Backtracks... how exactly do they work?

FruitarGeek · 2010-07-05T00:52:38+00:00

So I remember a while back seeing good ol Jeremy de Tolly (thinking of Jack Parrow song now) on stage, and looking at the 4 instruments, I could see each of them playing their respective parts , i.e. Vox,guitar, bass and drums. But there was a synth in the back. This kinda annoyed me, cause I always had the 'arrogant' attitude that real music is made on the spot, and they shouldnt have to rely on a backtrack CD. Now the other day, a friend and I were writting stuff for our band, and it came to my attention that a string ensemble would sound great, yet we cant afford to hire a classical power group, so we would rely on a keyboard to provide the sounds. But, what if we dont have a keyboard player? We could record the strings in studio and have them played back during the song, thus doing exactly what I once despised and relying on backtracks. So what I want to know is, how does it work? Who controls when they start, as far as I can see its the drummer, cause he has to play with the metronome to the tracks, or else it would all be horribly outta sync. and on what format would the backings come on, like a CD you give to the engineer, or on an iPod?

[deleted]

I've always liked that, but I've seen it turn on people, so I guess you need to be very sure of what you're doing.

Warren

bloukie wrote
I would love to get some opinions, particularly from the purists, on the use of a loop station by a solo artist in a live setting where tracks are created live on the fly.

Also a capitol crime? :-\

I think that's a very different kettle of fish, since you're still playing the music live. In fact, it's even tougher since you need your recorded loop to be as precise as possible because it will underpin the following loops. Any bum notes are going to be repeated throughout the rest of your song ? Very different to using pre-recorded stuff.

bloukie

Thanks Vicky and Warren,

I can assure you that getting the timing of that first loop spot-on without quantizing takes more than a little bit of practise. But hey, its a lot of fun!

I'm dropping my acoustic an octave down via my Boss OC-2 Laney and then putting the signal through my Laney Acoustic amp before it reaches the Boss 20 XL loop station, thus creating a deep almost upright bass sound. I then layer either a sparce acoustic guitar (more difficult to get that right than what you'd think!) and playing Strat over that or doing it the other way round.

Apart from giving the space to solo, a looper can teach you so-o-o-o much about song construction.

[deleted]

Sounds like you're pretty creative with it, which is where a lot of people get stuck (in a loop, ha ha).

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