and a recording solution, which is great when you're on the road and want to write).

Hope that helps!

Hi Kittonian,

Digging up an old thread here...so how do you like the VSR-880 for live? Still use it? I'm wondering what the track load time is on it, say 3 tracks, 45mins? I'm looking at one for the same use.

[simondog]

Just make sure not to give 48v to your ipod.

[timothyclee]

I've used an iPod for many shows for backing tracks with the track on left and click on right for years. Best part about iPod is solid state drive that won't be affected by bass vibrations. I've also used iTunes on a laptop as well which givesnthe ability to create playlists in the setlist order. You can also put notes in iTunes to let you know the keys of the songs and ifnthe count off is something different. Anyone with more in depth questions can contact me directly.

tmothyclee@Mac.com

[hbphotoav]

Now... if someone would just develop a tiny, LATCHING stereo audio connector and make the control buttons large enough for old, thick, stiff fingers... on laptops as well as iPods and their ilk. Stereo mini is NOT the best thing since sliced bread in a onstage/backstage/FOH production connection environment. Same thing goes for USB and FW400/800 connections. And 15HD/VGA and DVI female external monitor connectors without the latching screw holes. At LEAST something similar to a RJ11 or RJ45 jack. PUH-leeeze!

Oh... yeah... those are all rapidly disappearing for yet another non-latching connector with Thunderbolt. Crap.

I tire of sticky tape gook on my MBP... even the best pro gaff will shed after a bit of time on a warm surface. End of rant.