live stage show with click track? how!
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Posted on Mar 08, 2004 01:47 pm
fortymile
Member Since: Jan 18, 2003
the unthinkable has happened. my theatrical joke band Uncle Dude has got another seat-of-our-pants show coming up at a 'major' local venue. by the actual time we take the stage we will have actually played our songs together FOUR times in total, our last practice having been a almost 2 years ago. the drummer will be learning two new songs the evening before we take the stage. this is all very nerveracking. i'm trying to figure out how to make ourselves sound a bit more polished this time and i wanted to add some preprogrammed triton tracks to the stage mix.
to do this, we have to stay synced to the keyboard's sequencer so the parts don't arrive before we do. i've never set something like this up before so if you can tell me anything about how to make this happen, that'd rock. the way i see it there are two options.
1. have a drum part or regular rhythmic part play through the monitors and house speakers as part of the tune (imperfect solution because we have a drummer and i don't really want to add an obvious electronic drum element)
2. somehow get a click track to the drummer and myself without the click going through the house speakers. how does that work? the one idea that occurred to me was that i'd have to slave an additional midi device to the triton and run that output to us through headphones. that way the triton outs themselves can go to the monitors and PA without the click, and the slave device can keep us in sync. only problem: i dont have another midi device.
any other ways?
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Mar 08, 2004 01:50 pm I would consider just giving the click to the drummer. Otherwise it may do more harm than good by making some of you concentrate more on the click than on the music and loosing the mojo of the music, know what I mean? Drummer has the click, then you follow the drummer, as you should be...
Mar 08, 2004 01:55 pm he may not be able to follow it...i'm a bit concerned. i dont think he's done this before.
but i may do that. if i would, HOW would i do it?
Mar 08, 2004 01:57 pm check the house sound system, maybe they can run it thru the back stage monitor...or a separate headphone line.
Mar 08, 2004 01:58 pm but the click track is IN the keyboard. output of triton includes the programmed tracks, and a separate, constant click or rhythm cue, which must not appear in the song. i don't know how they'd separate that out.
Mar 08, 2004 02:02 pm ah, well, if they all come out of the same outs then it's a case of S.O.L. I think...UNLESS you can pan them and have the MUSIC come out of the left out and the click out of the right...but many synths rely heavily on the stereo qualities of the sound...so I dunno how that would work, cuz many house FOH systems run mono anyway...you best bet is to have a chat with the FOH engineer I think...
juesContributor
Since: Dec 30, 2002
Mar 08, 2004 02:15 pm ello
We run a click track for our live shows. I run our electronics from a Tascam DR-8 (8 Track Rack Mounted Hard Disc Recorder) - one of the tracks contains a click track which is sent via a pre-fader aux, to our drummers in ear monitor transmitter. The signal is then sent to his reciever and he listens to the click track as he playes (he also has kick drum in his headphone mix along with the click.)
Before using in ear monitoring, I used to utilise a tie line from the mixing console to the stage - the same that the on-stage monitors are driven from. Usually this was fine, but sometime it would prove tricky due to the monitors not running off of line inputs, etc.
In you scenario - I would reccomend either running a sperate output from the triton (do tritons have multiple (or AUX) outputs? into either a small mixing desk (behringer MX602a) or a headphone preamp - the drummer can then alter the level of the click (and the eq as well) his end.
If your triton doens't have seperate outputs from the main outs - then you could always use a MIDI drum machine / synth which can play back the click track in from the MIDI data it recieves from the triton - again, the output of this drum machine / cheap synth can be fed to a small mixer / headphone preamp.
Your drummer will more than likey want to hear his kick drum in his headphone mix - you could always take along a mic, mic up the bass drum, and run this into the small mixer - this would then give him a lot of scope and make playing to a click a lot easier.
Btw: as a final word of warning - playing to a click is not easy by any means and a lot of drummers simply can't do it - I reccomend he gets a lot of practice in if he can.
Good luck
jues.
Mar 08, 2004 07:05 pm i think i see what you mean, and that reminded me of something. i DO have another midi device--my old boss br-8 8-track recorder. i could sync it via midi to the triton and have the boss play its own click track. run that into my behringer mixer with an input from the drummer's kick, and he can then hear them both.
as for the triton, it has these outputs: headphones, left/mono, right, and indiv 1 through 4. all of these are quarter inch plugs. i have never bothered to read the isntructions regarding those individual outs as i never thought i'd need them. one of these would need to be programmed to output only the click, while the rest of the programmed tracks depart for the mixing board via the L/R outs. i don't know if this is possible (i doubt it) but i'll check. the less wires and devices, the better. at least the midi thing should work. if our drummer can hack it.
thank ya's
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 08, 2004 10:36 pm Damn forty, you are so smart sometimes. And yes that means the Triton has mutliple outputs. You could send the click out the indiv 1 and the main out the left/right.
WaltChief Cook and Bottle WasherMember
Since: May 10, 2002
Mar 09, 2004 11:16 pm Oh Forty! Just here to say good luck! Sorry, no help here other than good luck. I had to read the post a few times to even understand the emensity of the problem. I know with the big band we could never do it. Jim (drummer) and I are constantly having to decide wether to hold constant or shift with solo, or just work like !@# to bring the folks back to the same page. Gets real interesting around 3rd or 4th set sometimes after a few memebers have visited the bar a few times. Like Ok, whos on one? Has anybody seen that missing three?
Mar 10, 2004 12:00 am well, thanks everyone.
yeah, the drummer is flying down in april for a total of four days. he's the one who pushed like mad to get this show. in fact, he's coming specifically to do this. he loves uncle dude. which means i have to go out and get us two shows on a friday and a saturday night, WITHOUT a demo tape of any kind. in fact the only thing i really have are some silly pictures. our concert video is horrible. thats what happens when you write songs in five minutes, learn them over another 10 minutes, then go play a show. there are sections of song where i'm just doing treble keyboard with my right hand, in my bird mask, over a naked drum beat. we have no bass or guitar.
so i'll have to learn all my parts from two years ago, determine what, if anything, to augment them with now that i have a triton instead of a toy casio, program those enhancements, and program the three new songs. then we'll have to learn how to play with a click track with all those triton tracks going on at the same time--on friday afternoon. uncle dude will have to write three new sets of lyrics and memorize them before then. we'll have one rehearsal on friday, then it's off to play whatever we can get friday.
we will then see, for the first time: if we can remember our songs, if we can play them in front of an audience, if we can make the syncronization work, and if we don't get tomatoes thrown at us. it would be far easier to not do the keyboard programming...just go up there like last time with one pipe organ patch and see what happens. but i'm interested to know if i can hide my lousy live playing behind some sonic landscapes. :)
i'm gonna try those indiv. outs tomorrow after i read the instruction book. thanks for the tips, guys.
Mar 10, 2004 03:00 pm yay. the individual outs work and it's easy to assign the click to any one of them i choose.
it's weird, though: it's real quiet. should it be that way? we can boost it with a headphone amp but i'm not sure why it would be that much lower in volume. it's not that low when it's in the l/r mix.
Noize2uCzar of MidiAdministrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002
Mar 10, 2004 07:21 pm You may have to adjust the indy out independantly or adjust the velocity of the click note up to max. It may just be that its note velocity is low.
