I know it's up to Prince but why does he have to sample snippets of pre-recorded backing tracks (of his own) on most of his performances. Like Rosies voice on "call the law" for example.

He does this quite alot. U know what I mean?

and then he brags about 'real music by real musicians' and criticizes folks for lip synching. as much as i think the stuff he DOES perform live is top-notch and a cut above what just about everyone else out there is doing, i think it's really lame when he uses the pre-recorded crap. he doesn't need it. if some indie rock band with no money can put on a great show with just their instruments and their imaginations, prince can certainly find a way to keep the show moving without prerecorded tracks.

Funny as only u answered this one.

I know no one can answer but why does he do this for? It must make it harder and take more time to programme these pointless little snippets of backing vox or whatever and no one really cares anyway? plus it sounds fake and u wonder how much any of it is live?

Hmmm - all adds to the richness of the sound, IMO.

It is more difficult to play along with DATS, backing tracks, sequencers etc (unless they're doing the majority of the work!) and in no way detracts from an artist's capabilities. In fact. it is another string to their bow.

What's shite is a virtually entire pre-recorded band and/or lip-synching. Prince has never done this and has never used any backing track as a substitute for musicianship.

And where do you draw the line if you don't want any "automation"? I mean, would you stop using a drum or percussion loop, not use any samples, no sequencers? And, its not as if Prince doesn't stop using all that stuff at some point in the show. There's usually an "acoustic" session, or just a stripped down song with bass, drums and guitar.

I play in a band and we use dats and sequencers for almost every track - its not that we're not or can't play it live, but we'd need about 14 musicians (as opposed to 6) to do what we want to do.

There's overuse of these things and just plain cheating, then there's thoughtful use and skillful embellishment - Prince most definitely falls in the latter category.

Although, according to another thread I've just read, Prince does mime on Lovesexy in Let's Go Crazy??!! Still, it seems that it was used accordingly (if it was done at all - I'm gonna check out my copy of Livesexy asap!)

Mindflux said:

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Co-Sign. I can't figure out why people on this board don't understand the differenc between using a backing track and lip-synching the entire performance.

Mindflux said:

You should check out some of the 1994 performances then.
Lip-synched to death.....and pretty badly too.

Which '94 performances would those be?

I've seen Prince live almost 30 times since the late 80's. Not once has he lip-synched.

If you're talking one-song appearances on TV (like the performance of TMBGITW for Prince Albert of Monaco) then, yeah, he's lip-synched in those situations - but they don't really count and is not what the discussion is about here.

thebumpsquad said:

didn't he always do TMBGITW as a lip-synch performance?

Not in any concerts I've been to!

Another thing people have to remember is that Prince has never been totally against electronic aids... He said that you "use technology as a tool... you don't let it use you"... ( interview on the Today show)... The point is, a musician MUST have the fundamentals down but it's okay to have some short cuts now and then when warranted.