Zaryo - Singers PLAYBACK

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You've heard a great song and wonder if you can erase the voice of the original singer and sing it yourself instead? All you need is the playback: musical accompaniment to a song.

Playback

Posted by Katriona on 01-11-2011

Playbacks:

Playback is actually the recording of musical accompaniment to a song, without the singing. Playback is used mainly for live performances, to accompany the singer instead of real musicians. But it can be used for auditions as well. Sometimes, the playback comes with a sound track and the would-be singer just mouths the words. This is used a lot for live performances and on TV in order to avoid off-key singing when it comes to less professional singers. Playback is really good for rehearsing and polishing a song so that it will be perfect on stage.

Karaoke is not the same as a playback. In karaoke, a clip that contains the words of a song is shown, together with the playback, so that people can enjoy singing the words with their friends. Playback is just a sound track with musical accompaniment and it's goal is to sound professional and not just entertaining. That's why it needs to be of extra high quality.

Producing a Playback

People usually think that a playback is all about downloading a soundtrack from the original song. Actually, that's impossible. There's no technical way to make the singing disappear entirely, the most one can hope to do is to lower the volume. To produce a playback, you need to edit the recording from the beginning and the cost is the same. In spite of this, it is possible to find a professional recording studio that will record a playback. Those playbacks can be used in performances, for auditions or for any other occasion.

A Playback Audition
For many actors and singers that are just starting their careers, playback is a good facilitator to get through an audition. You can find Internet sites that specialise in downloading playbacks for famous songs, or you can make your own. We recommend that anyone approaching an audition uses a playback and not rely on their own - live accompaniment. This way, you can practise at home with the exact accompaniment that you'll have at the audition and also there's no chance of suddenly finding yourself without a playback.

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