Playing BIAB Backing Tracks

[Andy Sandoval]

I usually play BIAB through my computer speakers which sounds great for practicing at home. Sunday I played at my Son's wedding and used an extra amp to play my converted backing tracks from my ipod and wasn't that impressed with the result. Anybody found an alternative that produces better results?

[David Collins]

I've had acceptable results running to a mixing board and a PA amp and speaker(s) rather than an instrument amp and speaker(s).

I'm not enough of a sound tech to know why one sounds better than the other.

[Rick Campbell]

Andy,

Sounds like you were playing through a mono amp. If, so you were getting a mono sound rather than the two dimension stereo sound. Also, you could have been hearing only one side of the stereo sound because of the way you had it connected to the amp. By default, BIAB pans the instruments left and right in most cases.

[Graham]

You can pan any/all instruments to "0" before saving the file, which will put them all on both tracks of a stereo file. You could also convert your BIAB files to mono mp3's instead of saving them as stereo. With a setting of mono at 50/50, both sides of the file would be saved equally in 1 mp3 file.

I do this with my mp3 players. Have one for my newer vehicle, which is loaded with stereo files and have a second that I use in my '63 Pontiac that is loaded with all mono files, as the radio in that car is mono only.

[Andy Sandoval]

I used a stereo to mono adapter from the ipod to the amp, wouldn't that take care of the stereo wav problem?

[Graham]

You would think that it would Andy but I've never put much stock in those adapters. While a lot more work, I still prefer having both mono and stereo versions of my music as it relates to my vehicles.