FAQ: Live shows with backing tracks - HOW TO?

[ahjteam]

Other solution would be using a mini mixer as "afterburner" for headphone output. But this seems a little bit oversized to me. Eventually there is a cheap and handy (pocket-)headphone amp ?

My setup only uses a DI-box for FOH and a small mixer for the drummer to be used as a headphone amp. If you need to get a separate headphone amp, this would indicate that the headphone function on the apparatus sucks and also defeats the purpose of using it. Rather use 2 items that work than 1 item that doesn't work

I have a question, how important is for the backing track to be stereo? Because I always thought that no one can really tell the difference in live situations.

For stereo separation it's not quite important, but hard panned element help for headroom.

 

[DanLights]

This thread is awesome. I just wanted to bump this so I could post my latest find, I finally found a small cheap mixer with a Pre-fader aux send (at least that's what it says in the description), this way the backing track can be sent through the aux send to the FOH and the drummer can freely control his monitor mix of click, backing track and whatever extra you wanna give him without danger of affecting the FOH send cause it's pre-fader. I haven't bought it though, I'm gonna try to find it locally so I don't have to pay the extra 20 euros for shipping, but at least now I know such thing exists

http://www.thomann.de/es/phonic_am_440.htm

Btw Charlie's mixer o obviously works, but that's a bigger one in the 200$ range, I was/am looking for something under 100

 

[DanLights]

Bump to this thread again. I have a question for anyone using these methods. Any reccomendations on cheap in ears that isolate enough for the drummer to clearly hear the click and backing track and whatever is put through his earphones without much interference from outside and without pumping too much volume so his ears won´t bleed? Just the earphones, the wireless set for the rest of the guys can be adressed when he have the cash to do so. I´m looking for example at these, which seem to have good reviews on Amazon but I don´t see any about using them for monitoring, just for normal street Ipod usage, in which of course the noise levels are usually much lower than in the drummer´s seat on stage. http://www.thomann.de/es/shure_se115cl.htm There are much cheaper ones, but I wouldn´t feel confident buying ones for 9 bucks.

Any thoughts?

 

[MetalSound]

don´t know abouth these phones but if you are doing an intense live show with a lot of headbanging and all this fun stuff there is no better way than custom build ones that fit your ears 100%.
if you can´t afford ultimate ears stuff or the like you can ask your local hearing aid acoustician to custom fit your phones you give him (was around 60 euro per ear here in germany).

 

[DanLights]

don´t know abouth these phones but if you are doing an intense live show with a lot of headbanging and all this fun stuff there is no better way than custom build ones that fit your ears 100%.
if you can´t afford ultimate ears stuff or the like you can ask your local hearing aid acoustician to custom fit your phones you give him (was around 60 euro per ear here in germany).

That's a great idea, I didn't know that could be done. Luckily this is a city filled with old open so we have tons of aid-hearing shops. Thanks for the tip!

 

[arv_foh]

get a pair of these

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/WESTONE-TRUE-DUAL-DRIVER-EARPHONES/dp/B000NIOVWC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315251844&sr=8-1[/ame]

and then get these

http://www.westone.com/cust-products/custom-earpieces

and that's about $400US (the custom tips are $200) for custom molded IEMs. That's pretty much as cheap as they get, anything from ultimate ears or westone that is a complete custom mold for your ear (the mold houses the drivers etc) will run you at a minimum $700/800

I also guess you could get the UM1 and go even cheaper but I would want at least a dual driver if I was gonna throw down the cheese for IEMs

 

[DanLights]

Guys, a quick question, I'm gonna get a Cheap but decent DI Box and it's main use besides recording would be for the backing track in live shows. Would a Passive DI Box such as a Palmer Pan01 be enough to get the Iphone's output to a good level to plug into the PA? Or is it better to get the Pan02 which is active and make sure it's getting enough level into the PA? Any experiences with these boxes for backing tracks?

 

[arv_foh]

any standard DI that is not behringer will work fine

 

[joelplagues]

any standard DI that is not behringer will work fine

this, this and this again! I'm sick of mixing shows and having the bass disappear all of a sudden

 

[DanLights]

Hahaha yeah thanks, I haven't even considered behringer

 

[Metalus]

FAQ: USING BACKING TRACKS IN LIVE SHOWS
When doing the mono backing tracks, pan music hard left and click hard right. Remember to keep it constant that on ALL tracks that left is audio and right is click. Remember to mark the cables (WHITE is left/audio, RED is right/click) to prevent confusion. And test it out on the line-/sound-check that it's properly connected.

- If you can mute the mp3-players "next track" sound, mute it.

- Make a playlist of the tracks so that you can just press "next track"

Is there any particular reason the music should be panned hard left and the click right? Or does it not matter?

Also, how would you mute the next track sound on an iPod?

Thanks for this thread man. The info is fantastic

Apologies for the necro bump

 

[DanLights]

Is there any particular reason the music should be panned hard left and the click right? Or does it not matter?

Also, how would you mute the next track sound on an iPod?

Thanks for this thread man. The info is fantastic

Apologies for the necro bump

No reason, I just do it as said here so I don't get confused and plug things backwards, it happened to me during rehearsals and don't want it to happen in a show.

About the iPod, I don't think there's a "don't play next track" option, but I have two workarounds for this, depending on the case. In my Doom band, since we have backing tracks for all the songs, I have a playlist on my iPhone with all the songs in the desired order, but they're all separated by a blank 6minute mp3 so it doesn't start playing after the previous one finishes. Of course, 6 minutes was totally arbitrary, the point is to give more than enough time for the song to finish, the singer to say "thank you" and the drummer to hit "next track" on the iPhone. If there ever is a weird emergency that requires a break longer than 6 minutes, the drummer can just pause it. If you have some songs sequed (one straight after the other) just put then together with an appropriate space (I use 12 seconds usually, depends on how the song ends) and there you go.

In my rock cover band we only have 3 or 4 songs with backing tracks, so I have each song separated in its own playlist so the drummer just plays the right song, and it stops playing by itself cause there's nothing else in the playlist.

Hope this helps!

 

[TidesZA]

CONFIGURATION 1 - stereo setup

Mono backing track, mono click for drummer



Rough estimate: 100€ and up

1 - mp3 player (iPod or similar)
1 - 1/8" stereo jack to two 1/4" mono jacks adapter
1 - DI-box

Apologies for the bump guys, just a quick question.

Could someone link me to an example of an "1/8" stereo jack to two 1/4" mono jacks adapter"? I'm so used to talking in mm and male/female. We're looking to put an order in for the required gear and we don't want to screw it up.

Thanks in advance

 

[Ashgarth]

Apologies for the bump guys, just a quick question.

Could someone link me to an example of an "1/8" stereo jack to two 1/4" mono jacks adapter"? I'm so used to talking in mm and male/female. We're looking to put an order in for the required gear and we don't want to screw it up.

Thanks in advance

Just searching at google images you can easily find out that a 1/4 jack is the kind of jack that you use in your guitar, for example.
And a 1/8 jack may be also known as mini jack, the kind you use with mp3 players.

For that configuration you want to use, I guess al jacks must be male.

 

[arv_foh]

Apologies for the bump guys, just a quick question.

Could someone link me to an example of an "1/8" stereo jack to two 1/4" mono jacks adapter"? I'm so used to talking in mm and male/female. We're looking to put an order in for the required gear and we don't want to screw it up.

Thanks in advance

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005HGM1D6/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_3?pf_rd_p=486539851&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B000068O6B&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0FJHCWNXTEJ0MF8QQMKR[/ame]

 

[DanLights]

I just use a 1/8" jack to RCA (red/white) cable and one RCA to 1/4" adapter on each of the rca ones, it´s the easiest and cheapest I could get in any store.

 

[TidesZA]

Thank you all for the advice. DanLights, we ended up going with a similar setup to your own

I just use a 1/8" jack to RCA (red/white) cable and one RCA to 1/4" adapter on each of the rca ones

One question though:

Out of the left we have panned a click and the right we have our samples. The cable from the left is running into a headphone amp, and headphones from that are going to our drummer. What we have found though, is that in his headphone he only receives a click coming out of the left ear. We're assuming it will be the same for the samples (they will only come out the right speaker). Is this a side-effect/downside of using this method? Or did we do something wrong in the mixdown?

 

[Forceps]

You did nothing wrong, but you have to remember that you split a stereo signal into 2 mono signals. So the panning should be at center, not 100% left or 100% right. The FOH guy will pan the sample track centered, so the sound comes from both speakers in the venue. Your drummer should do the same, pan the incoming clicktrack to center (or does the headphone amp only have stereo inputs and no panning options?)

 

[TidesZA]

That makes sense! The headphone ampe we're using only has stereo input and no panning options. So either he'll have to work with that setup or we will have to look for an alternate option (perhaps a small mixer).

 

[DanLights]

Yeah, small headphone amps tend to have only a stereo (phones) input, I had that problem some time ago and I ghetto'ed it by using a mono 1/8" to 1/4" jack to the phones (output), essentially making it mono and sending the feed to both headphones. I don't think this is a good idea though, someone even said it could short circuit the setup or something. A small mixer is your best bet, after years of messing with things what I've done (and works flawlessly so far) is this:

Left (white) cable has the backing tracks, it goes straight to DI box, the Xlr output gets sent straight to the board, the parallel output goes into the drummer's small mixer so he can have that in his headphones.

Right (red) cable has click, goes straight to the drummer's mixer.

This method guarantees absolutely 0 click signal is possible to be sent to the main board, cause previously I would send both RCAs to a mixer and send to the board from there, but there always a small amount of click bleeding through, it seems cheap mixers don't really pan 100% perfectly or something. Still, you will need a DI anyways to send to FOH so might as well split it before the mixer so you don't have to mess with panning and possible mixups.

Plus, you could also send extra monitor feeds to the drummer, I send almost everything to my drummer, guitars and bass, sometimes even vox if it's a small gig where we control the main board. I am looking for a way to split mic signal before sending to foh so in the future we could monitor EVERYTHING ourselves without depending on anyone.