Need advice on gear for backing track management on stage

[Heabow]

Hi,

A friend of mine needs to buy some new gear to manage backing tracks on stage using Cubase or Pro Tools. He doesn't need a big rig and stuff, just a small system easy to place in small venues and 100% reliable in such situation. He though about a mini PC and a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. Is it good? Is there a better way of managing these? Thank you!

 

[bryan_kilco]

I'd think the easiest, cheapest and quickest way is with your phone or MP3 player and a small mixing board to split the signal.

 

[Heabow]

Yes, he does that way but as some backing tracks may translate in a bad way on some PA systems he wants to be able to adjust the mix during the soundcheck if needed (they don't have an FOH guy yet)

 

[wishtheend]

Maybe an ipad/iphone w/ an ios interface? I've seen some with 4 ch outs so you can send a proper stereo backing track to FOH while keeping the click in just the monitor.

 

[Shreedhan Vaidya]

In my experience if you mix the levels of your track well to begin with, the stereo split method works great and doesn't require tweaking.

The only thing to watch out for is overly loud sub-drops so we always test out our tracks on a proper PA system before gigging them.

If you're interested, this is my setup for backing tracks.