Hi everyone.

Long storey short, my 2 guitarists are leaving my hard-rock band and instead of going trough the pain of trying to find new people to click with in the turbulent world of amature musicianship, I've decided to put my home studio to work and intend to record backing tracks of drums, rythm guitar and some keys and backing vocals which will be played onstage using the Meteor app on an Ipad2.

The seperate tracks with be; kick, snare, 1 stereo track for toms, and 1 for cymbals, guitar, vocals, misc.

I'd like to get your impressions on how I should produce these tracks for the live stage. How much gating, compression, EQ, panning, reverb, etc, should I add to these tracks (specifically the drums) given that I'll probably be using them in small venues that usually don't even bother to mic the cymbals. I'm using some pretty cheap mics and pre's, but have the ability to use drum replacement if need be, so some simple adjectives to describe what the sound guys will be after would help me a lot.

Thanks a bunch.

TBH, recording drums so that they sound good on stage is a matter of experience and good equipment. Years of experience and thousands of pounds or dollars in equipment. By the time you have climbed that mountain and learnt how to get that killer sound and balance it with all the other parts of the music, you will have lost the thread of what your music is all about.

My suggestion - go to this guy Drum Tracks Direct

He is cheap enough and the work he does is good and it will sound like drums and not some bogus backing machine. Also, he can put a whole set together for you for the price of one kick-drum mic.

And the job will be done.

Whereas, if you try to programme drums on a DAW using samples and you don't happen to be a drummer and you are new to the task of writing drum lines, it could take all year - as in one whole year of eight-hour days, trying to get those drums where you want them and sounding good!

If you fancy yourself as a writer and you have the time to spare, this is a bargin like no other - Hollow Sun £15 for a drum machine in your computer really ought to be a no-brainer for you, whether you go for Drum Tracks Direct or not!

My 30 Cents worth? Do both and save yourself becoming a drum programming Sisyphus!

Quote skinslapper:

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Hi everyone.

Long storey short, my 2 guitarists are leaving my hard-rock band and instead of going trough the pain of trying to find new people to click with in the turbulent world of amature musicianship, I've decided to put my home studio to work and intend to record backing tracks of drums, rythm guitar and some keys and backing vocals which will be played onstage using the Meteor app on an Ipad2.

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Oh dear! So you haven't got a band any more. Unless there's an appreciable amount of money to be made, why bother gigging then? There's no pleasure in working to tracks.

I know it's a pain to find and audition 2 new guitarists, but...

A Hard Rock band live without a guitarist? That's a bit like a Depeche Mode or Tangerine Dream gig without a synthesizer.

By all means go ahead and record some backing tracks, they might well get you out of a hole now and in the future, and might open up some new work for you. Good bass players and drummers are hard to replace, it can be hard to find a keyboard player with their own backline, but us guitarists are, I am afraid, disposable. Everyone and his kid sister plays guitar, or so it seems, and a local guitar teacher would probably be able to supply a couple of dozen suitable replacements who he has already taught most of your set during the course of their regular lessons.

Provide the Spandex, and they will come. All you need to do is pick the one with the hottest kid sister

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

Hey guys,

Thanks for the feedback thus far. I seem to have not made clear a few things.

I am the drummer and I will be taking over the lead guitar duties on stage. I've written most of the songs anyway so this won't be hard. Also we still have the lead singer and bass player so it's not like a 1 man show.

I am currently in the process of mixing our ep which we recorded ourselves and despite it's not being the most polished sounding thing ever, it will cut it in the minor leagues. Again I submit that we are playing tiny venues here and the sound isn't usually all that flash as it is.

So given that I'll be recording live drums to use on stage with my band, what pointers can you give me re; track production?

If you're only using a mono overhead then I see little point in making the toms stereo. Either go fully stereo, or fully mono - the latter is probably fine for live backing.

As to processing - it depends how you're going to play them back. If you're using a multi-track, or audio interface with multiple outputs, then the best approach might be to leave the recorded drums sounding raw and mix at the venue (also depends if you have a guy out front to assist).

Have you considered how to time introductions and drum-less section in the songs? These are often the aspects that catch out the unwary.

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An Eagle for an Emperor, A Kestrel for a Knave.

Sorry, I meant 1 stereo for the overheads as well as toms, but I think I'll want to keep the stereo field pretty close. Whilst I'll have them on seperate tracks on my ipad, the sound guy will only be getting a stereo feed, so I want to prep this as much as possible beforehand.

The app does however, let me gate, compress, limit, and eq the tracks on the fly, but again I'd like to start in a reasonable ballpark.

I fully expect to be tweaking count ins to get them right. Don't want to be leaving that to chance.

Quote Exalted Wombat:

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Oh dear! So you haven't got a band any more. Unless there's an appreciable amount of money to be made, why bother gigging then? There's no pleasure in working to tracks.

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That's your opinion: there are plenty of working musicians that can only work because they have tracks to support their act. The vast majority of live venues cannot afford the cost of a full live band, it's simply not sustainable, and in my experience of probably 2000+ gigs, the audience would far rather hear a good act, and more specifically a good singer, irrespective of the number of people on stage.

Quote skinslapper:

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I've decided to put my home studio to work and intend to record backing tracks of drums, rythm guitar and some keys and backing vocals which will be played onstage using the Meteor app on an Ipad2.

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Your issue wouldn't be the drum sound, it'd be the choice of hardware: if you're going to go down that route, get something built for the job. An iPad2 would be fine, if everything is properly mastered/levelled, but the truth is you'd have to do some kind of EQ work at every single venue.

I regularly build sets from backing tracks, all instruments having been played live, and so I wouldn't believe the nonsense that there's no "live feel" when you're playing back from a click. I know plenty of live bands that have no "feel", as long as you record your clicks properly, and don't be too concerned with awful quantising, you'll be able to create tracks that'll sound real and convincing when played live.

Think of your click tracks as being a chance to have musicians on stage that aren't actually there, rather than a chance to over-cook your cake with 30 tracks in the background. Do everything with a sympathetic ear, and if you can mix/record on a live stage before you ever gig your set you'll be able to get a good impression of what it'll sound like to an audience. Remember, almost every moderate venue would see the band going through the PA, so what's the audible difference if their parts were played from Reaper/DP/PT etc? Provided you record the tracks properly, with regards to how a live player would play each part, then you'll be fine.

I play in quite a few bands where clicks are used, purely so that we can tailor the size (and therefore cost) of the band to suit each budget, and that ranges from the knock-about function band we play locally through to some of the biggest tribute acts in the UK/Europe. What you're doing is very, very common place.

Hope that helps.

Quote TheChorltonWheelie:

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That's your opinion: there are plenty of working musicians that can only work because they have tracks to support their act. The vast majority of live venues cannot afford the cost of a full live band, it's simply not sustainable, and in my experience of probably 2000+ gigs, the audience would far rather hear a good act, and more specifically a good singer, irrespective of the number of people on stage.

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+1.
We play fully live as well as gigging a scaled down version using backing tracks. Find it more & more frequent that venues are not prepared to pay the fee for a fully live 5 piece band.

Entertainment is just that & in my opinion\experience (been gigging since 1969) it is how that entertainment is put across that matters most.

Given the choice,however, give me fully live gigs everytime. But in the economic climate we are in now, not holding my breath for any improvement.

Edited by mick.n (10/05/12 11:50 AM)

I would mix them like you would live. i.e. limit the amount of processing to what you would have access to live.

This would generally mean, one dynamics processor per channel.
One EQ per channel.
Pan.
Maybe a bus compressor, but usually not.

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www.exaviormusic.com
www.manninmusic.com Music Teacher, Isle of Man

Thanks guys, thats exactly what I'm after.

I do intend to do some work during sound check, I just want to make it as simple as possible.

Quote skinslapper:

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Thanks guys, thats exactly what I'm after.

I do intend to do some work during sound check, I just want to make it as simple as possible.

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Start with a great drummer, simple but effective patterns will be easier to mix and will sit better in your final mix.