There are times when we use terminology on this page that the followers might not understand and for that reason I want to educate those who are just getting into this more and more and want to understand the process. When you finish a recording and it is exactly as you and the artist wants to be perceived to the public, then you call that a Final Mix and put in in the can so to speak which means you are done with it and it can proceed to mastering, the process to place a shine and embellish any slight sounds on the variations of the overall sound that you might not have caught.
You next run what is called a TV Track, which is just as it sounds, a version which has all the same sounds as the Final Mix but without the Lead Vocals and having only the Back Grounds in the track. This is used if an artist wants to perform on TV but the situation does not warrant having the band play live as the sound may be inconsistent or the ability to perform live does not exist.The artist can then sing live and have all the other parts there on the track to allow them to sound just like the recording, provided they can actually sing!:)
Next there is the instrumental which allows the artist to sing without anyone else on the set as they will not have background singing parts where there are no other singers there and they can embellish the track and reinterpret it to show their vocal ability off.This is an example of an artist singing over the TV Track with Background Vocals in it. Here is a rare performance by John Waite on TV in Japan performing his Number One song there and across the world, "Missing You". We did this track at Electric Lady Studio B in New York with my team of Gary Hellman engineering and Ken Steiger Assisting and we all knew that this was special and about to go to the top. The mastering was done by the late and legendary Mastering engineer and great friend George Marino, who was as fine a man as he was a technical genius of sound.
Of course when you have one of the greatest song interpreters of our time in John Waite, you have a pretty good start and can hardly go wrong! Enjoy this Educational piece of music history!
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