I guess it bothers me because you represent yourself as a musician and it DOESN'T bother YOU. Lip Synching? Fully fleshed out audio tracks? What the hell does that have to do with art? If that's how you want to be defined as a musician then more power to you. I'm not pompous, elitist, purist, or anything else; I just think there is a limit to what you can pass off as 'creativity' or as a 'performance'. And yes, Donny, I'll say it; we definitely have a different standard. I still think that music is an art form, not some kind of technology project which the untalented, the un-studied, and yes, even the unscrupulous, can exploit for profit. I guess, for me, it's a question of values. There is a reason why a painting can be valued at millions of dollars while even a very good print or copy of it can be had for for few hundred. There IS such a thing as artistic integrity. It's one of the things that defines us as a society. So when people say that these forms of obvious FAKERY doesn't matter, then YES, it does bother me. Did that answer your question, Donny?

chas

I don't understand why some people are content to use a MIDI track or SMF in their keyboard, but are offended by an MP3.

That's a good way of putting it, Larry.

The beauty of these new Wav and MP3 players, is that they can be transposed and the tempo can be changed, the latter not affecting the pitch.

I know there are other ways of doing this, but, it is nice to see it all on an arranger (including SMF, and styles), and a rather reasonably priced one at that.

And, I agree, this will be very popular to both pros and amateurs.

Ian

Ian, good point...I forgot about the tempo and transpose options available on keyboards with audio backing capability.

It's my understanding, you have options with these audio backing tracks.

1. Full original recording to learn a song.

2. Minus one instrument so you can be the fill in guy

3. No vocal,(right hand) so one can sing or play along.

All of that sounds similar using recorded styles and midi's, only this is in audio format. To me it sounds like fun, and at the same time you get to be a part of the original recording.

Lip Syncing to someone else voice? Who does that professionally? If it's part of your act and the audience knows that, then maybe, but if you're trying to fool the audience that your Frank Sinatra, they will know...nobody's that's good.

Chas angry again? Chill dude.....I dropped the thought its getting too weird I'd rather just ignore it as this can only get ugly. Have a great evening.

I hope begin November but with Korg you never know for sure

Like him or not (I happen to count on him as a personal friend), you 'gotta' respect Chas as the standard bearer for keeping the creativity and the artistic components of creating great music alive.

He's the voice of a "small but mighty" group of people to whom the integrity of the music is everything.

We need these folks in the world. Sadly, to an extent, I've sold out. Chas would have loved to be a full-time jazz musician, and has the chops to have done it.

But, the great B-3 players in the world, for instance, often make about what I did as a communications VP at a major electrical company or what Chas made as a major airline pilot.

Again, musicians and entertainers often are not on the same page.

I respect Chas for being the "torch bearer"!

Russ (old school) Lay

One of the primary differences between an SMF and an audio backing track is... The SMF can be edited. You can mute out parts you don't want, you can mute out parts you want to play yourself, you can replace parts you think you can play better yourself, you can delete mistakes, you can seamlessly edit the song to a different structure, you can replace the drums (and the whole sequence) with an entire different groove.

An audio file? NOTHING. Nada. Zip. Oh yeah... whoop-te-do! You can change tempo and key (a bit, but not much).

I'm with chas on this aspect of it. Printing out an inkjet copy of a DaVinci masterpiece doesn't make you an artist in the slightest. It makes you a copy-boy.

As long as we don't confuse "integrity of the music" with narrow mindedness and/or unwillingness to try, or appreciate something new or different, everything should work out just fine.

And, I'm with Larry, in that singing, or performing, over a complete (finished) pre-recorded audio backing, is nothing new. "It's the way pro singers have been cutting albums for years."

Not only albums, but stage and TV shows as well.

Some very famous and well respected artists (including some instrumentalists), have never even met the musicians who played on their recordings.

Ian

Few of them ever went out live tours without musicians, though. And even fewer of them sung over backings commercially available to ANYONE that wanted them!

If my 'narrow-mindedness' is what prevents me turning into a karaoke act, with no input on my backing whatsoever, then I consider it an advantage!

There's nothing 'new or different' about karaoke. It's been done for years. What IS different is more and more musicians and singers turning to it, rather than leaving it the excruciating singalong form of 'entertainment' for drunk no-talent audience members trying to get over their up-tightedness!