Playing to a Click Live

[jauernis]

I know Evanescence does this but do any other bands do this. We have all this orchestra that we've done with East West, stylus, etc. that we want to pump through the PA and the only way to do this is the drummer having a click track. Am I missing something or is the only way/right way to do this??

Who else does this?

 

[Adenosine]

My band does this, drummer plays to a click track and we have an ipod with a small mixer split L/R - drummer gets the clicks L and R goes to the front (samples)

 

[updog]

My band does this, drummer plays to a click track and we have an ipod with a small mixer split L/R - drummer gets the clicks L and R goes to the front (samples)

This is what we do as well.

I kinda wish there would be a better way though, it's kind of a risk having the success of a gig depend on an mp3 player. A hardware device (affordable one) would be great.

If this will be how you'll roll, be sure to give out the backing tracks to your bandmates so they'll have them in their mp3 players as a backup in case something goes wrong!

 

[Adenosine]

Yeah same, we have an ipod with only the set list clicks on it though seems to be the best way so far (i don't like the idea of using a laptop too much shit can go wrong)

 

[ttrentt]

MP3 player works great, I think it is probably one of the more reliable things you can use. We always do our entire set to a click. My drummer uses these: Direct Sound Headphones EX-29 Extreme Isolation Stereo Headphones and loves them.

 

[OneDaySky]

We do the same. iPod split into a mini desk, drummer headphones out from the desk and only send the right channel (samples) to the stage box for FOH.
But wanting to move to a Macbook with external Soundcard with multi outs for stereo samples live

 

[TimatWaves]

I spoke to Wayne Static many years ago during Static X's WDT tour and they used an ADAT with the click on one track going to the drummer and multitrack samples going to the FOH. You could use a stand alone multi-track hard disk recorder (Korg, Tascam, etc) these days fairly cheap and the obvious advantage would be stereo/panning samples and higher quality.

Like mentioned above a laptop with decent A/D would work great as well.

 

[Leon--]

septicflesh from mighty hellas does this in order to playback the orchestra because they cannot pay for 80/150 musicians for a tour.
the drummer has a laptop with a DAW on it.
same goes for rotting christ that use prerecorded samples.
and many bands basically like behemoth(some songs).
dimmu borgir too.
When my black metal band starts the liveshows,we will definately play with a click(although we will not have prerecorded samples) because it's much easier and more "Standard" to deliver the same great performance everytime.
but the drummer needs a lot of rehearshals

 

[digitaldeath]

Countless bands play to a click these days, and yeah, the MP3 player method is most common. Personally, I wouldn't trust a laptop, I'd use a multi-track HD recorder (as mentioned above) that has suitable outs and have an MP3 player as backup.

 

[BLUElightCory]

We use an iPod, it works great. Bring a backup.

Also, a laptop is a viable option, especially if you've got a solid state hard drive.

 

[raisedfist]

Been running CSC Show control with a usb footswitch and works great. Was getting pissed that you have to print everything to a single mono track and with CSC runnig on my laptop I have 4 channels to pay with level and panning wise, so click to left as normal and then strings, glitch drums and synth on the other 3 channels panned right. Thats the free version and loving it as you can start, fade etc etc from a little footswitch.
Only downside there is a bit of a learning curve with the software.....

 

[Damage, Inc.]

If you use a sequencer live you can do fun stuff like MIDI your light show to the song tempos, create moods for different sections of the songs, etc.

 

[ThatGuitarGuy]

I did sound for an event a month or two ago and one of the bands had a macbook pro running digital performer pro and an interface. He put different tracks in stem format including a click. This allowed them to send all of them out to the FOH board as well as the monitor board. FOH and monitors were able to have their own mixes because of a splitter and the FOH guy was able to determine how much strings, loops, etc were in the mix as well as EQ them...in stereo. Very nice.

Same deal for the monitor engineer.

 

[TheWinterSnow]

My band uses the ol' laptop method with a Fastrack Pro. Drummer gets click for his in ears and sends a stereo out to the FOH. IMO its a little more versatile if you can have a dedicated computer for recording (to prevent computer related issues) and you could even trigger drums with is as well like we plan on doing in the future with Slate Trigger and each trigger can have its own stem for the FOH to mix.

 

[cyril_v]

would this work for you?
http://www.petersontuners.com/index.cfm?category=163

 

[John_C]

devin townsend uses his macbook pro for samples and click live.

 

[GeertSamuel]

Depends a bit. We don't play with samples live. This is simply because the guitar player in the band members detest using samples live, even though we use some small orchestra things on the CD. So I'm not doing it for that purpose. If I don't have time to practice much I will play with click just to keep everything together for me personally. If I have got enough practice in there I keep my metronome only on the lights next to me. Indicating which tempo to start in, and sometimes don't use it at all.

Weird thing is that the first thing that goes down the drain if not practicing is keeping time. I have a tend to speed up if I haven't practiced enough.

 

[ahjteam]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/665139-faq-live-shows-backing-tracks-how.html

 

[Sloan]

You can even get a cheap hardware metronome for your drummer. easy!

 

[DanLights]

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/equipment/665139-faq-live-shows-backing-tracks-how.html

This is what you need