# Bands and backing tracks



## noob_pwn (Feb 25, 2013)

So I always knew about bands using live backing tracks to supplement their performances.
Personally, my band does it. We layer in a few delays from vocals on our recordings, a few production things like glitches and ambient layers, bass drops etc and occasionally a 3rd or 4th guitar part that can't physically be played not even with a looper because of tempo/time sig changes. Even though at first I felt uncomfortable doing this, It really did our songs justice live and because we already had our drummer playing to a click it worked fantastic.

Moving on from here, being on bigger tours and meeting lots of crew from bigger bands I've come to learn that quite a number of acts, lots of them known for being good live bands go one step further that this and actually double vocal parts and guitar & bass parts to make them sound bigger. Pretty much the same thing bands do in studios when they overdub parts but through their entire set. This also means if a guitar is out of tune or a vocalist is having a bad night the sound tech can make the track do all the work to cover up a shitty performance. 

Not going to name and shame because I'm unsure how I feel about this. I think, depending on the music it's ok to supplement your performance but not replace it. What does SS.org think?


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## nothingleft09 (Feb 25, 2013)

Supplementing sounds fine. It's adding things you can't do live that you did in the studio but you are still playing and singing your own parts. Full on Milli Vanilli style is not good at all. Especially if people are paying to see a live performance.


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## xCaptainx (Feb 25, 2013)

supplement sounds fine. 

Plenty of acts use it exactly how you described. Also plenty of members on here use laptops to control patch midi signals and lighting rigs. There's a kiwi band (New Way Home, amazing band and have an ss.org member) also run a cubase project and have additional backing track/vocal harmonies and VSTs running on vocals to ensure a great live sound. And in this day in age, with so much studio manipulation, a traditional 'live sound' for this genre, with only 5 members, would be near on impossible. 

I've heard similar stories to you about a larger rock/metal act, but the version I heard was that they had an extra 'guitarist' out back playing along, just in case the vocalists guitar work was sloppy that night, they would just fade the extra guy out back further up in the mix. Although that sounds stupid, a pre-recorded version sounds much more realistic, haha.


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## metalgod72 (Feb 25, 2013)

I have heard through multiple sources that Motley does this, and has for years. They also have people off-stage filling in the background vocals, so I have been told.


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## WhiteWalls (Feb 25, 2013)

The problem with backing tracks is that even though they're a perfectly reasonable solution to enhance a live show with little things like the ones you mentioned (which are perfectly fine, in my opinion) they're such an easy way out that if you don't draw the line very clearly, things can get out of hand.

My progressive rock/metal band uses backing tracks too, but on the backing tracks there's only what can't possibly be played by the 4 of us (2 guitars, bass, drums), and since our songs are full of stuff like violins, piano, synths and strings, until we find a keyboardist it's the only solution we have. All the vocal harmonies we do ourselves, though.

The number 1 rule I have for a live show is this: what is being played by the band, is what must be heard out of the speakers. So no, I don't find it acceptable to replace a band member with a backing track.

All the technical advancements that allow you to focus more on your instrument (like automated patch changes) I have absolutely no problem with.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Feb 25, 2013)

noob_pwn: I'm just curious as to how you run your stuff (backing tracks, laptops, anything, etc.) I am looking to get into this because my project/band is about to start playing shows and we use alot of backing ambience and noise. Also, we do not have a second guitarist, but due to our complex time signatures and tempo changes, we cannot use a looper either. So, any advice and tips on what to do for a noob?


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## ZXIIIT (Feb 26, 2013)

For the first few years of Squirrelly Arts, we had 2 guitarists, 2 singers and a keyboard player, backing track had drums, extra keys and bass parts.

It worked fine until we changed our line-up to be
2 singers, bassist, guitarist and drummer, with backing track containing extra keys and distorted drums.

Sounds way better.

We had to make best of our situation at the time, I'll never look down on a band for using backing tracks, reliable people are hard to come by and that gets the job done until a living body can play the parts.

Just don't be a one man band doing singing while everything else is on a track.....


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## BenSolace (Feb 26, 2013)

WhiteWalls said:


> The problem with backing tracks is that even though they're a perfectly reasonable solution to enhance a live show with little things like the ones you mentioned (which are perfectly fine, in my opinion) they're such an easy way out that if you don't draw the line very clearly, things can get out of hand.
> 
> My progressive rock/metal band uses backing tracks too, but on the backing tracks there's only what can't possibly be played by the 4 of us (2 guitars, bass, drums), and since our songs are full of stuff like violins, piano, synths and strings, until we find a keyboardist it's the only solution we have. All the vocal harmonies we do ourselves, though.
> 
> ...



As ZOMBI3 says;



ZOMB13 said:


> reliable people are hard to come by and that gets the job done until a living body can play the parts.



My band has a show coming up in March that one of our members (rhythm guitarist) is unsure if he can make due to work, even though the venue is under 1.5hrs away - we're on at 9:30pm and he finishes work at 5:00pm. Not an acceptable excuse IMO, so if he doesn't show he will be on the backing track and fired thereafter.

On a different note, I played my first show the other night with automated patch changes - heavenly experience, I was like


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## Alcoholocaust (Feb 26, 2013)

Effects like glitches/samples/808's etc that add to a big stage sound/experience are fine and the odd lead guitar bit that can't physically be played is fine too,
but rhythm guitars and vocal backing tracks (basically what you're there to PERFORM) are absolutely ridiculous.
This isn't fucking Pop, it's Metal.


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## BenSolace (Feb 26, 2013)

Alcoholocaust said:


> Effects like glitches/samples/808's etc that add to a big stage sound/experience are fine and the odd lead guitar bit that can't physically be played is fine too,
> but rhythm guitars and vocal backing tracks (basically what you're there to PERFORM) are absolutely ridiculous.
> This isn't fucking Pop, it's Metal.



What about ambient vocals, like the kind of stuff that Devin Townsend does that isn't really a main part, but still more than just a choir sound (actual words etc. in his voice)?

What about if you don't have any members with a good enough voice for backing vocals of any kind? I'm not just gunna hire one guy to stand there and do backing vocals every now and again


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## Loomer (Feb 26, 2013)

The next few shows for my Grind band will be all backing tracks, while we as a band just dance around and swing our dicks in people's faces.


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## Alcoholocaust (Feb 26, 2013)

terrible1 said:


> What about ambient vocals, like the kind of stuff that Devin Townsend does that isn't really a main part, but still more than just a choir sound (actual words etc. in his voice)?
> 
> What about if you don't have any members with a good enough voice for backing vocals of any kind? I'm not just gunna hire one guy to stand there and do backing vocals every now and again



I'm mainly talking about backing vocal tracks throughout a whole performance. Basically singing along to pre-recorded tracks, just like playing guitars to guitar backing tracks. 
And if you don't have any members that can sing, don't write backing vocals!


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## BenSolace (Feb 26, 2013)

Alcoholocaust said:


> I'm mainly talking about backing vocal tracks throughout a whole performance. Basically singing along to pre-recorded tracks, just like playing guitars to guitar backing tracks.
> And if you don't have any members that can sing, don't write backing vocals!



Oh no, I totally disagree with live miming, I thought you meant like ANY vocal supplement e.g. ambient melodies etc.

By backing vocals, I mean the odd supplemental harmony, a scream when the vocalist needs half a bar to take another breath etc. It's not ideal, but it *is* limiting to say to a band that they should not have vocal harmonies/occasional backing vocals when there is only 1 competent singer in the band, and the rest are good at their instrument.

What if you have a guest vocalist on the album that has a range/tone you cant replicate and can't play every show with you?

At the risk of opening a can of worms/making enemies on the board, let me summarise;

Backing tracks for supplemental purposes/practicality reasons = 
Backing tracks for miming/lip syncing =


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## Alcoholocaust (Feb 26, 2013)

Agreed!


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## RevDrucifer (Feb 26, 2013)

I know of a couple bands that do a good amount of miming onstage. One of them is one of my favorite bands of all time and it bums me out, but what am I going to do about it?
The songs are still killer, so fuck it.

No one else in my band sings, I'm the only singer, but that doesn't stop me from laying down a shitload of vocal tracks in the studio. I'm a HUGE Alice In Chains fan, I gotta have dem harmonies! While I'd love to have them in our live show, it's just not going to happen anytime soon for numerous reasons.

I'll be putting together a band in a year or so that will be based off the music I write that doesn't work/get used for my current band. I know I'll be using LOTS of backing tracks for that project. Really the same way Devin Townsend uses backing tracks for that deal.


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Mar 4, 2013)

For us, it's an alternative to midi-sequencing the synth parts. My experience from doing this in the past, especially with a multi-timbral synth, is that once MIDI finds out that there is a room full of people, it gets a mind of its own. We've considered getting a keyboard player, but then decided that keeping the chemistry tight & intimate will help us stay focused, and since most of our songs don't have keys/synth stuff all the way through them, we'd have a member who is minimally active, which wouldn't be fair to them anyway. We decided to keep the keys as backing tracks, run a click, and include the special effects/samples as part of the backing tracks. They'll be a few spots where one of us may play some live synth while the rest of the band does their thing, but those events are "Song Part" based, and kept to a minimum.


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## TedEH (Mar 4, 2013)

ZOMB13 said:


> Just don't be a one man band doing singing while everything else is on a track.....



I've always wanted to try putting on a show where I would be the only live member. Drums and bass would be recorded, then I would guitar and vox it up to the backing track.

I don't see any reason this couldn't be a good way for someone to perform what they write without having to hire a band to do it. Even better if all the recorded tracks are played by the same person. Even more better if you get it on film and project yourself playing the other instruments.


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## BenSolace (Mar 5, 2013)

TedEH said:


> I've always wanted to try putting on a show where I would be the only live member. Drums and bass would be recorded, then I would guitar and vox it up to the backing track.
> 
> I don't see any reason this couldn't be a good way for someone to perform what they write without having to hire a band to do it. Even better if all the recorded tracks are played by the same person. Even more better if you get it on film and project yourself playing the other instruments.



I think there are a couple of "one man band" death metal acts around that I've heard of...


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## TonyFlyingSquirrel (Mar 5, 2013)

TedEH said:


> I've always wanted to try putting on a show where I would be the only live member. Drums and bass would be recorded, then I would guitar and vox it up to the backing track.
> 
> I don't see any reason this couldn't be a good way for someone to perform what they write without having to hire a band to do it. Even better if all the recorded tracks are played by the same person. Even more better if you get it on film and project yourself playing the other instruments.



This is how many of the folks playing at Namm or Guitar Clinics do it, playing in music stores throughout the country. There's a small market for it, but a market nonetheless.


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## noob_pwn (Mar 6, 2013)

Wings of Obsidian said:


> noob_pwn: I'm just curious as to how you run your stuff (backing tracks, laptops, anything, etc.) I am looking to get into this because my project/band is about to start playing shows and we use alot of backing ambience and noise. Also, we do not have a second guitarist, but due to our complex time signatures and tempo changes, we cannot use a looper either. So, any advice and tips on what to do for a noob?



we keep it real simple, Macbook with an SSD running protools, using an old mbox 2 with 4 audio sends - click, guide, FOH L, FOH R. the guide is there for our drummer but we will do away with it soon because we will be moving to in ears and thus can just feed him a live guitar signal quite easily


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## xCaptainx (Mar 6, 2013)

PM'd you on facebook bro about In ears.


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## Krullnar (Mar 6, 2013)

Devin Townsend takes this to the edge of acceptable. Or maybe it's acceptable because it's Devin.


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## Andromalia (Mar 6, 2013)

Devin Townsend has already given proof he can play. (and sing, for that matter)
So he can afford backing tracks, especially since they fit his music, which has a very processed thing to it, lots of synth, delays etc.

I have nothing against backing tracks if they're instruments the band can't play live beacause they're not Vishnu. Townsend alreayd has 3 guitarists onstage, two singers, one bass players, a drummer, that's a big enough band as it is.


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## conjurer_of_riffs (Mar 6, 2013)

i think it would be fun to be the only live person. don't know how well it would be received but it definitely wouldn't be the norm.


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## Poltergeist (Mar 6, 2013)

So if I have a laptop, and Mbox 3 with Pro Tools.. and only a 3 member band consisting of a drummer bassist, and guitarist. How do I make sure everyone is ready to play along with those backing tracks? is it all in the click track? and how do route that so only the drummer can hear it live, but not through the monitors.. I'm sorry I'm noobish with my questions regarding backing tracks but I really would like to figure out how to do this without finding more band members and make it easy as possible? Can anyone do a break down of that?


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## TheKindred (Mar 7, 2013)

Poltergeist said:


> How do I make sure everyone is ready to play along with those backing tracks?



You sync everything to a click and have fun the drummer play along. I prefer to have a little bit of click in my mix as well.

As to the routing, there's a hundred viable ways to do it that are covered in a thousand other posts.

Google will own us all one day


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## Metalus (Mar 7, 2013)

My band does the same. Macbook with mbox sending click and guide scratch guitar tracks to drummers, and then stereo wav backing tracks to FOH that include keys, samples, and additional 3rd guitar parts

What were currently planning on doing is adding our MOTU midi switcher to do all our patch changes 

I believe Periphery uses a MOTU switcher as well


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## ZXIIIT (Mar 7, 2013)

TedEH said:


> I've always wanted to try putting on a show where I would be the only live member. Drums and bass would be recorded, then I would guitar and vox it up to the backing track.
> 
> I don't see any reason this couldn't be a good way for someone to perform what they write without having to hire a band to do it. Even better if all the recorded tracks are played by the same person. Even more better if you get it on film and project yourself playing the other instruments.



90% of industrial/aggrotech bands do this.


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## Wings of Obsidian (Mar 7, 2013)

ZOMB13 said:


> 90% of industrial/aggrotech bands do this.



I am glad I am in the 10% of industrial that doesn't do this. Lol.


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## Idontpersonally (Mar 7, 2013)

I am a one man band atm. I have complete creative control over the sound I want, and if i were to play with other people I can shoot them individual parts to learn if they like it rather than trying to start a band saying 'no it goes this way' every 5 mins. Normally I try to keep the backing track or second guitar fairly simple in case I want to go in between lead and rhythm live and i rarely add a 3rd guitar, but im about to say fuck it and just let what comes out come out. Having a dubbed vocal in the backing track is no big deal for me really the harmony sounds good in studio but i dont need to rely on it live, just something that thickens them up.


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## BTD_Austin (Mar 17, 2013)

It's perfectly fine the way you're doing it but I'm personally against using any kind of click track live with my band. To me it seems like you're not making music anymore but playing along to something. As a drummer, I like being able to play breakdowns 5-10 bpm slower live and having the option to spice things up. It's a great freedom being able to move in the direction the music is taking me without having to worry about staying on the exact same time as on the record.


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## iamjosan (Mar 19, 2013)

ZOMB13 said:


> For the first few years of Squirrelly Arts, we had 2 guitarists, 2 singers and a keyboard player, backing track had drums, extra keys and bass parts.
> 
> It worked fine until we changed our line-up to be
> 2 singers, bassist, guitarist and drummer, with backing track containing extra keys and distorted drums.
> ...



It's funny you mention this because I was thinking of performing live with recorded music and I would just be on the mic growling haha. Kinda like a rapper but for Metal. Of course, everything that would be recorded would be played by me.

Now I'm thinking of just playing guitar and doing vox with a drummer and using a bass and 2nd guitar backing track.


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## frogman81 (Mar 20, 2013)

I think the backing tracks are way out of hand. I won't go see Animals as Leaders again because of this. Granted they're great players but I thought it was ridiculous. The last good metal show I saw was Protest the Hero and I'm pretty sure they killed it with zero backing tracks (I could be wrong it was awhile ago) Maybe I'm a minority but I don't mind hearing a stripped-down version of the song live. If the ambience is that crucial I say get a keyboardist, and to me the supplemental guitar/bass/vocal tracks are totally lame. My 2 cents.


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## BenSolace (Mar 20, 2013)

iamjosan said:


> It's funny you mention this because I was thinking of performing live with recorded music and I would just be on the mic growling haha. Kinda like a rapper but for Metal. Of course, everything that would be recorded would be played by me.
> 
> Now I'm thinking of just playing guitar and doing vox with a drummer and using a bass and 2nd guitar backing track.



I don't think your first idea would go down well, but I've seen the second one done in areas where there are literally no musicians with the dedication/skill to play certain kinds of music.



frogman81 said:


> I think the backing tracks are way out of hand. I won't go see Animals as Leaders again because of this. Granted they're great players but I thought it was ridiculous. The last good metal show I saw was Protest the Hero and I'm pretty sure they killed it with zero backing tracks (I could be wrong it was awhile ago) Maybe I'm a minority but I don't mind hearing a stripped-down version of the song live. If the ambience is that crucial I say get a keyboardist, and to me the supplemental guitar/bass/vocal tracks are totally lame. My 2 cents.



Different styles of music require different approaches. It's OK to have an opinion for or against the use of backing tracks, but to downright refuse to see a band live because they feel that their music benefits from backing tracks is a little extreme IMO. What's wrong with just enjoying the music, however it is delivered?

To me, the style of music PtH put out is more raw, kind of rock & roll in it's approach. The same kind of thing could be said for a band like Children of Bodom - even the keyboards are simple. To enjoy that sound over more polished sounding acts like AaL, Periphery etc. is fine, but I honestly don't think either of those 2 would be doing their music justice live if they excluded all the glitchy/synth stuff. Hell, some parts of the song wouldn't even have sound to them!

On a similar note, anyone familiar with Black Stone Cherry will know of their song "Things my Father Said." When I saw them live, instead of the piano intro, they play a rendition of it on guitar, which to me sounds like balls. I'd much rather them have a backing track for that part.


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## frogman81 (Mar 26, 2013)

BenHughesDS said:


> I don't think your first idea would go down well, but I've seen the second one done in areas where there are literally no musicians with the dedication/skill to play certain kinds of music.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Fair reply, good point on the different styles. I stand by my point though. I feel that being at a show where you know the band is locked into a click track and has these grand prerecorded intros/interludes takes away from the reasons that I go see a live show. Maybe I just need to skip these heavily orchestrated band's tours, and appreciate their albums as studio art - which is cool too. Protest the Hero, 69 Eyes, Him, Stone Temple Pilots.... All still rocking out old school live from what I could tell!


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## TheWarAgainstTime (Mar 26, 2013)

BTD_Austin said:


> It's perfectly fine the way you're doing it but I'm personally against using any kind of click track live with my band. To me it seems like you're not making music anymore but playing along to something. As a drummer, I like being able to play breakdowns 5-10 bpm slower live and having the option to spice things up. It's a great freedom being able to move in the direction the music is taking me without having to worry about staying on the exact same time as on the record.



I used to play drums in a rock band a few years back and although I enjoyed playing without a click like you said, I preferred to have even my Korg metronome through headphones as a reference. 

My band that I'm currently in got our drummer into playing to a click a few months ago and since then, we've been playing a lot tighter as a group and had a lot better consistency from practice to practice and show to show. We figured that the worst that could happen from trying out a show or two with our drummer on a click is that he didn't like it and we could go back to not using one. On the other hand, our 35 minute set was cut to maybe 25 once because our drummer had a can of Monster before the show  (this was before he started playing to a click)

TL;DR: Not using a click is good for creativity/being spontaneous, but I really prefer having a reference and the consistency of playing to a click.


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