# Need help with live click/backing tracks



## UCBmetal (Nov 26, 2012)

So I finally want to do it right with live backing/click tracks. I'd love it if any of y'all can point me in the right direction towards what I'll need to do so. Rock on homeslices!

The Band
We're doing sort of genre bending stuff with a decent amount of tempo changes, backing track breaks, and drumless parts where myself or the other guitar player needs to keep time. 

What I have
SSD Macbook Pro (had a terrible few live experiences with the spinny hard drive a few years back. #neveragain)
Logic, Mainstage (I'm not really well versed in mainstage, but I hear some people use it for live click/backing)
Apogee Duet (My guess is that I could use it for sends to at least the drummer, although I'd rather not ghetto rig it and do the L/R click/backing split.)
Clicks/Backing Midi and Wav files for the music. (complete with tempo changes, count in's etc.)

What We Need
We need to run clicks to at least two band members (drummer and one guitar, so there needs to be at least one set of in ears since the drummer could be wired to the output), and we need to send the backing (sans clicks, obviously) to the house.

How should I, and do y'all, do this?

<3


----------



## ACE IT UP (Nov 27, 2012)

Our band does exactly this at the moment... I'll try and be as thorough as possible.

We connect a headphone splitter to the mac so that there are 2 outputs now instead of just 1 (both left and right). 

We take one chord (headphone jack to 1/4) and plug both the left (white) and right (red) 1/4 ends into a Behringer mixer (cheap kind, only $60 if I remember). This gives us control over how much click and backing we want to send to the drummer and house. The drummer gets his feed through a "phones" output on the mixer (make sure you use "mono" connectors so he hears out both speakers) and we pan the backing track all the way to the right to be sent to the house through one of the Behringer's main mixer outputs. There's independent volume controls for both drummer and house using this setup.

Now here's the tricky part, the other chord coming from the mac's headphone splitter is being sent to me (guitar player), into my Shure In-Ear mixer. I only take the left (white) 1/4 end since I do not need to hear the backing tracks. I have a DI rack that let's me send my guitar signal into the Shure mixer as well, allowing me to blend the click and my guitar to my liking (there's also my vocals involved here but no need to go into that.)

Pics would probably help you understand, so I'll try and get those up for you soon!


----------



## UCBmetal (Nov 27, 2012)

Awesome, thank you so much man! I'm still on the fence about going DI for my guitar rig at the moment, so hearing myself in the in-ear is probably not an option right now, but this is incredibly helpful. A couple questions for you if you don't mind?

1.) I'm assuming you don't use any type of panning effects (flanges, delays, and some others come to mind) on your backing tracks since you would only hear half of the sonic spectrum of these sounds. Am I wrong?

2.) Have you had any issues starting the whole signal with the headphone jack on the Macbook? I'd be worried about it's durability and whether it wouldn't get jiggled over the course of a set as well?

3.) Lastly, what are you using to play the clicks/backing. Is it just a premixed .wav file, or are you using an interface like logic, mainstage, live, etc. to do it?

Seriously though, thank you SO much, that was super helpful, and the mixer thing hadn't even crossed my mind.






ACE IT UP said:


> Our band does exactly this at the moment... I'll try and be as thorough as possible.
> 
> We connect a headphone splitter to the mac so that there are 2 outputs now instead of just 1 (both left and right).
> 
> ...


----------



## ACE IT UP (Nov 28, 2012)

1.) Everything is mixed to be presented as a mono source. I've heard the argument over and over again, but in my sincere opinion stereo backing tracks along with player related effects just aren't practical at the lower-mid level... so best to just not worry about it and mix in mono.

2.) Something always comes up... a headphone cord is not plugged all the way in, a connector is lose, or someone slipped on the volume knob. This is why soundcheck and setup is so important, all these problems and more are fixed before we hit the stage and I haven't had any problems during a performance (though we have a guy on standby incase something does). Check your stuff and be sure to have enough time to do so thoroughly, it will get easier after a few shows.

3.) We use PT10 to run the click, backing tracks and send MIDI patch changes to our guitar processors for effects switching. It runs stable and smooth, mostly in part due to the new retina MBP with SSD we recently acquired


----------

