Is Performing With A Backing Track Cheating?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SZXUPuiC9Eo

It's an interesting question. If the band makes a statement that they are delivering a 'live show', and they aren't providing a 'live show', then a little bit of deceit is involved. But on the other hand, if they are just providing a show without making any statement about the backing being live, then as Rick mentions: 'as long as they do it well'.

In my duo, The Sophisticats, we use backing tracks http://www.s-cats.com

I make the backing tracks myself, either from scratch using the Master Tracks Pro, or with a little help from Band-in-a-Box.

Is it cheating? Perhaps, but at least they are my tracks and not purchased karaoke tracks.

Are the necessary? Yes, because almost every other duo in the area uses tracks, and we need to sound as good or better than our competition.

Would I rather play with a 'all live' larger band? Yes.

Do I want to make less money as the pay per-musician gets smaller the bigger the band is around here? No.

Do I want to put up with the 'other musicians' who don't practice at home, don't want to rehearse, show up late, take long breaks, or are too busy chasing a skirt to take the gig seriously? No.

So it's backing tracks for me, which means for every new song I learn and sequence the drum part, bass part, and all the comp parts, saving the most fun parts for Mrs. Notes and me to play live on top of the tracks.

It's nothing new. When we gigged on cruise ships in the late 1980s, the orchestra on the main stage used backing tracks for the production show and played along with the tracks.

Right or wrong, it's just what is done now. Survival goes to those who can adapt, and we adapted to backing tracks early. That was in 1985, and until COVID, we were never out of work. Now post-COVID quarantine days, we are gigging 18 or so one-nighters (mostly in the daytime) per month.

When a musician is gigging, life is good.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Obvously the ability to use backing tracks depends a lot on the style of music you're playing and your venue. If you're playing bluegrass, (which is a VERY small group of fans), and you used backing tracks then your reputation would be shot in a matter of weeks.

If you told the listeners up front that you were using backing tracks then that would work in an extremely small setting. Let's say 6-8 listeners.

When people come out to hear bluegrass, folk or Americana they rightfully expect that all of the instruments and vocals they hear are live.

Music isn't about music anymore. It's about money. Most bands where I am are a trio with a singer, and nobody else sings but the front person. They have mics for appearances, but they don't sing. The music is very empty. They stay small because bringing in a keyboard player or second guitarist would cost each of the 4 of them $20 to pay the 5th person. Personally I would pay that 20 bucks to sound better. But music in general is dead here and competition for what gigs there are is intense. I know of several bands who play for $200 a night and are happy to make that 50 bucks. They stink, but they get work because they are cheap.

To topic, the bands who DO make money all use tracks. And I hate it. Keyboard players are sitting at home while they play their CDs and "play band". The only acts I will go see anymore are bands that are all original and don't use tracks. If I want to hear backing tracks I can stay home and listen to ALL the original tracks online.

I used tracks only for songwriter nights the few times I went to them, but largely because my songs don't stand up well to being played solo. But in a band situation, the bands I last played in were 10 pieces. Everybody lives in a different reality. I don't care about money so I don't care if I ever play again, and unless it's a song writer showcase night (for which I would use a "TV track"), I won't.

I remember being called a cheater/fake musician, when I revealed on the old Cakewalk site that I was using BB tracks in my songs.


That was then rebuffed by others who said unless you used TAPE, you weren't a real recording enthusiast, which then led to unless you used acoustic instruments exclusively you weren't true to the music, and then if you didn't make your own instrument and so on and so on...... and then someone brought up DJ's..... and it escalated from there rapidly.


I say, use the technology and go with it. There's skill required in everything.

+1, I agree.
But, I feel for the "small" artists that are near starving and where each dollar counts a lot to them. If they need tracks then they need them. We are afterall, in hard economic times.

The big name acts like AeroSmith however should be able to afford to bring out live players even if for only a song or two. Incidentally, I saw them in the early 70s in a High School auditorium when they were basically a no name garage band. They did have Dream On and very limited radio play, but no ProTool backing tracks obviously. Tickets were around $2.00

I have NO problem with using new technology!

I DO have a problem with fooling people into thinking they're watching a "live" show when they're actually watching something that falls far short of "live".

Bob, I think there is quite a large group of bluesgrass fans. Newgrass, where newer songs are played by blue grass musicians, is gaining fans around here. Check out Walk of the Earth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMu03WxjFu8

I agree that bluegrass, folk, and Americana should not use backing tracks but I would add all bands should not use them except for the single, duo, and trio musicians. As Eddie pointed out money is a big issue for bands. I would much rather hear a small group of musicians with backing tracks than Karaoke!

If they are near starving, it is time for them to accept that they aren't good enough to make it in the extremely competitive world of music where most people in that category usually can't play, sing or write and get a job. (My friends all tell me I'm a good singer! Well, hang onto those friends.)

I see music like I see sports. One one team wins the World Series, the Stanley Cup or the Lombardi Trophy. The rest of the pack is tied for loser. I know too many wannabe types who think they are somebodies because they are BMOC in the town of 14,000 where they were born, still live (and still go to their high school's football games though they have been out of school for 50 years), and only perform where they know the crowd will be all their 65 year old friends who wouldn't dare tell them they suck. But like the old saying goes, "Will it play in Peoria?" Take your show 500 miles from home where nobody knows you and see how you do. If you play to a "lowest common denominator" crowd you can feel like a star at the level of The Beatles. Take your music to ONE showcase and see how you do. I did one of those at a bar in Santa Monica at a place called "At My Place" decades ago and I though I wowed them. There were reps there from 9 labels. Only 2 even spoke to me. The better of those two comments were "Your sound is very midwest mainstream and we already have a Johnny Cougar." I just thanked him for his input while my mind said "You just heard 6 guys from Cleveland Ohio play 5 songs written by a guy from Cleveland Ohio. We sound like where we came from."

From that day forward I realized that riding the tour bus or flying my private plane to my show at The Enormodome was not in my future and that I just didn't have "it". I resigned myself to schlepping my own gear, setting up, tearing down, driving my old car home and doing it again tomorrow was going to be my life, which is was until 1994 when I got a big boy job. And to go back out now and play with 3 people with 6 people on backing tracks... nope. If I want horns, I know horn players. If I need more singing I would only recruit players who can sing (which nobody does anymore because of tracks). I have watched solo and duo acts with tracks where even the solos were on the tracks. I would actually be embarrassed to do that.

Recently I tried to recruit to bud a band to do music of The Cure. I let that ad run 2 weeks, I was sad at what was replying, and I just gave up. I don't want to be like those athletes that hang on when they don't have game anymore, and I haven't had musical game in quite a while.

Now, to argue with myself (and why I made this a separate reply), I can't help but think about double standards among the listeners.

One guy I know, and I'll call him Bob, asked me about some local band and what I thought about them. His opinion was that they sound good but they cheat by using backing tracks. He went on and on about organ tracks where there was no keyboardist and horn section parts when there is no horn section.

And here's where it gets stupid.

This guy is a huge Rush fan. In the SAME conversation, he spoke of seeing Rush and how cool it was that Geddy Lee was triggering MIDI sequences with foot switches. I said "Bob, how is that different from that other band using backing tracks? You can't love it when Rush does it and hate it when anybody else does it. You either wear a black hat or you wear a white hat. You don't get to change hats mid discussion."

If your crowd doesn't care that you are playing tracks (no matter where the tracks came from) you just keep playing with tracks.

So let me toss a curve ball in here. IF you are on the "no tracks" side, at what point do we draw that line? I once played a song that had a persistent 16th note part played on a low G. I used a synthesizer that allowed me to play one key and have the oscillator keep retriggering that note as 16th notes. In a sense, I was cheating, in that I should have been able to play those 16th notes, on time with no fatigue factor, for a 16 bar intro and every 16 bar chorus if I was REALLY playing. I see that "cheating" as nothing more than using keyboard tools that are available to me and in fact bought a specific piece of equipment that allowed me to play that part that way.

So it comes down to "tool" or "crutch". When tracks cover a player's weakness, they are a crutch.

Great clip Mario and a perfect example of live vs. back up tracks.

It also boils down to how many people play music for money and how many people play just for the joy of making music!

Nobody in the bluegrass, folk or Americana styles have any illusions about about making money from their music. They just play it because they love it.

Don't start the "I will never play for nothing" brigade up again Bob, the same ole stuff will come up!

That obviously should have read "I will never PLAY for nothing".

Obviously your memory is much better than mine!

I don't have a frickin' clue what you're talkin' about! LOL

The Broadway Musicians' Union fought the battle of musicians versus backing tracks for decades. You can say the battle began in 1942 when all US union musicians went on strike from +++ 1942 to 1944 +++.

A new contract was mediated in +++ 2011 +++ that set new limits to the minimum number of musicians that must be used during performances.

Most everything you do to make a living is about money.

At one time, I wanted to be a jazz musician. Had a gig in a band with a guy who taught Jazz at the University of Miami, and famous heavyweight jazz players who would come and sit in when they were around.

I worked one day a week and needed a day job to support myself.

So I switched to pop music, and never looked back.

Which is the worst sell-out? Playing jazz one day a week but working 40 hours per week at something that isn't music at all? Or playing pop music?

BTW, I enjoy playing pop music.

So if you want to do music and nothing but music for a living, it has to be about the money. Someone has to pay the rent.

I make my living doing music and nothing but music. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't have taken the two short-lived day jobs I've had in my life when I was trying to figure out if being normal was better than being a musician. (I don't need no stinkin' wage slave job.)

So to me, music is a business AND a pleasure.

As the business, pat of it is that I have to be as good or preferably better than our competition. For us it means backing tracks.

But most of the competition uses karaoke tracks. Those tracks are mixed for recording, not live performance, must be done close to record key, and are record length.

If I make my own tracks, I can mix it for live performance, using MIDI I can transpose it to the best key for singing, I can make them a little longer for the dancers, I can speed them up a couple of beats per minute to add pep, and I can leave room for the solo hog (that would be me), and so on.

In the early days I bought some MIDI tracks, and was dissatisfied with the product. It took a lot of work to get them as good as I wanted them to be, so I decided to make them myself.

I never looked back. It takes more time to do them myself, but they turn out better, and if I'm lucky, I'll play each song hundreds or thousands of times. If they are not as good as I can make them, it would bug me hundreds or thousands of times, so I put in the time.

Time moves on.

There was a time when Saxophones weren't considered 'real instruments'. Same for Electric Guitars. In the early days of Western Music, a tritone was considered the "Devil's Interval" and diminished, and dominant 7th chords were taboo.

Time marches on, changes happen, and one can embrace the changes or go with the flow, or resist the change. It's a choice.

I choose to go with the flow, but I suppose some day in the future, something might happen that I'll resist, and I'll go the way of the other dinosaurs.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Interesting Notes. At one time I wanted to be a jazz musician and had a jazz trio consisting of a B3, drums, and me on guitar. We didn't get much work either so I went into the wedding band business and had more gigs than we could play as a weekend warrior.

So yes I sold out but laughed all the way to the bank.

I say more power to you man. If backing tracks work for you, you got nothing to apologize for.

I wanted to play the music that I liked. Marshall Tucker, Charlie Daniels, Outlaws, and yep....essentially good fun music but not very popular in the clubs and venues unless you were actually in one of those bands. It was all about filling dance floors and keeping the bar tenders and waitresses slinging drinks and the cash register ringing.

Several really good bands that I was playing in didn't have a grasp on that bigger picture. Yeah, we were really good, really tight and had a nice light and sound system but no one could really dance.... so.... we didn't tend to get re-booked in the clubs. Military clubs were our existence and that didn't pay the light bill.

I was asked to set in and jam with a "country band" and while I didn't particularly enjoy country at the time.... we're talking Charlie Pride, Merle, George, Wynette..... I agreed because I didn't have anything to do that weekend and it sounded like it might be a fun distraction. Long story short.... that band had it together in the sense of knowing the bigger picture and while they were not as technically adept, musically speaking, they had a full schedule and the gigs paid well. They asked me if I was interested in the job of lead guitar and I said yes. The other guitarist and lead singer skipped town a few weeks later and we managed to pull off the show that night with 3 pieces. The money got instantly better and since we did a good job, we decided to remain as a 3 piece band for the rest of our existence.

Yes, it is about the money.

While I was there for the money, I also gained a richer appreciation and a love for the music we were playing and had a great time.

It's important to be commercial if you want to make a living at it.

Here are a few tips (not all of them - feel free to add your own):

• Know your market, and play the music people want to hear. Songs they know by heart
• Read the audience of the day. Look at their shoes, the way they dress, how they style their hair and everything else - these are all clues
• After you have read the crowd, play something safe, something that always works, and see how that goes over -- give them more and during the night you can try some things slightly out of their comfort zone to see if they work or not
• Then pace the crowd, mix slow, medium, fast, and specialty songs to give the audience what they want, when they want it, even if they don't know when they want it
• Start on time, do not take long breaks, even be flexible, if the audience is having a great time, skip your break
• Play at the appropriate volume for the gig and audience
• Dress appropriately
• Be friendly and kind to everyone
• Price your services not too low, or too high. At first, before you have a reputation, use the going rate, as your reputation grows, if you are indeed better than most of your competition, you can ask for more money.

As a band, you are a small business in the service industry. You want to have a better product than the rest, and you want your audience to have such a good time that they come to see you again. If playing for a restaurant or bar, you want to focus on making the cash register ring. In your mind, pretend that you are getting a percentage of the money it rings up. That helps you make your best decisions.

What makes you go back to a particular business that you are loyal to? Use that to treat your clients/audience the same way you would want to be treated.

Yes, it's about making music. And yes, it's about having fun while you are playing. But without treating it like a small business, you won't get to have that fun as much as you want.

I enjoy playing music. Pop music, jazz, classical, folk or whatever. When the song starts, I get into that place where there is no space, time, or me. It's the most fun I can have with my clothes on. And treating it as a business, gets me more gigs.

The average duo gigs 4 or 5 times a month in the two deadest months around here, August and September. We did 16-18 gigs in those slow months. And we're still doing 19 this month (just got another)

When I was young, someone told me this. You can play for yourself, you can play for other instruments, or you can play for the general public. If you are good enough, you will get the audience you asked for.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Technology has reached the point that the bands that have recorded some pretty intricate music with way more parts than people need tracks to sound like the band people are there to hear. It is only common sense to have the tracks there to support the songs. Is it cheating? I guess that is a point of view. Using 40 tracks and overdubs is cheating too then. It is very common in almost every concert involving a 'band' that there are tracks being used. Certainly some genre's do not lend themselves to this. Bluegrass is probably a good example as said before. But that music is much simpler from an instrumentation standpoint (not that it is simple music), it can all be replicated on stage just as it was recorded in the studio. Musicians that play the parts that are being done with tracks are certainly left out in the cold and the unions have done what the could for this. As someone mentioned Broadway. A keyboard guy and tracks could probably do any show, but the union won't let that happen thank goodness for those people whose jobs were saved by that.

etcjoe, thanks for mentioning recording.

There are plenty of songs that cannot be played by a live band, because the recording studio became a musical instrument.

I think this seriously started with the Beatles and George Martin. Devices like throwing snippets of tape in the air, splicing them together, some backwards, in the "Mr Kite" song.

Practices like this opened the door for all types of studio tricks that can't be produced live. Is that cheating?

It escalated from there. It used to be that recordings emulated live performance. As time went by, this concept was abandoned, and reproducing a live performance was no longer a concept. Many songs are assembled now instead of played. Is that cheating?

What is cheating? A digital tuner? Auto-tuned vocals? Harmonizer? Looper? Quantization? Compression? or any of the other wonderful tech toys we have at our disposal?

I guess that's all a matter of opinion.

Notes ♫

Thing is, of those "40 tracks," that's not 40 different parts. 10 - 12 of them are often drum mics. The bass often has a DI in addition to the miked amp.

Guitars might have 2 mics on the cabinet and possibly a room mic and a DI too. Often those parts are doubled.

There might be several different takes of a guitar solo so the producer can pick the best one. Possibly several takes of other parts as well.

It all adds up quickly.

In 1976 Queen toured A Night At The Opera.
They left out a bunch of songs because they couldn't play them live without them sounding thin or denuded but did do a little section that used tapes to represent the OTT choral sections of Bohemian Rhapsody. They made this clear in advance section and even stepped behind a back light screen to "project" the sense of the video.
Brian may used three delay pedals for the Brighton Rock multi guitar section.
Each was a step forward in the use of technology to augment playing live.

Recordings stopped being archives of live performances a very long time ago and only the lucky, connected, wealthy or patronized performer could stump up for a FULL "live" version of the recording - see Brian Wilson's Live Pet Sounds shows, (the ticket prices reflected the size of the band).
The topic is exhaustively addressed in The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa by Evan Eisenberg (published way, way back in 1987 but contemporary enough given the topic).

Beato is a knowledgable fellow but he's also inclined to post click bait topics or just rants when it suits his purposes.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably didn't watch the video. It definitely wasn't click bait or a rant.

I agree with Bob 100%! I've watched a LOT of Beato videos and never felt any were click bait or overly self-promoting! He always produces videos that deliver useful information in an entertaining way!

I've also watched a significant number of Rick Beato's videos. I never figured any of them to be either a rant nor click-bait. The material I have viewed is extremely well researched and always professionally delivered.

This guy uses lots of backing tracks, ...except they're all of him.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzIXi94TkUg


I sure do like that guitar he's playing.

Yes, Josh Turner is an excellent multi-instrument talent. I have seen a number of his videos and they are all excellent.

I agree with everything Rick Beato said. He gets it.

Lots of good comments in the thread, so I'll try to avoid saying what's already been said.

I think it's cringeworthy to hear somebody try to pawn off an entire pre-recorded song while miming the vocals and pretending to play the instruments. But I enjoy hearing a talented singer/ musician play and sing along with trax when its clear that he/she is actually adding the same thing to the show that he'd be adding if the rest of the music was being played live. It takes talent to play and sing well no matter WHERE the rest of the music is coming from.

Likewise I think it's hard to listen to a full band when any of the members are terrible. So it isn't the full band that makes it listenable or objectionable, it's the presence or absence of talent... and the more talent there is on stage, the more I'll enjoy it.

As far as the question of "cheating" is concerned: cheating implies that rules were broken. The venue makes the rules. If they don't want backing trax, the people who use them will never get on that stage. The next hurdle is the audience's standards. If the audience hates it, they won't be back, and that means the performer probably won't be back either. The fact that the use of backing trax has become so common tells you that audiences and venues generally accept their use. Beyond that, its just personal preference.

Good point. There are no "rules" in art. There are norms and some follow them and some break them.

So if there are no rules, how can there be cheating?

If enough people like the art, it's good, even if I personally disagree.

After all, the point of art it to reach other people.

Notes ♫

<< It takes talent to play and sing well no matter WHERE the rest of the music is coming from. >>

Exactly.

I'll post a link below to the hottest 'trio' playing along the Grand Strand of SC. This is the band the other bands come to watch.

The band 'displays' as a three piece group but it's anything but that. Most times their entourage totals about six people. Three stage performers, Sound Technician and two Road Gear Techs for load in and load out. The sound tech and guitarist share production and direction of the show and the sound tech is a performer the same as the stage crew. The guitarist creates loops and sets the tempo for every song. He custom builds his guitars and they include midi controllers and pickups that are professional grade. The on stage performers are excellent singers and musicians but the guitarist is world class having won GuitarWorld's 2009 international guitar contest. He has a nice pedal board but there's a second pedal board that's rack mounted behind him that's triggered by the sound tech. The sound tech also triggers samples, recorded tracks and Wave digital effects for the stage from a wireless tablet controlling a 32 track digital board. In performances, there's stacked backing vocals, doubled vocals and digital effects prevalent throughout.

A trio is what the audience sees, but not what they hear. They are a complete show performance. A stage show with lights, sound and action. They are very busy and following FB page, it's not unusual for them to perform 12-15 shows in a three or four day period. Most weekends they'll perform 3 gigs either Saturday or Sunday.

Use headphones to listen. It's not overdubbed. It's recorded from the mixer during the performance.

SouthSide Saints Band Promo

Sensational performance.

As Rick indicated in his summation on backing tracks: 'as long as they do it well'.

Wow, that's awesome Charlie! I see that as a good example of effective use of trax to give talented performers a much fuller sound. There's only so much that a spectator can process anyway... with 3 people to watch and that wall of sound, I doubt the average audience member will ever come away disappointed or under stimulated. Remember, we're talking about the same audiences that are OK with a DJ.

It works for the band.
It works for the venue.
It works for the audience.

Whats left to criticize, except based on personal preference?

Comparing this to an act in which somebody lip synchs and pretends to play along ... well, it's not a fair comparison. The lip synch scenario should be judged separately. THIS (the linked video) is the perfect marriage of technology and the arts in my opinion.

Those guys have really got it together. I'm sure they'd put on a fine show.

Pros
The Band is always ready to rehearse.
The Band always plays what they are supposed to.
Nobody drags or pushes the tempo.
I can add or subtract players quickly.
Small gig footprint opens up more venues for certain players
All the $$$ go to you.

Cons
Making quality backing tracks is HARD work.
You can't purchase many useful ones.
Rehearsing the band is hard work. Lots of heads and solos to learn
You need more tracks per unit time than a live jazz band at a gig.
You need quality gear to make it sound like a real unit.

Certainly others can add more in both columns.

All in all, they work for me. I get some gigs using them.
Making and rehearsing the tracks keeps my brain stimulated

I still have some time to play live with other musicians.

I'll add a couple:

Pros:
You don't have to put up with the musician who shows up late or takes long breaks

You don't have to put up with the one who is more interested in chasing the opposite sex than playing music

In most local areas, people in smaller groups take home more money per person than in larger groups.

Cons:

Since you make the tracks yourself, you deprive yourself from the surprise musical input of the other musicians who would be playing those parts

If the dance floor is full, and it would be a good idea to extend the song, you can't do that.

-----------------

I agree that making good tracks is hard, and it's time-consuming, sometimes difficult to get right, but I wouldn't call it work. Work is schlepping the gear.

I've purchased a few, but spent almost as much time "fixing" them as it would have taken to start from scratch. Plus when you make your own tracks, you know them inside-out, every chord, every substitution, every drum beat, every bass note, and that helps you when it's time to improvise your solo.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Notes Norton hit the big one right on the Head

The input of other musicians in a live setting definitely goes missing playing with tracks. I lamented it for awhile, now I pursue that feeling in other projects that are 100% live musicians.

As far as extending/contracting a song on stage, that's no longer a problem.
I perform with 320kbps mp3 tracks stored on ios devices. With the playback software I use I can easily extend/truncate/loop portions of a song.
At the gigs I use it to extend choruses of improvisation.
At practice, it allows me to loop sections that need more work. I can adjust tempo if need be to make sure a section is exactly how I want it.

This "con" can be solved pretty easily.

Good stuff as usual Notes. But let me lay out a scenario and see what you think.

Unless the situation is that the dance floor fills up DURING a song you would really like to extend, don't you see anything trending that specific songs find the dance floor quickly loading up when you start playing it? (Here's a text version of the flow chart from the nerd.)

IF that is true that (I'll say some song here) Twist And Shout always loads the dance floor...

(IF no stop reading. IF YES keep reading.)

then you could go into your song file, copy and paste an extra chorus, verse and chorus into it so you have 2 more solo spots to extend the song, and call it T&S-EXT? Then when you see the crowd has the potential for a lot of dancers coming out onto the floor you load T&S-EXT instead of T&S. Of course if you are playing for a crowd not motivated toward the dance floor but appreciating you almost exclusively from the seats, you load T&S.

I know what you mean that you can't decide mid bridge to extend the song playing live with tracks.

We used to have a thing where when we played our cheesy Elvis spoof of Viva Las Vegas I would watch the crowd, and if they were hanging around on the dance floor I would sing, in key, "But is he good for one mooooooore time" and we'd pick up on the vamp and do a go around. There were nights the crowd joined in on the silliness and we milked that song for 15 minutes. One night some girl from the crowd brought up the cape she was wearing that night and wrapped it around our singer like an Elvis move, and as he started off the stage I did my schtick and he threw the cape off to sing more "Vivaaaaaa Las Vegas". Good times in that band that we couldn't do with tracks.

As far as the cons, most nights I WAS the guy chasing the opposite sex so I can't speak to that.

As far as making the tracks being work, I'd call it work in that I spend time on it, but it IS part of the job as much as sitting in boring IT meetings talking about things we already know about used to be. I don't really prepare tracks for live performance like you do, but as much as I like to play producer I play with stuff a lot. There was a jazz guy from Sacramento named Cecil Ramirez who sadly passed away from pancreatic cancer about a year ago. He used to stream on Sunday nights during Covid and then make the streams available for streaming as reruns. His 2nd album, that never got released due to his passing had a song called Faces In The Mirror. I downloaded the stream, snipped that song out of the hour, and loaded it into a DAW. In playing with it I took the B section and swapped it with the A section. I then sent it to him with a note that "This just seems to flow better to my ears when these sections are swapped." His reply was "Oh man, you really have me thinking now. I like that better too. I don't have to pay you for that little bit of production, do I? LOL" He was a great guy. I miss him.

But to topic, there are bands who use tracks and bands who don't. It's a matter of personal taste. I personally would rather see 5 or 6 people on stage who can play, sing, AND work together to make the collective sound good, if only because it means more musicians have jobs. And my preference for original music (with the implied degrees of disdain for covers) has been on display often here.

Still comes down to "You do you" and make YOUR life happy, not mine.

My solution to extending a song if the dance floor is full is to immediately follow it with another song that they also like to dance to. It has to be the same tempo or a bit faster, and it has to be started immediately.

I use a computer to play the tracks (ThinkPads because they are reliable). I use Windows Media Player to play them, and Windows File Explorer to launch them. To be able to play the next one immediately (and I mean immediately) I do this:

1. Arrange File Explorer as a list in alphabetical order
2. Type a few letters on the keyboard to highlight the song I want to play
3. Hit enter and it plays in Media Player
4. During the song when I have a second, hit Alt+Tab on the computer to return the focus to File Explorer
5. Type a few letters to highlight the next song
6. As soon as the previous song is finished, hit enter and the next one plays immediately
7. Repeat steps 4 through 6 as necessary.

This is how DJs do it, and it works for me too.

As far as missing the input of other musicians, there is no way to fix that. I did the drum part, the bass part, the comp parts, and so on, so it's all my input. The up side of that is I keep learning and improving my skills on all the instruments I need to put in the song, and I improve my mixing skills too. Through the years I've gotten a lot better at this, and sometimes go back to re-do songs I recorded years ago.

On the up side of that, while the musicians (me) in my backing band never surprise me with a musical treat, they (me) never make mistakes either.

Do I want to go back to a bigger band? At this time in my career, definitely not. In our situation, the pros definitely outweigh the cons.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

FWIW, from my DJing days, I didn't worry too much about losing the dancers for a bit, so long as I was confident I could bring them back with another "sure fire" number.

Actually, at certain times like early on when the audience is still warming up, I used deliberately to give them a break with something a little too gentle, as by doing that I was better able to control the build up of excitement.

Of course that's easier for a DJ than for a musician, so the principle may not transfer so well.

One thing we obviously do very differently is that when I made a set list, that list was CAST IN BRONZE. I put a lot of thought into those lists to move the emotion of the crowd up and down, so I would not deviate from it. Part of that rigidity was based on equipment. If the next song is "Yo' Mama", which called for a specific keyboard setup that required a lot of changing, or the guitar player needing to go from Strat to Les Paul, or the front guy to pick up his sax, and I suddenly called an audible to "Yo' Daddy", then I have disturbed the flow of the set and caused dead air. I hate unplanned dead air. Our "break" came dead in the middle of the set, 7 songs down, 7 to go, so we could sip water or just breathe, and had bits of crowd patter prepared.. I often had a funny news clip I cut from the paper (yes, we still read paper newspapers then) or a stupid bumper sticker I could make a joke about... We also did a thing where I would announce "And tonight's lucky number is 4-2-7. 4-2-7. Who has that number?" The bit being that there was no number. And our regulars played along by starting to look around the room for who had the number. Or I'd say "One ONE chair in the room we have taped a business card. If you are sitting in that chair, you won a beer on the band!" Again the regulars played along, and everybody picked up their chairs. There was never a business card, and that was followed up with "Does it bother you people at all that I just manipulated you into looking at the underside of your chair?" One guy thought he was slick and brought up a card he had gotten from us in the past thinking he caught me in my own joke. I smiled and said "Ah. But it isn't SIGNED! Fraud! Fraud!" And bought him a beer anyway for creativity. Things like that. We had a following that was so big that on any given night we would see 50-75 familiar faces. One weekend a bunch of about 50 of them spent a small fortune and rented a bus (a city bus!) and had that bus bring them 90 miles from Cleveland to Erie for the 2 night weekend. Much beer flowed those nights since nobody had to drive home. Wild weekend defined. The bar set a record on Friday for money in the till, and broke that record Saturday.

We also probably played for different crowds than you likely see. With your recurring gigs you probably have a similar following where you know a large percentage of the people, and that's huge when you have that comfort zone of not walking in cold to 200 new faces. Those running gags like the lucky number don't usually play well in cold rooms.

Do you use your dual laptops in an alternating manner where the odd numbered songs in the set play on laptop left and the even numbered songs play from laptop right?

Yes, great advice. If the dance floor is warming up, the last thing you want is dead air. However, if the dance floor is exhausted, that's the next thing they want (with a friendly, encouraging sign-off, and hey, if the business card gag works, who am I to argue? ).

Regardless, Rick indicated correctly: No problem if backing tracks are used, - as long as they are good. That's the real deal here.

Its worth mentioning that dead air is a function of the software being used to present the backing tracks. There are many programs that let you queue songs up for the set, and they play one after the other with no interruption. Some of them even adjust the tempo of the next song and fade the previous song out as it fades the next song in, for a seamless segue. Just about any software used by DJs can do this. If your trax are mixed down to an audio file this is a great way to present them without dead air.

However, if you want to present your trax as sequences that contain embedded MIDI for the purpose of controlling your devices, you'll probably have to use a sequencing program to present the trax.

Having said that, RealBand lets you queue up a set list of SEQ files and play them automatically one after the other, or triggered by a foot switch. This lets you take advantage of MIDI control of devices as well as giving you the ability to create medleys etc

this is one of the best reasons for embedding MIDI directly into a sequence, then presenting your trax from a sequencing program. Depending on your gear, MIDI can totally initialize everything you need to use in a song.

for example, if the guitar player is using a HELIX pedal with a VARIAX guitar... the Variax guitar models are all programmable and the helix amp and effects models are also programmable. No more stopping to pick up a different guitar... its all a part of the sequence initialization.

This approach also allows all volume changes, effects changes etc to happen automatically so the occasional brain fart won't lead to a train wreck because you spaced out and forgot to step on a pedal.

Upshot to all of this is that every song initializes itself. You are then free to organize your songs on the fly, knowing that all the settings that in the past would have required you to stop and turn some knob or change a cable now happen automatically .. and you don't have to remember any of it! Your brain is free to focus on the music

For a solo performer playing electric instruments, it adds a lot of flexibility. But I can see where acoustic music doesn't derive anywhere near the same benefit.

That brings up another question, Pat. If you are only running audio, WHY run a sequencer when you can dump that to WAV and play WAV files without any kind of DAW type program adding a point of potential failure? If you incorporate MIDI controllers though, I get it. Can you share examples? I have never done that.

This comes from the perspective though of someone who loves to string songs together. We used to do Hold On I'm Comin', right into Knock On Wood, right into Midnight Hour. That was about 12 minutes of music without letting them sit down. And if I were to perform those songs again I would use Audition to chain them the same way. They are in A, D and E respectively, all related chords, and at the same tempo, in that perfect dance beat zone.

The 4 Tops medley... Can't Help Myself, Same Old Song, Baby I Need Your Lovin', Something About You. All chained together. 14-15 minute dance block. To do that with tracks I would just record each song and again use Audition to string them. We had one for the Temptations too. And Marvin Gaye.

Of course that has a down side in that I could never deviate from those blocks.

But on topic, yeah, playing tracks is cool if it does what you need.

One thing we did was used our drummer's Octapad to send MIDI messages to the light board so he could change light scenes from that pad. It was cool and all but really overkill. We did it for about 3 months and went back to having the front guy use a foot controller. That may be an example of what you send from a sequence? Like set aside a consistent track of every song for MIDI messages. My lack of MIDI knowledge shows in that I don't know what you can send via MIDI. Can you program a start message for a backing video through MIDI? That would be cool with those fun videos you make. The roller coaster video was hilarious.

EDIT: I made this post before I read your second post where you said what you use MIDI for.

Once you choose wav or mp3 files as your gigging track format the world of simplicity opens up to you.

No need to haul more than a tablet or a phone (or both for backup) to the gig for backing track source.
Fidelity is there in spades whether you go cable direct,digital out, even the much maligned (in this forum) bluetooth.

The various playback software(s) available provides all the setlist management you can ask for.
Many include features such as extending/truncating songs, looping, setting gaps between songs, eq, triggering events. etc. Even footpedals can be added so you can loop,skip or whatever till your hearts content.

IOS or Android, numerous low cost, highly effective track playback solutions are available to suit your needs.

This approach definitely improves the actual gigging part of the equation.
Check it out.

Mario,

I'd never heard of these guys until you posted the link on this thread. They have a lot of good stuff on YouTube. Thks for sharing.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNKwPx2glWs&list=RDaMu03WxjFu8&index=9

I never heard of them until a musician friend from Canada sent me a link. I have heard most of their stuff. Not only are they extremely talented multi-instrumentalist and singers they also are very creative.

The Canadian friend, Greg, used to perform with a passed forum member Ian Fraser. I did work with Ian and I worked on restoring some tracks that Ian and Greg did.

Ian was one of the nicest people ever. I remember being stunned when he passed, and if I recall correctly wasn't it from a slip and fall accident in his bathroom that ended up with a severe head injury? Do I remember that right? I think I have it right because that was a real reality slap because I live alone, and as smart as this dog is he can't use a cell phone to dial 911 if I have a similar incident.

Which brings up a topic. For those of us of a certain age, and in a solo living situation, there are apps that require you to check in at whatever time you specify. That app will email people you designate if you DON'T check in. The one I use is called Snug, and there are 3 people on record. One day I missed it because I was up and out at 8am and was in a building with horrible data service, and the program sent me a reminder at 9:05 (that I did not see because of the coverage), and when I still didn't check in those 3 people got emails. When I left the building at 9:20 I had 3 emails and 3 missed calls, one from each of them. The emails all gave me until 9:30am before they would call police to come and break my door down. Fortunately I responded to them immediately before they did that.

Yes Eddie you remembered correctly.

It would appear that the definition of click bait may have vastly different interpretations.
"Definition of clickbait
: something (such as a headline) designed to make readers want to click on a hyperlink..."

Often hyperbolic, contentious, inflammatory, salacious or obviously wrong while possibly misleading or a misrepresentation.

It is the business model of most "YouTubers" or "content" makers.

Beato doesn't rant? Have a look at his videos about YouTube Blockers or anything else that has a negative impact upon him.
When he's assessing the current streaming top ten he often goes into "mini" rants.
There's actually a play list of Rick's rants
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKJjLwMUPJI&list=PLW0NGgv1qnfyK8S0RWhsFT8-U0di93oRo

Oh my goodness, I'd forgotten that. That was one of the systems I designed and produced decades back. When we devised it, we patented it (in the UK), but as ever someone found a way around the patent. (too easy, actually ... doh!). Before long there were several similar systems.

False alarm were always an issue. Hard to avoid, obviously. Our original system did save a lot of peoples lives and presumably the neo-clones also have. On a plus from my perspective, escaping from the patent probably means more people helped.

And more false alarms, of course ... sorry.

Obviously titling a video on You Tube is part of the marketing of the video. You do want people to click and watch as long as possible. Works for Beato as he has about 3.5 million subscribers.

Yes, his rants are some of his best videos. Mainly it is about copyright squashing videos, especially when the band or music he is highlighting is probably not getting any play pretty much anywhere and he is usually doing a video to explain why people should be listening to it. I think it just blows his mind that a band or their representatives, if they still own the copyright that is, has a video taken down because he played more than 5 seconds of a song.

I do like the videos when he has tracks and can isolate parts etc. Very informative and educational.

Since our audience is from middle-aged to elderly, 5 seconds between songs may be too much. Once they head to their chairs, it's hard to change their minds.

When we started, I used to do set lists, but I found I wasn't clairvoyant enough to predict what the audience would need and when they will need it.

So I call songs on the fly.

First I size up the audience. How are they dressed, what kind of shoes do they have on, what is their age group, this gives me a cue for the song to play first. And I pick something safe.

Next I watch them as the song is playing, and choose the next one to play.

I try to pace them, build them up to a faster number, and feed them more of the same until their faces look tired. Then I'll play a 'specialty number' (example if I see ballroom dancers - you can tell by their shoes - I'll play a cha-cha or rhumba), a non-dance song, or a slow song. Then start the process again.

How they react to songs determines what we play next. I want to give the audience the best possible experience that I can provide for them. If they have a great time, they will be back. So I try to give them what they need, when they need it even if they don't know that's what they need and when they need it.

There is an exception, in our hotel-by-the-beach gig, it's informal, and I still watch the audience, but the dancing is sporadic. Mostly they are eating and drinking. So I can play just about anything in our song list. I see what they are enjoying, and my experience with the regular crowd adds to it.

So there can be some dead air, as people come up to talk to us, and sometimes we talk over the mic to some of the customers, sometimes tell little stories, or a joke, and just play with the audience members. The regulars who have been following us for decades are more like extended family than fans.

They share their accomplishments and tragedies, we get a lot of hugs and handshakes on that gig, and it's a lot of fun.

We are on our 15th year of our mid-week afternoon party and it's become one of my most favorite gigs. Many of the people have been coming for all 15 years, so I guess it's working.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Nope, identical data is on both laptops, but one I use for playing the mp3 tracks, and the other for words or a head chart. With over 600 songs, every one isn't memorized.

I have two laptops for the department of redundancy department. I can do the gig with one, so if either one craps out, I can continue doing both tasks on the one survivor.

I've been using ThinkPad computers since 2002 and so far I've only had two instances where I had to finish the show on one computer.

BTW, you sound like you were fun on the gig. I might steal your biz card shtick one day.

Notes ♫

Once I hit ENTER in File Explorer, the song starts playing in Media Player.

While the song is playing, I hit Alt_Tab to get the focus back to Explorer. Often I can do this during the intro.

Then even late in the currently playing song I can cue up the next one with a couple of taps on the keyboard (the first few letters of the song name).

When the song ends, hit ENTER and the next one plays immediately, no dead ear.

I suppose this works best for a single or duo act. Mrs. Notes and I communicate well on stage during the song. I think a trio or more might complicate this.

Notes ♫

After all the post on how I do it, I need to add, there is more than one right way to make music, and run a gig. We found what works for us, and since we started our duo, except for the COVID interruption, we have never lacked for gigs.

OT: Some guy from local news came doing a piece on tourism, and we got in the newscast.

https://www.wptv.com/news/treasure-coast/dont-come-here-catchy-treasure-coast-tourism-campaign-tells-visitors

This was the start of our mid-week party. They eat first, then more come, the place fills up, and when we are done, most of them go home.

We did this at a competitor, but during COVID it got sold. The new owners didn't know what we can do, and only wanted a single guitar/singer for background music.

So we brought the party here. The first week they had one waitress on, and the bartender and kitchen help were delivering food and bussing tables. The next week they put 4 waitresses on. That's job security.

Our home away from home is here:


And looks like this:


To our east is a sand dune and the Atlantic Ocean. We play under the big, blue canvas and basically goof off and have fun playing music and playing with the audience for a few hours.

The backing track band is reliable (there, I'm still on topic), the Trade Winds keep us comfortable, the kitchen and full bar keeps the money flowing so they can pay us, and we work for a couple of hours moving, setting up, and tearing down our gear, and have a lot of fun in the middle.

Live is the perfect way to spend the time of day.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

It's a great way to handle things, but it must be darned tough when you're both playing, maybe singing, and producing the show at one and the same time.
Respect and some!

Even as a DJ when I didn't have to do the playing and singing, it was sometimes hard enough. More songs to chose from isn't necessarily so helpful

Mind, I also used to do a lot of six to eight hour solo gigs, so I was still pretty exhausted by the time I went to bed.

Have your lawyer contact my lawyer and we can negotiate a fee for using the business card gag. I'll charge you the same amount as I paid to the guy I took it from.

I also had one where I said "And the punch line of the night is ___________" and deliver a punch line and say "Come up and tell me the joke." My two favorites were "Catch the colonel" and "If I could walk that way I wouldn't need the talcum powder." In 3 years, nobody ever got the first one. ONE girl got the second.

One night there was a girl who was, I'll just say she rarely missed dinner. She came to a lot of our shows and would always danced directly in front of me and the front man. ("Danced" is a very loose interpretation of the word. It looked more like lava flowing from Mt. Vesuvius.) One night she wore a pair of Guess jeans. Between songs I looked at our singer, Ron, and said "What do those jeans right there say?" He said "Guess." I said "I don't know. 220? 225?"

So my girlfriend of the time, who was an artist as well as handy with a sewing machine, went out and bought a cheap pair of HUGE jeans, and on the left back pocket stitched in "BB", and on the right back pocket a stitched in version of the head of a buffalo. She literally tried to market them with a target market of the larger women, calling them "Buffalo Butt" jeans. And we sent them to that girl (anonymously, of course). AND SHE WORE THEM TO A GIG ONCE!!! I really don't believe in god but that night I thanked god she had a sense of humor. BTW, nobody ever mentioned those jeans. She obviously knew we did it. She never said. We never said.

And the heckler in Erie PA. He was sitting at the first table in front of me wearing the ugliest Hawaiian shirt ever and at some point yelled out "Hey man. What do you do for your real job? I KNOW you're not a keyboard player." He just smiled at him and said "You're right. My main job is lining up guys to bang your wife." He got up and took a step toward the stage and our security guy stepped in and said "Dude, first of all, YOU started it. And second, you want no part of that 40 year old Vietnam veteran." He sat down, we bought him a beer, and the next night he got there 60 minutes before start time to get that same seat down front.

So yeah, I was fun, and funny. Oddly I am an extreme introvert. That kind of "clown mask" was how I dealt with the anxiety of being around so many people. During breaks I found a quiet corner to sit by myself or if there was a dressing room I sat there.

But back to my fee...

EDIT: One last fast story and I will get out of this thread because I have nothing more to say on topic. Another night, that same girl was down front dancing, as usual. As we hit a pause I was getting ready to deliver some comedy while the front guy changed reeds (on his beautiful Selmer VII) I took a breath and got ready to talk and just then I heard someone's pager go off. It was right there down front (or I wouldn't have heard it) and I said "Hey be careful down front there. She's backing up."

When playing the sax, flute, or wind synth, there are notes I can play with only the left hand. If I'm playing the guitar, I can usually find a place. It only takes a second of two to type a couple of letters.

I have another trick, we have a few songs that start with Old, and most often than not, I need Old Time Rock And Roll in a hurry when playing for seniors. So I put an extra space between old and time so it comes up before the others. I can reach over, type "OL" and it's ready to play. I do this for a few others as well.

Reading the audience does get me out of the zone for a minute, but I can get right back in. I've been doing it for a long time.

Most of our gigs are 3 hours, the minority are 4 and the longest gigs we've done are 6 hours.

Playing music is a fun way to make a living, and working the audience is a good way to keep making a living doing what we love to do.

Just livin' the dream.

Notes ♫

The fee? I'll have my people get with your people and we'll negotiate.

Good stuff Eddie. I might steal some more.

Perhaps we can trade

BTW, I was shy when I started gigging. I never had fear of the microphone, but I was shy in person.

I got over it, though. I'm not an extravert, although like you on the microphone, I'm a lot more animated than I am in person.

We have a few birthday gags.

When someone requests a Happy Birthday, we'll sing the song and when the applause dies down, I'll call their name, on the mic which gets most of the room's attention and follow with something like this.

Ever since the late 1920s, when Leilani and I started The Sophisticats, (creates a giggle) there has been a long-standing birthday tradition. And (---- name--) we'd like to include you in that time honored, never broken, birthday tradition. That tradition that states that he, or she who celebrates a birthday wherever The Sophisticats are playing has the distinct right (pause), honor (pause) and privilege, (quicken pace) of buying the house a round of drinks. Let's here it for (---name---).

We have a few more, because you can't repeat the same one over and over.

Oh, back on topic, we don't use a backing track for "Happy Birthday".

Notes ♫

I don't have people. I need PEOPLE?

Quick. Somebody get me some people.

Have them bring their backing tracks and we'll talk.

I'm not surprised as I believe for the gigs you do are "we are the entertainment". Hopefully you get at least a couple of short breaks in the 3 or 4 hours. As a DJ I could plan my own toilet breaks with a 12" single or something (which was just as well).

Some of the long gigs I did had a break for a meal, so I could just stick on some good music and relax for the duration. Often I'd get fed, too, which was nice. Especially so when they had a proper sit-down and went to the trouble to organise a vegetarian meal for me. Now that's really nice! Long gig I took sandwiches to be sure.

I loved doing it and sometimes miss it, but I found my tastes in music were advancing far faster than my audiences' were. I found myself starting to 'accidentally' leave behind songs I couldn't any longer bear to play, and longing to play the really good, newer, more exciting fusion stuff that was still rising. I faced a three-way choice. Focus on the weddings and the like, where music tend to be MoR; go for broke in the high-end clubs; or quit whilst I was still having fun. I chose the latter. With hindsight I think I'm glad I did, because music started to regress (IMHO) into the drum-n-base and similar genres. -- That's not for me.

Enough ... I'm off-topic.

We often do 3 hours straight with no breaks.

We learned to do that on the cruise ships. There were 6 lounges, and if we took a break, we'd lose the crowd, as they would go to see what else was happening. It's more fun playing for people.

Once on land, I found I could attract a better crowd, and hold them longer by skipping breaks. Then I found I could charge more money than my competitors because when we play, the venue makes more money and the audience has a better time. So we still play 3 hours average, but get paid for 4.

I know a lot of musicians get tired of playing certain songs, but I find the biggest problem is calling a tired out work horse. Once the music starts, I forget I've played it too many times, and enjoy myself anyway.

I could sing and play Mustang Sally and the others forever, as long as the audience is digging it when I'm singing/playing it. I feed of their energy.

It's a fun way to make a living. And at this time, I have no intention of retiring.

Notes ♫

Those are the most important bits.

A curious thing ... since I started playing piano, I sometimes play songs that I used, in the past, to hate, but I now enjoy playing them. Sometimes that's because I now better appreciate how good the original song was, sometimes because I can shut out the version I hated and play a version that suits me ... I'm thinking particularly here of Misty. Johnny Mathis never worked for me and I particularly hated his version. The film didn't help. But the music itself is brilliant. Hah! ... nobody who has ever tried to rescue a kitten up a tree would consider it helpless ... 20 needle-sharp claws disabuse one of that idea very quickly indeed :-)

The odd one or two are okay but ranting is only spasmodically entertaining.
Beato gets on the his high horse a lot more often as he ages. I'd be afraid to walk on his lawn.

His "Makes This Song "videos are often both entertaining & educational. The cross pollinating YouTuber Mutual Admiration Society staff is a drag though. I have, in the end, trouble feeling empathy for him over his business model problems.

Careers built on Utub - from Beato to Mr Beast?

I'm going to go out on a limb and say you probably didn't really read my post. I wasn't commenting on the linked video but on Beato in general.
With regard to the particular video, (and yes, I did watch it a few days ago),
"Is Performing With A Backing Track Cheating?" Clearly this is a title designed to peak the interest of people with polarized opinions, to generate comments and to get CLICKS.
Beato doesn't rant in this one...I didn't suggest he did. At one point he says "Does it bother me? No." OF COURSE he said this...he's, in fact, justifying what he used to do and made money from, so he's not really an unbiased observer with a considered objective opinion.

So what?

If someone posts a link on how to sew a wedding dress, I wouldn't watch it, many others probably would.
If someone posts a link about music backing tracks, I would watch it, many others probably wouldn't.

I watch the material I am interested in. That doesn't indicate in any way that I've been baited by the topic. It only indicates that there is a topic that I am interested in. If some of the material in the presentation is passionate about specific events, it's the author's absolute right to include. I wouldn't want it any other way.

No one is compelled to view. And there is always the stop button. Easy.

Erroll Garner, who wrote the music, was a gifted jazz pianist and composer. There is a lot of harmonic interest in the chord changes, and as a young man, when I first learned it, it was a challenge for me to improvise over those changes. We still play it occasionally, but like most of the "American Songbook" tunes, they don't go over as well as they used to.

There are some really nicely crafted pop tunes that get overplayed. They were probably popular partially because the song was crafted well, plus people liked the band, words, and/or singer's expression. Hotel California comes to mind.

I like playing over a well crafted and challenging song. It keeps my brain sharp.

Others like Mustang Sally or Seventh Son are just good ol' blues tunes. The simple songs are the musical equivalent to junk food, fun to play but not very nourishing. And bonus -- they won't make me overweight and unhealthy

Since I make my own backing tracks, either from scratch or with the help of Band-in-a-Box, I can make the song longer, leave room for the solo hog (me), take it a few beats faster, put it in the optimum key for our vocals, rearrange it to get to the hook sooner or remove a drawn out intro, exaggerate the groove if needed, and mix it for live performance, emphasizing the drum and bass if necessary to encourage the dancers at the lower volumes we perform at.

It's a lot of work to create a backing track (I also play drums, bass, guitar, and keyboard synth), and I put extra time into it to make it as good as I can. I'm sure the audience doesn't consciously know the little things I do to make it better, and might not even care, but if lucky, I'll get to play along with that track hundreds of times, and if there is something I slid past to save time, I'd hear it every time I play the song, and that would bother me.

I've become a decent singer (hardest instrument I've ever learned), and I enjoy that almost as much as sax and wind synthesizer. I sing and/or play sax, wind synth, guitar, and flute on stage. If the vocals are challenging for me, I have a little drum controller on stage and I'll play hand drums on it.

My partner, Mrs. Notes is a fantastic singer and she plays guitar and synth on stage.

All in all, I'm living the dream, doing what I love to do, with a wife that I love, to an audience that I love, and at the end of the gig, they give me enough money so that I can pay the rent so to speak. I'm not living a life of luxury, but I am living a life of bliss, and to me, that's the dream.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Notes, when it comes to backing tracks and the results (success or otherwise), I would consider you to be probably one of the most knowledgeable users in these forums. You bring significant long-term skills to the table, explain what works, what doesn't work, why a live band might be better, and why backing tracks might be better. Thanks for sharing that knowledge.

I am still stuck on a song list of 600! The biggest I ever had was probably 80-90. I think of it that if you have 600 songs, 550 of them don't get played at a show. And if you aren't playing them, jettison them. I always had a top end limit and when we learned a new song, another had to go. We'd sit down as a group and say "What on this list don't we really play?" and decide what to drop.

I was in a band in the early 80s that tried to be versatile (more on that in a minute) so they insisted on learning a little of everything. I led a discussion that was loosely this.

We do shows that call for 45 songs. How about if we have a core of 20 that we will play EVERY night, and then a list of 205 that are harder edged rockers like "Get Out Of Denver" and "You May Be Right", and 25 that are more country leaning like "Today I started Loving Her Again" and "On The Road Again", where some of each list can be in the core list. From the remainder of the rock and the country lists we can mix in 20 songs to play with the core 25 and there's our night. When we walk in and see big belt buckles, boots and cowboy hats, we lean heavier on the country list. But pulling out an obscure ZZ Top sing in a stone cold country place would be a wrong move.

The real issue, and SO MANY BANDS don't get this, is that your band needs a fingerprint. That whole "song list all over the place" just doesn't work where I am. Rooms are known as "____________" kind of room or "___________" kind of room, and the best Merle Haggard songs in the world won't work in a room that wants metal. We have a club here called Thirsty Cowboys. Their band had to cancel at the last minute because of a car accident in which the bass player and his singer wife were injured. They scrambled to find ANYBODY and ended up with a rock band. Only due to the most morbid of curiosity did I go see the place. At 11pm, there were 25 people in there. Any other Friday night at 11pm there are 250. So rooms have a fingerprint, and it's a good idea for a band to have one too. Remember, it's easy to dazzle the 50 friends who will come to see you no matter what. The strangers matter most.

We have a Spazmatics franchise band here. 3 playing pieces and a front singer. The music is about 65% tracks. They are very popular and very busy and nobody cares that they are more tracks than live play. The guitar player is a producer at a studio he owns, and his tracks are CD worthy so it works well for them.

Mostly I play jazz, and far less well than I'd like, but when we have our jam sessions, we often use a blues number to get warmed up. I like those "good ol' blues tunes", not least because they give a simple but good and solid foundation on which to build and improvise.

Often we'll just start with "a 12-bar blues in F" or something and see where we go.

I was actually referring to parts and not tracks specifically. There are recorded songs with 4 to 5 guitar parts, all played by the same guitarist doing overdubs. It is almost impossible to recreate that live. That was my point. Sorry I confused anyone.

Thus, the use of tracks. During Van Halen and Billy Gibbons solos in live settings, don't you hear rhythm guitar parts behind them? And they performed Jump live with the Oberheim synth parts, all on tracks.

Everybody (not literally) does it.

That was a great song by The Cure.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSTrE7EDcts
Had you been following the related strand within the thread you may not have needed to interject in such a way.
I see your so what and raise you
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYkqLm9cM3Y

You are correct, some will be played over and over because the audience wants them, and others will be pulled out on one gig, and different ones the next day. We want to be usually predictable, but also partially unpredictable in our song choices.

Here is why 600+ songs are useful for us.

• We play the same venues week after week, currently we are playing one 3 times a week and if we played the same 80 songs over and over and over, the gig would be very boring for us
• We have people that come to see us once, twice, or three times per week, and if we played the same songs every time they came in, it would be very boring for them
• We play a variety of gigs. In our beachside gig, a lot of tropical songs get mixed in (Reggae, Soca, Musica Latina, and/or Tropic rock like Jimmy Buffett songs). Last week we played for a senior citizen dancing crowd at a private party, so mostly baby boomer songs came out. On our Oktoberfest gig we played a few German songs and a couple of polkas. When we play at the RV resort with hundreds of French Canadian guests, we know what they like. If we see pointed yoke shirts and cowboy boots, the Nashville songs enter the mix. And so on.
• Playing a variety of songs lets us size up the audience, test and see what works best for them, and then giving them more of what that came here for

Yesterday we played at our beachside gig, which we do 3 days a week. There are 2 or 3 bands there every day, and we are the only band that gets more than one day.

We were followed by a 5 piece band that plays there once a week. They play on the other stage and got there early. One of the band members said, "I've never seen so many people here!" And I responded, "Those are OUR people."

It was full to capacity, and people were standing. When we packed up, all but one table (who weren't our people) got up and left.

That's why we play there 3 days a week.

If we played the same songs every time, we would get boring. Plus, when someone who comes to see us every week requests a song, and if we can cover it, we'll learn it. We learn new songs all the time anyway, why not play what the people want?

The beachside gig attracts a varied audience, from the bikini gals to folks ambling in with walkers. Having different genres of songs to choose from, enables us to attract those walking by, and keep the drinkers/diners there longer.

Years ago when I was in a show band, we did things differently, the same show in a different place with a different audience so other than a few variables, we did the same show every time. But I'm not doing shows now, I'm playing a party, and we are the life of the party.

Yesterday was Mrs. Notes' birthday, so the place was full for shoulder season, but in mid season we do this at least once a week.

We played a mid-week party at a competitor's venue for 12.5 years. In our 13th year COVID came, the place was sold, and the new owners wanted a single act playing quiet, background music. So we lost the gig. No hard feelings, they seem like nice people and they wanted something different.

2 years later, when COVID gig-blight started to die down, we tried the place we are gigging at now. The owner had heard of us, and hired us on the spot on our reputation. The first week he put one waitress on. The bartender was bringing food out and kitchen help was bussing the tables. The next week he put on 4 waitresses. That's job security.

So what we are doing, works for us.

• Better Backing Tracks (because I put in the time to make them better) -- Looky there, I'm back on topic
• Variety of songs to work with (from Sinatra to Elvis to Beatles to Clapton to Zac Brown to Adele)
• Variety of lead voices, Mrs. Notes and I sing, I play leads on sax, flute, guitar and wind synth (which can emulate many other instruments) and Mrs. Notes plays leads on synth
• We pay attention to and work the crowd, doing our best to make sure they have a good time and want to come see us again
• When appropriate we MC, talk to the aucience, tell them short stories about us, joke around a bit, and generally have a good time WITH them.

Our philosophy is if they are having fun, they will come back, and we will get to have fun again and get paid for it.

So far, so good.

Insights and incites by Notes

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

Thanks Gordon.

You never know, but it doesn't sound like it!

Chet Atkins had a couple of good ones about 'wrong' notes.

"All Mistakes are intentional" he used to say in his live shows. And "all my notes are a matter of guessing".

I tend to see the topic of vocal pitch correction as a logical condition (IF / AND / THEN)
-----------------------

IF some body does NOT use correction... AND they sing on pitch... THEN they shouldn't use pitch correction

IF somebody DOES use pitch correction ... AND they subsequently sing on pitch... THEN they SHOULD use pitch correction

IF somebody DOES use pitch correction... AND they still CAN'T stay on pitch.... THEN they should get off the stage


If you don't use pitch correction and it hurts to hear you sing... at least respect your audience enough not to brag about not using pitch correction, as if that's somehow noble.

Thanks Pat! I've found why I'm not on stage.

LOL.. me too Steve!

I have experimented with pitch correction for years, and I have to say that the videos showing somebody squealing like a pig in the recording studio, then singing like Celine Dion after the engineer applies pitch correction... I guess that's the dream they're trying to sell, but it doesn't work like that. At least not for me.

Here in my studio, the only corrected vocals that sound good were likely "pretty good" before the correction was applied. I'm talking about natural sounding correction. Obviously the robotic correction is a whole different animal.