Simple way to play live with pre-recorded tracks?

[Harpo]

I did a search and came up empty on what I am looking for.

A friend of mine and myself are wanting to do a 2-man show with pre-recorded drums, bass, and keyboard tracks.

Most seem to advise carrying a computer around with you to gigs. Isn't there a simpler/less expensive way to do it? We just need something to play the tracks into the PA that could be started/stopped with a footswitch. I'm positive I've seen it done without a computer.

I am recording the parts and plan to have them on one side of the stereo and have a click on the other side to run into the monitors if we need it. So far, I've been advised to invest a couple of grand into a laptop and interface. In my mind, it just needs to play the tracks. We aren't going to play any big arenas as far as I know.

Could use some suggestions if there are any to be had. Thanks guys.

[emluper]

I'll be excommunicated for saying this, but check ebay for a used ADAT (an XT20 if possible) or a Tascam DA38. They can be had cheap, they are fairly robust, and the recording media is a videotape. You can also try a used minidisk.

Erik

[Sheldon Radford]

How about using an iPod? Copy the tracks as WAV files (or encode them to save space), create a custom playlist for each gig, then dump them to the iPod and play away. Tons of DJs do exactly this.

ADAT/DA are both good suggestions and have certainly been used for this purpose in the past. By and large, though, they've been replaced by a software solution instead of a tape-based soltuion.

One drawback to using an ADAT is that it doesn't provide the instant access that a computer or sampler can provide, because you have to rewind/fast forward the tape to each cue (unless the tracks are recorded in sequence). Also, once the tracks are recorded it's not possible to edit them using the playback machine - which is an obvious advantage to a DAW-based solution.

If a mono music track plus click track is acceptable then there are a number of inexpensive 2-channel audio interfaces available, and most come bundled with simple editing/playback software. If you'll eventually want stereo backing tracks in addition to the click, or if spltting the tracks into individual "stems" for submixing by the sound engineer is of interest then consider a multi-channel interface.

An interface, together with a reasonably priced laptop (doesn't need to be a Mac...most inexpensive PC laptops can handle a few tracks of audio) make for a very powerful performance tool. And since the software usually also offers editing functions you can make changes on the fly.

Sheldon

[boogiewoogie]

I did a search and came up empty on what I am looking for.

A friend of mine and myself are wanting to do a 2-man show with pre-recorded drums, bass, and keyboard tracks.

Most seem to advise carrying a computer around with you to gigs. Isn't there a simpler/less expensive way to do it? We just need something to play the tracks into the PA that could be started/stopped with a footswitch. I'm positive I've seen it done without a computer.

I am recording the parts and plan to have them on one side of the stereo and have a click on the other side to run into the monitors if we need it. So far, I've been advised to invest a couple of grand into a laptop and interface. In my mind, it just needs to play the tracks. We aren't going to play any big arenas as far as I know.

Could use some suggestions if there are any to be had. Thanks guys.



I've made most of my money for the past 20 years playing to trax as a solo, duo, trio or with a band. I know a lot of guys who play with back trax live. I'll try to be brief with an answer for this thread...

1st no offence to PT/Digi but using PT's on a laptop at a gig live to play tracks is not an option... I do use protools to record tracks for live use.

DO NOT BOTHER PUTTING A CLICK on one side of your trax. Leave the trax in stereo and add in Hi hat hits on 2 and 4, like a drummer would play to keep time. The only need for click is when playing with a live drummer and trax.

What can you use for playback?

Minidisk: is a probably the most proven and trusted method. One gig I do (casino cruise ship) we back impersonators (live guitar and drums) and the trax are on mini disk, click on one side, bass and everything else on the other. The minidisk has a rep of being indestructable, I've seen them dropped, walked on and sustain blows that would render any CD or MP3 player useless.

The full size Minidisk players are good live cause they have big buttons... portables work but small controls are a pain in the butt.

You can rewrite and rename minidisks all you want.

MP3 players: I've seen a lot of guys move over to MP3 players when the main issue is weight.

I am not aware of any Minidisk or MP3 player that can be controlled via footpedal.

I do not know any musician playing with trax who uses a footpedal to control the trax, and I know about 20 to 30 solo/duo acts BUT...

I talked to one guy who said he son rigged up some foot controlled "something" his explanation was so "wordy" he may have been full of BS.

Some national acts have parts of traxs triggered by the drummer via pad. I'm told intro, verse, chorus parts of a song can be cued this way (re-aranging a song live is possible) and ontop of that a midi tempo matching device ensures playback speed.

A drum machine playing to loops can be contolled via foot switch but I would die having to play over a 8 beat loop again and again.

A midi foot controller tied into a sequencing program or audio program on a computer could control trax playback BUT you will still need the screen of the playback device to be close enough to see what song you are cueing.

I don't know about everyone else but I can't play the same songs in the same order everynight.

Personally I reserve my feet for controlling my guitar pedals. I use a headset mike so I can sing an look at my playback unit to cue next song.

I think you may have seen a foot pedal for some other use and not control of tracks... I don't think it's really practical unless you are running a preplanned set and have the ability to easliy edit the set.

AND what do I do...

I run Sonar (Cakewalk) on a laptop which is plugged into a hardware synth via midi. I am not aware of another program which has live playback cababilty of "SET" like Sonar. All songs are in a set list, space bar is the play button, arrow keys & pg up/dw is all you need to cue the next song while the current one is playing. Of all the Laptops on stage I know being used for trax, Sonar is the program of choice. You can easily program and save sets, and a footswitch could be used to start and stop playback.

I would not advice running audio with Sonar for live trax purposes BUT I've not tried it on a newer computer. The loading of audio take's time, even MP3's.

For just running midi on a laptop to a hardware synth you can use a $200, or even a 10 year old laptop. Midi by itself is not heavy task on a computer.

HOWEVER, if you want to use midi playing software synths then move up to a modern $500 laptop.

I also use a program called PCDJ (a dual MP3 player) when I'm DJ'n. Next song is easy to cue and it runs just like a regular DJ mixer. You can even get a USB DJ mixer controller to use with it with big real buttons. I'm sure someone brighter than me could figure out how to hook a midi foot controller up to it.

NOTE, the gig I do with the impersonators and Minidisk... when that occassionally goes on the road we do not take a minidisk player... I've got everything transfered to MP3 and play it through PCDJ live.

I just sold a compaq 2178 laptop that did all of the above great (with an external HD for 40 gigs of MP3's) for $350.00

I just got a Dell E1505 and it's way to much computer for above tasks, but I have other uses.

For years I used a Pentium 2 or 3 laptop it was 400Mhz CPU with a 4gig HD.

I just got a Gator "Studio 4 to go" rack which has a laptop compartment on the top, and previously I used a 6 space blank rack panel turned upside down (lips up) velcroed to the top of my rack to place laptop on.

More thoughts:

I leave my tracks as midi files so that I can edit them after I've played them for a while, I use the "INFO" window in Sonar to pull up cheat notes of lyrics and chords (you can even have the words run in Karoake Style) and I can use the loop feature to play exteneded versions of songs. I have several versions of my tracks depending on who's playing with me... if I add a drummer it was a lot easier to turn off the drum track and set a click to play with 300 songs rather then re-record 300 trax to a audio files.

With midi files, depending on your hardware you can use multiple outputs and "mix" the trax band.

If I had to change anything I would go to an MP3 player... BUT... I kinda tried and none of the 3 MP3 players I bought (and sold) were solid enough to handle live performance. I did not try an iPod, and that is the one most guys seem to use. I don't know about cueing the next song though.

I am considering switching to software synths and loose the 15 pound rack synth I carry around (a roland SC-880 which is same as SC-88pro)... if I do that mixing down the 300 tracks to audio would be alot easier and I may progress for solo work only to an MP3 player BUT I will loose a lot of live control at the gig and loose my abilty to DJ on break.

Hope this helps, think I covered most of the points, feel free to ask more if you want.

Marc