The Big Playback: Meet The Specialists Behind Your Favorite Live Shows

How Live is Live?

In the world of musical performance, "live" doesn't mean what it used to. An artist performing with a laptop is doing something fundamentally different from strumming a guitar. Many electronic musicians perform by triggering stems of their recorded music. Is this an act of spontaneous creation, or embellished playback of a moment pre-captured in the studio?

This blurriness applies to virtually all kinds of modern performance. Your favorite popstar is probably singing live. But what about the backing vocals that thicken up the choruses? Or the layers of synths and guitars accompanying a four-piece rock band? These are ghostly reinforcements from a studio session past. They are summoned with the power of playback. 

Once the preserve of electronic music and bigger budget shows, playback is now pretty much everywhere. Playback brings some ambiguity to the experience of live music – how live is it really? – but it also brings possibility. When it’s done well, playback makes the shows you watch sound bigger and more faithful to the records you love. It enables spectacular synchronised visuals and lighting. At best, playback helps concoct the perfect mix of studio polish and in-the-moment magic.

Playback can also go very wrong. Music director Tom Cane, who runs the company A Work in Progress, sets out the stakes: ”If you fuck it up, you can fuck up the lights. You can fuck up the players on stage. You can fuck up the singer’s autotune. You can fuck up literally the whole thing.” 

Who takes on this humble but important job? The answer isn’t simple. In some contexts, musicians handle playback themselves. In others, the job might be divided between multiple people. But often – particularly for larger shows – a playback specialist (or engineer) handles the task.

This person does more than just press play on stems. They might assemble the playback rig, re-edit an artist’s songs, or do live vocal effects. Their hybrid role draws on the performance chops of a session musician, mixing and arranging skills from the studio world, and the know-how of a stage tech. 

Learning about playback gives us a window into how live music works, highlighting changes in the music industry that affect artists and fans too. It’s also a great way of gathering tips for building your own rig – whatever the scale.

What’s The Job?

So what exactly does a playback specialist do? Mario Estrada Mari, who handles playback for artists such as Residente and Tainy, offers a definition: “In a live performance, a playback specialist is in charge of playing backing tracks, utility audio like cues, click and timecode, and MIDI automation.” They also manage the often sophisticated playback systems that deliver this data. 

Any time a musical performance features some pre-recorded elements, a playback specialist might be needed. They are typically brought in for a specific show or tour, and their work starts well before the first rehearsal. 

A playback specialist will work with an artist or their musical director to get a sense of the show’s creative vision and the resources available. They’ll prepare a playback system to match, then attend rehearsals, refining the material along with the band. Many go on tour, performing either onstage or off. Stefano Garotta, of Shortcuts Playback Solutions, describes playback as a varied job “full of quests, trips, people, hardware, and software.”

Many people step sideways into playback. They might be music producers, trained studio pros, stage techs, or session musicians. As Tom Cane explains, they have diverse skills, “from technology through to music theory, through to playing. You need to understand production. You need to understand songwriting. You need to understand a little bit of the music business. It's a really broad set of skills.”

The nerve center of playback is typically a project in a DAW like Ableton Live. The playback specialist starts by receiving the artist’s stems and stitching them together according to the setlist provided. This part of the job alone takes skill and patience. “[Stems] are the most nightmarish thing on the planet,” Cane laughs. “Nobody can agree on what's named what. At least one [stem] is always wrong and needs to be re-bounced, and someone's way too busy to do it.” 

An artist may not want to run the songs exactly how they sound on record. The playback specialist might need to craft transitions between tracks, or combine songs into a medley, using arrangement and editing skills more commonly associated with producers. 

The stems might also need to be mixed to get a consistent sound across the set. “When an artist has a large discography, the songs often sound quite different over the years,” says live show music producer Remi Lauw. “They’ll ask me to bring them more in line with each other, which is a really fun challenge.”

Lauw recently worked on the reunion tour of Dutch rock band KANE, and was tasked with polishing up unmixed Pro Tools sessions from the 2000s. “They gave me a lot of freedom to bring the tracks up to modern standards. I also added some extra production elements and instruments.”

Playback isn’t just about audio. The playback specialist will add a click track and count-ins, routed so that the right performers hear what they need to hear. They might add MIDI patch changes to be sent to instruments on stage, such as synths. Some performers might play MIDI controllers that trigger sounds within the playback specialist’s Live project.

Most playback projects also send out Linear Timecode so that visuals and lighting can be tightly synced to the music. Matt Cox of Gravity Rigs, a company that devises playback systems for electronic musicians, says this is a growing component of their work. “We now have to sit down with video teams and lighting teams. And it's a three- or four-way conversation, sometimes, about what's going where and who's sending triggers and timecode.”

Sometimes this synchronisation is crucial to a show. Mario Estrada Mari faced a particular challenge working on a show with Residente. 

“The script for the show had multiple monologue interventions in which Residente spoke and the words he said would appear written on a typewriter in a giant screen behind him. The typewriter video was prerecorded so he had to deliver the words in precise timing for them to appear synchronized. We achieved this by playing audio cues and time code in the playback session in Live. Residente would hear the cues in his in-ear monitors and speak, and the video server would play the typewriter video in sync.​​​​​​​​​​”

Once rehearsals start, you might think playback is just a case of hitting spacebar as the band runs the songs. In fact, this can be the most complicated part of the process.

“It is usually during rehearsals that your skills get tested,” says Estrada Mari. “Suddenly the artist wants a five-song medley and to have three different versions of a song ready for when guest artists are available to join a show. The artist, band, and techs are all waiting on you to make these changes to the playback session in order to continue work. This keeps happening until the first show. Then it might happen again a few times during the tour.”

This whole process might span a very short time. The live music world moves fast, and playback specialists often have to step in at short notice. Justin Jones joined a music direction agency as a playback specialist after he’d previously worked as a studio assistant and producer, and was immediately thrown in at the deep end.

“An artist had their show pushed two weeks early, and they're like, ‘Can you come in and do one day of rehearsal and then do a show?’” When that went well, Jones was assigned to an artist playing the opening slot on an arena run. On his recent tours with Chappell Roan, videos from the shows were showing up on his social media feeds, cranking up the pressure. “The size of the crowds was definitely a factor. You have those moments being captured and then going all over social media. You don't want it to be the moment that’s kind of a hiccup.”

Aside from keeping their cool, Jones says, playback specialists need to be versatile and can-do, even when last-minute requests are thrown at them. “If someone asks me to do something, I'm not really going to say no unless it's [impossible]. Being able to adapt to each situation, that's really important.”

In the intense environment of a large-scale show, it also helps to be a people person. “You spend so much time with other people. Not everyone's on the audio side of things – you have your video, you have special effects, tour managers. We all love music at the end of the day, but we're all super different. So being a fun person who people want to be around is very important.”

Scaling Up and Scaling Down

Jones works on big-budget shows, where top production values are the norm and artists are supported by large teams of specialists. Playback has long been a feature in this world, and has only become more essential as technology has advanced and productions have complexified.

The rest of the music world has felt the ripples of this, too. It’s a chicken-and-egg question: Did powerful, affordable laptops inspire artists across the spectrum to upgrade their shows with slick playback and visuals? Or did the demand from audiences, accustomed to the spectacle of bigger shows, push them into it? 

“I think people are used to seeing a show with a certain level of production,” says Matt Cox. “They're used to seeing a good multimedia experience. There's a real desire and a requirement to give them that. And it's made people have to step up their show production.”

Cox works primarily in the electronic music world where, in a sense, all artists are playback specialists. But though they often work with stems, MIDI data and the rest, electronic artists may not be experts in playback systems. 

“There's so much technology around now,” says Cox. “Wading through all those choices and trying to make decisions about what's the best equipment to use, and what's the best way of doing things, is quite difficult for anyone on their own. That's how we help people. We've got experience of designing and setting up these systems and choosing the right gear for the right job. We help people make solid decisions that are going to work on stage.”

Together with Alex Turner, Matt Cox runs Gravity Rigs, a company that designs playback and performance systems for live acts across the electronic spectrum, from Pet Shop Boys to Disclosure. A look at some of the rigs the pair have created demonstrates the huge range of forms that modern playback can take.

They devised a sophisticated live looping system for the Chemical Brothers, enabling them to switch seamlessly between a programmed show and live-jam transitions. They cracked a technical puzzle for DJ Luciano, synchronising Traktor, Ableton Live, and a modular synth in a highly stable setup. And they have devised plug-and-play performance rigs, for artists like Bicep and Ovemono, that are easy to fly with and a breeze to set up.

In each case, the rig was tailored to the vision and resources of the artist. Matt Cox summarizes: “We help electronic artists deliver their ideas the way they want to. We're there to help them realize [their music] in the real world.”

Tips From The Specialists

With all these possibilities, how do you go about creating a performance rig that’s right for your project? This question applies from the biggest budget show down to a fledgling DIY music project. Sure, your home-built rig may not use the Dante interfaces, fancy automatic switchers, and other gear favored in big league playback. But there are some basic principles that could be followed across the board.

The first? Keep your setup simple. 

“Complexity just breeds problems,” says Tom Cane. On tour, there are “so many things that will go wrong that you can't control. Make it easy for yourself. Ultimately, that's how you're going to have good shows.”

Stefano Garotta of Shortcuts Playback agrees. “Less is more. If your rig is based on a lot of switches, cables, converters, adapters, machines, you're adding possible failure to the system.”

This is particularly the case when you’re starting to build a setup. 

“Don't be overambitious,” says Matt Cox. “Don't try and build the Chemical Brothers rig from the start, because something like that has been a 25 year evolution.”

“Start small and build from there,” agrees Remi Lauw. “Add only one piece of hardware or software at a time and learn it inside out.” 

Once you have your setup, test it extensively to catch any issues that might disrupt a performance. 

“Do this before going into rehearsals,” says Lauw. “There’s always something that doesn’t work because there are so many factors that can cause issues.”

This means putting the gear through its paces and ensuring that your laptop can easily handle the required CPU load – even when running for a long time. Cox and Turner of Gravity Rigs also try to take into account the extreme conditions a setup might face on stage, such as heat and vibration.

Pierre-Antoine Grison, who devises playback solutions for engineers under the name KB Live Solutions, learned this lesson when he borrowed a friend’s cheap soundcard for a gig without testing it. “In the middle of my set, the sound started to disintegrate slowly, as if I had a Redux with the rate decreasing. I rebooted the soundcard and it went almost unnoticed… until it happened again 30 minutes later. This taught me about testing your gear and not being over confident.”

The next tip: be cautious with last-minute changes. When you’re rushing to get a show ready, it’s tempting to make small alterations that can catch you out later. 

Remi Lauw tries not to “change anything before a show without doing a rehearsal,” though this isn’t always possible. Auto-updating software can lead to unforeseen problems. Last minute changes also increase the risk of human error. Justin Jones recalls making edits to a project in sound check prior to a 10,000-capacity show. When the show started, he realized: “Somehow I had deleted all the guitar stems, and the next song was fully guitars.” Luckily, he was able to carefully drag the files from Live’s browser back onto the timeline before the next song started.

Prepare For Failure

As you may have noticed, playback specialists are preoccupied with failure. Whether it’s a connection breaking in your rig or a rainstorm dousing your power supply, failure can take many forms, some easier to control than others. The important thing is to accept that something will probably go wrong. That way you can plan for it.

“I think it’s a good way to approach anything, because then if failures do occur, you've already prepared for them,” says Matt Cox. If you’ve got a backup plan, then failure “is not a problem because you just bring that plan into action.”

Cox and Turner will “sit down and visualize failure” by looking at schematics of the rig they’re devising. “We go, ‘Right. What happens if this breaks? What happens if that breaks?’” says Turner. The goal is to eliminate “all the single points of failure” – that is, points in the chain where, if something goes wrong, there’s no backup on hand.

What might a backup look like? In the playback big leagues, it’s an identical second playback system, synchronized with the first, and connected using special switchers so that it will step in when things go wrong. “Big shows usually have big budgets and no tolerance for failure,” says Mario Estrada Mari. “So a redundant playback system is crucial.“

This is an expensive backup plan, however. When budgets are more limited, Cox and Turner will come up with a solution that accounts for the worst failures, even if it’s not as slick as a fully redundant rig. As a final fallback, Cox suggests, “Always have a device that's free floating – that's not triggered by anything – so that if everything goes off, you've still got a synth that will make a noise.” That way, you can at least avoid completely dead air. Justin Jones has played shows where, as a failsafe, there was an iPad ready with instrumentals of the songs.

When overseeing projects as a music director, Tom Cane tries to get “minimal viable product” at each stage of the process. Extras can be added from there, with this baseline – typically straightforward playback from Ableton Live – as a fallback. “At some point you're going to get off a plane in the middle of nowhere, and all your gear is going to have gone missing. For a lot of our artists, we can grab any laptop, plug the Ableton session in, and we'll have something.”

Producer, Director, Programmer, Consultant

Though Cane works as a music director now, his story reflects the blurriness of roles in the playback world – particularly among the music industry’s middle levels.

“My break into earning a living in music was doing playback and MIDI,” he says. “I was sitting with the band in the studio working on stems, programming their parts with them, and then they're asking me for decisions on arrangements and structure. I'm music directing, that's what that is. So the lines are really blurred in those particular roles.”

This inspired him to start A Work in Progress, a live electronic music direction company that has worked with artists like I. Jordan, DJ Seinfeld, and Kelly Lee Owens. AWIP offers help with a dizzying range of tasks, from programming synth patches to sourcing and rehearsing session musicians, playback services, and gear consultation. They’ve also started a podcast series where they discuss individual aspects of the work in depth.

Remi Lauw uses the term “live show music producer” to describe his similarly versatile role, which can begin with the technical question of “getting the gear right” and extend into working on the setlist, coaching live musicians, and beyond. For Lauw, the common source is his own experience as a guitar player and producer with the band Secret Rendezvous. “There’s definitely some overlap with the role of a musical director, but I approach it more from a music producer perspective.”

The versatility of these specialists calls to mind the multiple roles filled by modern musicians. Artists these days are often their own managers, content creators, mixing engineers, and merch designers. The same financial and technological shifts that created this situation are also changing playback. Live budgets are shrinking, while new technologies empower even smaller artists to design bold, sophisticated shows. 

Perhaps, in future, playback won’t be a specialized job, so much as part of a fluid set of skills offered by creative people with technical savvy. Tom Cane thinks that playback will ultimately become “a doubled role.” If it does, we can only hope that the expertise gets handed down, so the shows of the future go off without a hitch.

Learn more about Gravity Rigs, Tom Cane / A Work In Progress, Remi Lauw, Mario Estrada Mari, Pierre-Antoine Grison, Stefano Garotta, Justin Jones

Text and interviews: Angus Finlayson
Photos courtesy of Stijn Declerq/Mono and the interviewees