cheating???

I sort of dislike track bands. I think it takes away from the term "live performance" however most the cover bands my way are indeed using prerecorded tracks. It becomes somewhat hard to compete when that's what people want. I can see why bands use them. I just hate watching bands that sound just like the cd, between pitch correct, vocals doubled/auto harmonies, and tracks it no longer seems live or legit. Plus you tend to lose any uniqueness to that show. Each show sounds the same. All of our harmonies are practiced at rehearsal or on our own. Having a great lead singer really helps us. Sadly most of the bar crowd cares more for the track bands. My .02 cents. I do see the amount of work into sequencing and even know some great musicians who create the tracks. I just don't like it for live music. LIVE LIVE LIVE haha
 
By the way I did exactly ONE gig with the Ableton Live sequencer. It took me months to prepare for and a lot of headache rehearsing and PITA setting up. I gave up because, although it was cool, it was just a pain. I may do it again since I have all these Live programs ready to go. It's an original jazz group, so even the audience is built in to hate it. LOL. That doesn't bother me too much unless they REALLY DO hate it! But I definitely think it's cheating, even if I tell the audience. Maybe cheating is the wrong word.
 
I frequently talk to my bands about how important it is to be able to do as much as possible the old fashioned way. When you listen to Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra from the 40's that's the real deal. There's no multi-tracking, that's every single musician in the room NAILING the performance. IMO, every musician should strive for that.

The argument that it's unnecessary with today's technology is moot. For a DIY band, the cheapest thing you can do is practice. That will reduce your studio costs greatly and improve your live performance exponentially, which translates into more ticket and merch sales, which is how you succeed in this industry. Unless you look like Brittney Spears used to. In which case spend all of your time telling people how awesome you are and all your money on skimpy clothes and a gym membership.
 
In my band we use backing tracks to add extra parts, like extra harmonies, orchestration, extra keyboard parts, percussion and harmony leads that I play with when I play some leads.
It's a lot of work to do something like I'm the Walrus by the Beatles since I had to play all the parts in my studio with the keyboard and do a lot of MIDI editing to make it sound real.
My singer comes to my studio and we do the extra backing vocals since only 3 of use can sing in our band.
I don't care if some tight ass purist tells me if that's cheating, because my goal is to please the audience and make my band sound like the original band like Styx, Journey, Queen, etc
The drums, guitars, lead vocals l, bass and some keyboard are real.
People that tell you that you're cheating is due to the fact that we sound better than them because of pride, they don't know how to do it or because we'll probably get that gig instead of them.

If I was doing original music, I would probably not use backing tracks because I would try to keep it simple since it's a hassle to put it together.
We have alternate sets for smaller gigs, but we only use tracks on 12 out of 30 songs we play when we do big gigs.
I use Ableton and I have a Beheringer MIDI pedal for play or stop commands and song selection.
I use a Motu interface with 10 outputs 8 for vocal tracks, keyboards, extra guitars, percussion and loops with 4 separate stereo outputs and output
9 and 10 for clicks and part counts.
I love seeing the audience reaction when we play I'm the Walrus, Fat bottom girls or Rock of Ages !
 
It's definitely hard to do. Hats off to you for putting it all together. I don't know that I'm so much of a purist since I've done it too and likely will do it again. But still I think it's cheating. :)
 
Same here, i guess i am more towards one of those tight ass purists. I respect the work into making those tracks like i said in my post. I just really appreciate seeing bands with the 4 part harmonies going all live. I can certainly see where some songs DEMAND it too. Although sometimes its fun to make your own version too.
 
boltrecords said:
I saw nickelback live a few years ago. At least half the songs were lip Synced. How did I know, because they actually used the exact live recording of "photograph" at the end of their album with that song on it. If anyone has it youknow that, That particular album has a few live songs at the end. Every scream was exactly the same. I can't believe they would lip sync let alone use a live album version that everyone who bought their album has probably heard. So friggin stupid
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I was told once that some label contracts used to stipulate that artist MUST use recorded material to avoid poor performances, therefore killing recording sales..ex..American Bandstand,SoulTrain (TV variety top 40)
 
yup, some tv and other performances require lip syncing or at least using band tracks without vocals for a good sounding performance.

it could be that they don't have the time or gear to setup a full band, mics, mixing, etc.

that's why Muse switched places when they performed this tv show. they were required to fake everything, so the drummer played the lead singer, singer played the drums and the bassist played keys!



if you don't know the band, you may not have noticed at all, but i fell out of my chair when i saw the drummer singing hahaha and the "drummer" actually dropped his sticks at the beginning!

as a video camera operator, i know that directors tell the operators to get closeups of faces and emotions or reactions rather then them actually playing - of course that pisses off musicians that watch, but the "normal" person connects with the faces and think they are the best musicians based on that.
 
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eljodon said:
In my band we use backing tracks to add extra parts, like extra harmonies, orchestration, extra keyboard parts, percussion and harmony leads that I play with when I play some leads.
It's a lot of work to do something like I'm the Walrus by the Beatles since I had to play all the parts in my studio with the keyboard and do a lot of MIDI editing to make it sound real.
My singer comes to my studio and we do the extra backing vocals since only 3 of use can sing in our band.
I don't care if some tight ass purist tells me if that's cheating, because my goal is to please the audience and make my band sound like the original band like Styx, Journey, Queen, etc
The drums, guitars, lead vocals l, bass and some keyboard are real.
People that tell you that you're cheating is due to the fact that we sound better than them because of pride, they don't know how to do it or because we'll probably get that gig instead of them.

If I was doing original music, I would probably not use backing tracks because I would try to keep it simple since it's a hassle to put it together.
We have alternate sets for smaller gigs, but we only use tracks on 12 out of 30 songs we play when we do big gigs.
I use Ableton and I have a Beheringer MIDI pedal for play or stop commands and song selection.
I use a Motu interface with 10 outputs 8 for vocal tracks, keyboards, extra guitars, percussion and loops with 4 separate stereo outputs and output
9 and 10 for clicks and part counts.
I love seeing the audience reaction when we play I'm the Walrus, Fat bottom girls or Rock of Ages !
Click to expand...
DITTO brother...were doing the same thing. Covering alot of material with multiple guitar / keyboard parts. Some songs would not be recognized without them! Using MOTU and Ableton Live 8. Bonus though..we have 5 that sing..(just like the old bands we were in) At church we use IEM's /cans with a metronome...open monitors is a challenge to maintain accuracy to tempo and track positions. Were still 30 songs out before were ready...we rehearse at the church with the IEM's right now and have not tried an open monitor/metro setup. Drummer would rather go open monitor and not use IEM's, but he may have to.
 
Chris@KatsuKuriMedia said:
yup, some tv and other performances require lip syncing or at least using band tracks without vocals for a good sounding performance.

it could be that they don't have the time or gear to setup a full band, mics, mixing, etc.

that's why Muse switched places when they performed this tv show. they were required to fake everything, so the drummer played the lead singer, singer played the drums and the bassist played keys!



if you don't know the band, you may not have noticed at all, but i fell out of my chair when i saw the drummer singing hahaha and the "drummer" actually dropped his sticks at the beginning!

as a video camera operator, i know that directors tell the operators to get closeups of faces and emotions or reactions rather then them actually playing - of course that pisses off musicians that watch, but the "normal" person connects with the faces and think they are the best musicians based on that.
Click to expand...


HAHAHA that is hilarious! I never saw that before! Awesome!
 
Back when I had hair on the top of my head, I played keyboards & guitar in a cover band. At the time I was using two Commodore 64's and Dr.T's sequencer software. One C64 would load the song from floppy drive while the other one played the previously loaded song. I hacked the Dr.T's Sequencer software to remove copy protection and to add a feature to transfer the RAM contents of the 'song-loading' C64 to the 'song playing' C64 via a parallel interface. Without this hack, the gap between songs would be more than 30 seconds waiting for the song to load from floppy disk. With my software mods, the gap between songs was about 4 seconds, and this made it possible to gig using the setup.

We planned on using this as a temporary fix while we were searching for a bass player. Despite dozens of auditions and running the want ad every week, we never found a bass player that could play the parts and wanted to be in the band.

I programmed all the bass parts and some of the keyboard parts. I played keys on most songs, but I am NOT a skilled keyboard player. There was one ballad in particular that no matter how much I tried I just could not nail the piano part. I hated that song, but the female vocalist really really wanted to sing it, so I cheated: I had the sequencer send a "Local Off" command to my keyboard at the beginning of the song, and just faked it while the computer played the actual part. It was a big joke between me and the drummer, because we never told the vocalist what I was doing, and she had no clue. Ha!
 
CHEATING?? I have to load in/out with my Marshall 4x12 cabinets, head, cordage suitcase, massive pedal board,echoplex, 19" SKB effects rack with a full compliment of gear, microphone stands/mics for the cabinets, gaffers tape... not to mention the SUV and hand truck to haul it all in.
My commrade over there waltz's in with a small floor wedge "black box", thats does it all. 5 minutes, and he's over there, just finsihed tuning and going for a cold one, hangin with the sound dude before the 1st set ..I'm still hooking crap up..forget tuning the guitar...maybe I'll "get it in" before the 2nd song, and a sip from the water fountain on the break?..still fixing up crap during the break (and I gotta PEE too!)...CHEATER!

Dang...didn't get a change to go to the chiropracter either this afternoon...had to load all this crap up!
Sound familiar?..I know a little off base from the OP's question..just had to have fun!
 
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Scrutinizer said:
just faked it
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Again, that's the difference for me. Making out you're doing something when you're not. Funny story though!

Embracing modern tech and ever evolving different approaches is simply that. Whether that's better, worse, or just different can be debated forever... still with no real conclusion ultimately :)
 
well i do play in a weekend warrior band but in this neck of the woods gigs are getting harder to come by mostly because were competing with the mighty popular dj and karaoke.dj around here play 95% hip hop so not only are we losing gigs to someone with a laptop and a couple of buttons to push but theyre playing songs that everything is recorded with samplers and sequencers and well karaoke is what it is.i realize its a free country and a bar or club owner has the right to do what ever makes the most sense business wise but i m sure theres a lot of people on here who spent a lot of time in theyre bedroom or in theyre garages or basements learning how to play,playing in bands with your buddies,spending weeks,months,years on your playing and when you get to the point when you earn respect in your community because of your dedication and then your gigs aint flowin like they used to because somebody with a laptop and a premade playlist underbid you by a couple benjamins i cant say that it doesnt make me a little aggravated
 
The problem is that most folks/venues could care less about "live" anymore. They'd be perfectly happy if the whole event was lip-synced, as long as drinks were sold and the place was hopping.
I played bass guitar almost every weekend in 2012 with a Country band where everything was live, except for some harmonies from the Harmony-G that the lead singers acoustic was plugged into. I did most of the rest of the backing vox. It was that way because I simply can't harmonize well while doing walking bass lines... We were live, not memorex, and we WORKED regularly.
Tho' I know of quite a few bands that use click-tracks and sequencers.

So yeah, the keys player referenced in the OP IS being hypocritical.

I go watch live music to get live music, not Memorex!
 
stratos said:
DITTO brother...were doing the same thing. Covering alot of material with multiple guitar / keyboard parts. Some songs would not be recognized without them! Using MOTU and Ableton Live 8. Bonus though..we have 5 that sing..(just like the old bands we were in) At church we use IEM's /cans with a metronome...open monitors is a challenge to maintain accuracy to tempo and track positions. Were still 30 songs out before were ready...we rehearse at the church with the IEM's right now and have not tried an open monitor/metro setup. Drummer would rather go open monitor and not use IEM's, but he may have to.
Click to expand...

We use IME's also with a separate mixer. It was hard to get the right blend. I wish the rest of the band could sing, but they make up, since they're great players.
It took a while for the drummer to get used to it but now it's a lot easier! The band was ready to quit using tracks, but I told them to give it some time and it will pay off at the end.
After seeing the audience reaction they became believers!
 
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