Playing Live With A Click Track?

[bensnookes]

My new band is preping to play live atm, just tightening up our tracks, for the songs tohave a full sound with the best impact, we need to have some of the leads/FX/sound clips coming out through the PA ...

Persumably, we will need to be playing to a click, so the performance is in time with the FX/Sounds Clips coming through the PA.

I don't really know much about how this is done so if anyone can help me out i'd appreciate it!

 

[Kenny Lee]

Have your drummer play to the click.

 

[JeffTD]

Best way, IMO, is to use a laptop or rackmount PC and interface routing a stereo click/backing track to headphones (worn by the drummer), and have another stereo output going to the house, with the same signal minus the click track.

You can then also create midi tracks in your DAW and route midi outputs to multi-FX units, PODs, some heads, etc. to have the computer control your channel switching.

 

[JBroll]

Kazrog has mentioned this, might want to check with him.

Jeff

 

[Metaltastic]

Or search...

 

[lepersmeesa]

We do it. Info and pics PM me.

 

[DrGleason]

That's what my band does. We have a laptop with PT and we have a mix for the drummer and one that goes to the mains. It works quite well.

Our songs generally start with an 8 count, 4 clicks only in his ears, 4 more that he counts out loud and we can start the song. It's a beautiful thing to me metaling it up and have some wicked keys come in alongside you.

 

[Benny H]

My band too! me on drums.. I setup my mix to actually have the programmed drums (what I'm supposed to be playing) in my ears, as well as click (cranked - loudest thing), some other background stuff (not much of that.. just a bit for vibe and to know it's working), and my triggered kicks. Then obviously another mix goes to PA.

As far as the -playing along to programmed drums- thing goes.. it was initially just for practice, but it's actually like the ultimate click track really. You really can't possibly lose it or get out of sync at all (unless you really fuck up bad..but even then you know where you're supposed to be) which is obviously very important. So I did it live as well.

I use a Macbook Pro sitting on top of a 4u rack with my Firestudio, digimax (not actually used live) and D4. Which all sit on top of milk crate to my side. Our whole set is mapped out.. meaning once I hit play I don't touch it again till the end of the set.

 

[Kazrog]

Wireless in-ear monitors are the key to doing this, whether your click source is a laptop with a rack interface or just an iPod/CD player/DAT machine, etc. I recommend the Shure PSM 400.

Having done the laptop route for years I'm simplifying now to just use an iPod for my band's backing tracks. One approach to the iPod is to pan your click to the left and your tracks to the right, and split the signal so that only the in-ear monitors get the click. The downside is you have mono backing tracks - which is only a downside if you have a lot of layers. The upside is that it's a lot faster to set up an iPod live than it is to set up a laptop rig, and it's much less stuff to haul.

In our case, since we don't have a drummer anymore, we're going to be using full stereo backing tracks with programmed drums that have hi-hat intros. We don't want to wait to find the perfect drummer to be able to play shows, and we're really happy with our programmed drums, so this should be pretty awesome.

 

[Aaron Smith]

I just got a G4 Powerbook last month so my band can start doing the whole backing track/click track thing. I'm thinking that the best/cheapest Pro Tools interface for accomplishing this is the original Mbox. Does anyone have a different opinion? Of course it's not mandatory that I use Pro Tools live, but I might as well be able to use Pro Tools on the laptop, so owning a small transportable interface makes sense... I thought about using just an iPod with the whole L/R panning thing, but I still don't like the mono backing track idea. Maybe mono wouldn't really be that bad, but it seems to me that the mix will sound a lot wider and just generally better for the audience if they can actually hear the backing tracks in stereo as they're meant to be heard.
Also, my buddy who's done a bunch of big tours as FOH for different bands tells me that a surprising amount of sound guys don't like "hassling" with running stereo tracks on their board. This sounds to me like the sound guy is just being dick-ish in those situations, but to make things even easier for those potential sound guys, I'm going to order one of the Radial stereo DIs...that way, he won't have to set up two DIs on his own, and instead he will simply need to plug two XLRs into the box on my guitar rig. If he complains about that, I will have little sympathy.

You can then also create midi tracks in your DAW and route midi outputs to multi-FX units, PODs, some heads, etc. to have the computer control your channel switching.

I LOVE that idea, but it has to be a head that actually has a midi input...correct?

 

[JeffTD]

In our case, since we don't have a drummer anymore, we're going to be using full stereo backing tracks with programmed drums that have hi-hat intros. We don't want to wait to find the perfect drummer to be able to play shows, and we're really happy with our programmed drums, so this should be pretty awesome.

I've seen this done before, and while it definitely can work... it really kills stage presence. Not having a drummer back there bashing away looks completely unnatural, and tends to kill the vibe, at least for me. YMMV, though!

 

[JeffTD]

I LOVE that idea, but it has to be a head that actually has a midi input...correct?

A head that has a midi input (ENGL, Diezel comesto mind), a midi-controlled amp switcher (Axxess electronics has one, IIRC), or a POD, which would be my personal choice.

This is the best example I've seen:

It's the live rig for TesseracT. They use their amps for the dirty tone, and the PODs for the clean tones.

You can set the POD up so that the preamp of the head is in the effects loop of a POD Pro, and you can set patches so that the loop is on (gain from amps preamp) or so that it's off (clean tone from POD as a preamp), all run through the poweramp of the head and then your cabinet.

Because the POD is midi-controllable, you just have to figure out what midi note controls program changes, create a midi track, and route it to the POD.

 

[Katau]

A friend of mine (a drummer) does this. He uses an iPod with a cable splitter. The clicks are on the left, and the effects are on the right. The right goes to the PA, the left goes to his ears.

 

[JoshSylosis]

ask acle / tesseract

they do that. proper tight live

 

[Genius Gone Insane]

He's more machine now than man; twisted and evil.

 

[Kazrog]

Because the POD is midi-controllable, you just have to figure out what midi note controls program changes, create a midi track, and route it to the POD.

The sequenced MIDI patch changing during songs can work totally well. It's actually not MIDI notes, but MIDI patch changes that you have to sequence in.

I was using my HD 147 like this for Backmask shows last year, and years ago my Flextone II HD the same way. And I'd still be doing it this way if we had more time to set up at shows. Laptops inherently add many potential areas of failure to your live rig, no matter how good you are at setting them up. My advice to anyone who wants to do this live is don't use MOTU hardware or Digital Performer software, or G4-based Macs - it caused us a lot of problems. If we do the laptop thing again it will be with an Intel-based Mac and Pro Tools for stability and reliability.

 

[Aaron Smith]

...G4-based Macs - it caused us a lot of problems. If we do the laptop thing again it will be with an Intel-based Mac and Pro Tools for stability and reliability.

Ha, oh goody. What issues might I have to look out for with my G4 Powerbook? It's got a 1.5 gHz processor, with two gigs of ram...

 

[Aaron Smith]

Man, this is lame. The only small Digidesign interface that has enough analog outs to run a stereo backing track to the board, and a backing track + click to my drummer is the Mbox 2 Pro, which is $550 on ebay. I could get another 002 rack for that price (!)...except I don't want to bring something that big out on the road. There are some M-Audio interfaces that have enough outputs, but then I have to buy Pro Tools M-Powered separately for $300, and I will absolutely not waste my money on that.