live music my arse

I just attended a live music event. About 50 people present. An hour of no conversation except an occasional atta-boy for the performer. After the event the performer hung out on stage as if he was a forgotten prop, and nobody talked to him. All but about 20 people left. Those that remained had no conversation. The next performer apparently canceled. Nobody complained, or discussed it. Nobody showed up asking where she was.

Have bots taken over the live music scene, too?

I suppose it's possible. I've been to live events like that in the past........though I'm pretty sure it was not a bot. However, it was quite obvious to me that the "live performer" was playing recorded music to the crowd. I tend to leave when I suspect that........it's just the principle. I've been to events where it was stated by the "musician" that we are hearing recorded music of him playing but not live..........I had no problems with that at all.

Hope you didn't tip too much.

There are many great performers in SL. Unfortunately with the popularity of live music in SL people are finding more ways to game "live music." I goto a lot of the "live" shows and have found that some of the performers use prerecorded tracks. Those shows are very dead with very little audience interaction. I leave them right away.

If you want to see the other side of the spectrum try one of Squidfisher McMillan or Taunter Goodnight's shows. They are always live and Squid is just plain nutts.

Are you sure he didn't have a dozen private IM's going? Did you send him an IM and ask him what his story is?

Of course. I forgot, again. There's lots of conversation. I just can't see it. Because it's invisible.

I wish there was a way to disable IMs on a parcel...

I've had this argument with clubs I don't go to anymore before - if its all in IM, its not helping the atmosphere of the scene.

If your an event host in SL, your job is to make sure the scene is social and lively - and you don't do that by inviting your friends to IM them while ignoring everyone else.

But there is also a duty to make sure its actually live and engaging - which means killing the gesture spam.

It depends on what you mean prerecorded tracks. Prerecorded backing tracks are normal and the singing is live. In fact, without backing tracks, live music is SL would be very limited - limited to voice and guitar, for instance.

How does SL distinguish between a microphone pointed at a mouth and a guitar, and a microphone pointed at an orchestra and a choir?

Explain the question please.

How does SL make this distinction in order to limit live music to just voice, guitar and perhaps a prerecorded backing track?

It doesn't. I think you may have misunderstood me. I didn't mean that there is a technical limitation. Of course, a hall with an orchestra could be microphoned up and heard in SL as live music, but that's not going to happen (or extremely rarely), and neither is a whole group going to play live except very rarely. Most of the live music in SL cosists of just one or two people singing and playing at home, and usually just one person. That person is limited to what s/he can actually do live - e.g. sing while playing a guitar or keyboard at the most. Anything more than that has to be precorded, even if it's a programmed backing in a keyboard.

So, without prerecorded backings, live music is (normally) very limited in SL.

OK... I'm a live music performer in SL and I hit the big negative buttons mentioned here.

1) I use backing tracks
2) I use alts / bots.

Why do I use backing tracks? Simply stated: I don't have enough limbs to play my compositions in their entirety live. I have to make choices as to what parts to play and which parts to leave to my backing band, Mssrs Cubase & Computer.

Why do I use alts / bots? Because I made a decision a couple of years ago to move away from the 'avatar-on-a-stage-stumming-a-guitar' syndrome and start using the possibilities in SL. I wrote my music to sound like a band. I recorded my music to sound like a band. I perform my music to sound like a band. So why shouldn't I present it to look like a band?

My only other option was to talk a few SL friends into lending their avatars to my live shows, but they'd only get bored with it after a while and want to do other things... so I pressed a few alts into service. Works for me.

I hear constant griping and whining from the SL 'realos' about my use of backing tracks, alts, etc. Stick to your little folk clubs and discos.... I'm out there creating stuff you couldn't even dream of.

Very good post, Alazarin.

Rafe may not have meant backing tracks. I only brought them up in case he did mean that, but I think he meant everything prerecorded - voice and backings, while the 'performer' does nothing live except maybe a few spoken words between songs.

I have come across a few acts... can't remember who they were off the top of my head... but I did come away with the impression that they were using professional 'music-minus-one' style backing tracks or, in some cases, completely pre-recorded work that may or may not have been their own. It was the excessive cleanliness of the sound that was the give-away to my ears. Live music, no matter how elaborate, is always a bit messy around the edges. Well, that's been my experience although that could be down to the fact that I have a bit of a messy scatter-gun approach to musicianship

What you described in the rest of the post sounded creative to me. I don't see why anyone should complain as long as they get what was advertised.

For me, it doesn't matter how the backings came about. Of course, it's better if the entertainer created them him/herself, but professional ones are perfectly acceptable. If one person is on stage singing, then that person should be singing live. Anything more than that, such as a guitar or keyboard, is better but not essential.

Much of the live entertainment in RL is one person singing, often with a guitar, and with backing tracks, even though there is usually space enough for more than one person - and nobody cares who created the backings. The number of entertainers is generally dictated by the amount of money that the venue will/can spend on the entertainment - hence it's often just one person. I see no reason why SL should be any different and I do see reasons why it should be the same. One is that SL entertainers perform in their homes, which are not suited to whole groups playing live. Two people with guitars could manage but more than that is pushing it a bit. The other reason is the money. Would SL venues really pay reasonable RL money for a whole group to set up and perform?

I know that this isn't the real topic of the thread, but it's interesting just the same

Next time try turning on the media stream. Or voice if they are using that.

I don't think Rafe was talking about backing tracks. I think he's talking about performers who pre-record their whole show. That is, it's not really live.

I've also seen venue owners run bots for all the musicians in the "band". Hotlanta Blues does that. I don't think anyone has complained about that, either.

What I haven't seen in my live music travels is someone using live-recorded backing tracks. I understand it'd be technically difficult and cost-prohibitive to have multiple musicians live in SL, simultaneously, but I'd really like to hear at least that all the music was performed by RL people the musician knows, or all by himself. The studio backing tracks I've heard just don't sound live. Or lively. Many SL performers sound like they're singing over karaoke tracks. Combine that with no crowd interaction and it's difficult to believe you're listening to a live performance at all.

But that's only part of the problem I encountered last night. It's not a problem that the performer was probably an alt of the venue owner. If he's actually performing I don't care who he is. The problem is that as far as I can tell, the performance was a recording and few humans showed up for the show. The following performance was canceled, and as far as I can tell nobody noticed. I thought even the crappy venues were more lively than that.

When I was bot hunting I noticed that a performer I was familiar with was scheduled to perform at a place I had concluded was a bot nest, so I came for the performance and found the same bots present from my bot survey. It was pathetic. A talented performer playing live for bots. But at least it was live and some real people showed up.

Last night was even more pathetic. And it was in a long-time venue on the corner of 4 sims with no obvious source of revenue. I'd think someone running a place like that to stroke their own ego would eventually get bored or tired of wasting the money. Surely pretending to be running a venue gets old, no? But they persist.

So I wonder what the hell is going on. Who benefits?

Most musicians loathe backing tracks for live music -- hitting "play" does not constitute a performance. If "live music" is what's advertised, and "canned music" is a large part of what's being presented, then it's not what was advertised. But, that's quibbling.

I feel that the use of backing tracks is a very reasonable compromise for SL. Of course, many folks drag their RL sensibilities along with them.

Personally, I enjoy making backing tracks, sometimes reproducing the original as faithfully as I can, sometimes doing originals. I haven't ever used them in a performance anywhere but in my home, but that's my choice.

I'm not a musician in SL, but if I were, I would sometimes use backing tracks and sometimes not. For example, I wouldn't bother trying to play Jeff Beck's "Cause We've Ended as Lovers" as a solo; it would fall flat.

http://learjeff.net/audio/Lovers_leargit.mp3

I should also mention that I've heard "performers" pre-record the crowd interaction. That's pretty funny. And pathetic.

Ah, but entertainers are different, and a great many singers are entertainers rather than 'musicians'

Are we talking about musicians here?

Pep (Or escorts?)

I like the visual performance that a band of avatars can give
The way they walk about the stage, sing to each other like real people, occasionally all change costumes to match the theme of the next song etc.

Its an art form.

In one song I remember the backdrop changed to a heaven vs hell theme and one of the women singers dressed as an angel, the other a devil and they fought with swords while the rest of the band continued to play in the background.

Was the music live ? I don’t know and I didn't care, the performance was amazing.

To be as generous as possible, I suppose the venue owner may realize that no real people would stick around if there weren't already a pile of green dots on the map. Maybe sometimes that works better than it did last night (a Monday night, no less) when quite possibly you were the only non-bot in attendance. That might cause the owner to cancel the second performer, and the first performer to just hang out sorting inventory with no particular place to go.

Or, granted, it all may have been just a recording. Without having heard it, it's difficult to be sure. It seems pretty lame for a musician to do a whole set with no audience banter, but I think I can imagine it, if there's no live audience with whom to interact.

I'd sure hate to try to run a venue; it's a mystery to me why it's such a popular thing to try to do. Unless you've got a whole gang of really boring friends with no other interests, there's really no choice but to "salt the mine" somehow: contests, etc. Maybe you try to make it a live music venue, but maybe your performer has no loyal groupies either. The audience bots may be pathetic, but without them, you'd never get anybody to stick around long enough for others to gather. If live music were a scarce commodity, attendees might be more patient, but we know that condition no longer obtains (in spades).

What are people's opinions about electronic music performed live?

I make electronic music that I can perform live but unless you knew the songs it could sound like I had simply pressed play on a pre-recorded show as there is no vocalist unless I use vox samples. With a midi controller I can be the whole band and reinterpret each part on the fly.

I guess with music electronic you really need to see the actual RL performance, so what would be the solution? Stream video of the performance into SL as well as the audio?

So is it possible to be a live electronic music performer in SL? or would I be more in competition with the DJ crowd?