Playback Fills Concert Niche

Clayton Janes had just returned from Scotland where he was programming background music for the Black Eyed Peas tour of Europe.

He had a week off in early July, but his bags were packed for the next leg of the band’s tour through Asia.

Janes is a music programmer — also known as a digital audio engineer — for Grammy Award winning artists Usher, Black Eyed Peas and Seal, among others. His company, Playback, is based in Fayetteville.

When the artists are on the road performing, he’s in the wings making sure the audience hears the same background music they hear on the radio. That could mean instruments, background vocals and synthesized effects.

Performers — especially those in the pop, rock and R&B genres — hire programmers like Janes to give concert audiences the full studio sound. The stars still perform live, but fewer background musicians are necessary for the tour.

Janes and co-worker Mark Summerlin are just two of the handful of people who do such work. It’s such a demanding business — averaging 200 shows a year — that Janes plans to hire two more employees by the end of the year and quadruple the number of shows he programs next year to 800.

“I haven’t been home in the past four weeks,” Janes said, as he listened to music at Summerlin’s home studio in Fayetteville.

They both live in Northwest Arkansas by choice. Because their jobs require so much travel, they could be based anywhere they please. They both choose to stay in Fayetteville, instead of moving to New York City or Los Angeles, where Janes said he spends about three months out of the year working.

Programming

The programmer’s job is to take the artists’ master recordings from the studio and edit them with live performance breaks — extending it or shortening it. They take away what the band plays and keep what is heard on the original recording — like orchestra, beats, background vocals or sounds.

When an album is recorded, each vocal, sound, beat and instrument has its own track. It makes the process effortless to single out a certain track to play or not play, requiring one click of a mouse.

Before computers, studios had 8-track, 16-track and 32-track tape recordings, but with today’s digital technology, the number of tracks is endless. So when an artist like Seal needs background vocals for a live song, programmers start the background tracks on cue with the band, which keeps them all right on tempo. They also control video being played on stage, making sure it plays with the right song at the right time.

But Janes and Summerlin are quick to point out that what they do doesn’t amount to an Ashley Simpson lip-synching saga.

“I haven’t actually worked with any artist that has a lead vocal on the track, which you hear about,” Janes said.

In 2005, during Simpson’s second Saturday Night Live performance, the wrong song accidentally played in the background with her lead vocals. That brought up the question of whether she was lip-synching during her first performance that night. It turned out she did have recorded tracks playing her lead vocals because she wasn’t able to sing due to “acid indigestion” that had strained her vocal chords, according to her father and manager, Joe Simpson.

The programmer for Simpson’s performance didn’t cue the right song, which caused a media circus. That incident also reminded pop music followers about the duo Milli Vanillli, who in the early 1990s scored a string of pop hits. But during a live performance, the music started skipping in the background. It was later revealed that the duo didn’t even record the music but were marketable stand-ins for the real singers. Their Grammy Awards were repossessed.

“I’m here to make sure those Milli Vanillli moments don’t happen,” said Janes, who happened to work with Usher on a Saturday Night Live performance. “You kind of have to have nerves of steel. If you go down, you’re bringing the show down.”

Even though the live performance is crucial, pre-production of the performance is the most intensive work.

“The pre-production part of it is a big part of it — getting the show ready,” Janes said.

There’s a creative element to it, he said. They work with artists who have dance breaks and pyrotechnics, which add to the entertainment of the concert. All of that is controlled and programmed by Janes. Some artists like the Black Eyed Peas don’t have many changes, and there’s not much to pre-production, he said.

But Usher, an R&B singer, is very involved in the pre-production part. It takes about two to three months to prepare for one of Usher’s tours, with three weeks usually working 20-hour days, Janes said.

With so many tour dates to cover and more artists wanting Playback’s work, Janes is looking for a few more qualified programmers for this one-of-a-kind job.

The Niche Job

Colleges don’t offer classes in this type of music programming, much less degrees. That’s what makes programmers so difficult to find.

“There’s a technical aspect of it as far as maintenance of the computers,” Janes said. “That’s why it’s such a weird discipline. You’re not just a musician. You’re not just a studio engineer. You’re also a computer technician.”

Programmers use Pro Tools, the basic editing software geared towards studio use but not live performances. That’s where being a technician becomes useful. Pro Tools, which costs anywhere from $30,000 to $150,000, is stripped down to perform functions for the shows.

But learning the trick of the trade is all about knowing several different aspects of music, technology and creativity.

Janes, a Fort Smith native, came upon the job accidentally. In 2002, while working as an airplane pilot instructor in Fayetteville, Janes ran into a former co-worker from music technology store Sweetwater Sound in Fort Wayne, Ind.

The former co-worker didn’t want to leave the country to program shows for R&B songstress Mary J. Blige, so he asked Janes to fill in for him. Even though Janes had never programmed a show before, his knowledge in music, computers and Pro Tools helped him gain other opportunities, including Usher shows.

Janes began working shows for other artists like rock group Nine Inch Nails and R&B singer Sierra.

After several years of working 200 shows annually, Janes contacted Summerlin in early 2006 about working for Playback, which Janes formed as a company last year. They knew each other from when the two played in Fayetteville bands — Janes in August Spies and Summerlin in Be.

Summerlin settled down in Fayetteville to do home studio recordings for other artists and projects, along with writing commercial music for Dallas studio The Sound Spot.

Janes and Summerlin now split dates with artists, working at live shows around the world. But Janes wants to find time at home to hire more programmers. He wants to find people in the Northwest Arkansas area because he’d like to keep the company based out of Fayetteville.

In August, Janes said he wants to take some time off to look at expanding into providing information technology, such as satellite Internet systems and phones for concerts. He said they want to be a one-stop shop to provide all the IT work on a show, which helps streamline production.

Janes and Summerlin said they’re also looking into custom-building hardware for programming — having just one type of system to be used in all concerts.