# Backtracking Live



## Matyrker (Dec 7, 2012)

As it says, looking into doing live backtracking with my band. I will be using Logic through my MacBook Pro and only my drummer needs to hear the backtracks and the click track. I am guessing I need some type of interface that has two channels? I was recommended a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4. Not exactly sure how I was hook everything up to get stereo. I need one channel with the backtracks/click for my drummer and the other with the backtracks only for the audience to hear? If so, any recommendations? How would I set this up to work in Logic? Thanks!


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## Stealthtastic (Dec 7, 2012)

Well.... Common sense says if your drummer uses headphones like every other drummer the crowd will more than likely not be able to hear the backing and click track.

EDIT: didn't mean to come off as an asshole. It was just the first thing that popped into my head.


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## sage (Dec 7, 2012)

That unit could work if you can configure Logic to send a mix of the click + the backing tracks to your drummer while sending the mix sans click to the house system through the balanced outputs. Probably totally doable. I know I can do something similar with the Sapphire Pro 40, they're from the same company, and probably use a very similar interface which makes signal routing fairly simple. 

Maybe think about shelling out an addition Benjamin for the Sapphire Pro 24, give yourself more options in the future for other applications. 

Welcome to the forum also.


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## Matyrker (Dec 8, 2012)

Stealthtastic said:


> Well.... Common sense says if your drummer uses headphones like every other drummer the crowd will more than likely not be able to hear the backing and click track.
> 
> EDIT: didn't mean to come off as an asshole. It was just the first thing that popped into my head.



Hence why I said I need one including the backing tracks and the click to my drummer and the backing tracks to the house.


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## Ryan-ZenGtr- (Dec 8, 2012)

You might like to get some kind of hardware multi track device, possibly with SSD or other non-moving storage.

You can then sync and bounce multiple clicks, stereo mixes and have separate hardware outs.

Taking a computer to venues is asking for trouble. I tried it for some local gigs and had problems which were never introduced in a static (non-mobile) setup, like power up order affecting usb drivers etc.

Older hard drive multitrack units are around on eBay, it's a solution a lot of electronic dance acts are using for lip syncing (to aid with choreography endurance levels etc.) and backing tracks. A musician (possibly drummer) could use a generic external midi pedal or similar to send CC's or programme change numbers to start the next track.

The simplest thing is to take an mp3 player and mix your tracks with click in mono on the left and track in mono on the right. Once you put a stereo reverb on it at the FOH desk, they sound fine and you can have the auxiliary sends add clicks to monitors or headphones.

Reading up about this, here is a well regarded device for playback/storage live. 
*Alesis HD 24*;
HD24 24-Track, 48kHz Hard Disk Recorder


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## nscarfo83 (Dec 24, 2012)

Try putting everything on a mp3 player and running that into a small mixer then out to your bandmates. That works for me. Avoid bringing a laptop to the show, I had a full beer dumped on a brand new macbook pro once and almost pulled a hulk on everyone there.


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## black_anther (Jan 3, 2013)

We sometimes just use an iPod and have the click track panned to one side on the backing track then split the stereo cable from the iPod, click side goes to our drummer, the other side goes to the PA. Simple, only downside is we lose auto patch switching.


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## Malkav (Jan 3, 2013)

My band has the same predicament, and unfortunately it doesn't really look like there's a standalone device that can take care of it, as for using an Mp3 player and doing the with and without click pan that does seem like an easy solution however most of our backing track is intentionally in stereo so that wouldn't work for us.

As for the OP, it seems like the laptop coming along is a give in, we ended up getting a Roland unit called a VS-100 which can do multiple outs in stereo etc but only when hooked up to a laptop - As a standalone device the other outs are non functional (which makes no fucking sense cause the unit was almost perfect for this). I'm not saying go with Roland, I just ended up going that route cause given where I work I get massive discounts on them and ended up getting about 60% off, but I think that kind of unit would do the trick


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## TimSE (Jan 3, 2013)

black_anther said:


> We sometimes just use an iPod and have the click track panned to one side on the backing track then split the stereo cable from the iPod, click side goes to our drummer, the other side goes to the PA. Simple, only downside is we lose auto patch switching.



Yep this is our way. 

Full left mix with click goes to the drummer. Full right with no click goes to the FOH desk. 
The auto patch switching is a thing we do with MIDI when using a laptop (which is a lot of work compared to an iPod) so ignore that 

I would HIGHLY recommend NOT using an interface / laptop setup if possible. Unless you have a solidstate drive your harddisk can skip due to vibrations. We have to put our on a fair bit of foam when using it. 
Also, interfaces are so much trouble when they go wrong. Often resulting in a reboot which you really dont have time for when playing a show. 

Trust me: iPod / MP3 player is the way to do it. Plus your drummer/someone has control over when each song plays.


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## petereanima (Jan 3, 2013)

Malkav said:


> however most of our backing track is intentionally in stereo



You really might want to consider making mono backing tracks... I know how much fun stereo stuff is, but remember that the fun only lasts as long as the complete audience gets the stereo-part - which is not the case on a gig, only the people in the middle of the audience would hear both sides, the rest only hears "their" side.


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## leechmasterargentina (Jan 3, 2013)

If you plan to ad a metronome..he'll need very good headphones (The ones that don't get sound from outside and have good sound on the inside). Apart from that, you'll need to send him a monitor signal of the guitar and vocals over headphones. I know everyone wants to take full advantage of technology when playing live, but sometimes is more of a hassle than a benefit. If the headphones are not good, you'll have to turn the metronome real loud resulting in a deaf drummer in a year or two.

Don't get me wrong, I've seen some drummers use it, but sometimes it's nice to allow some freedom to the drummer, go up there and do your thing, even if it's not perfect, those imperfections are musically alluring sometimes


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## Razzy (Jan 3, 2013)

I play drums in my band, and we use a click/backing track setup.

The way I've got it going is, Click panned hard right, backing track panned hard left. The track is then loaded onto an iPod. I have one of those headphone splitter cables plugged in with my headphones in one jack, so I have the click in my right ear, backing in the left. In the other jack of the splitter, I have a stereo 1/8" to RCA cable, and then a 1/4" adapter on the left RCA plug, which we then send to the PA.


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## MetalBuddah (Jan 3, 2013)

My band uses Macbook pro + Focusrite Scarlett and it works damn well. My laptop is not solid state...however, I have bypassed this by running everything off of a portable solid state drive and have had no problems with skipping whatsoever. As far a setting it up in logic, just pan what you want to go to the drummer hard left and pan what you want to send to the house hard right. In logic, just make the drummer track go to output 1 and the backing go to output 2. There is really no use in trying to make it stereo since some venues may just be on a mono system


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## Jake (Jan 3, 2013)

black_anther said:


> We sometimes just use an iPod and have the click track panned to one side on the backing track then split the stereo cable from the iPod, click side goes to our drummer, the other side goes to the PA. Simple, only downside is we lose auto patch switching.


this is what we do as well.


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## monkeywrench (Jan 4, 2013)

TimSE said:


> Yep this is our way.
> 
> Full left mix with click goes to the drummer. Full right with no click goes to the FOH desk.
> The auto patch switching is a thing we do with MIDI when using a laptop (which is a lot of work compared to an iPod) so ignore that
> ...


^^^1+


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## Albionic (Jan 9, 2013)

petereanima said:


> You really might want to consider making mono backing tracks... I know how much fun stereo stuff is, but remember that the fun only lasts as long as the complete audience gets the stereo-part - which is not the case on a gig, only the people in the middle of the audience would hear both sides, the rest only hears "their" side.



yeah in my experience simple is best. So much stuff that is clever and cool gets lost in a live situation. ipod with click mixed one side and backing the other is the accepted tried and tested method.


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## petereanima (Jan 9, 2013)

leechmasterargentina said:


> If you plan to ad a metronome..he'll need very good headphones (The ones that don't get sound from outside and have good sound on the inside). Apart from that, you'll need to send him a monitor signal of the guitar and vocals over headphones. I know everyone wants to take full advantage of technology when playing live, but sometimes is more of a hassle than a benefit. If the headphones are not good, you'll have to turn the metronome real loud resulting in a deaf drummer in a year or two.



That was one of the problems we recently could solve. Our drummer HAS very good headphones that isolate pretty much everything, but it was still hard to hear the click. The final solution: an alternative clicksound. We reduced the backing track to guitar only, added the click source, and i loaded a different click sound (which I have from the Reaper homepage) thats something similar to a cowbell, that cuts better through the guitars. I turned it up in Reaper very loud, but set a Master-Limiter to -1 db. So the clicktrack is LOUD but balanced with the guitars, and the rest can be adjusted on the headphone amp he is using.


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## Nykur_Myrkvi (Jan 17, 2013)

I've been thinking about the exact same thing as you are talking about except for a different reason.

My band has had nothing but drummer trouble for the last year and a half so we want to try playing live with programmed drums but as there are parts where only the guitar, bass or piano is playing we need a click track in the ears of those three members.

I'd love to be able to use only an iPod as suggested as that would get rid of the need for a computer but would I need a headphone mixer or something to split it up to three headphones/earphones?

I realize that I could use a splitter cable but I imagine it would come out shitty.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Jan 17, 2013)

The iPod/iPad method is the simplest, and glitch resistent. You can create your setlist/playlist in iTunes, then sync it to your ios device.

A good practice is to place a number before the song title (rename) within the playlist, that way it will always play in the sequence that you want it to. Remember to turn shuffle "OFF".


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## Nykur_Myrkvi (Jan 23, 2013)

Nykur_Myrkvi said:


> I've been thinking about the exact same thing as you are talking about except for a different reason.
> 
> My band has had nothing but drummer trouble for the last year and a half so we want to try playing live with programmed drums but as there are parts where only the guitar, bass or piano is playing we need a click track in the ears of those three members.
> 
> ...


I'm still wondering about this, wanted to post here rather than start my own thread as this is basically the same topic.

So anyone? What's the cheapest/fastest/most effective way to get this up and running?


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## Albionic (Jan 25, 2013)

Nykur_Myrkvi said:


> I'm still wondering about this, wanted to post here rather than start my own thread as this is basically the same topic.
> 
> So anyone? What's the cheapest/fastest/most effective way to get this up and running?



wearing headphones on stage is a bit of a drag what about a foldback monitor with the click mixed to it. the audience mat hear it slightly though. Or perhaps a light that flashes in time with the click. 

Using A Strobe Light As A Click Track | Musformation


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## Rence12 (Apr 21, 2014)

Here's what I do, and I've been backtracking for at least 30 years back when cassettes were around, ( which is what we used) I've even used the first Macintosh on a 3.5 disc, later years we used the alesis ADAT recorders, but we were constantly having to clean the heads and sometimes the tapes would break or even get tangled
So Now forward to today ,we tried using my MacBook, too many moving parts , couldn't trust it at all, you just never knew when it might freeze etc....
So then I went and bought a couple of older fostex d-108 8 track digital Recorders, they were actually ok , I was able to put a click track on ch 1, bk vox on 2, keys on 3, horns on 4 etc...... The only problem was the hard drive in it was only 5 gig, which meant when I wanted to make changes to my show I had to re record the whole show over, ( later I was able to get some bigger drives too late) so now I'm using the zoom r16 which is working out great, I know I know some are gonna say " but what if you wanna make changes on the fly "? In my case we don't as the venues were doing require a timed show, but then again you can take chances with your laptop, and use programs like ableton ( nice) am I boring you yet? Sorry ,
So now I'm using the zoom r16 8 track but I'm only using 4 Left track for the click right for the tracks , all recorded on a sd card, ( 5 years now) As a back up I use my ipad using really cool apps like "studiotrack" and "auria" and both have been very solid one of them even has automation.and they both alow 8 + tracks,
Now here's the part that I love the infamous CLICK TRACK I figured this out long ago and rarely do I read that it's done this way, 
Everybody is using a cowbell, snare, or hat or loud click , no no no no no no , stop !
My drummer hears the song as done in our show with counts on changes , when the intro ,verse, chorus, outro everything . Sometime 2 or 3 of us use ear monitors as well, to hear the counts, and all my production is done in Logic Pro , mixing as best I can , which means levels EQ if needed etc.....
I am currently do casinos, corporate etc....
Any question feel free to ask 

Happy backtracking 
[email protected]


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## Hemorrhage (Apr 22, 2014)

I'd like to "second" everyone suggesting mono and a simple method. Using a laptop and a daw is super awesome (for you) and hi-tech and all but if you are not actually planning on switching the settings on the tracks in flight or having midi equipment synced with the track its like walking to the store with your hands just because you can. Makes you look cool but its not convenient. The iPod+cheap mixer is almost fool proof. 

One important thing to think of is how much does the audience benefit from it, what ever you do. We all love to do all the cool tricks we can with our equiptment but if the audience can' t tell the difference between with you going stereo or mono you are just doing it unecessarily difficult for yourself. After all, you are playing to the audience. 

Unfortunaltely I do not have any method to suggest for stereo should you think 1) the audience too benefits from it or 2) its worth all the possible, extra trouble only for you to know how the tracks are.


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