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-   -   One Man Bands? (https://www.musicbanter.com/talk-instruments/24140-one-man-bands.html)

STPATRICK 07-31-2007 10:07 AM

One Man Bands?
 
I would like to start making my own music. I have been playing with people for years, but have had a hard time keeping anyone interested in a band. Now I want to do it all myself. I have seen people playing one instument with all the backup recorded to play against. This is what I want to do but don't know the first thing about it. I know all the other instuments need to be recorded, but what is the best method of getting this done on an easy to use machine. What is the best way to accomplish my goal of being a one man band?

Can anyone help?

STPATRICK

Frances 07-31-2007 10:47 PM

Jason Webley. One man support act for the Dresden Dolls when I saw them.
Fantastic!
Mobster style top hat, drum on the floor, piano accordian, a grunt like Tom Waits and all the energy of a circus on speed.
Really, really great.

Anyway, check out his site, he'd be full of ideas.:D

jackhammer 08-01-2007 04:00 PM

Son Of Dave too-the guys a genius.

coltonbraun 04-04-2008 10:05 AM

get a multi-track recorder....record all them and play againt themm

its easy to do

mr dave 04-04-2008 10:30 AM

a lot of it will depend on what you want to accomplish as a one man band. are you looking to try to emulate the classic image of the one man band with a bass drum slung across his back, a trumpet in one hand, a flute in the other, with bells, whistles and shakers attached to every open piece of clothing? or are you going for more of a wedding singer deal where the backing track is recorded onto a keyboard first and you just play the keys and croon over your backing track? or do you just want to record your own tracks at home to distribute them online with no plans of public performances?

unless you're making electronic music the biggest problem with using a machine as a backing band is that it WILL sound like a machine. it will be unforgiving on issues of timing and tone. a bum note or missed cue will REALLY stand out, it's not like you have a human drummer who can't stretch or shrink a roll to keep the music flowing when it's just 1s and 0s on a hard drive.

if you know how to play piano then a programmable keyboard will likely be your best bet. probably something by yamaha. korg, or roland. most decent programmable synths will offer some basic drums and percussion sounds along with tons of different guitar and bass tones. the drums might sound decent but they're still a long ways off from getting the stringed instruments to sound right. it'll sound passable but still obviously synthetic.

a multitrack recorder would be perfect if you were only interested in recording all the pieces yourself but i don't think it would really work for playing a show.

CrazyXGuitarXDrums 04-09-2008 03:47 PM

I would recommend getting ProTool's as it's one of the best recording systems out there and it's very easy to use.

jmon 04-09-2008 05:04 PM

I have to agree with you on this one. ProTools is a great investment. I wouldn't say it is the easiest to use, but after a little use it works like a charm.

Rubberchicken 04-09-2008 07:00 PM

Check out Ben Christophers performance on fabchannel.com it's amazing. He uses a laptop and a sampler with piano and acoustic guitar. Much much talent!
Also Jacob Golden and Tom McRae are two others that pull the one man band off quite well.

Basically if your songs stand up on their own with just vox and guitar then all you need is a interesting yet subtle backing track!

scott.gotcha 04-11-2008 10:49 AM

why not try a loop board

SATCHMO 04-11-2008 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scott.gotcha (Post 467408)
why not try a loop board

Yeah, I'm going with this guy. The whole pre-recorded backing tracks is going to appear cheesy as hell in a live situation.
Check out Any of Keller Williams stuff to see a master in action.

SATCHMO 04-11-2008 12:12 PM


Slackjaw 04-11-2008 03:29 PM

grow more arms

scott.gotcha 04-11-2008 03:37 PM

Thats a cool video

Richiban 04-11-2008 05:15 PM

Liam Finn, the son of Neil Finn of Crowded House played a show here once. Just him on stage, a drumset and a looping board. Once he got all his guitar tracks looped, he sang and then rocked the drums for a while. It was quite amazing actually.

DragHustler 09-17-2008 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Frances (Post 385091)
Jason Webley. One man support act for the Dresden Dolls when I saw them.
Fantastic!
Mobster style top hat, drum on the floor, piano accordian, a grunt like Tom Waits and all the energy of a circus on speed.
Really, really great.

Anyway, check out his site, he'd be full of ideas.:D

agreed.*

Thrice 09-20-2008 12:28 AM

Kaki King- bone chaos in the castle.
Answer to all your questions.

RockGuitar101 09-25-2008 04:56 PM

Hi , I been there and done that, I am a guitar player and have had bands, but as they say, bands come and go.
So what I decided is best is to be the best guitar I can be, be creative, and make my guitar sound like 2 guitars playing at once and just sing and play.
I'll tell you what, it goes over better than trying to be a 1 man band.
I found if you try to be a 1 man band people just think you have no real friends and that can hurt you more. Just play the instrument you love the best you can and sing and be happy.

bmhutchins 11-09-2009 01:06 PM

Keller Williams is definitely the best one man band out there. Incredible stuff with the loops and all that. If you happen to be in Cali, check him out. Majestic Ventura Theatre on the 11th and Anaheim HOB the 12th.

stormjh 11-10-2009 08:41 AM

http://www.onemanband.org/omb-photo/...an-band-lg.jpg

i found a video too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2xOw-VXe_g

Daktari 11-10-2009 12:51 PM

Loopers.
 
Hi there,

I play around local bars and restaurants and I use a Boss Looper which is very good in a way but I am thinking of changing to the Digitech JAM MAN. The only reason being, the Jam Man has a memory card slot which means it will then hold upto 99 looped backing tracks. At the moment, My Boss Looper just has 10 spaces before I have to start deleting and starting from scratch.

At first, I was happy with this because I wanted the tracks to be disposable, kind of throw away. However, sometimes, it works out really good and it would be nice to save them to re-use. Right now I have eight pre-looped tracks, mainly for reggae type songs which I sing and play solo guitar to. The other two spaces I save for live looping which is a lot more exciting. I just feel that the audience would soon get fed up of watching each song build layer by layer and so most of what I play is just live one guitar and vocals, maybe hitting a tambourine or cabassa with my foot sometimes.

One of my favourite reggae tracks to loop live is 'LIQUIDATOR'. A really gold old reggae tune. I start with rhyhm guitar which I make sound like an organ, then I make percussive sounds by banging and scratching on the strings near the pickups. Then an octave down to do the bass and then finally a steel drum type sound to play the melody.

Loads of solo musicians just mail order some backing tracks and play and sing along to that but that's just getting too close to karaoke for me.

Whatever lights your candle I guess.

Good Luck, Gordon. ONE MAN-:band:

Roemilca 11-10-2009 03:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daktari (Post 765408)
Hi there,

I play around local bars and restaurants and I use a Boss Looper which is very good in a way but I am thinking of changing to the Digitech JAM MAN. The only reason being, the Jam Man has a memory card slot which means it will then hold upto 99 looped backing tracks. At the moment, My Boss Looper just has 10 spaces before I have to start deleting and starting from scratch.

At first, I was happy with this because I wanted the tracks to be disposable, kind of throw away. However, sometimes, it works out really good and it would be nice to save them to re-use. Right now I have eight pre-looped tracks, mainly for reggae type songs which I sing and play solo guitar to. The other two spaces I save for live looping which is a lot more exciting. I just feel that the audience would soon get fed up of watching each song build layer by layer and so most of what I play is just live one guitar and vocals, maybe hitting a tambourine or cabassa with my foot sometimes.

One of my favourite reggae tracks to loop live is 'LIQUIDATOR'. A really gold old reggae tune. I start with rhyhm guitar which I make sound like an organ, then I make percussive sounds by banging and scratching on the strings near the pickups. Then an octave down to do the bass and then finally a steel drum type sound to play the melody.

Loads of solo musicians just mail order some backing tracks and play and sing along to that but that's just getting too close to karaoke for me.

Whatever lights your candle I guess.

Good Luck, Gordon. ONE MAN-:band:

Damn. Well, I'd love it if you could play guitar or something on a track with me, it sounds like it'd be a great collab.

ElephantSack 11-11-2009 08:08 AM

http://members.iinet.net.au/~carlm/misc/that1guy.jpg

Who knows this guy? You know, That 1 Guy.

that1guy.com

Caleb48kb 11-27-2009 05:54 PM

Jason Mraz is a one man band, alot of the time. Dave Matthews and John Mayer also pull it off from time to time.

FadedMyxomatosis 11-27-2009 06:29 PM

Chad Vangaalen.

Shoe 11-28-2009 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by FadedMyxomatosis (Post 773570)
Chad Vangaalen.

Brilliant.

Terrible Lizard 11-29-2009 03:03 PM

Hasil Adkins, you know that crazy motherfucker who invented psychobilly and the hunch?

http://blogs.knoxnews.com/knx/brown/...asiladkins.jpg


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