Playing Live with Backing tracks

SlashNBurn99

Hey, its been awhile.

I just wondered if any of you have played live with just backing tracks. Im thinkin about tryin it, but as I cant sing I was thinking of doin just instrumentals ie lots of Santana, Ventures etc. It would be me and another guitarist.

Just wanted to get some feedback and some song suggestions.

Cheers 8)

shredd

I think it's a good idea. B/T's never miss a chord change, drink too much, or hit on your girlfriend.

I've thought about making backing tracks for myself so I could play solo gig-lets, coffee shop type things. Everything but what I'd be performing, so it sounds like an actual song.

I haven't done it 'cuz there isn't a coffee shop around here big enough to hold customers AND a person with a guitar. :roll:

iliace

\shredd\ wrote:

I think it's a good idea. B/T's never miss a chord change, drink too much, or hit on your girlfriend.

I think in your case, shredd, even the backing tracks would hit on your girlfriend

shredd

\iliace\ wrote:

\shredd\ wrote:

I think it's a good idea. B/T's never miss a chord change, drink too much, or hit on your girlfriend.

I think in your case, shredd, even the backing tracks would hit on your girlfriend

Get real. I'm a lot more likely to get backing tracks than I am a girlfriend...a human one, anyway. :?

Cobaltblooz

I've been doing this lately...used a boom box & CD's for the BT's so I could use the remote control between songs, worked out really well, and it was a lot of fun. I know a guy that gigs this way, using a laptop for the BT's into a PA...

phatsack

I used to work at a sort of \"upscale\" restaurant a while back and they had small time coffee shop type live acts on the weekends. One of the coolest acts was a husband and wife group - the dude would play bass and sing while the lady would rock the keyboard that was pre-programmed with lounge style cover songs. They were dressed right (suit and tie, black dress) and the fact that they were playing to backing tracks actually made it kind of cool.

jamminmj

The first time I ever heard Howie Day I was sitting in the crew room of the theatre and heard some great stuff. So I thought I would go out and check out the the band since I was on dinner break when they set him up.
I was trully astonished when I walked out and saw him standing there by himself with an acoustic guitar. He was using Line 6 loopers to create percussion sounds that he would tap out on the body of his guitar and then kick in an octive divider and loop a bass line and then jam with his guitar on top of that. From offstage it sounded like a whole band. The crowd was goin crazy for it. I also know many people that use CD's and midi modules or laptops. Bottom line is it's better than not playing. There aren't nearly as many sound problems. Once in a great while you might get a cd skip if people are dancing to close to where the CD player is setup. And many of the major touring acts use sampled vocal tracks, keyboard or horn parts anyway. It's a fact of life in live music. Use whatever means you have at your disposal. You'll just get better because of it.

chuck

I am in a blues duo with a harmonica player and I put together all our own backing tracks. I have used several different use an Archos MP3 players in the past 5 years or so connected directly to the PA head. I like the ARCHOS because they have a set-up mode that plays a single song and then stops. This allows us get ready for the next song without the MP3 player automatically starting the next song before we are ready - this is easier for me than to have \"dummy\" MP3 files with no sound which would \"play\" silence while we would get ready for the next song,at which time you can hit the \"next song\" button which would start the next (actual) backing track. MP3 files of silence can actually be purchased for this purpose. I have experimented extensively and I have found that the best performance (level and impedance-wise is to plug directly from the MP3 player headphone out jack to XLR inputs in the PA head. Non-tranforming direct adapters are required of course. I use a common cable - 3.5mm stereo on one end, Left and Right RCA (male) connectors on the other, and Guitar Center sells direct female-RCA-to-XLR-male) adapters. I can get all the crystal clear gain I need - other experiments - 3.5mm-to-RCA-to-1/4\" connecting to \"LINE-IN\" (either on the GNX4 or the PA), or even plugging directly (3.5-to-rca cable)-to RCA \"AUX-IN\" (available on my PA head) weren't as effective - it's an impedance mis-match thing. The closest MP3 player headphone output impedance match (without buying a dedicated Z-matching box) is in fact XLR mic inputs on a PA. It does eat up two separate mic channels on the PA head but it is worth it to get good levels (if you have two extra XLR inputs that you can use for this). Also, I render my MP3 backing tracks with a 192K bit rate, which sounds just fine (IMHO).

I just set up directories in the MP3 player that contain the MP3 backing tracks, one set per directory and we good to go.

judaskiss

The first time I ever saw anyone do this, they were very good at it. I remeber walking into the foyer of a club and thinking they had a live band. When I walked in to the acuall club, I saw one guy--looked a little like price--playing to backing tracks. This was in the early 90's after my second band had just broke up. I thought uhm, what a cool way to perform. Everybody shows for practice, their never too drunk to play and like Shredd said, they won't take your girlfriend. Above all, you don't have to split the check.

I acually did a live show with backing tracks for a friend of mine that is a huge Judas Priest fan. So I played an hour show of Judas Priest songs at his birthday party. Everybody thought it was very cool. I played 2nd rhythm guitar and lead solos, everthing else was on backing tracks even Rob Halfords vocals. No way was I going to attempt to sing Robs part.

What tracks to do?? You could do Steve Vai, Joe Satriani intrumental artists such as that. You could also take a song with vocals in it and play lead where the vocals go. I did one with \"Highway Star\" by Deep Purple a while back that sounded descent. If I can find the recording I'll post it in the music review section.

Good Luck To Ya

shredd

I totally recommend this method. No drunk bandmates, no splitting the gig check, no fouling up songs they don't like and therefore won't learn. And BT's are never late/no-shows, they won't p/off the big mean biker guys, and won't smooth on your girlfriend. Win-Win. 8)

I also knew a guy whose act was to use a looper. He'd start with a strumming rhythm, add percussion he beat out of his git'r, a bass line, then some repeat-riffs, then jam over it and sing. It was really awesome.

SlashNBurn99

Kool fellas, thanks alot for the feedback.

The tunes i've been lookin at so far are: Third Stone From The Sun, Misirlou, Pipeline and Samba Pa Ti. I've aloso been lookin at just playin the vocal melody like Hank Marvin does.

I think its the way to go, especially outhere on a small island. Its very difficult to find musicians and especially ones with similar tastes in music

Thanks again everyone 8)

guitar3456

On the Islands with no Buffet or Marley?

The majority of groups I see in OMB or backing tracks usually have more of a midi sequenced rig with a pretty decent sequencer capable of 16 tracks or so (Triton,etc). I have seen a few going with PC's and mp3 through a board. I've done a bunch of small omb shows with MP3 backing. My Drummer and I have done this for events when other band members are on a \"bye week\"

Some of those shows are weekday so I can understand them bowing out.

Most of my backing via GNX4 CF is to cover keyboard parts when the kb player is not able to make a gig which is almost 50% of the time of late.

shredd

\guitar3456\ wrote:

when the kb player is not able to make a gig which is almost 50% of the time of late.

Sounds like 'taus's drummer. :shock:

0Dannyboy

Played a duo gig last night. 8)
We thought or drum machine that we use at practise was going to be kind of lame and canned sounding so we included only about 7 or 8 song with it(a Boss DR3 with a foot controller to add fills and the ending.)
:? I thought this would sound pretty lame live so I intentionally only programmed a few songs... :shock: man at the bar in a bigger room with some decent acoustics It sounded phat a live gig with the drum machine sounded very nice.
:roll: no one even cared it wasnt a drummer. :shock: By the time the drum sequenced songs ended and we were left with our acoustic set I could have kicked myself for not doing most of the show that way...next time we will have a drummer(DR-3) for most everything. :twisted:

guitar3456

For little gigs the OMB thing can be fun and the audience usually don't care about what accompaniment methods are used.

Now for a band at a bigger venue the expectations are a little different. We covered an event and a guy had a sequencer. He was pretty good at it. There were just 2 guys, one on guitar and one on the Seq. Both sang vocals and were well rehearsed. Since the club charged a cover of $3 the audience was not enthused. These guys were good and were openers... but the audience was expecting something different. Once the headliner came on, with a full band.. expectations were eased.

If that crowd knew what was involved with sequencing a performance, they might have let up some. Sequenced shows are not easy and so many more things can go wrong than when having a full stage of performers.

I guess from my experiences with running sound for, or even performing sequenced events myself, I'd have to admit the OMB show is dull from any energy point of view since players have to pay attention to technical parts of the performance than they do with a full band. Most OMB or two man sequenced shows are tethered to their equipment.

0Dannyboy

I agree that sequenced parts with only 1 or 2 guys can look pretty funny in a live situation with a room full of people expecially if you are doing something heavy. I improvise live too much to have to stick to any prearranged backing track. We were having a couple of couples danceing so we extended the songs that were working and shortened the ones that werent. so its kinda like we \"play\" the rythm arrangment too. the vocalist live 2 and the dr-3 were great this time around.
They are more \"preformance peices than pre recorded sequenced events I guess.

jamminmj

I know there is one heavy metal band in town here that has 2 guitar players that use midi backup tracks and everyone I have talked to that has seen them say they're a must see. I haven't been able to get out to see them yet but plan to at some point. They supposedly draw fairly large crowds consistantly. It's all in how you present it. I usually find that the ones that don't go over very well are the ones doing cover tunes with not so great tracks or tracks that are better than the musicians themselves.

0Dannyboy

Bieng \" tethered to your equipment in a OMB or duo is probley a good thing. :? No one wants to see a \"jack Black or tenacious D on your knees power slide\" when doing the solo coffe shop or atmophere thing that most club owners want out of a small act like mine.
Though I do threaten my wife that I will break into a version of war pigs acoustically and rawk out for her if she'd like...this is usually followed by her rolling her eyes and telling me she'll have to reconsider my mid life crisis managment skills if this happens :roll: :twisted:

gtaus

\SlashNBurn99\ wrote:

...I just wondered if any of you have played live with just backing tracks. Im thinkin about tryin it, but as I cant sing I was thinking of doin just instrumentals ie lots of Santana, Ventures etc. It would be me and another guitarist....

Here is an idea, there are Karaoke songs out there that come with vocals. I don't know if it would be possible to strip the guitar part out of a karaoke song, but there may be some software out there that could do it.

There are also some backing tracks for guitar that have vocals on them and you just play the rhythm/lead guitar. I have seen them somewhere, so I do know that they exist. I downloaded a backing track of ACDC's \"You Shook Me All Night Long\" with the vocals but minus the lead guitar. If you spent some time looking around the internet, I bet you could probably find somebody selling quality guitar backing tracks with vocals. You might have to pay a few bucks for each song, but at least it would open up other possibilites to you. If you had the lead singer already on the backing track, you could sing backup \"live\" to add a little spice to the show. It might work. Or, with the GNX4, you could dump the guitar backing track on the GNX4 OBR and have a singer record the vocals on another track on the OBR for your use later. Making your own backing tracks with vocals. But I suspect your problem is finding the vocalist to begin with....

Around here, music without vocals doesn't sell. People want to hear the singing. But then again, none of us are a Eddie Van Halen, so who would want to listen to us just play guitar all night without vocals. We have to be careful not to let our \"jams\" get too long or people will hit the street. But maybe if you are really talented on the guitar, you could keep people in their seats. I'm not at that level.

I encourage you to try singing even if you say you can't. Singing is a skill that needs to be developed just like your guitar playing. You have to start somewhere. Most people get better with practice. And even if you never get the lead singer position, backup singing can be fun and it helps out the band.

shredd

I know for a fact they're out there. I've d/l'd lots of b/t, and a handful came with vox in place, with rhythm, lead or both git'r tracks left out.
More often, the vox parts are left out for you to add, but some have vox left in.

Cobaltblooz

I bought these
http://www.guitarbackingtracks.info/Order/default.htm

I swear the version of Floyd's \"Wish You Were Here\" is the studio version without the lead guitar

Most are very high quality, some....not so much....and I have seen some of the same tunes on some free download sites

gtaus

Cobaltblooz, do any of the backing tracks you purchased on the CDs from guitarbackingtracks have vocals? Also, you mentioned free download sites. Do you know of any that have vocals with the backing tracks? I know I downloaded a guitar backing track with vocals for an ACDC song, but it was not really on a website or page. I can't remember exactly how I found it. Just curious to know if anyone out there has a collection of guitar backing tracks w/vocals for download.

shredd

The ones with vox I have I got totally by accident. I haven't heard of a commercial collection with vox included.

SlashNBurn99

I actually found a BT site where there are tracks with everything minus the guitar

http://www.freshbt.com/

Alice Cooper-Schools Out
Cream-Sunshine Of Your Love
Pearl Jam-Even Flow
Poison Talk Dirty To ME
Skid Row-18 and Life
The Police-Message In a Bottle
Audioslave-Cochise
Jet-Are You Gonna Be My Girl
Nirvana-In Bloom
Poison-Nothing But A Good Time
Queen-Killer Queen
Santana-Black Magic Woman
Stone Temple Pilots-Interstate Love Song
Warrant- Cherry Pie

These are the songs I've come across so far that have vocals

phatsack

\SlashNBurn99\ wrote:

I actually found a BT site where there are tracks with everything minus the guitar

http://www.freshbt.com/

nice find 8)