Riaan
Is this a local phenomenon - the use of backtracks on shows by pro singers - or is it widespread overseas also?
While I understand the reasons why artists may be forced to do shows like this, one may well ask why bother going to the show instead of just listening to the CD at home, if everything except the vocal performance is pre-recorded. And often, the live performance often sounds exactly like the studio version too and the artist may even have been miming for all we know...
An unplugged version of the performance, with just a piano or acoustic guitar for instance, even if it means a slight rework of the song to make it work, is worth much more IMO than a live version that is absolutely identical to the studio version. Jackson Brown is a good example of how nice a one man show can be.
vic
Riaan wrote:
Is this a local phenomenon - the use of backtracks on shows by pro singers - or is it widespread overseas also?
While I understand the reasons why artists may be forced to do shows like this, one may well ask why bother going to the show instead of just listening to the CD at home, if everything except the vocal performance is pre-recorded. And often, the live performance often sounds exactly like the studio version too and the artist may even have been miming for all we know...
An unplugged version of the performance, with just a piano or acoustic guitar for instance, even if it means a slight rework of the song to make it work, is worth much more IMO than a live version that is absolutely identical to the studio version. Jackson Brown is a good example of how nice a one man show can be.
Riaan you are now argueing like a muso...Joe and Jill Soap don't care. That's why it's irellevant to try and get THAT tone from our guitars on stage. Only musos will appreciate/crit our efforts. We play for one another... ?
I don't know how widespread the use of backtrax is, all I know is that it's alive and well (esp amongst
Afrikaans pro singers)
Ray
Is this the same as saying dont use code generators because you're keeping programmers (often not so competent) programmer out of work?
Bob-Dubery
vic wrote:
Riaan you are now argueing like a muso...Joe and Jill Soap don't care. That's why it's irellevant to try and get THAT tone from our guitars on stage. Only musos will appreciate/crit our efforts. We play for one another... ?
I'm not so sure.
I think that listeners, if they are listening, may react to all sorts of things without knowing what they're reacting to. Tone is important, not just for reasons of vanity and for impressing any guitarists who may be in the crowd. It's part of your musical voice.
I recently went to a concert in London that had a half-time break for a pee and a pot. I don't know exactly what happened (I was watching the stage, not the sound desk) but at various points in the show there were subtle changes to the sound. EG It got markedly better immediately after the break, got muddy again at one point and then got clear again. These are not big changes we are talking about, mostly (as I heard it) related to the vocals rather than the overall balance. I'm not any kind of sound guy and can't tell you in any useful terms WHAT changed, but it did change and the audience did react - maybe not conciously but you could feel the energy in the room changing.
If you tried to play Sultans of Swing with an overdriven Les Paul sound the audience would probably notice, even if they don't understand that there are single-coil and double-coil pickups.
And you have to play for and to the audience. Not in terms of selling out artistically but in terms of trying to connect and communicate. THAT's what it's about. If it's not about that then we might as well just have jams in garages and have impeccable tones that nobody other than the guys we jam with ever hear.
DonovanB
singemonkey wrote:
mostly I think it's good to rise above the limitations of how many instruments you have playing. Forcing yourself to deal with your limitations is often much more successful than putting a recording into the story. Bands like The Doors or The White Stripes made unique music by compensating in-band for a missing "crucial" instrument.
I agree with this completely. Too many bands try add too much with instruments you don't have.
I like the idea of making do with what you have. If you are a 3 piece band, play like a 3 piece band. You all have to adjust the way you play to fill in the gaps. The same should go with other instruments as well.
vic
@Bob. I agree. I was writing tongue in cheek but also out of despair re the backtrax thing...very gatvol ?
Of course tone and technique are important and we wish to share/communicate it with others....that's what I also cherrish.
FruitarGeek
So you say if your a 3 piece or a 4 piece, you should stick with your instruments and make the most out of it. I agree.
Lately though, Ive really fine tuned my ear to hear a synth/orchestral sound in the backround that I KNOW the band doesnt have, take for example:
U2, Coldplay, Snowpatrol, Muse, Coheed and Cambria etc.. the list goes on. For some reason these guys seem to think the reliance on an atmospheric sounding synth or orchestra makes the big difference, and who am I to disagree?
Even if you had to take me 4 years ago, before I knew what was going on, give me Muse to listen to, I would feel it the same way I still feel it now. But its not merely the drums, bass or guitar that are doing it for me, its something unknown, although its not really unknown to me anymore. Its a synth backing haha. The backing they choose really does make a difference. I suppose the best way, or the way that you would have it Keira is if I just find a keyboardist who can provide all those sounds, and thats actually what Im looking for, I say the more the merrier, I dont want to have to rely on a midi controller, I mean as someone said, if the drums go out, they have to fix it properly. With the absence of such a midi controller there is no need to be THAT Tight.
AlanRatcliffe
FruitarGeek wrote:
For some reason these guys seem to think the reliance on an atmospheric sounding synth or orchestra makes the big difference, and who am I to disagree?
Sometimes it does. Take the way Queen used to perform Bohemian Rhapsody or Jethro Tull Songs from the Wood - partly with taped sections for the extensive studio overdubbing. They had to perform those songs live and the only way to do it without the songs suffering badly was to cheat a bit. As far as the audience was concerned it didn't matter and let's be honest, did it make us think any worse of them?
With the absence of such a midi controller there is no need to be THAT Tight.
Professional pride aside you mean? ?
Bob-Dubery
Riaan wrote:
Is this a local phenomenon - the use of backtracks on shows by pro singers - or is it widespread overseas also?
While I understand the reasons why artists may be forced to do shows like this, one may well ask why bother going to the show instead of just listening to the CD at home, if everything except the vocal performance is pre-recorded. And often, the live performance often sounds exactly like the studio version too and the artist may even have been miming for all we know...
Well there's music and there's showbiz. They can intersect, but you can also have one without the other.
An unplugged version of the performance, with just a piano or acoustic guitar for instance, even if it means a slight rework of the song to make it work, is worth much more IMO than a live version that is absolutely identical to the studio version. Jackson Brown is a good example of how nice a one man show can be.
Agreed. One problem though is that the material has to be good to be that reducable. Good songs will stand up by themselves, crap songs need all the production they can get.
[deleted]
I don't agree with either of your assumptions there, Bob: that a backing track is showbiz/that "music" is necessarily without backtracks; or that it's always/mostly crap songs that "need" embellishment.
Bob-Dubery
Stratisfear wrote:
I don't agree with either of your assumptions there, Bob: that a backing track is showbiz/that "music" is necessarily without backtracks; or that it's always/mostly crap songs that "need" embellishment.
Well... errr.... yes. "Strawberry Fields" and "Eleanor Rigby" were not such bad songs.
OTOH, consider playing that official World Cup anthem thing solo.
I think that the scenario I was responding to, some singer with no musicians on stage singing to a recording, is showbiz really. It's about playing to an audience who want to see the star, not listen to the music.
Warren
I agree with those who've said it depends on the songs you're playing.
Some bands just go for that heavily layered sound, Muse and The Cure coming instantly to mind.
How would you capture the feel of something like "Starlight", or "Fascination Street" or "Love Song" without those layers? You could probably do a different arrangement that would sound cool, but would probably be quite different to the original. Then again, these are powerful, orchestral sounding songs and I think they'd just seem a bit unconvincing being played by a solo musician with backing tracks. It would come across more as "karaoke" than "live music".
I have this constant argument with the band members over whether a cover should be played 100% accurately to the recording, or whether there is room for embellishment. Our agreement at the moment is embellishments are fine as long as they sound great and the rest of the band is able to keep up with the structure of the song (i.e. you often need some kind of recognizable "intro" and "outro" from a solo if you're planning to play something completely improvised, unless your band is super-tight).
chris77
I agree to an extent. I have no qualms with a pub muso or even a duo or trio using some backtracks. Seeing somebody like Keira live to me would be on par with listening to Leonard Cohen live in a smoky little pub. Thats the type of music that deserves to be made after all these centuries of musical evolution, and in an ideal world we all would be able to do it. But not everybody has that skill and if I'm faced with a choice of enjoying dinner or coctails with either celtic monks droning out showtunes on the inhouse cd system or Joe the pub muso and his backtracks crooning some familiar favourites, I'll take Joe any day of the week. Big bands using synths etc is also fine. If it fits the song and they still play their own instruments over it, what's wrong with that? What sickens me however is the hacks who show up at venues, big or small, with a cd of tracks and then proceed to 'perform' badly choreographed dance moves whilst belting out crappy popsong after crappy popsong. Thats what gives backtracks a bad name imo.
FruitarGeek
Starlight is a perfect example, although to be fair, I did see them have an additional musician play the synth part on keyboard, but he was shoved to the back. But there are still many bands that dont get that extra musician
vic
We may have some crossed lines here...synths and keys must not be confused with backtrax. The Queen example is fine..at least THEY were resposible for it in the studio.....
Let's hear how the Moody Blues do it when the songs call for full orchestration.....when only the best is good enough. Granted...few groups can afford that outfit behind them. But that's what these songs sounded like when released way back.
[deleted]
Ah, showbiz... it brings to mind a random show I saw on TV, it was something like "jou sterrietjie skitter" and the two performers were playing to a backing track. The one guy was lip syncing and the other guy had a guitar, and they didn't even bother plugging the guitar in, let alone even remember to strum it every now and then. I dare say they looked an eensy weensy bit embarrassed. Milly Vanilly should not have been in vain, we must learn from their painful mistakes.
I have a little pet peeve, that is most likely not shared by anyone else. Often I find with "classical guitar" now days, it is really becoming a case of layering on those"epic" backing tracks while some guy tinkles away a single note ditty. It is a very "naked" instrument, but I like to think that that's it's charm. I'm all in favor of collaborations, but it's like some musicians want to hide that nakedness, like they're embarrassed because their instrument doesn't fit the popular concept of "epic" sound.
I'm all for being versatile, largely because I'm seldom happy with one thing. My little vision is to compose songs that can have at least three different "applications". One way would be "solo" the other "duo" and the last completely "techno", and possibly all at once too.
Bob-Dubery
vic wrote:
Let's hear how the Moody Blues do it when the songs call for full orchestration.....when only the best is good enough. Granted...few groups can afford that outfit behind them. But that's what these songs sounded like when released way back.
I'm not sure they did sound that way back then actually. Question was a big hit in the UK and I can still remember the TV performances of that song (the girls got all swoony when Justin Hayward sang the quiet bits - but this being TV it's possible they had some guy off camera holding up a "go weak at the knees" sign). What I distinctly remember is a lot of the lines the orchestra is playing in this yotube vid being played originally on bass or guitar.
Not that this is any kind of artistic travesty in itself, they're perfectly entitled to reinterpret and rearrange their own material.
What I'm saying is that the song doesn't rely on the string parts. Another example would be a clip that I recently posted of Lisa Hannigan performing "Black Eyed Dog" at a Nick Drake tribute show. There's a great string arrangement there, but again the orchestra is actually playing one of the original guitar parts and the song doesn't rely on that arrangement.
This is quite an interesting discussion for me because my judgements of music and the performance of music are very much rooted in the notion that a good song is a good song and if it's a good song then you don't need all the whiz-bang stuff (see a post to GFSA by Singemonkey that made the same point about something he saw Neil Finn doing solo on TV). However I think a case is being made here that in some cases orchestras or synths or massed vocals or some effect or other can be not just production gloss but can be integral to the composition.
vic
Re. Question... done live above....I found this version which I believe was the one which charted worldwide. As far as I can hear all the essentials are in both versions...strings, brass, choir, etc. I believe this song relies on the orchestral parts, especially the brass exclamation parts. The strings are neatly doing the secondary melody and filling the ether so to speak in both versions. The essential bass line is present in both versions as well.
AlanRatcliffe
X-rated Bob wrote:
However I think a case is being made here that in some cases orchestras or synths or massed vocals or some effect or other can be not just production gloss but can be integral to the composition.
Exactly!
Carmina Burana anyone? Ever see Victor Borge do his piano solo version of Beeethovens Third? Not quite as the composer intended. ?
