PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Rick Beato weighs in on the use of backing tracks for live performances

He annoys me more because he continues to try to tell us he is some prime time producer, and he has produced nobody of note. Ever. Every kid in the 'hood with a laptop says he's a producer because they know how to loop 8 bars of audio and shout angry, racist, sexist lyrics over it.

If you need to make more money, Rick, be a REAL producer and produce albums for major bands rather than the recent high school graduate wannabe types who think they have "it". He makes enough to have a million bucks worth of gear so excuse me if I don't shed a tear when Youtube busts him for not following the rules he agreed to follow when he monetized. People like him are why I have an ad blocker that prevents me from having to watch imbedded ads on Youtube. Don't like the guy or anybody like him at all. His good pal the guitar player who never actually plays with anybody and has no band of his own is equally annoying. That guy once posted a few videos of him touring with some singer as they opened for small wannabe acts and they played TWO original songs of the singer's. 9 covers. I would be embarrassed TO DEATH to go on "tour" and play covers. IF I am going out on the road as a supporting act, the crowd (who really doesn't care about me at all) will get 10-12 songs I wrote and like them or not like them.

Joanne, I don't really care if he makes enough to buy Twitter from Elon Musk. I never count another man's money. I make enough money to buy every toy I want to buy and not be in debt. I do not have a savings account. I don't want one. Why? To die alone and leave it for the state to take because there is nobody to leave it to? I do have a will but it is written in such a way where all my possessions are to be sold and the proceeds given to the animal shelters what I have gotten my dogs over the years. There is a codicil where my house is to be offered for sale to my best male friend at mortgage balance rather than market value. He also gets custody of whatever dog I have when I die and that prevents the dog from having to be moved from familiar surroundings.

I said all that to say this.

I am a veteran. One thing I will defend to the point of physical confrontation if need be is my claim to being a veteran. There is a huge thing where beta males who have nothing to offer to society seem to think it boosts there image to pretend they served. It is know here (and maybe everywhere) as Stolen Valor. Most veterans share the same pride in our service. Thus most veterans find it appalling when someone who did not serve claims to be a veteran. Most of those losers also embellish their fake claims with tales of having served in exclusive divisions like Green Beret, Army Ranger, or Navy Seal. I hate those people with every kind of passion you can envision.

Again, I told you that to tell you this.

I worked very hard for many years to learn music at the depths that I know it, including 3 years of college to earn a Bachelors Degree. I played forever at every dump and dive until I started to get better gigs, but never "the big time". Never the fictitious "Enormodome" I often speak of to make a point. And I never claimed to be a producer with a long list of bands who owe me their career because of my guidance and direction.

Beato wants to claim he IS that guy, and he doesn't have the track record to back up that claim. He has a studio he brings bands into who don't belong in a studio, likely for very little money, and those bands are then never heard of again. The same way I detest Stolen Valor, I detest false boasts of being a prime time player in music. He intimates that Parmalee owes the small amount of fame they experienced to him as their producer, but nowhere in Parmalee's online presence do they even mention him.

I did download The Beato Book, but to be honest, having studied music in college, I found it to be little more than yet another guy regurgitating what is in every college theory textbook contains.

I see him as little more than a lazy bum who wants to get rich while not working for it. Musicians are supposed to make music, not silly videos telling people why HE thinks a song is great. I don't need anybody telling me what is good and what isn't. That's my decision. So, I am far from a fan.

Really Joanne?

I've watched 3, maybe 4 of Rick Beato's videos in my life so I'm definitely not an apologist for him. I just liked the small handful of vids I watched.

I watched a video that I thought some of you may be interested in so I posted it here and it has generated some interesting discussion. Now it's turning into an opportunity to hate on Beato, and I don't actually give a rat's a*s about him one way or another, but why take it there? Why question his friggin' morals on a thread talking about backing tracks?

Jeez!

I have no problem with backing tracks, as long as they are good and work.

All members here are essentially using a backing track when they are playing or singing along while using BiaB.

And backing tracks are not actually a recent invention. They do not represent a new radical concept in creating music. They've been around since about the time audio recording was invented. They won't be going away anytime soon.

Hurrah, hurrah, the circus is in town. Have you seen the elephant? Have you seen the clown?
Well done those who's attitude & behaviour prompted Ms. Cooper to use good sense and walk away. Imagine someone daring to have opinions that were her own.
Fabulous work.

I dared to suggest a "YouToobah" manipulated titles to get people to watch and that he over states his personal opinion - a single line after my observations on tapes in 1976, & album live reproductions in this century as well as a near definitive work on "recordings" - the nouns not the verb/process.

No response to the facts but an avalanche of bloat over an opinion that could be supported with evidence.

Gentlemen, and I'm fairly comfortable making that gender generalization, those amongst you who enjoy "mansplaning" really need to grow up and those who have their C.V. and life story on the desktop for copy & past duties really miss the point. Your histories are, uniformly, interesting and accounts of a musical life lived but, crikey, here & now, in this thread?

Man this has gone off the rails!. Beato found a way to make some money. Good for him. Most of his videos that have copyrighted music, don't make him any money as it goes to the copyright holders. He makes his dough selling his book(s) and courses and people "donating". Many people make decent money monetizing their videos and/or selling their goods to their viewers and subscribers. There are certainly plenty of talented people out there trying.

The topic of course is backing tracks. The response ranges from cheating to ok, big deal.

I think most people know they are used in "live" acts now more than ever because of any number of reasons that have been specified here. I don't think it takes anything away from those acts and as long as they are actually playing and singing something on stage you can say it is live.

It all comes down to personal preference. You can pay to see them or listen to them or not. Freedom of choice reigns supreme when it comes to entertainment. No reason to get all over people about it that is for sure.

My personal take. Backing tracks are fine, auto-tune is a no-no.

But that's just me.

Notes ♫

A couple of years ago we went to see Fresh Aire. They were obviously using backing tracks in spite of have a fairly large ensemble of musicians, some of which were not playing, just faking.

We were not amused!

I know someone who was the youngest of a older band. After 2 members died the option was to use backing tracks. It worked just fine.

...Deb

Years ago, Mrs. Notes and I gigged on cruise ships. We had our own lounge and entertained the guests.

In the big auditorium, the main shows had a 12-14 piece orchestra. But they played to a 'click track'. The entire show, including the orchestra and all the singers, except the main singer, was pre-recorded. The orchestra had a click track in their ear for tempo and played along with the backing track. The secondary singers had mics but they weren't hot. The main singer of the show sang live over the track.

The method was foolproof. As long as the lead singer could sing, the show goes on with no problem, and the audience is not disappointed.

I suppose a lot of arena type pop concerts are done with a lot of pre-recorded music and vocals. Why? If something happened and the singer can't sing due to throat issues (it happens), or a guitar amp dies, there could be thousands of people wanting their money back.

Music is a passion, entertaining is fun, but entertainment itself is a business.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Notes, you nailed it. The entertainment business is just that. The show must go on when it comes down to it. Everybody needs a back-up plan. Auto tune is all well and good, but the problem is there are some people who really can't sing, get their vocals fixed on recordings and then lip sync their shows. That is just fraud as far as I am concerned. They get there because they have the look that someone is looking for and talent is not a consideration.

Now when auto tune is used as an effect. That is a different story. It can certainly give you some interesting sounds when used in that way.

Listen to The Carpenters. NO auto tune there and those layered harmonies were just perfect. Had to be able sing and do it until it was right when every minute was costing a fortune in the studio.

As a singer and sax player (saxes aren't in tune with themselves, but each note needs to be adjusted with the lip) I have spent a lifetime using my ears and muscles to sing/play on pitch.

Auto-tune renders this skill useless.

However, I have also spent a lifetime toying with pitch and singing/playing off pitch for expressive effect. Auto-tune kills this skill.

Like a guitarist who might bend s string up to pitch, vocalists and sax players do the same thing. Hit a note a bit flat, that creates tension, slowly bend it to pitch releases that tension. Tension and release creates some of life's best pleasures. Think of being very hungry (tension) then enjoying a delicious meal (release).

I think of Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long". He sings the line "You walked out" and by hitting the word "out" flat, lingering on it flat, and finally pulling it up to pitch, it expresses the pain he is feeling because his woman walked out on him. Auto-tune would have ruined that effect and it wouldn't sound so painful.

Sometimes if I'm playing high notes on the voice or sax, I may decide to play them a touch sharp, to add brightness. Not enough for tension, but just enough for emphasis. It's a little like stretch-tuning a piano.

When making backing tracks (back on-topic) sometimes I might make the top note of horn parts just a few cents sharp and put it a couple of tics ahead of the others, to emphasize the top.

There are other instances of intentionally playing off-pitch for expression. Auto-tune kills that.

That's why I don't like auto-tune.

But I must add, there is more than one right way to make music.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

I can't remember where I read it, of from whom, but I was struck by someone's statement "Auto-Tune makes humans who can't sing sound like robots that can't sing".

I have mixed feelings about all the kinds of "cheating".
I've long described myself as idealist first, pragmatist second.
There are times and places for these things.

Yes! This is all about what the two of us call soul - irrespective of genre. And I’m not suggesting a bad note is a good note - just agreeing with the context as you described above. And from our perspective it applies to any instrument or vocal that can bend a note. Caveat: Of course it’s ultimately all about what one feels comfortable with.

Cheers,
Bud

Apparently even Christine Aguilar uses tuning software (just saying)

They all do anymore. Even the best of them and she is one of those. Saves time and money when you have that one wrong (bad is a better word, there are no "wrong" notes, right?) note that needs fixing.

I'll bet Chris Stapleton doesn't! Of course, I could be wrong but I don't think so.

There are no wrong notes, just poor choices (I think Miles Davis is credited with that one).

Notes ♫

I can't attest to the attribution, correctness or otherwise of these, but there appears a consensus ...

- There’s no such thing as a wrong note. - Art Tatum
- There are no wrong notes in jazz: only notes in the wrong places. -Miles Davis
- It's not the note you play that's the wrong note - it's the note you play afterwards that makes it right or wrong. - Miles Davis
- To live a creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong. -Joseph Chilton Pearce
- There are no mistakes in jazz - you are always a semitone from salvation! - church joke
- There are no wrong notes; some are just more right than others. – Thelonius Monk
- “Do not fear mistakes. There are none. - Miles Davis
- "There are no wrong notes, only wrong resolutions" "I think of all harmony as an expansion and a return to the tonic."— Bill Evans
- There are no wrong notes on the piano, just better choices.—Thelonious Monk
- I played the wrong, wrong notes.—Thelonious Monk

... and of course that inimitable Eric Morcambe line
- "I'm playing all the right notes, but not necessarily in the right places"

And the well known strategy:
If you play it wrong, play the same thing again and it'll sound like you meant it.

Victor Wooten has this great Youtube video about playing the wrong notes.

Wrong Notes