Backing Tracks live?

[deanbailey]

I'm not really sure what the correct term for these are but in this video of Behemoth - Christgrinding Avenue:
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQQsG6eCCy8&feature=related[/ame]

You can hear:
The reverse cymbal at 0:17min
Then choir and horns at 2:38min
Just like it is on the album

Also I saw a youtube video of inflames playing "Bullet Ride" where Daniel doesn't play when programmed drums play (Just like the album) and it's always in time.

How do bands pull this off live? Do they play to a click/backing track of the song where the drummer hears it only? Or do they have an engineer that pushes play/stop when it's the right time?

My guess is that the drummer plays to a click in his "in-ears" so that the backing track will definitely be on time and the rest of the band follows him.
(I'm not sure if inferno plays with 'in-ears' though)

Anyone know how this is done?
thanks

 

[Torniojaws]

Do they play to a click/backing track of the song where the drummer hears it only?

Yep, and the rest of the band follows the drummer. Most big bands have a ProTools rack or a laptop running it, that the drummer controls. Sometimes they use a portable HD recorder. You can see that in action in the In Flames live video from Köln 2004.

Right here, it's like Daniel is demonstrating it to you

http://user.personal.fi/musiikki/torniojaws/inflames_backing.avi (3 MB)

 

[Morgan C]

I'd like to know this too. My band used to play Nightwish's Poet and the Pendulum with one person on guitars and one on keys, but our guitarist has left us and so our keyboardist has switched to guitars. I've extracted the orchestra only from the 5.1 mix and want to use this to sample live so we can play it, but I don't know how I'd go about doing that!

 

[Torniojaws]

One tip: don't use multichannel (stereo, 5.1, etc.) backing tracks. They will sound unbalanced to the audience when they are panned away from center. One side of the audience may not even hear the backing stuff at all!

Always use mono tracks.

Here's a device like the one Daniel uses in the clip above. It's not the same device, but the function is the same:

http://www.thomann.de/fi/boss_br1200_cd.htm

Edit:

I think it's this one he's using:
http://www.thomann.de/fi/fostex_d2424lv.htm

 

[Chryst Krispies]

Dunno bout backing tracks but that video was sick.

 

[vespiz]

We use this http://www.thomann.de/fi/fostex_mr8_mkii.htm for our backing tracks (although we have an older red version).
The songs are mixed so that the click track is on the left and the rest on the right.
The click track goes to our drummer through a small mixer where he can control the levels as he sees fit. The backing tracks go through a DI to the FOH.

Seems to be working for now..