Backing Tracks?

[Eddie Famine]

It seems like it's becoming all too common around here, "live" bands playing with/to backing tracks. Some are just backround vocals, some are adding backing instruments, keys, synth, percussion, but some guitar solos too. I saw one the other night and on one hand it looked stupid to me, lip syncing and pantomime, but on the other, it did sound good and the crowd didn't know or care. I know "big time" bands do it all the time, but what about us? Your local bar/club band. Do you guys use backing tracks live, think it's one stepabove karaoke?

[brianr0131]

In the past I have used a "mini disk" with tracks on it. It was always keyboard stuff because we didn't have a keyboard player. Sometimes there was some bass on them too. They always had a "click track" panned to one side so we could send that part to the drummers monitor mix.

Come to think of it, that was a lot of extra work to play Don't you want me, Brass Monkey, and Apache among others.

[Mrjones2004x]

Went to a bistro live restaurant the other day and they had a live band. Well that's what they said. Drummer, singer and guitarist. Full backing track on behind. They played cheesy covers all night. Enjoyable but I could of done that and I'm crap! Very bad eq too. Loads of bass very low mid heavy too. Could only here drummer and singer. They played the glee song with loads of keyboard done by backing track and even the guitar solo was recorded.
Live means live IMO

[Ohara]

I play in a duo, and we use backing tracks. And you are right, it is kind of karaoke like in a sense, as the music is there but without the instruments or musicians. We decided to do this as without a drummer it is hard for the crowd to feel the music, you need drums and bass going through the room, and we just don't have that. In my neck of the woods, a good drummer is hard to come by, as there just isn't that many people, and the few I have had, one was great, the rest were just guys that owned their own set of drums and hit them. So I myself would rather play with a backing track that is guaranteed to be on time, every time then play with a guy who could be good one night, and then he goes out to his truck and comes back and is playing extremely fast for the majority of the set and then slooooowwwwwwssssss down for the last few songs, regardless of what tempo they actually are (yes sadly a true story, liked his nose candy a tad too much). Then you get into the money factor, we don't get paid too much up here to play a bar for the night, as more and more bars are going to dj's or just running a stereo with a satellite hooked up to it all night as it is cheaper for them. There is also the fact that, any of the good bars, are a ways away so getting home at the end of the night when you have been drinking is difficult at times. So bars are looking for cheap live entertainment, and one way to do that is to keep the least amount of musicians on stage as possible. So with the backing tracks, the crowd gets the benefit of a full band, the loud drums, and the stage show of at least two musicians, more if the gig is paying better but there is a point where I won't play unless I make a certain amount of money, as it just isn't feasable, if I have to pay a sitter for the night, and I am only making $50.00 and spending $10.00 in gas to get there and get home, well for ten bucks, I may as well stay home and enjoy the time with my family, as the sitter will cost $30.00 considering I won't get home til 3 am.
Truth be told I would rather play with a full band, as it is more enjoyable, and allows you to get in to the groove of the night and you can expand on songs if the crowd is loving it, but there are alot of benefits to playing with the backing tracks.

[tadaitstyler]

My band has just decided to stop with backing tracks. We were using them for a click for the drummer, as well as synths and a few extra drums in parts. But never to make up for something that was missing, just to add another layer to everything. But it's just too much work and it keeps you tied to that tempo and those breaks and keeps everything way to structured for what we play.

[sidvicious]

never used it and never will.

i'm a tad old school and i've had koolaid to the extent that, in my opinion, a studio album should be able to be played live without sound manipulation.

in other words, if you play it live and it sounds like crap, then don't do it in the studio and polish it.

that's just me, though. other's may differ, and those that differ matter too.

sv-

[Icarus]

Backing tracks? Haha no, I've never used one. We'd get laughed out of town.

[chinese fork tie]

no no no no no. leave the lip-syncing and click tracks to ashlee simpson. live music should be just that. let it breathe and rock. think about the stooges or the clash. they never had backing tracks, and they were a couple of the best live bands around.

[jason41224]

It seems like it's becoming all too common around here, "live" bands playing with/to backing tracks. Some are just backround vocals, some are adding backing instruments, keys, synth, percussion, but some guitar solos too. I saw one the other night and on one hand it looked stupid to me, lip syncing and pantomime, but on the other, it did sound good and the crowd didn't know or care. I know "big time" bands do it all the time, but what about us? Your local bar/club band. Do you guys use backing tracks live, think it's one stepabove karaoke?

my band uses backing tracks to a pretty minimal extent. we do the whole thing with panning a metronome on one side of the track, and giving that to our drummer. that's on every song.

other than that, one of our songs has a synth, but it just plays one note that sustains the entire song-just makes it sound a little fuller. on one more song, there's a drum track--not your typical drum track, but like a drum-and-bass kinda thing that you can't get on a standard acoustic kit, and it only plays for about 2 measures as part of the intro. that's it, and we could (and have) easily lived without it if there were technical problems. they're a supplement to our music, not the other way around.

i don't think necessarily that using tracks makes you a fake band: it depends to the extent you use it. if you use it because the production of your songs calls for it, then that's one thing. if people are going to the extent to where they're putting in entire guitar solos...well...that's definitely another.

[jason41224]

My band has just decided to stop with backing tracks. We were using them for a click for the drummer, as well as synths and a few extra drums in parts. But never to make up for something that was missing, just to add another layer to everything. But it's just too much work and it keeps you tied to that tempo and those breaks and keeps everything way to structured for what we play.

while i agree with the first part of that, i think that tempo is a necessity. even when we don't use tracks, our drummer brings his metronome to gigs. it's the one thing that keeps sanity, and allows us to actually play tight

[Ohara]

We do our backing tracks ourself, playing the drums and bass and recording them.
The one thing I do like with our backing tracks is when we play Time, by Pink Floyd and Teenage Wasteland by the Who. The beginning of those songs are so iconic, that when they are included peoples eyes light up as they know what is coming

[Van Cleef]

backing tracks and click tracks are only acceptable in a covers band... in my opinion - otherwise it's just karaoke with instruments - which is what a covers band is anyway

[jason41224]

click tracks, really? they're the basis for being tight. some styles of music don't require this, but most styles of music today require bands to be tight as hell live, and metronomes are pretty essential for that. classic rock or blues, maybe not, but just about everything else.

[Van Cleef]

just about everything else?

i think there would be more genres that don't use click tracks than those that do

i can understand br00tal metal using a click track...

but punk? grunge? folk? alt? indie?

i can't picture steve shelley or murph using a click track - who knows maybe they do

[baytamusic]

Backing tracks? Haha no, I've never used one. We'd get laughed out of town.

Ha! I was thinking the same thing. That stuff doesn't fly around where I live. There are hundreds of good bands here that will do it live if you can't... I think some weird samples between songs and stuff like that is cool, but putting in instruments just because you can't find some guy to stand on stage and do it? Ha, no way. LAME.