Live Mics with a button to turn on backing audio track??

[yomchi247]

Has anyone ever heard of a Mic with a button on it that the singer would use when he has a backing track (basically lip synching, but only on certain parts)

This guy has been telling me that he has run sound for a number of national acts, and in his words "you'd be suprised at how many live bands do this"...

My question is if there is anything like this that even exists? I've never seen anything like it, so if there is, any links would be great...thanks

[cmchamp]

This would be a self-made multi-pin cable. I've seen a few of them. You'll take a standard XLR adaptor, drill out a hole and place either an on/off toggle or temporary contact push type switch in it. Instead of using standard XLR cable (+/- & shield) use quad cable and use the extra pair as the contact. I've seen it mostly used to turn on and off verbs and other EFX units. One guy even had two switches on his XLR connector so he could turn on/off his EFX unit as well as start/stop his mini-disk.
C.

[yomchi247]

Ok, I can see how that could be useful.

The reason I'm asking is because I've seen this band live 12 times...the singer is amazing...then all of a sudden this guy starts telling me that "Parts" of his vocals are overdubs

I'm not the most knowledgeable person when it comes to live audio, but I can tell when a person is lip synching. Since I've been told this, I've went to a show and just watched the singer...Bogus story if you ask me.

[MidiMagic]

They used to sell mics with a "push to talk" switch, but not for XLR cables. They had a 4-pin cable.

But you can rig up something just by buying a Switchcraft pendant switch (which is a pushbutton in an XLR plug housing) and taping it to the mic.

An alternative is a footswitch. This could be a sustain pedal for a keyboard.

The fun part is finding a backing track player which takes a pushbutton start, and plays only one track before stopping. Maybe a radio station CD player for commercials would work (the thing which replaced the cart machines).

Another possibility is to conect the pushbutton to a computer, and use it to start the next song on a hard disk player. The software for this is tricky.
Maybe you could put the computer on the floor in front of you, and put the mouse on a music stand so you can control it.

Or take an i-pod on stage and push the buttons on that. Feed its outputs through a matching loading transformer and into the PA. Put it on a music stand.