Guitarist and female singer duo - she likes the songs with electric guitar solos!

FreddieVanHalen

OK, so I singer I know wants to get back into things after a break and we're going to start putting something together with just her singing and me supporting with guitar.

Most times, we'd pick the usual acoustic duo stuff and job done, no need for a thread, no existential angst.

However! She really wants to do melodic rock kind of stuff, and she's a big fan of the melodic electric guitar solos you find in that style.

Neither of us wants to faff with other band members as diaries are already a problem.

If we were to use a skeletal backing track with a bit of rhythm and a little extra recorded guitar during the solos to make sure there is still a song structure whilst I widdle wank, do you think this would be too cheesy?

Are we going to look like we're copying the Bontempi organ duos of 1980s Mediterranean holiday resort acts, or can this be pulled off tastefully?

Maybe it all went wrong at "melodic rock" but I'm just happy to get a chance to improve my live experience and to work with a singer who is not "difficult." :-)

What say ye?

fastonebaz

I was thinking of doing thre same thing.   Go for it. 

pintspiller

Could take ages to do your backing tracks. Sounds good though

FreddieVanHalen

pintspiller said:

Could take ages to do your backing tracks. Sounds good though

Yeah, this is the downside.

I put three tracks together with some programmed percussion and scratch guitar and it took most of a weekend.

Hopefully I’ll get faster with a bit of practice!

thecolourbox

Might be worth just doing bass lines for you to solo over? Some midi files through a decent plug ins can sound surprisingly decent.

What is melodic rock by the way? Any examples?

John_P

I’ve done similar gigs.    Go to karaoke version and check out the backing tracks for songs you fancy doing.   

jaytmon

Definitely do it, sounds like a lot of fun with a bit of enjoyable self-indulgence thrown in. Melodic rock (at least my interpretation of it) is one of my guilty pleasures. 

FreddieVanHalen

thecolourbox said:

Might be worth just doing bass lines for you to solo over? Some midi files through a decent plug ins can sound surprisingly decent.

What is melodic rock by the way? Any examples?

Not a bad idea...I had found some midi files online and got some amusing results by substituting silly instruments for lead sections  
On melodic rock, I'm using the term very loosely but the stuff she likes is the pop/soft rock crossover or AOR, so could be Toto, Journey, Michael Jackson tracks with guest rock guitarists, that kind of stuff.

John_P said:

I’ve done similar gigs.    Go to karaoke version and check out the backing tracks for songs you fancy doing.   

Cool, hadn't heard of karaoke version will look that up

jaytmon said:

Definitely do it, sounds like a lot of fun with a bit of enjoyable self-indulgence thrown in. Melodic rock (at least my interpretation of it) is one of my guilty pleasures. 

Yeah, I think the songs we're looking at will definitely be guilty pleasure territory - send any favourites or ideas my way!

hollywoodrox

Do it man, sounds good. Melodic rock , guitar, solos , singing. Especially if it’s 80s stuff. I’d go see it

Musicwolf

I did exactly this.  Started out as a 5 piece with female vocalist but things weren't working due to lack of availability (two of the guys working shifts).  I'd always put backing tracks together for our stuff either to demonstrate arrangements or for me to practice at home.  The singer and I had a jam through at rehearsal whilst waiting for the others to arrive and it sounded very promising.

In the end myself, the singer and the bass player put together a new act with backing tracks and gigged for a couple of years.  When the bass player could no longer make it due to work commitments I added bass lines to the backing and we briefly gigged as a duo.

Things to note;

I recorded all the backing in my home studio.  I'd start with a MIDI file, free if I could find one, a couple of times I bought one, if nothing available I would create something from scratch.  In any case this would be a starting point and I'd change the key and arrangement to suit us.  Drums were always Superior Drummer and using the same kit 95% of the time.  Arrangements were stripped down so that it didn't sound too karaoke.  I'd mix everything in mono with backing hard panned right and clicks (count ins at start or in breaks) hard left.  Everything went through the PA (I was using a Kemper, bass player had a Roland cube as a pre amp), the backing (RH) went to front of house and monitors, the click just to the monitors.  Playback was courtesy of an iPad using an app called SoundCue which was designed for this purpose.

Even though I'd recorded everything myself and practiced this way for years the first time I tried it through the PA I found it quite difficult to get everything to gel.  Within a couple of practices it was fine but it was a surprise when it happened.  Same thing happened with the bass player when he came in after a few weeks.

It took a long while to get the mix right.  I was constantly making notes and tweaking between rehearsals.  Once things were close I recorded the whole set start to finish.  This meant that I had the vocals and bass at 'constant level'.  I then re-mixed all the backing and tweaked my guitar patches without touching the bass or vocal faders.

Performance.  You really need to know your material.  The backing doesn't make mistakes, it never changes and it doesn't compromise.  If you come in two bars too early or too late then it's going to carry on regardless.  If you lose the beat you have to catch it back.  It's a fantastic discipline and it's made me a better guitarist.

If things go tits up then you need to be prepared to stop the track and laugh it off.  It only happened a couple of times but I can still remember being in The Thorn Inn playing 'These Boots are made for Walking' with the click doing one thing, the bass player doing something different and the singer shaking a bloody tambourine in time to her own rhythm.  The only thing that I can do is to ignore them, play to the click and hope that they correct - because the drums are going to come in in time with the click regardless.  Of course they didn't manage it and they're looking around as though the 'drummers' made a mistake.

FreddieVanHalen

Thanks @Musicwolf for taking the time to write that up, some great feedback there.

Very interesting to hear about the mix issues and difficulty playing to it when you first tried, especially if you'd already been practicing along with the tracks.

Did you manage to keep a live feel this way, keeping a connection with the singer?

One option that I had been thinking about was triggering song sections with a midi foot controller, but I'm worried that's going to be too complicated to start off with...it wouldn't get us away from the click but might give us that little bit of flexibility to start a section two bars early/late  

sev112

Wow, I must be turning into a grumpy old man , lol
the thought of listening to a band using backing tracks continues to fill me with dread, but clearly I am in  a tiny minority from the above - I can live with that

when out our band when off in different life directions, we just looked at playing those same songs with just one or 2 acoustic guitars.  People still like the songs, in fact people often say, “haven’t heard that live before” Mainly because the song normally needs a full band .

for example the 3 popular 19080s REO Speedwagon songs work ok that way, the Whitesnake softies, Bryan Adams,  some Thin Lizzy,  couldn’t get Asia to work though  am currently working on REM and Meat Loaf - ha ha .  Actually Meat Loaf would work quite well if you have a female singer and you sing too  

good luck , enjoy  

munckee

Years ago in a pub in portsmouth a singer came in with a strat and a pa, played backing tracks through the pa, sang and played lead over the top - sounded absolutely brilliant.

FreddieVanHalen

sev112 said:

Wow, I must be turning into a grumpy old man , lol
the thought of listening to a band using backing tracks continues to fill me with dread, 

No worries, I get where you're coming from. My original thinking around this was that we'd be doing something much more like you are doing right now and using an acoustic, and that for the most part ditching the solos would be the way to go.

Not what the singer wants to do though, she is a big fan of the soaring lead guitars!

Musicwolf

FreddieVanHalen said:

Very interesting to hear about the mix issues and difficulty playing to it when you first tried, especially if you'd already been practicing along with the tracks.

Did you manage to keep a live feel this way, keeping a connection with the singer?

After a couple of practices it all came together.  The quality of the initial MIDI files was 'variable'.  Some were excellent but others, and I'm thinking mainly about the drums, were very mechanical and needed a lot of work to bring them up to scratch.  A couple of tracks just didn't work and had to be dropped. 

It really helped that the singer knew the arrangements very well and never missed her cue (well, almost never).  I'm also very good at learning arrangements so that put a bit of, well needed, pressure on the bass player to do his homework.

Musicwolf

sev112 said:

Wow, I must be turning into a grumpy old man , lol
the thought of listening to a band using backing tracks continues to fill me with dread, but clearly I am in  a tiny minority from the above - I can live with that

I was of that opinion.  I remember in the 80's being on the same bill as a band that used backing tracks and they had an absolute nightmare with the wrong playback and the singer shouting at the FoH Engineer "not that one, go back one.  No, back another one etc".  Then years later I was at a function where there was a three piece (bass and two guitars) with the drums on backing - and it was really good.

Whenever I've used backing it was because we tried to get a band going but couldn't get the right people / availability and backing was better than nothing.  That said, it opened up a world of opportunity.  We played small pubs where you couldn't fit a full band, we got asked back because we sounded great and we could play at a suitable volume for the size of venue etc.

I've seen many duo + backing acts and for me the important thing is for the backing to be just that - backing.  We tried to keep it to drums and 2nd guitar (plus bass when the bass player could no longer make it).  We avoided layering things up and we'd try to keep the 'hooks' on guitar - even if the original was on keyboards.  Where people use off the shelf backing it always sounds to me to be over produced and less real.

thecolourbox

Different style of music but maybe check out some videos of The Kills to see a pro level band using backing tracks - there's only them two and their drum machine & backing tracks and they make a hell of a sound.

jaytmon

Don’t suppose the singer can strum any chords on acoustic? Another option could be a looper pedal - you could record chords for solo backing either live or pre-record them.

FreddieVanHalen said:
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Yeah, I think the songs we're looking at will definitely be guilty pleasure territory - send any favourites or ideas my way!

Umm.. how about Rod Stewart - First Cut is the Deepest?
If you want embarrassingly cheesy, Bad English - When I See You Smile (that is a very guilty pleasure!)
Starship - Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now
Def Leppard - Two Steps Behind

That’s enough embarrassment for now!!

JezWynd

Can she play / could she play a simple drum kit? Add a looper pedal and you'd be ready to rock. Alternatively get a drum machine; they can get complex but it might be better to go with something very simple and arrange your material to fit. Check out JJ Cale's first LP, he used a basic Ace Tone drum machine for the rhythm tracks.

FreddieVanHalen

thecolourbox said:

Different style of music but maybe check out some videos of The Kills to see a pro level band using backing tracks - there's only them two and their drum machine & backing tracks and they make a hell of a sound.

I'd not heard of them, thanks will check 'em out!

jaytmon said:

Don’t suppose the singer can strum any chords on acoustic? Another option could be a looper pedal - you could record chords for solo backing either live or pre-record them.

She might be up for doing some keys in the future so not a bad idea...she's just not good enough on keys yet to make it work but improving very quickly. Thanks for the song ideas, you are definitely in the right ballpark for this project  

JezWynd said:

Can she play / could she play a simple drum kit? Add a looper pedal and you'd be ready to rock. Alternatively get a drum machine; they can get complex but it might be better to go with something very simple and arrange your material to fit. Check out JJ Cale's first LP, he used a basic Ace Tone drum machine for the rhythm tracks.

She probably wont be up for drumming but triggering samples or operating a drum machine maybe....I'm pretty used to using Ableton Live to practice with so I could set something similar up using that.

axisus

An old pal of mine used to do this all the time. He knocked up backing tracks without guitar and played guitar live whilst another guy sang. He liked these gigs as they were very quick setup and they only split money two ways.