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Midi Backing track Equipment Question
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I have a band that uses midi backing tracks. The equipment they use is no
longer available and they want to upgrade/change equipment. The basic
setup:
A Roland JV1080 feeds 4 (I think) channels of analog from midi to the sound
board (Direct outs -> DI). Midid is run from old Apple laptops.
When running with different personnel the mixer must handle which tracks
must be added to the mains to replace instruments/personnel not present.
From what I understand of the setup thus far, they have a click track, drum
track, keys, horns. The sound guy simply adds/subtracts for the mains mix.
How would you do this today? There are getting to be fewer and fewer synths
out there (Roland XV5050 replaced the JV1080 but no one seems to sell that
anymore either). There are a couple approaches that I am thing of and maybe
you guys have done one or more of these and can comment:
1. Do it like they do it noe with new gear. Buy a new synth, new PC, and
screw with interface software until the same performance is achieved. Pros:
midi files are small, eficient to work with. Cons: synth technology is
expensive and seems to be losing ground.
2. Use a PC to do all the work. It might be possible to find a sound card
or generate a driver for one that would allow for the use of 5 channels of
output like direct outs. Not sure if this is true. It might be that
everything starts stereo and then a multichannel decoder is used to generate
the outputs. The connectors say it might be possible. Midis could still be
used.
3. Use Cool edit/pro tools/etc. and use the midis like separate tracks.
Then use a digital interface over firewire (maybe like a motu interface) to
generate the direct outs. My problem with this is that I am not sure if the
software will do this. I have used this software for wave files but not
midi.
4. Have the backing tracks recorded with real instruments and then use multi
track software to play through a digital interface. Not sure if the digital
interface will take separate track information from the PC. (always
recorded with one...) Plus, wav files may take too long to load for each
song when back-to-back music is required.
What do you think? What do you see being used?
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A CD player. Maybe two, so one can be cued up at all times.
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Either an Akai MPC, first and best option
or
Ableton Live and whatever M Audio or Roland interface has the required
number of tracks and midi.
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