Musician Gear & Tech Discussion

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if anyone here has any experience playing triggered samples/backing tracks live.

I'm not talking about playing along with a track like in this thread: http://forum.bandmix.com/viewtopic.php?t=190&highlight=backing+track

I'm talking more about triggering a sample during a live performance (kind of like what Geddy Lee does for Rush).

There are a couple of songs my band is doing, and maybe a couple more we're going to do, that have some small keyboards/strings/etc. and I'd like a way to trigger those samples on cue. Boss makes a cheap midi controller for stuff like this (around $30) and I've got a laptop computer I can use for it. But I don't know much about what kind of software to use, what would work, and what would fit in a budget.

Thanks everyone.

You know.. I really have no idea. It would be cool to try, I know nothing about using samplers. Sorry I can't help you there.

But I'd kill for an Effie burger !!

I commented elswhere on this.

If you are a loud rock band its hard to use, cause you need some kind of click track to keep everything in sync. Most of us dont have perfect timing and tend to vary some depending on our mood. I tryed this for extra guitar parts and just let it go, cause it was hard for the whole group to get into sync on.

It can be done but I think its going to cost way more than 30 bucks, the sampler I used was around 500 + 75 dollar trigger switch. I wound up trading it back in and just concentrating on playing better.

If you figure out a way to do it, please let us know.

I put some weird intro pieces in mine and that worked pretty good, cause everyone could really get into the groove. Triggering a part in the middle of a song would get tricky.

Good Luck

cpl ideas for ya
1) get a drum machine like the zoom rt323 - it can trigger sequences of midi notes from any pad in the "song mode" . (most drum machines have this feature)

2) you could simply set up a fruity loops sound (limited length on audio files it can play back) to fire off based on the midi note you hit with yer $30 unit (I've never heard of a $30 midi unit... but fruity loops will let you trigger from a std computer keyboard as well)

3) cakewalk used to have a virtual synth that could play samples... I'm not sure what the current incantation of that is... but it would def do what yer talking about... competitors would be battery, gigastudio, etc

feel free to shoot q's back my way
cheers
mv