I think all of us agree without a doubt ... faking playing is so lame. And most audiences would realize it eventually. But using a SMF as a backing track to perform over makes perfect sense for many acts. If you perform over then that is all that matters. My band does "Hella Good" by No Doubt that has a lot of pulsing electronica bass lines that I couldn't play live. So I sequenced them and play that with a click track to the drummer live on stage. But I never pretend to play the lines I am not playing. There are times when using SMF files makes perfect sense. Just don't prend you are actually playing them but perform over them by all means. That is what MIDI technology is great for.


I'm sure that no-one using an arranger keyboard for live gigs pretends to play the automated backing, just the right hand improvisation. That would amount to the same thing. You might find the rare case like the one Scott mentioned but I really think people like that are the tiny minority. Someone in the audience would wake up to it eventually and call the bluff. I'm not concerned that someone with SMFs is going to take jobs away from my band. It aint gonna happen. So don't waste time worrying about it. If you are a good performer then that will be obvious to the audience.


[This message has been edited by Nigel (edited 08-15-2006).]