Personally, I'd much rather hear music played 100% live - with no backing tracks. But I'm looking at it from the viewpoint of a musician.

The vast majority of the audience members are only concerned about how good the music sounds to their ears.

You can play for yourself, you can play for other musicians, or you can play for the general public. If you are good enough, you will probably get the audience you asked for.

When I was on the cruise ships in the 1980s the small orchestra played to a click track for the main shows. They just fattened the track. The main production singer sang live but her duet partner was a dancer lip-syncing as were the other background singers. It worked for the audience.

My wife, Leilani is a trained dancer. We go to the ballet a lot (and I enjoy it). More often than not, they dance to a recorded track.

Many years ago Pat Metheny went on tour with a small group and a Synclavier playing backing tracks - and he is a respected jazz artist (from my musician's point of view, without total group improvisation, jazz is compromised).

We play with backing tracks that I create myself, often with BiaB as a starting point, sometimes 100% Biab and sometimes 100% from scratch in a DAW.

The audience responds well to this. As I pointed out earlier in this thread, I give them as much of an answer as they can understand (if they ask).

For those obscure wedding songs that I'm only going to play once, I'll consider buying a track to save time (that is if the song would take a long time to sequence). More often than not, I'm not truly satisfied with the track, but for a one-off song that nobody else is going to want to hear it's good enough. The audience really can't tell the difference.

A year or so we played at a new Yacht Club. The first thing one of the committee members asked me when we showed up was, "You aren't doing karaoke, are you?" They hired us again so what we were doing worked.

After a while I tracked down the group that played there before us and caught their act. They were using karaoke tracks with background singers in the mix.

The tracks sounded like the kind of tracks you would make for a recording, real instruments with too much compression, (that works for recordings but not live performance). Plus the solos nobody was playing and the background vocals.

Not that there is anything wrong with that, this group does get a lot of work, so most people don't mind.

As I said, I use backing tracks. Would I rather play with a 'real band'? Musically - definitely "Yes" but for these reasons "No":
  • Nobody around here pays enough to make a living with a bigger band - I'd need a day job to support myself
  • Work ethics 1: Leilani and I have extreme work ethics, we learn songs, rehearse a lot (and are never late or reluctant to do so), and on the gig rarely take breaks when the crowd is hopping - not too many other musicians that I know will do that
  • Work ethics 2: We never miss a gig for any reason (even if we are sick), and we are never late for the gig. When my father died, my mother checked my gigging schedule before deciding on the date for the funeral (thanks mom!)
  • Work ethics 3: Since we are an extremely happily married couple, nothing is compromised by a band-mate who is more concerned with chasing a member of the opposite sex than doing his/her job - I've seen a number of gigs ruined by someone's libido
  • Work ethics 4: We don't drink alcohol on the gig or anything else that will compromise either our voices or our ability to play our instruments, instead we bring thermos jugs of warm water or warm green tea


There is more than one right way to make music. For me the answer is, do what works best for you, make the compromises you need to make, and if you want to work, be sure you will be at least acceptable for your target audience.

Insights and incites by Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
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