Playing Gigs with backing tracks AND a drummer (metronome in drummers ears only)

Hi, i have been recording with my band, which consists of 2 guitarists, a bassist and drummer.  But included in our songs are some Midi Synth tracks which we would like to hear live - but without having to find another member to play them.

What we want is to be able to play the synth tracks as a backing track for live gigs, and have a metronome in the drummers ears only (so that no metronome is coming out the P.A)  Is this possible??  I believe you must need 2 outputs with the click only going through one...         But how??

Can anyone please help?!?!

Many, many thanks

The above will work but depending on your set up, you could also set up a metronome track to a separate output that feeds headphones for your drummer. The stereo main outs can then go to your PA for the synths giving full stereo out front.

Edit for clarity.

I've made a few backing tracks doing exactly this for bands I've recorded, and I've always found that it's best to keep it simple, especially if they're not playing big venues, where the sound equipment/engineer can be a little dodgy. Here's a quick way to do it in Sonar...

Route your backing track to a bus, and change the interleave to mono. Pan this hard left and route to the Master Bus.

Insert any soft synth with percussive sounds, let's say Cakewalk TTS-1. Choose a patch which will cut through everything and be clear for the drummer, then draw in a bar of quarter notes in PRV mode. Copy this bar and paste it for the duration of the backing track. I usually give 2 bars intro before the song starts, and mark the beginning of the track with a cymbal hit, so the drummer is reassured that he's playing in sync with the track (you can also do this for section changes if your drummer would like). Route this 'click track' to a bus, mono interleave, pan hard right and then route that bus to the Master.

At rehearsal, adjust the level of each of the backing tracks relative to the live band, so that during a gig, the sound guy theoretically doesn't have to alter level once you get underway.

Bounce each track down to an mp3. Load it onto an iPod and feed the output to a small mixer, and have the drummer operating the iPod and the mixer during a gig. This way he can stop and start tracks whenever he likes, and adjust the level of the backing track, if any, he gets in his headphone feed. Obviously, the right channel is the drummer's click track, the left the backing track - you may need a headphone amp to get enough level for your drummer. Just make sure that only the right channel of the backing track is fed from the drummer's mixer into FOH.

I've found this to be fool proof. You're not relying on the sound guy to get it right, it's all controlled by the drummer, so he can start tracks whenever he likes. This also allows you to rehearse properly and integrate the tracks into your set smoothly.

There are other ways, but this is, I think, you're safest bet, and that is usually the best option for small venue gigs! Good luck.

Yep, that's why I've found it's best to have everything on an iPod - you're not reliant on a computer that way. Yes, a CD would theoretically sound better, but it's more hassle, and who's going to notice any degradation in sound quality of a backing track through a cheap PA turned up to 11?!!

Keep it simple and fool proof.

Yep, we also use the iPod with click in one channel / backing track in the other method. Works great, although they can be a little fiddly to kill if for some reason the band slips out of time with the sequence.

We're about to trial using an eeePC running some kind of software (likely SONAR) so there's a visual cue where the song is up to so the drummer can make a better judgment call of when to kill the sequence, and it's just a case of hitting the space bar rather than trying to find a pause button in the middle of a drum groove.

In case you didn't have this bit figured out, you'd run a splitter from the 3.5mm out - one going the headphones/in-ears where the left and right are bridged so you get the click channel in both ears (if the drummer prefers - ours does, some would be fine with one), and send the other side to a DI to go into a stage box.

I tell you what, this is a life-saver for a 4-piece band trying to recreate songs on an album that have orchestras and choirs and dozens of layers of guitars in a live setting. I dunno if we'd have the budget to hire all of those people in ever gig!

Yep, that's why I've found it's best to have everything on an iPod

 
That's what many single acts use
 
BTW, You can use lossless compressed audio files... so the fidelity can be pretty good.
(Once it's fed thru the PA, small differences in fidelity are much harder to hear.)

I have the backing tracks to the left and have built a click track to the right. How do I bounce these 2 tracks into one wav files from a cwk file? TIA