Live-Setup: Samples, Click etc. - what Equipment to buy?

[JoeJackson]

Hey guys!

Lately we've got the idea of adding Samples, Synths and even guitar-samples (for filling out solo-gaps) to our live-show (+ Clicktrack for our drummer) - but honestly: I have no idea, how to do that.

Is there a dedicated solution for stuff like that or do we have to rely on a (cheap) notebook + interface?

Cheers

 

[Sacha]

A dedicated solution would be something like an ADAT I suppose, but that's kind of a pain in the ass to work with. A computer + interface works great and seems to be the most prevalent on the tours i've seen. An even simpler solution is an IPOD or whatever with the click panned to one side and the backings the other.

 

[Harley Barley]

i am also very interested in this kind of stuff anymore info anybody can share?

 

[CatharsisStudios]

I pod

 

[DanLights]

there are millions of threads on this, with millions of solutions and ideas, search something like playing live with a backing track and you'll find what you're looking for

 

[JeffTD]

Laptop, interface with 2 stereo outs + headphone out, 2I boxes. Send stereo outs to DI boxes (means you only need XLRs from the FoH guy), and headphone out to headphones on the drummer.

If you run IEM's, send another 2 outputs to the IEM mixer and mix accordingly.

 

[RLab]

An even simpler solution is an IPOD or whatever with the click panned to one side and the backings the other.

Oh my god, this is genius, I can't believe I never had this idea before ! I'm planning on playing a few solo shows, just me a guitar and backing tracks and I'm thinking about a way to do it easily since last week

 

[Dan Korneff]

The budget way to go is just an Ipod with click on the left side and your backing tracks on the right side. An 1/8" stereo to 1/4" Y cable should be enough for any live sound guy to patch it right in.
I see a lot of bands use an 8 track digital tape machine (like DA-88) for the live trax cause those machines are a bit more reliable than computers. Most people will run 2 machines synched together so if the first one fails they just patch in the 2nd machine and keep going. Last time I saw Marilyn Manson, he was running a 48 I/O PT setup for all of his trax. That show sounded amazing! (go figure)

 

[Fragle]

yeah, another +1 for stereo tracks, click on one side backings on the other, and a signal splitter of some sort.

"An 1/8" stereo to 1/4" Y cable should be enough for any live sound guy to patch it right in."

this is actually a good idea....i was thinking of buying something like the behringer 8 track rackmixer which enables you to split a stereo signal into two mono signals, one for the drummer (clicks) and one for the FOH, but then again....stereo cable, cheap headphone amp for the drummer on one side, DI box on the other side....this should really do the trick. thanks man!

 

[koalamo]

Definitely go for the ipod dude, I used to do this with my band but if you get even the slightest bit of lag on the computer your fucked. You need a mixer and something to split the signal, when you mix the songs put all the backing tracks/samples on one side and the click on the other, make sure you have a good pair of headphones and a headphone amp.


I did it on a yamaha I had a click and samples set up to one aux send and that fed my headphones then I had another aux send set up with just the samples and that aux send was sent to the actual PA

 

[JeffTD]

You guys not having any issues with mono samples sounding sub-par/muddy? I can imagine shrinking a lot of soft synths down to mono would kill some impact!

 

[arv_foh]

You guys not having any issues with mono samples sounding sub-par/muddy? I can imagine shrinking a lot of soft synths down to mono would kill some impact!

Typically the backing tracks I get at shows are mono and most of them sound pretty good, but then again I'm not usually familiar with how they sound on the album so I guess that doesn't give me much of a basis to compare to.

 

[koalamo]

You guys not having any issues with mono samples sounding sub-par/muddy? I can imagine shrinking a lot of soft synths down to mono would kill some impact!

The way I thought of it is this, when my band played we played a bunch of shitty local clubs and maybe a few big shows and what not but honestly most of the sound guys had no clue what they were doing in the first place so the samples were the last things we were worried about, I guess if your doing a huge gig than I suppose it would make sense to invest but the majority of the audience IME is not going to really notice if your synth samples are in mono as opposed to stereo. And also, I get extremely nervous when trusting a computer to handle something as important as that for a live setup there's so many variables that could potentially go wrong, and if the song goes out of sync for some reason for even 1 second your pretty much screwed. Again all IMO & IME

 

[Dan Korneff]

You guys not having any issues with mono samples sounding sub-par/muddy? I can imagine shrinking a lot of soft synths down to mono would kill some impact!

I'd have to say that 99.9% of the live shows I've been to have been mixed in mono.... so if you dont do it, someone else will I usually have to remix/balance stems specially for live shows. I usually dont tweak much, just adjust balances.

 

[t-rave]

Stereo jamman - perfect for this..great because you can fire off one shot samples, click track , and 2 channels ( panned stereo) of backing tracks... I control it from my pedal board with my feet and trigger synths, intros, second guitars and sometimes backing vocals... you can do the same thing with an ipod but i like the stage friendly design..

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/...lution-incorporating-live-backing-tracks.html

 

[JoeJackson]

Thanks for all the input. All that was said on the iPod totally makes sense - I had never thought about this, because of the stereo/mono-problem. But you're right - most of the mixers we've seen have no clue about what they're doing, so the iPod is a good starting point (or the Jamman).