So there are four of us in my band. Keyboard/vocals, percussion/vocals, guitar, and bass. On some of our recorded tracks there are additional instrument lines e.g. banjo or synth. These are normally quiet brief lines maybe lasting a couple of seconds at most. We want to incorporate these lines into our live performances so are looking at a way to trigger them. We are hesitant to go down the road of bringing a laptop to our live gigs (mainly because it seems more likely for something to go wrong - although maybe this is misguided) so we began looking into hardware-based alternatives and came across the Roland SPD-SX sampling pad. This makes sense for us because the person best equipped in any given song to trigger these is most likely going to be the person on percussion.
Our main concern is ensuring that we play at the right tempo so that the samples are in time when triggered. The only solution to this that I can think of is using a click matched to the original samples. Is there any other potential solution to this? Also, is there any other alternative to the Roland SPD-SX that you would recommend? Appreciate any other info/tips on using samples like this live. Thanks in advance!
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That’s the theory. The reality is a little different in my experience. I quickly abandoned the idea of trying to change the tempo on the fly as whilst I could get the tempo very close after triggering, it proved impossible to get the position of the playback to match the song. i.e. the sample would end up at the right speed but half a bar out etc.
If you have a drummer who is happy to play to a click then you’re sorted. I haven’t met one yet who is though.
That leaves you with either samples that are not synced, such as some effects; applause, crowd noise, long synth pads that don’t change etc, OR - and I haven’t tried this yet, triggering shorter tempo-based samples and tap-tempoing the current drummer’s speed into it a couple of bars before triggering. In theory, the sample ought to be at a close enough tempo and, if you trigger it bang on, in sync with the song. It’s a bit of a gamble though. As I say, I haven’t tried it yet, and to be truthful, I’m not very confident. It would definitely work for short sound effects etc, but in my case I was trying to use it to play complete rhythm parts while I did solos as I’m the only guitarist and that hasn’t worked out.
Hope this helps a bit, even if it’s probably not what you want to hear.
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