Synth Bands Live

When you have New Wave/Synth Pop bands on stage, you have to expect some of the sounds to be 'pumped in'...this is a fact that comes with this tyoe of music. I saw the Pet Shop Boys 2 years ago, and they had NO musicians on stage at all...but, the show was fantastic.
The bottom line is, when playing this type of music live,there are so many different synths used in the studio, it would be almost impossible to re-produce all of the sounds live. A band like The Human League has a very complex production to their songs, and require some sounds to be recorded. Back,"in the day" The Human League were not a live band...they even had a reputation for being very poor live. That is certanly not the case today.
Now, on the Regen tour, most of the bands were always able to play live, but, if some sounds were pre-recorded, or on laptops, it is natural.....
and...does it really matter?
The show is a whole package...if a few piped-in synth sounds distress you, maybe you should just listen to the record....

Let’s put an end to this recorded music libel. THL do not use recorded music period. Some of the synths are set to play automatically on some tracks, this is needed when when there are more sound layers needed than the musicians can cope with, or it is a sound that cannot be generated on stage. This is called sequencing and is still classed as live music as the music is being generated on stage not played back from a recording. Let me elaborate further:

The Human League ‘per se’ is only Susan Sulley, Philip Oakey, and Joanne Catherall (the vocalists). The other four people on stage are their dedicated live band.
Specifically Neil Sutton is principal keyboards and has two flat keyboard decks on stage, Nic Burke is secondary/solo keyboards (Flat and Keytar) and electric guitar. Philip Oakey also plays incidental keyboards on some of the simpler tracks (as he is not that skilled a player). All electronic percussion is handled by Rob Barton.

The guy with the laptop (actually he has two for redundancy) is Dave Beevers THL's own studio engineer. Why have a studio engineer on stage? Because THL’s stage setup is essentially a mobile live studio. The laptop is a state of the art sequencing and engineering control system. The 2 big cabinets with the flashing lights are not for decoration, each one contains 8 rack mounted multi-channel synthesisers and a sequencer. All 16 are live at any one time, but are arranged into Group A and Group B for redundancy. The band can afford to fry an entire group and still stay on stage! The principal track layers are generated by the musicians on their instruments via Beever’s control system. Neil Sutton can handle track two layers at once and if Nick is on keyboards at the time then that is a third layer which is usually enough Synth to faithfully reproduce a song live, some of the more complicated tracks need some additional layers such a the lightning strikes on “life on your own” or the ‘cat’ sound on “love action” these are sequenced in as the band have run out of musicians, this means that the layer is being generated automatically by the synth under control of Beevers sequencing system, but this is still live being generated live and can be altered for tempo and mix as the track progresses, sequenced music can be altered in real time as it is generated, recorded playback cannot.The entire feed is then sent to the house engineers for them to mix for the house sound system. Expert ears will notice that the live versions sound nothing like the album versions which are much more complicated.

The vocals are the easy bit.

I believe THL’s entire live set up is insured for over half a million dollars.
Anyone who has seen THL live regularly will tell you, often one of the synths breaks down and you noticeably lose some layers to which Philip often jokes about them being old and creeky. Philip can often forget his lyrics, (or even fall off stage) so which Beevers has to alter the track to mark time, catch up or slow down on the go. or the musicians have to fill with instrumental work

The musician’s sound check and rehearse for about 3-4 hours the day of a gig with the vocalists only turning up for the last hour.
The musicians all get paid the same as Philip, Susan and Joanne for each gig, as they earn their money.

Well said!! I hope that The Boiled Being's post helps to educate those who know very little about how Synth type shows are done. Even Depeche Mode have pre-recorded tracks playing in their live show. The members of DM work long hours creating the "tape" for the shows,yet,they lose no essense in the live show.
Many bands also feature off-stage musicians...
Fleetwood Mac have an off- stage guitarist....
Cinderella have always had an off-stage keyboardist....
In her early days ( and even in the film "Truth or Dare"),Madonna sang live over a pre-recorded vocal track,to ensure a good vocal while dancing.