Cheap recording device with multiple outs?

[Lee_B]

Using a click with some backingtapes is pretty standard these days.

I remember seeing a band called Nitzer Ebb many years ago. On stage they had electronic drums, banks of samplers and keys and tons of other gizmos with the guys working feverishly away throughout the set. It wasn't until I got a bit closer that I realised that although all this stuff was powered up, the midi-out light wasn't flashing on anything at all.. then I spotted the sound guy swapping DAT tapes between songs.. the only thing live about the whole thing was the vocals No wonder they sounded so good! hehe..

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

the only thing live about the whole thing was the vocals No wonder they sounded so good! hehe..

Hahaha... Fortunately, there's a difference between playing with a click track to get in sync with samples, matching tempos for some fx (delay...) and other overdubs, and just cheating and doing playback or karaoke

Two weeks ago I saw Epica live (aaaargh, Simone...), their show was overloaded with sampled choirs and even some lead vocals doubled. Tomorrow I'll see Angra, I'm pretty sure there will be a lot of samples too (there were last time I saw them, as James explained in a previous post) ! And last saturday After Forever (aaaargh, Floor...) had to do a show without their current drummer (being in hospital) and asked two days earlier Ed Warby (Gorefest, Ayreon) to replace him on the fly (it was a very big show opening for Nightwish (aaaargh, Tarja...), they couldn't cancel it), and his biggest fear about it was... the click tracks ! Some guys just hate it...

Anyway, everytime you see a band playing live, and the drummer has a headphone, you can be pretty sure they have a click track for some reason...

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

Using a PC or Mac live puts any data on the hard drive at serious risk, as there is very little space between the reading heads and the actual disk. The vibrations caused by being in a loud venue mean that the reading heads hit the disk. This can cause some serious problems.

Also, the motherboard on my laptop CRACKED (I mean litterally cracked in two) during a 1hr DJ set last August (it was less than 10mths old).

The closest I've got to using my laptop live since has been using two IRiver portable audio players (with all tracks encoded in FLAC).

Shockmounts!

But yeah, that could be a serious problem.

 

[SymbolicSV]

I saw Therion like 5 months ago , they use a lot of orchestration , they were using a minidisc device, controlled by the drummer

 

[Razorjack]

Shockmounts!

Shock mounts don't stop your hard-drive from getting damaged in areas where the SPL is 110dB!!

 

[Brett - K A L I S I A]

And so what would be a solution to have both MIDI (keyboards controller or patch changes of guitar amps) and Audio playing back (samples, choir, orchestra) on stage (and being synced, of course) ?

 

[Andy Sneap]

oh shit now youre asking for trouble. I've seen it done before though

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

And so what would be a solution to have both MIDI (keyboards controller or patch changes of guitar amps) and Audio playing back (samples, choir, orchestra) on stage (and being synced, of course) ?

is that possible to do without using a PC/mac???

 

[Hopkins-WitchfinderGeneral]

oh shit now youre asking for trouble. I've seen it done before though

Yeah, in all fairness this is a fucking minefield hehe

Edit: @ Genius... I think you can get keyboards with onboard HD or RAM memory to have this stuff saved without having to use a computer... not sure tho...

 

[Razorjack]

And so what would be a solution to have both MIDI (keyboards controller or patch changes of guitar amps) and Audio playing back (samples, choir, orchestra) on stage (and being synced, of course) ?

The best, and least problematic way, of doing this (if it has to be done as you pointed out) would be for your keyboard player (I assume thats what you'd need the keyboard controller changes for) to use a workstation like a Korg Triton or a Roland Fantom Xa.

These have built in sequencer's and can playback any audio needed (samples, full backing etc).

I have recommended this method to bands before and it has never let any of them down.