Don Felder in the Press/Blogs/etc.

[UndertheWire]

I live in a tourist town so I hear a lot of buskers and increasingly, they arrive with a backing track. I'm less inclined to stop and listen to those as the joy of street musicians is hearing good live performances. There are exceptions - one of my favourites is a crooner who also play sax and he needs that backing track.

[chaim]

I don't mind a prerecorded track if the artist doesn't pretend he's playing/singing the part. When Felder played alone with a backing track, it contained stuff that he obviously didn't do live, because one person can't do it all. So he wasn't faking anything. That's ok with me.

[UndertheWire]

Both the advantage and the disadvantage of a prerecorded track is that the performance will be predictable. No risk of reaching for a note and missing it or forgetting the words. On the other hand, the whole band is stuck with the decisions that were made when the track was recorded and they can't improvise or develope over time. As playing it the same every time is an aspect of the Eagles that Felder has complained about, this seems an odd choice.

[WalshFan88]

I think backing tracks are wonderful and they don't bother me at all. It just makes it more interesting to me. I can listen to solo acoustic stuff (I've also been called upon to do it at times), but it's not my bag. Give me either a full band with electric guitars OR some type of accompaniment via a backing track. But I've always preferred poppier processed big sounding stuff over raw stripped down music.

Now, the prerecorded lead vocal track is not what I'm referring to. I'm thinking if anything Don is using slight autotune (but not enough to cause the robotic effect), which would make it very consistent but I still don't believe for a minute he lip syncs in his live shows with his full band. If he is, I don't know why because it's obvious to me he can sing all of that stuff well.

But I think backing tracks are absolutely needed and serve an important purpose in solo performances to provide a more band-like sound, which is much preferred for me personally.

[WalshFan88]

One of my favorite guitar sites did a gear tour with Don.

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tLMJIfmaVzM[/ame]

[sodascouts]

Cool! Thanks for posting that, Austin.

[chaim]

A cool clip. He sure loves to talk about himself more than any other Eagle. He believes that he played sixteen guitar tracks on Hotel California. I've heard this before. I still wonder what Glenn and Joe played on the "rhythm track".

[WalshFan88]

LOL, he has an ego. But if he's as good of a player as he is, it's bound to happen. Just wish he'd stay away from the bashing and the drama.

He also said Steve Lukather played on ASWTDID. It was Dirty Laundry.

[UndertheWire]

Thanks for posting. I found it quire interesting as I hadn't appreciated how much customisation there is with electric guitars. I wish he'd given a demonstration of how the different pedals affect the sound.

As for playing 16 guitars on HC, that has me wondering how they were able to play it live with just three guitarists (even if Don effectively had two guitars).

Don talks well and as he was there to talk about his guitars, I'm fine with him talking about himself. At least he didn't repeat the full story of writing HC at the (rented) house in Malibu. I've heard that a few too many times.

[glennthegreat]

This is what Don is talking about when he mentions the many guitar parts of that song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fNDkE_GejQ

and this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMq8FOzC8h0