Choir/orchestra parts live?

[leaded]

I have never seen Symphony X live and I was wondering how they manage to play the parts with choirs and orchestras?

My first guess would be samples and triggers, but do they sometimes sing the parts themselves?

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I'm pretty sure it's just samples, but not all the time. If it's just a simple backing vocal (for example, the chorus of King of Terrors), they'll sing it. But for the choir-type stuff, like the bridge in Of Sins and Shadows, I think Pinnella just triggers a sample. I could swear, though, that the last time I saw them, they sang the choruses of Walls of Babylon and Masquerade.

 

[OfSinsAndShred]

I have never seen Symphony X live and I was wondering how they manage to play the parts with choirs and orchestras?

My first guess would be samples and triggers, but do they sometimes sing the parts themselves?

For the orchestras, 90% of it is just arranged to be played by the band themselves. For the choirs, yeah, they use samples, but they're starting to sing more, which is cool.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

For the orchestras, 90% of it is just arranged to be played by the band themselves.

Ah yes, I forgot about this. For example, a lot of the stuff from V used multiple keyboard parts, and Pinnella obviously can't play it all. So Romeo and Lepond occassionally play the keyboard lines on their respective instruments. The beginning and end of Fallen and all of Communion and the Oracle (from the live album) are good examples of this.

 

[leaded]

Aah, cool I'll have to have a listen to that live album

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I also should mention The Odyssey live. When they play the song, they actually cut out a small portion of the overture (I forget which part specifically, but it's noticeable). My guess is the complexity, but I'm not sure. There's just too many keyboard parts in that song for everything to be acurately reproduced live... they'd need like 3 P's!

 

[philiptrammell]

I'll say this, Pinnella, is real good. I still can't get over how good the Odyssey is.. still makes my nerves jumpy when I think about how he thinks of it all.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

I'll say this, Pinnella, is real good. I still can't get over how good the Odyssey is.. still makes my nerves jumpy when I think about how he thinks of it all.

While P is indeed really good, I think Romeo wrote like 99% of The Odyssey (song).

 

[ShadowsWithin]

yeah for choir parts he must be using that Akai S3000 sampler to play back the sample, i never see him use it.

 

[batera]

yeah for choir parts he must be using that Akai S3000 sampler to play back the sample, i never see him use it.

How do they get the tempo right though? They play much faster live.

 

[Wander]

How do they get the tempo right though? They play much faster live.

You can actually see in hear that the tempo goes down in the sample parts. Check "of Sins and Shadows" live version for example.

 

[fravius]

In one of the videos from Paradise Lost bonus dvd, i saw pinella trigger a chorus from that little keyboard on his left, so maybe he triggers the samples live, so they don't have to use a track on the background like other bands do.

Anyway, and off topic, it could be great to see Pinella's hand live because he's always hidden in the background behind his keyboards. I don't know... maybe put a camera behind him? o a bumper cam like Rudess does?

 

[Rocksister]

I've only seen them in crappy venues unfortch and recordings do a lot there. Too bad, but who cares? What they did play was pure genius and I was too far gone to notice recordings. Until they skipped, which happened a bit, to the shouted profanities of annoyed attendees.