how do i get started recording songs to my laptop harddrive for a play along with cd/mp3 type of gig? you know, almost Kareoke but not quite! any software out there for this? i want to be able to control the song start and stop with a foot pedal as i play and sing.
i also want to pull the vocals out of pre-recorded songs for this, and my original stuff----soooo,how do i do it?
i am basically a singer songwriter that backs up my singing with my guitar and no other accompanyment. so this is a hard thing to think about doing. but i have been offered some money gigs if i can pull it off…
any links or suggestions would be greatly appreciated…thx,jw
Foot pedal i do not know, i have not seen that, but i have seem guys use a laptaop and do backing tracks they just hit a presetup key for stop and start.
As far as removeing vocals some will say you can but most will tell you that is will not work, as least with any high degree of success, when one removes a vocal from a pre-recorded song, the wave file must be inverted and then the actual wave file is then sort of shave off in the middle (crude analogy), this results in loss on the ohter instruemtns residing in that area, and is the vocal is not exactly down the middle then it become next to impossible. Imagine trying to remove the eggs from an already baked cake.
A better idea is to go to the internet and download midi files for songs you like and then process them in N-tracks and remove the tracks you plan to play then export them as an mp3 then play them in something like music match ot winapm and just sing and play along, you can make it sound so much more like a real song ather than songing along to the original artist CD with the vocal somewhat removed.
Go to this site http://www.motagator.net/bands/145/ and click on Peaceful Easy Feeling and see how I did this the bass, drums, piano, and accoustic guitar are midi tracks thru sound fonts, the lead guitar and vocals are mine, I could drop the lead vocal and lead guitar track and play them live along with the track on MP3 and have a full band back up.
I’m not sure I’d rely on a PC for stage use. Too much chance of a crash, stutter, bluescreen, startup failure… Why not use a cd, or better still an MP3 player, or even better, a minidisk player?
I friend of mine regularly performs to backing tracks on a minidisk. No footswitch to start/stop but he puts a longish gap at the end of each song to give him a chance to press STOP or NEXT TRACK as appropriate.
I used to perform with backing tracks too. (Midi). One interesting problem (which depends on how many live instruments are playing) is the foldback/monitor mix. You usually want a different mix in the foldback to the FOH. For example, you may want the drums much louder in the foldback/monitors than a “proper” FOH mix would have. The only way I’ve figured to do this is to mix to two separate mono - one channel/mix for FOH and the other for the foldback/monitor.
Clicks to count time in the musical gaps, and count-ins can be a pain too. Even with the above technique the audience will hear something.
Hope you find something that works for you.
Mark
| Quote (Robomusic @ June 27 2005,13:43) |
| Foot pedal i do not know, i have not seen that, but i have seem guys use a laptaop and do backing tracks they just hit a presetup key for stop and start. As far as removeing vocals some will say you can but most will tell you that is will not work, as least with any high degree of success, when one removes a vocal from a pre-recorded song, the wave file must be inverted and then the actual wave file is then sort of shave off in the middle (crude analogy), this results in loss on the ohter instruemtns residing in that area, and is the vocal is not exactly down the middle then it become next to impossible. Imagine trying to remove the eggs from an already baked cake. A better idea is to go to the internet and download midi files for songs you like and then process them in N-tracks and remove the tracks you plan to play then export them as an mp3 then play them in something like music match ot winapm and just sing and play along, you can make it sound so much more like a real song ather than songing along to the original artist CD with the vocal somewhat removed. Go to this site http://www.motagator.net/bands/145/ and click on Peaceful Easy Feeling and see how I did this the bass, drums, piano, and accoustic guitar are midi tracks thru sound fonts, the lead guitar and vocals are mine, I could drop the lead vocal and lead guitar track and play them live along with the track on MP3 and have a full band back up. |
thanks guys! hey Robo, how do find the gazillion songs i need to use on stage? is there a midi brain dump of songs out there? or do i need to do it manually and record them one by one? (which i don't really wanna do)
jwgeetar,
Here is a starting point for free MIDI files:
http://www.members.shaw.ca/glitch/midifiles.html
Her only request is that you don’t try to download everything at one time. Respect her bandwidth limitations.
Do a google search for midi files and you wil find hundreds of free sources.
I have a personal library of over 35,000 songs. If you don’t find what you need on line, you are welcome to PM me and I will see if I have it and can email it to you or post it somewhere for you to download.
HTH
| Quote (Don Gaynor @ June 27 2005,19:22) |
| jwgeetar, Here is a starting point for free MIDI files: http://www.members.shaw.ca/glitch/midifiles.html Her only request is that you don't try to download everything at one time. Respect her bandwidth limitations. Do a google search for midi files and you wil find hundreds of free sources. I have a personal library of over 35,000 songs. If you don't find what you need on line, you are welcome to PM me and I will see if I have it and can email it to you or post it somewhere for you to download. HTH |
thanks Don for the starting point. will check it out and take it easy on the d-load's.
now, lemme see if i can do this...
http://www.unifykaraoke.com/english/karaoke_remote_home.htm
check this out…it is a remote control for PCs