Any advice on using midi tracks to replace keyboardist?

Dpoirier

Fractal Fanatic
Our long-time friend and bandmate keyboard player has moved on to other things, and we find ourselves without a keyboardist and with a repertoire full of keyboard-heavy classic rock.

After a few weeks posting ads locally, no bites, no luck. We're adding some material without keys, and trying to adapt a few songs that can manage without keys, but we miss our usual sound and richness.

We're now considering midi tracks, but I worry about a few things:
- Equipment breakdown just before a show
- Spontaneity replaced by rigid lock-tempo delivery
- ... and I suppose we *all* need to have the click track in our monitoring, otherwise we'll drift out of time and the keys parts will come in at the correct time while we are no longer spot-on

Anyone have experience with this? Any solutions to the above? Any other big issues I haven't thought of? Also, any cheap (of free?) resources for getting good keys tracks for classics like Boston, Pink Floyd, Journey, Toto, Styx, Honeymoon Suite, etc.?

Thanks...
 
Change your set list. There's no replacement unless you accept playing to a click track. I try to use short samples without any timing requirements stored in a DigiTech JamMan, anything beyond that is impossible without a click and a band able to play to it.
 
Tough position to be in.

1. Tracks. You'll have to find a good source for them and someone will have to do the midi editing/tech legwork. Ugh. A quick google search will give you results for midi files but you still will need to do a lot of work in getting them gig ready. IME, at least.
2. Guitar synth rig of some sort. It's what I do. Lots of pitfalls but has been probably my favorite part of guitar playing for quite some time. Square pegs into round holes and all that.
3. Adapt the songs. Least fun and you will for sure miss that polish that synths provide.

Good luck to you. You have some difficult musical decisions to make unfortunately.
 
We played without a keyboardist for many years. We made our own tracks (tracks available online are worthless shit) and played to a click for every song. Nobody cared or cried foul.

It's not the preferred route, but it is better than not playing at all if you can't find someone acceptable. If and when you find someone, dump the tracks. IMOHO.

As for equipment breakdown, you can play the tracks from a laptop or a reliable playback unit, and have a backup. I wouldn't worry about that aspect. In the very early days (before real time digital audio), we actually brought synths with us and used an Alesis Data Disk to send them MIDI data live. That was problematic, but today's gear is very reliable.

As for "locked" tempo; make tempo maps that follow the tempo/signatures of the songs and you will recreate the feel of the original every time. This can actually be a plus if your drummer is not highly skilled at recreating the flow on his own.

We had the ability to send the click to anyone who needed it at any point in any song. Easiest and safest course is to send it to everyone.

I've been in this boat, and it's easy to float if you are willing to do the work.
 
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If you have another guitarist, you might consider the Fishman TriplePlay. Is very fast (triggering) and has limited glitches when setup properly. You're not going to be Keith Emerson with it, I have used it to successfully add keyboard parts in a live setting.
 
I think there is a responsibility part from your friend and band mate. And though he moves on, he can leave his "legacy" behind:
Record him.
Get into a good rehearsal space and play the tunes with him to a click and record his parts and click. You can have "him" as his own replacement. If he's a friend, he should take some responsibility for leaving the band and that's a way for him to do that and feel good about it!
 
Methinks you have three options. A: Learn to do without keyboard parts, or fake them on the guitar. Guitarists have been using shimmer and guitar synths for that for a long while now. They are inside the Axe. Or B: accept that you have to use backing tracks. There is no shame about using click tracks for that. Unless you're playing lengthy blues jams if your band is good they will play songs the same note for note each time anyway. And while yes, you will lose some spontaneity with a click track, you will also gain consistency. Haven't you noticed that sometimes you go see a band and they play incredible, and then you go another they will play terrible? Click tracks help to eliminate that. If the whole band is on the same page and remains on the same page you gain consistency. And that is a huge quality in its own right. Better to be consistently good then aim for exceptional and vary all over the place all the time.

Or C: one of you learns to play keyboards as well. When my old Radiohead tribute band got offered some gigs in Turkey our keyboard player refused to come along, because Turkey wasn't his thing. So I offered to get a keyboard and learn some of his parts, so we could at least play a few of their keyboard classics. It wasn't the best keyboard playing ever, but on the plus side I did learn how to play keys and have been doing it ever since.
 
I done this once with a band, except the bass was sequenced. We sent a click track to the drummer and we all followed him and the bass. Worked really well and kinda kept everyone on their toes knowing no one would be waiting if you were fumbling around.
 
Count your blessings - one less person to pay.

Every act on the road right now that has or ever had a hit song is playing to a click and adding backing tracks - everything from synth pads, second guitars, strings, horns, percussion and even children's choirs. Welcome to the future. My old band did it for years. At first, I farmed out the making of the tracks to a keyboard playing friend with a high end workstation. We would experiment with different tempos, keys, etc., Pretty soon, I buckled down and became proficient enough on keys to record my own tracks in Logic. We relied on our drummer running a Roland SPD to activate the track at the right place.

Weirdly, non musician friends don't notice backing tracks unless it's egregious. There's a really popular cover band on tour out of Georgia doing the SE US circuit. They're great but when I saw them, I wondered why they even brought a drummer. Every song bordered on lip syncing. The day I saw them, it was 28 degrees and snowing on an outdoor stage at a ski area. Every song was spot on. I wondered if they were playing any of the instruments given the weather. The crowd of thousands of people absolutely loved it. I have to admit, so did I.

I just saw 80's band, The Psychedelic Furs a few days ago - great show! Even with a keyboardist and a sax player, they had a laptop running a DAW behind the keyboardist and, as far as I could tell, had a backing track for every song. I may be wrong but, I'm pretty sure one of the tracks was a full recording of Richard Butler's doubled vocal placed high in the mix. He sang along to himself. It sounded great.

Take the plunge. It's almost a necessary skill these days.
 
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The only person who really needs to hear the click track is the drummer, he should be able to guide you all. Played in a band for many years, with backing vocal tracks sequenced. no one heard the click but my drummer, he controlled the start and sop of the click, and we just followed his timing, as it should be. Your drummer will beed to be very comfortable with hearing a click track though. they will need to learn how to flow over a click.
 
We do this in my band, but with limited amounts of songs having backing and mostly just for click. We are basically and 80s, 90s and beyond party pop rock band and just a 4 piece.

We record the tracks to mp3 and left channel out is click with right being the backing track or samples. We keep our set list and all the samples in an app called BandHelper. BandHelper allows you to have everyone log in and download via mobile app, so even if one device crashes you can just grab someone's cell and plug it in and go. we have an irig blueboard to start/stop songs and move to next songs and an irig midi2 to send midi commands to our gear (patch changes).

In our case the whole band is on in ears so we all hear the click and we play every song to a click whether there is backing or not.

We also use band helper to patch change on our Ax8s since we all have them.

We make all the tracks in reaper. Also there is a site called karaoke-version where you can get backing tracks for a lot of songs and customize what parts you have. I export each track from that and do my own mix and click track in reaper to make them sound more usable. if you only hear the tracks straight from the site they sound cheesy but once you mix them and play only the parts you need with your real band they sound fine.
 
This is about using keyboard backing tracks. Let's not devolve in to the same click track debate. We've done that to death.
 
The use of backing tracks requires the band play at the same tempo as the backing tracks. Someone (or everyone) is going to have to be playing with the click. There’s no way around it. There’s nothing to debate.
 
I only play live with the click in everyone's ears. We also have conductor cues, or song section cues, so we can confirm we are in the right spot of the song, particularly, if there is a horn section 4 minutes into the song. If you have nothing but clicks, you won't know whether you made a miscalculation at the very beginning that is going to result in a train wreck when you get to the part that has additional audio triggered. "verse, 2, 3, 4". "solo, 2 , 3, 4". "bridge, 2, 3, 4" etc and so forth.
 
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