Playing live with programmed drums backing track

[Partario]

Has anyone tried using programmed drums for rock/metal live?

We have 2 guitars, bass, vocals, and no drummer. At rehearsal we play along to programmed drum tracks that we wrote through a PA. It sounds great there, but I’m wondering if anyone here has tried this live and how it went.

I think it will sound fine out of a PA at a venue, but we would have to ask for a ton of the drums in our monitors to be able to play along. Depending on the venue it might be worth bringing a powered monitor to increase the drum volume for us on stage. Keep in mind we’d be playing at small clubs/bars.

Any advice?

 

[ZXIIIT]

I did this for a few years, one venue was so happy that I had everything pre-dialed in, so set up was a breeze.

Just let your sound guy know to dial the sound in like a regular band, you'll have plenty of drums in the monitors with a sound check and everything should be balanced if you guys are already practicing that way.

I found it easier to have the drums be mono, this way everything is just simple.

I did a full band, then 2 members then just myself this way.

I made some videos about this a while ago, can spam them if you want.

 

[Crungy]

As long as you put the laptop where the drums would be on stage, it's okay.

 

[Hollowway]

My bad did this yeeears ago, because there were a couple of songs where the drummer would come out front and sing. Generally it was OK, but there were often a handful of people in the audience who had a problem with not having a "live" drummer, and would yell stuff or throw shit at us. This was in a bar setting, and we played mostly alternative stuff, so I think it would depend on the audience.

For hearding it, we just ran it like an instrument so we could hear the mix in the monitors.

 

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

As long as you put the laptop where the drums would be on stage, it's okay.

Or a framed photo of Neil Peart on a pedestal.

 

[Partario]

I did this for a few years, one venue was so happy that I had everything pre-dialed in, so set up was a breeze.

Just let your sound guy know to dial the sound in like a regular band, you'll have plenty of drums in the monitors with a sound check and everything should be balanced if you guys are already practicing that way.

I found it easier to have the drums be mono, this way everything is just simple.

I did a full band, then 2 members then just myself this way.

I made some videos about this a while ago, can spam them if you want.

Well shit, that makes me feel better about pushing forward. No one gives a shit about us, we just want to play. I’m also planning on mono drums so it sounds solid wherever you are listening from.

As long as you put the laptop where the drums would be on stage, it's okay.

Lol that’s the plan. Put our own powered monitors where the drummer would sit to have drums coming from behind us and fill out the stage sound.

My bad did this yeeears ago, because there were a couple of songs where the drummer would come out front and sing. Generally it was OK, but there were often a handful of people in the audience who had a problem with not having a "live" drummer, and would yell stuff or throw shit at us. This was in a bar setting, and we played mostly alternative stuff, so I think it would depend on the audience.

For hearding it, we just ran it like an instrument so we could hear the mix in the monitors.

The legendary Hollowway responded to my post! I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of your comments and posts. Thank you for helping keep this place alive. It’s very different from the old days with Kevan Geier and all the Ibanez focused stuff, but I’d rather be here than faceb**k and tw**er. Long live sevenstring.org

 

[Hollowway]

The legendary Hollowway responded to my post! I’ve read hundreds and hundreds of your comments and posts. Thank you for helping keep this place alive. It’s very different from the old days with Kevan Geier and all the Ibanez focused stuff, but I’d rather be here than faceb**k and tw**er. Long live sevenstring.org

Haha, idk about legendary, but I do hang out here a lot. I’m somewhat active on FB, too. But, I think forums are vastly superior to Facebook to learn stuff, because forums are organized like libraries, or databases, in that there are sections, subsections, obvious linear threading, and it’s all easily searchable. Facebook, on the other hand, is organized like a sewer, because it’s full of shit.

 

[buriedoutback]

My old band did this with bass and samples. One of my current bands does this with drums and samples.
I just plug my phone into a di and send the signal to the mixer. All mixed mono.
No issues so far. we love it. The people in the audience don't seem to mind either.

 

[ZXIIIT]

My old band did this with bass and samples. One of my current bands does this with drums and samples.
I just plug my phone into a di and send the signal to the mixer. All mixed mono.
No issues so far. we love it. The people in the audience don't seem to mind either.

Agreed!

Before I dropped all the corpse paint and stuff, I got to open up for a big band within the genre and the club owner didn't bother to step out of his office for my set. After I played, I went back to his office to close out and he was like "you guys sounded great, I'd like to have you guys back."

Having a pre-mixed set with interludes/intros/outros really made everything flow well.

 

[buriedoutback]

Agreed!

Before I dropped all the corpse paint and stuff, I got to open up for a big band within the genre and the club owner didn't bother to step out of his office for my set. After I played, I went back to his office to close out and he was like "you guys sounded great, I'd like to have you guys back."

Having a pre-mixed set with interludes/intros/outros really made everything flow well.

awesome dude

 

[RevDrucifer]

I did it with one band when our drummer bailed and we had some gigs booked.

This and an ipod became our drummer-

We set it up behind us along with the amps and it worked out great. I think a couple times we sent a feed to the PA to help fill out the room, but for the most part, this was it. Hell, half the time it sounded better than what the soundguy would have done with a real kit.

I think we ran the ipod into a mixer so we’d have some EQ control to adjust for the room. I think the hardest part of it all was getting the drum sounds to work wherever we played. It was also nice not having my ears destroyed by cymbals/snare the whole set.