PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Hardware for playing backing tracks ?

Of course it's a blues, dummy... Where have you been?

<Med shuffle>

Chorus/Intro from the 5 "Them crazy old retirement facility blues yeah, yeah, yeah...."

Verse/ Now get up from those wheelchairs,,, swing them around...pull out those silly hearing aids and really dig the sound...Oh baby, yeah those cra_zy.. retirement facility blues...

"I'm telling ya right now son, it's them crazy old retirement facility blues, ooohhhh yeeaahhhh" da dum, da dum...big guitar lick on the 5...

Verse 2/...Ok you guys write it.

Back to the mundane. If your laptop is noisy you probably have an old one or you're not using a ground plug and you're picking up ground hum. Try it with the battery, it it's quiet then you need a two prong adapter. The newer ones have very good mini plug audio outs.


Bluesy Bob

Matt,

The name of the app I was referring to is BackTrax. I may have been a little misleading about it returning to the set list after going outside of the list and returning. I must have read too many app descriptions lately :-). Still, it looks quite viable for the live musician.

Good luck.

Thanks, I'll check it out!

I want to thank everyone for their hardware recommendations for playing backing tracks.

I just happened to come across this piece of DJ gear in a Mom & Pop Music store.

Cortex HDC-500

I just started playing with it and it seems like it's going to do the job for me.

It plays MP3 and wave files, has two USBs for flash drives, hard drives or even a computer keyboard.
RCA and XLR out.

Thanks again everyone.

Bill

I wanted to point out a link which can be useful :
SyncInside - Backing tracks advanced player
www.syncinside.net

[EDIT]

Camera Connection Kit and a Class compliant USB sound card are required to exploit the multitrack features.

[/EDIT]

Maybe I was one of the first to use the original Apple Ipod Shirt-Pocket
unit into my laptop and then inti a Akai Mixer.

Before that I often brought a Peavey Road Rack loaded:
Crown Base Station Amp (300 Watts)
Peavey 701-R vertical mixer
Side by Side Lexicon LX-1 and LX-5 Effect Boxes
Lexicon Vortex Non-Digital Effects Box
Side by Side Roland M3-R's with separate Editor
Yamaha Motif Rack Unit
Sound enhancer Box

Now I don't roll a rack around any more...heap everyghing on my motorized gurney!
Now I use two Keyboard Amps for my PA System. Move em with
my new Catapillar Front End Loader. Deisel Fumes pretty overpowering
but it does cover up the "Mary Jane" Breezes

I have a trained army of "Jazz Roaches" that drag in the guitars and keyboards.

Tip for long lived cats like me: Bring a couple of heaveyweight nymphos to help!

Well, it's an old thread, but here goes anyway.

I may be the only person who has ever used backing tracks with a marching band. Many years ago I took a teaching gig in a small county high school. The band was pretty tiny, but, of course we had to show up every Friday night for the football halftime.

The band was severely lacking in low end - no tubas, no trombones, etc. Basically, it was flutes and trumpets! I got the idea of using band in a box to create rhythm section backups. Wrote 2-way harmony parts for the flutes and trumpets (even had a couple of clarinets). It was one of those communities where they really like polkas - so I put together a book of polkas for the band, and also sequenced a few simple published band arrangements.

One of the dads had a welding shop and he built a cart that would hold a 500-watt guitar amp, a 12-volt marine battery, and a heavy duty inverter. An Ensonic VFX-SD sat on top of the cart and furnished the sound -- and it put out A LOT of sound!

I clearly remember the first football game of the season. We had a long bus trip to some little town far to the south. We were a little late getting to the stadium. As we were getting off of the bus the other band was already in the stadium playing away. It was a fairly large band, probably a little over 100 players, and my kids were feeling a bit outclassed.

This was the first game of the season, and neither band was going to march on the field. We had agreed beforehand that the bands would play a "concert" in the stands during the halftime.

The home band played first. They did a reasonable job. Then it was our turn. We played a couple of tunes and I could not help but notice that everyone was pleasantly surprised at the great sound the little band was getting.

After a couple of tunes, I told the drum major to wait a few minutes and then start up on of our "special" polka arrangements. I wanted to go to the other side of the stadium and see how it sounded from there. I was about halfway across the end zone when the band began playing. It sounded great - like a 140 piece band!

When I got to the section of bleachers where the home band was, the band members were literally sitting there with their mouths open. I remember the band director's words, "Wow! How do you get so much sound from that little band? How many trumpets do you have?".

"Well I only have five trumpets", I replied. Then I pointed to the press box behind the band, "But I told them that I want that press box on the ground behind the stadium when we leave here!".

I never explained any more about how we did it. But now you know that Band In A Box has a marching band history!

That's a funny story. I bet the other band leader is still scratching his head....


Charlie

Great story.
I love it when the underdog comes shining through!

- thanks for sharing!

what a clever solution, and great use for band in a Box!

As a retired band director I think that is halarious.
The closest I can come to that is that I once I had a Maestro woodwind sound system that was able to synthesize sounds. I would hook it up to a clarinet and have an instant bassoon in my elementary band.

I use an iPod touch that has all my songs listed in a playlist in alphabetical order. This Is way is done to match the way my sheet music so I can read my sheet music while I play. A lot of the songs I have memorized but there are some pan songs I still play to sheet music. I can't use a laptop becuase I have some songs that I made on an the either the 2014 version of BIAB or 2015, and some where given to me buy my steel pan teacher and there are on my iPod. Plus the nice thing about using my iPod is that it can jump right to the next song. However, the volume level of each song is inconsistent so one track may be quite while one may be loud, but not rock concert loud, as I play jazz, calypso, island, and pop, and soca tunes. If you don't know what soca is, it is the dance style of Trinidad and Tobago.

Bill thanks for starting this excellent topic. I have a question or two for Joe : Joe, are you still using this setup ? Would it be possible to pm you on this ? I'm also looking for something low cost that is simple and reliable. I play guitar and sing a little, and I might be playing soon with a drummer friend who also sings. It would be really cool if we could add a bass track and maybe another guitar or some synth parts, etc, for doing songs live. Could this be done without a soundman working a board out front ?

I'm also curious about how the sony mini disc player can be operated with a foot control. Would this be an ordinary Sony mini disc player ? I can't imagine how this could be operated with foot controls, but your setup sounds really compact and easy to use. I sure would like to duplicate what you're doing.

I see this is your first post so you're forgiven for not realizing this thread was started 8 years ago then resurrected in 2017. Note the post before yours is February 2017. I haven't seen most of these people on the forum in years.

Your question is very common and it's very easy to answer. Get a tablet either Android or iPad. Both can store and playback MP3's or pure wav's. The wav's take up a lot more space while the MP3's are compressed. Don't be worried about that MP3 still sound great. If you ever listen to Youtube music, Soundcloud, iTunes etc they're all compressed too usually more than an MP3 is. Your phone has the same capability as a tablet but you'll be happier with the bigger screen on the tablet. Sound goes through the headphone out with an adapter cable so it can plug into your PA. As for apps for IOS there is Forscore:

https://forscore.co/about-music/

For Android there's Mobilsheets:

https://www.zubersoft.com/mobilesheets/

These let you create setlists, you can go from one song to the next with a bluetooth footswitch if you don't want to mess around with your finger on a touchscreen and both can link up to backing tracks so when you change songs both the leadsheet and backing tracks are ready to go.

If you already have a laptop you can use that as well but a laptop does not have easy access to these live performance apps you can get with IOS or Android. I'm sure there are probably DJ programs (not apps) for that but I'm not familiar with them.

Bob