Take Your Studio Tracks To The Stage

Do you play in a band and ever wish your live show could sound as full and produced as your recorded albums and EPs? It’s not uncommon at all these days to see bands taking many of the extra production elements from their studio albums like keys, loops, and even extra vocals and having them “play” alongside the actual band in a live performance.

And if you thought this type of accessibility was reserved for only top label touring acts, think again. If you have some extra tracks on your recordings you’d like to incorporate on stage you’ll need only a handful of things: a DAW, a cheap MP3 player, a stereo 1/8th inch to split 1/4 inch cable, and two DI boxes. That’s it! No laptop required.

Via Savio Sebastian Flickr

Enhance Your Show The Easy Way

Before we go any further, you need to know that this only works if your band uses in-ear monitoring and is comfortable playing to a click (metronome). That’s right. Just like you typically (and should) record to a click track in your studio, you will need to start playing to a click track live (heard only in your ears, not through a floor wedge). It’s not nearly as hard as it seems, but it will take some practice. It’s the only way to ensure the loop elements from your studio will “play” in time lined up with the band.
 
In your DAW of choice, and in fact in the very session you recorded originally, you’ll simply need to create a click track set to the ideal tempo of your song and then solo any and all instruments, loops, vocals, etc that you want to be played live in your show. Something to keep in mind, is all the recorded elements need to be balanced volume wise the way you want them to sound on stage as they will come out as one audio track.

Simply pan the click track hard left in your DAW and then pan all the other instruments and parts you want hard right. You are in essence creating two mono sources: a click on one “track” and the instruments/loops on the other. Give yourself a couple of bars of click count off (pay attention to how many), and then bounce this session out as a stereo MP3.

Triggering The Sounds Live

Once you’ve bounced out any and all click/loop tracks you’ll need for your live show, drop them on your MP3 player as a playlist. To trigger them live you’ll need to have an available band member (usually the drummer or keyboardist) who will control the MP3 player. Run an 1/8th inch stereo cable that splits to two mono 1/4 inch cables out of the headphone jack of the MP3 player into your two simple DI boxes. This then gives you two XLR (or mic) cable outputs that you can run into your FOH mixing console.

Your FOH engineer will need to know to simply send the click track to your in-ears but keep the fader down in the PA, and then to bring up the loop track as needed per song and blend to taste. Your keeper-of-the-click band member will simply need to track over to each MP3 as you move from song to song, thereby triggering the click count-off and allowing the band to play knowing confidently that the loops and pre-recorded elements will “fly” in right on cue.

How This Has Helped My Band

For years my worship band at church has played with no click track or loops. It was simply a few guitars, bass, drums, and vocals. Nothing fancy. But the more work we’ve done in the studio the more additional elements I’ve wanted to bring to the stage. Examples of this are subtle string patches, extra percussion, and even some gang vocals to thicken up a chorus. For a while I fought the idea, because I knew it would mean playing to a click. But fear was the only thing holding me back, and fear is never a great reason to not try something great.

When I first introduced the click tracks to the band, they were a little hesitant (as was I). But right away two things happened. We started playing tighter as a band (thanks to the dreaded click) and we started playing with more confidence knowing that our live versions of songs weren’t somehow less dynamic than our recorded versions. We get the best of both worlds: live energy and excitement with bigger and bolder produced sounds from the studio. Just awesome.