Pro Sound Web: Mention “backing tracks” and it conjures up images of infamous acts such as Milli Vanilli or Ashlee Simpson lip syncing to their songs in concert. But the reality is that backing tracks have actually been around for years and play a significant part in a surprising number of shows.
4 comments:
Some of this I already knew. Long concerts can get tiring, so the musicians would want to conserve their energy for the more fun parts than playing that rim-shot fourteen thousand times every song. It is quite convenient in that sense.
Another artist that uses back tracks is Pink! But she uses them in a more creative way. Her recorded song will play during the concert, and she would sing a harmony part live. It is really the coolest thing. It wouldn't be for all the songs, but some of the more touching ones. She also likes making spectacles of her concerts, sot he back track allows her to do crazy stunts. Her recent The Truth About Love tour had her starting on a giant bungie-esque system, and she did flips and a whole bunch of sweet stuff in the air. It was so cool! I doubt she would have been able to sing well doing all of that, especially upside down.
Backing tracks are great! I think we kind of develop an unrealistic expectation from artists doing live tours after we have listened to their album 200 times already. We get used to the way that its performed, because we only have one copy of one single final recorded piece that has been mixed, worked on, and rerecorded after hours spent in a studio. Theres just simply no way to recreate that EXACT sound while also dancing and attempting to perform on stage, regardless of talent. Unless, of course, if your album contains very little mixing, which is incredibly rare for mainstream pop music, which the article refers to in particular.
Backing tracks are extremely helpful right now, in an industry where consumers expect the artists they see to sing, dance, and play an instrument on stage. Concerts, to use Miley Cyrus or Taylor Swift as an example, have become more like shows and artistic exhibitions than displays of music. So having backing tracks makes perfect sense; it's an efficient way for the band to accurately display their music while doing at least five-thousand other things to entertain their audiences. Computers, as the article says, are getting extremely integrated into the music and concert scene. I went to a Fleetwood Mac concert with a friend of mine last week, and from where I was sitting I spotted at least four or five monitors controlling what I assumed to be sound levels and backing tracks. I just hope that, over time, people won't be completely reliant on technology to produce music.
It seems to me that whenever we (the public) find out that an artist uses backing tracks in their live performance we jump all over them criticizing them for not actually performing on stage for us. I was one of these people for a little while until I realized just what it takes to perform for 2 hours in a hot venue for over 10,000 people. After seeing this first hand I will never think negatively about this again. Now that's not to say that all bands and artists use backing tracks to run their whole show however it is necessary for them to be used at some points. On the other end there are backing tracks that my not necessarily be musical but add to the experience of the show. For example, this article mentions Roger Waters tour of The Wall. I had the opportunity to see this show twice when it came to New York (once at Madison Square Garden and once at Yankee Stadium) and noticed the insane surround effects of bombs dropping and troops marching. For this backing tracks are obviously necessary because for some reason I highly doubt that these events are happening through the playing of instruments. Like what most of the other commenters have said, there is no way we can expect to hear what we hear on record live if the use of backing tracks is eliminated.
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