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Post by johntee on Apr 15, 2008 7:40:35 GMT -5
Going to see the Lads tonight but,I am a little suspicious as to why the set list is in the same order every night.I know it could be because its easy to remember but it could be because its a recording with Tim singing the vocals and the other fellas miming If you look at the version of sound on youtube James live Liverpool April 12th you might guess..Looking forward to seeing them anyway and hope i'm wrong as I thought they were a great (live) band.
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Post by johntee on Apr 15, 2008 8:01:23 GMT -5
I tried playing Sound long version over the top of the youtube video and its more or less identical!'I also thought it was unusual at Belladrum when it sounded like getting away with it live being played through the amps.. but maybe thats what a lot of bands are doing nowadays.
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Post by chris815 on Apr 15, 2008 8:01:40 GMT -5
Check out my video of Sometimes, 2.26 in - you can clearly see Mark pressing some button on the laptop and the music kicks in....
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Post by caulfield on Apr 15, 2008 8:32:15 GMT -5
That’s right guys – the secret is out. None of them are capable of playing a live set. Larry actually only has 2 fingers.
A lot of live sets do incorporate pre-recorded gadgetry, at the start of Sometimes a drum-loop starts up of hi-hat 16th beats which Dave syncs into with a shuffling snare / hat pattern. Eventually this allows Mark to cue in a shed load of backing vocals (Brian Eno’s presumably) to get the MASSIVE vocal sound at the end of the song. I don’t believe anyone seriously expected that sound to come from 4 singers on stage?
That said on this tour the acappella ending of Larry / Saul / Jim & Andy singing seems very much live.
There are also so many differences in the way songs are played from previous versions, and night to night that there is no way whole songs are pre-recorded.
But the odd loop here and there never hurt anybody, really it’s just an extension of effects pedals and units used to create delays, echoes and harmonic notes.
Bloody cynics!
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Post by Mac on Apr 15, 2008 8:51:10 GMT -5
Tell me about it.... ;D It's getting a little bit concerning when I'm finding myself thinking that others are getting too critical! As for identical setlists - erm....it isn't? As has been said, a few effects here and there aren't anything bad. Coming from me this may seem a bit hypocritical but can some people find some things positive to say instead of picking holes in everything despite it currently being a very positive time. I'm not trying to say your opinion is any less valid or that you are wrong for saying them, but when it's picky little things like this it's a bit - inducing. Sorry, I'll change my nickname now. ;D
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Post by chris815 on Apr 15, 2008 9:18:28 GMT -5
Just an observation
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Post by sweezely on Apr 15, 2008 9:33:34 GMT -5
Mark has a metric shitload of samples. The start of Play Dead is mostly recorded barring Saul's guitar. The violin on Getting Away With It, sample also. As pointed out, drum loops on Sometimes, as well as backing vocals. Drum loop on Waltzing Along, also I Know What I'm Here For, and you can hear a timpani in I Wanna Go Home, which I suspect is a loop too. Let's face it, there's a hell of a lot of pre recorded stuff going on in the background, however, it's still "live" because Mark triggers them and programs them and such. It's not like U2 or Coldplay who use a backing track.
The best samples though are the backing vocals on Waltzing Along, because Kulas is in them (Mark obviously owns his soul).
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Post by caulfield on Apr 15, 2008 14:00:23 GMT -5
Let's not confuse midi-style synthesised sounds with pre-recorded japery. Also it takes a human metronome to play to a preset beat for a whole song, even if you use tap-syncing (I just made up a word, score!). The worst of the modern batch of bands for backing tracks is Keane (where do all those basslines spring from?)
I listened to the album today for the first time since the liverpool gig and it is steadily sinking in what a fucking brilliant collection of songs it is, and how they are even better live. There was another thread about Tim's voice a while ago where his Kermit-like throat was raised but at liverpool he sounded pristine...weird...
Anyway, I'm as in love with this band as I was when I was 11 and my sister brought home the Seven album. God bless her for it. She even called my nephew James, good girl!
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Post by sweezely on Apr 15, 2008 14:24:41 GMT -5
The worst of the modern batch of bands for backing tracks is Keane (where do all those basslines spring from?) I wondered that too. I once heard someone say "he uses a bass pedal", which is just bollocks.
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Post by caulfield on Apr 15, 2008 14:28:28 GMT -5
Well he could be playing it on a keyboard, but he would be the only 9 handed piano player in the charts today! Remember all the fuss about Jack White playing a bass in 7 Nation Army before it transpired that he actually used an octave pedal? Not sure how that's "better" than using an actual instrument to make the noise but that's what happens when the inbred become guitar purists!
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Deano
Whiteboy
Posts: 605
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Post by Deano on Apr 15, 2008 15:09:56 GMT -5
I still find it a bit annoying to be honest, I'd just rather they did a best approxmation of the song with the players they have, rather than resort to backing. I mean half the joy of James live is that they *don't* sound like they do on record, so don't really get the desire to sound more like this.
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Post by lostinsound on Apr 15, 2008 15:22:17 GMT -5
Well he could be playing it on a keyboard, but he would be the only 9 handed piano player in the charts today! Ray Manzarek played the bass part on a keyboard when the Doors performed live, and I believe he only had two hands.
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Porcupine
Hero
Do everything you fear...in this there's power...fear is not to be afraid of
Posts: 448
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Post by Porcupine on Dec 29, 2008 14:55:25 GMT -5
Sorry to resurrect a massively old thread, but I've been catching up on threads I'd missed and putting in weird search terms to Google and came up with a rather techy article from Sound On Sound magazine from 1997, which sprang to mind when I read this thread.... the whole article is www.soundonsound.com/sos/1997_articles/aug97/james.html but the relevant bit is Technology also helps James to perform live, says Baynton-Power:
"A lot of people don't realise how much hardware we use live. But we don't show it off. We keep it hidden and so no-one notices. We work with drum machines and use a lot of pre-recorded stuff -- we never use tape, it's mainly samples triggered manually by Mark [Hunter, James' keyboard player], or loops that we run off the old little Alesis sequencer, the MMT8. That's a brilliant piece of gear for live use, because it's stable, it never crashes, and it's user-friendly and quick to use. You can mute tracks with a touch of the button on the MMT8. Try doing that live with Cubase and a mouse!
"Live, Mark uses a Clavia Nord Lead, Korg Wavestation keyboard, Emu Orbit, Roland Super Jupiter rackmount and the Emu 6400 sampler, with 128K memory and hard drive. Brian Eno sang many of the backing vocals on Laid -- he's brilliant at that, doing them very quickly with a Shure SM58 mic sitting behind the desk. To be able to perform these tracks live, we sampled many of Eno's backing vocals into the Emu and Mark plays them from a keyboard. And he often sends me a click track or a little drum beat from the MMT8, which only I will hear, via headphones, to make sure that all the backing vocals that he's firing from the sampler will be exactly in time with my drumming. Other than that, I don't use any MIDI live. I try to keep live drumming simple."Though I presume the hardware has been much upgraded in the meantime, the way of working will be very similar
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Post by lisa on Dec 29, 2008 17:23:46 GMT -5
No-one notices?
DBP saw Folkie and me chuckling in Camden when the drums were going and he was swigging his drink ;D
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Porcupine
Hero
Do everything you fear...in this there's power...fear is not to be afraid of
Posts: 448
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Post by Porcupine on Dec 29, 2008 18:25:17 GMT -5
Technology also helps James to perform live, says Baynton-Power:
"A lot of people don't realise how much hardware we use live. But we don't show it off. We keep it hidden and so no-one notices, except for Lisa and Folklore who are far too bloody clever for their own good. We work with drum machines and use a lot of pre-recorded stuff -- we never use tape, it's mainly samples triggered manually by Mark [Hunter, James' keyboard player], or loops that we run off the old little Alesis sequencer, the MMT8. That's a brilliant piece of gear for live use, because it's stable, it never crashes, and it's user-friendly and quick to use. You can mute tracks with a touch of the button on the MMT8. Try doing that live with Cubase and a mouse!
"Live, Mark uses a Clavia Nord Lead, Korg Wavestation keyboard, Emu Orbit, Roland Super Jupiter rackmount and the Emu 6400 sampler, with 128K memory and hard drive. Brian Eno sang many of the backing vocals on Laid -- he's brilliant at that, doing them very quickly with a Shure SM58 mic sitting behind the desk. To be able to perform these tracks live, we sampled many of Eno's backing vocals into the Emu and Mark plays them from a keyboard. And he often sends me a click track or a little drum beat from the MMT8, which only I will hear, via headphones, to make sure that all the backing vocals that he's firing from the sampler will be exactly in time with my drumming. Other than that, I don't use any MIDI live. I try to keep live drumming simple, especially when I can get away with putting my feet up and having a drink whilst Mark does all the hard work."
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