How do singers and bands replicate the songs they make in the studio for their album when they go on tour? In particular:
How do they manage things that have a lot of added production on top of straight singing and conventional instruments?
How do they play all of the sounds that are produced by computer?
How do they do all of the effects and distortions on voice and instruments that were modified by computer?
If any of the effects or a prerecorded element has a specific rhythm, does that effectively mean that now the drummer has to keep time to something else, instead of everyone keeping time to the drummer? Does that kill their mood/spirit/spontaneity?
If it’s complicated enough, do they have to bring their own sound mixer, or do they have to retrain the house mixer everytime they get to a new location?
If it’s a solo act, but the studio album adds instruments, do they hire extra performers for the tour? If they only know and wrote the song for their guitar, who figures out and transcribes the other instruments? How would that work for an album that has some jamming or other spontaneity and has to be copied by a different performer later?
Only loosely related:
A) Autotune became ridiculously popular for some reason, but I know there’s other vocal effects, some to sound different and some to sound better or fuller. What are the options like?
B) There’s all sorts of effects built into electric guitar amps - would any of them work, or do any of them work well on a vocal mic?
Well, synthesisers can create many sounds. A string quartet or brass section, for example. And it’s cheaper to take a keyboard player and a synthesiser on tour than 4 players of a string quartet and their instruments and the equipment to mic them.
There’s a sound board to adjust the volume of all the vocals and instruments that are miked or plugged into the board. A rack of electronic sound effects can be right next to that board and plugged in for a sound tech to operate.
Sometimes the backing track is prerecorded and the musicians just pretend to play and the vocals are live. Sometimes parts of the backing is pre-recorded and some of the music and vocals are live. Sometimes it’s all pre-recorded and the act is faking it. Think American Bandstand.
I see some, especially electronic, musicians that basically have a full-fledged digital audio workstation running on a laptop. So they can indeed generate computer-synthesized sounds, play stuff back, mix sources, have a (virtual) rack full of effects, and all that stuff in a portable format. The computer stuff is nothing to lug around added to the potential truck full of actual instruments, microphones, amplifiers, speakers, fog machines, and what have you.
Probably very similar to how they managed it in the studio.
With a computer.
With a computer.
Depends on the band/drummer/song.
The bigger the act, the more likely they’ll have their own travelling sound guy…and their own PA. But small acts will either just use the house guy or sometimes the travelling guy will have his own mixing board, then the house guys jacks that through the house system.
Yes, they are called hired guns. Touring musicians. And they figure it all at out during pre-tour rehearsals.