Playing live with backing tracks

[Damphire]

Hi there. I have a Dark metal band with some symphonic parts and we are almost ready to play live except for the symphonic stuff. I was wondering if any of you have some experience playing live with backing tracks, what do I need? what is best? etc.

I now the basics, one click track for the drummer and one full track for the mixer but is that sufficient? don't I need a stereo output for the orchestration? if that is so, what kind of equipment do you recommend?

Thanks in advance

PS: Examples of similar orchestration would be Dimmu Borgir, Hollenthon, Turisas or the new Nightwish.

 

[Executioner213]

A lot of soundmen I encounter run the p.a. in mono, so a stereo track wouldnt matter. However, thats only for mono....

 

[James-Doolan]

Depends on how elaberate you want your setup to be and how much money you have to spend.
You can use an ipod with backing track on left/right chanell and the click track on the opposite chanell this is the simplest method.

Im using my laptop/daw and soundcard outputs to create 4 stereo mixs for live (3 in ear monitor mixes and one FOH Mix) and im also controlling my amps and effects automatically using midi commands seqenced in my daw. Down side of this is that we are totaly relient on the cumputer/cubase not crashing.

 

[vespiz]

We run our backing tracks as a mono feed to FOH. Works pretty ok, I think. Stereo would be nice, but, as mentioned, most places run the PA in mono anyway..

 

[Damphire]

So mono it is then. That means that you have to do a different mix for the live backing tracks I guess, with everything panned in the center and with the respective volume adjustments to prevent it from distorting now that the levels have changed.

Should I remove the reverb from the orchestration tracks? you know, let the sound guys use their own. Any other considerations?

Thanks for the answers so far

 

[Aaron Smith]

I don't know if I've ever been to a show where the PA was in mono, personally... I've always felt like it was normal to have the guitar panned out and whatnot.

As for live backing tracks, my band just got into that realm this year. First I bought a PowerMac G4 from Craigslist for about $600. I had the stereo or mono dilemma as well, and I came to the conclusion that I really wanted stereo...and being that I'm a Pro Tools user I figured I should just use Pro Tools live as well, so I ended up forking out like another $500 for an Mbox Pro, which is the only small Pro Tools interface with more than two analog outs (prior to that I had been hoping to get an original Mbox used for like $100). After this I also purchased a Radial stereo DI, so the sound guy/stage hand doesn't have to whip out two DIs, which he may not have laying around or have available in the first place. My final purchase was this, to keep it all organized and safe. Hope this helps!

 

[Aaron Smith]

Should I remove the reverb from the orchestration tracks? you know, let the sound guys use their own.

I would definitely not assume the sound guy will put reverb on the tracks, or that he will even care enough to do so. Leave your own reverb on there.

 

[Torniojaws]

I just rendered my backing thingies directly to a mono sum from the stereo mix, and it sounds just fine in our rehearsals. So no need to remix the stuff anew

I do the backing stuff like this:

Laptop running Reaper
-> into Fireface 400
-> ADAT out from FF400 into Behringer ADA8000 (6 line outs, drums & electronics)
-> Two lineouts from FF400 into two reamp boxes (Little Labs Redeye for guitar, Radial ProRMP for bass | no specific reason for this) into two amps
-> 8 backing signals in total then, and the 6 line outs of drums and electronics go to FOH/PA

The 6 tracks are:

1 - Kick
2 - Snare
3 - Overhead
4 - Toms
5 - Hihat
6 - Synths & FX

+

7 - Rhythm guitar reamp (originally our vocalist said he wouldn't do vocals and guitars at the same time, so I made guitar DIs too, but then he said he would do guitars too)
8 - Bass reamp

Works just fine and sounds good

Edit:
Oh yeah, and the tracks are all in one single project with the entire show with markers at the beginning of the next song, so you can just press a button when you want to start the next track if you pause, or just let the project run all the way without stops.

 

[if6was9]

I don't know if I've ever been to a show where the PA was in mono, personally... I've always felt like it was normal to have the guitar panned out and whatnot.

As for live backing tracks, my band just got into that realm this year. First I bought a PowerMac G4 from Craigslist for about $600. I had the stereo or mono dilemma as well, and I came to the conclusion that I really wanted stereo...and being that I'm a Pro Tools user I figured I should just use Pro Tools live as well, so I ended up forking out like another $500 for an Mbox Pro, which is the only small Pro Tools interface with more than two analog outs (prior to that I had been hoping to get an original Mbox used for like $100). After this I also purchased a Radial stereo DI, so the sound guy/stage hand doesn't have to whip out two DIs, which he may not have laying around or have available in the first place. My final purchase was this, to keep it all organized and safe. Hope this helps!

I always do live sound in mono- think about it, if someones on the left hand side of the stage facing the band and guitars are hard panned they're going think the sound is shit,
Stereo imaging will be pretty much completely wasted on 80 percent of the people at a show because of where they're positioned and the fact they will move about the place.

 

[Torniojaws]

And imagine listening to a stadium band that you paid a good penny to see, and you'll only hear hihat, second guitarist, half of the vocal delay and a whole lot of bass guitar

 

[ze kink]

We rely completely on backing tracks, since we haven't got a real drummer (and aren't considering getting one either). What we've done, is that the keyboardist has his laptop with him, and he's done live backing track versions of our songs, which have the drums on the other channel and samples etc. on the other. Then he just plugs them into whatever DI's the venue has, and the mixer adjusts the tracks. Usually, we tell the sound guy to put more drums in the monitor mix and less samples, because we usually have so much stuff going on that it gets difficult to hear unless we turn down the samples. The keyboardist also has a cheap mp3 player as a backup, which we have had to go with a couple times because of weird problems in his laptop.

I kinda wish he was more into perfecting the live mix and had better gear to do it, since the drums he uses most of the time are old dfh samples (luckily, he's been going into a more industrial direction lately, so less of dfh's ear killing ride bell haha), and only having one stereo output (he hasn't got a seperate interface, he just uses the integrated something his laptop came with) is quite limiting. Then again, I kind of enjoy not having to worry about it, so I can just lay back and play some guitar.

 

[Sacha]

We did it using an ADAT machine in a rack with a mixer by the drummer. Then send the outputs with the keyboards to the PA and the click tracks to the drummer's in ear monitors. He could also take a line in from the house for guitars etc. but if that wasn't working there where ghost guitar tracks also.

It worked very well, just have a backup and make sure everything is somewhat pre-mixed in terms of levels as much as possible.

 

[Damphire]

Thanks for the advice. Mono for live sound mixing sounds like the right choice, I remember being on "stereo" shows and only hearing half of the show. I guess I'll start trying with the simplest of all solutions... an mp3 player. Then someday with some money I'll improve my gear

 

[fade_2_black]

I dont think it matter if you run mono or stereo, the majority of places will have the option for stereo so its up to you. Usually you will find a DJ stereo channel you can use to connect your ipod / cd whatever, otherwise just run it through a spare channel.. As for click, if you have a spare channel on the desk chuck the click track in and send it to the drum monitor aux send. Make sure its not coming through FOH though!