Hi all,

My bedroom/hobby musical pursuits are spread out over decades, and a couple of years ago I got excited about JamKazam - more for the backing tracks than anything else. I had not had full cover mixes to work with before then - I simply didn't know they existed. Shortly after, I came onto the forums and one of you (thanks again, sorry for not remembering who to give the credit to) told me about Karaoke-version.com.

Like I always do, I spent quite a bit of money (at least 2 or 3 hundred dollars) on backing tracks - only to have them sit unused for quite a few years. I'm happy to say I have recently begun memorizing songs (see my other post : ) in order to play along with the backing tracks. Also - I also buy based on what I want to be rather than what I am ; for example I also have 4 versions of BB and RB that have gone largely unused (shame on me) and lots of other instruments (beside my main guitars) that are largely unplayed.

All that said - I'm here to ask if there are others that use backing tracks extensively, which company do you buy them from, and does Karaoke-version offer the best ?

Regarding this topic - I've bookmarked and am looking forward to the post discussing the best way to use your backing tracks in a live situation.

Buy??? Surely you jest, sir...

Do you see the answer to your question in plain sight?

Why buy them when you have the ability to make your own custom versions right there?

We can't make them for you. Woodshed for 6 months and you'll have a 3 set show ready of stuff you choose to play.

Joe,


I've been gigging regularly with backing tracks for about 5 years now.
I play instrumental music. Fine dining, sunday brunch stuff.
I'm semi-pro level, gigging about once a week, more during tourist season.
I use a real simple rig with a small line array pa and tablet with phone backup.

I have about 150 tunes in my songbook.
99% of the tracks I created with BIAB and Logic Pro x (My DAW of choice)
I use real tracks only, no MIDI.

Over the years I've bought a few backing tracks.
Very few.
I don't keep many purchased ones very long.

BIAB offers too much flexibility in arrangements over purchased tracks.
I can't even begin to explain all you can do with your tracks.
As you get better you'll be amazed.

Sometimes you'll be playing a tune at a gig and think, "I could play that as a funk tune".
You come home, spend an hour or two with BIAB and Logic, and there you go.
I now play Eleanor Rigby as a funk tune. My homage to Booker T and the Mclemore Avenue album from the 60's

Add a B3. Swap out the Rhodes for an accordion. No problem.
Make it into a polka, a bolero. No problem. Maybe not the same song.

BIAB and your DAW for backing tracks Its the way to go.



Anyway, stop buying tracks.
As Eddie 1261 says, its time to Huckle up, Get your BIAB/DAW skills going and you'll be knocking it out of the park in no time

You’re there!

Bud

Why buy them when you have the ability to make your own custom versions right there?


...Because I really like the sound of the original arrangements and my ear was never good enough to duplicate the parts.

Then I have to break the ice and ask this obvious question.

If your ear admittedly isn't good enough and you really don't play an instrument, what makes you think there will ever be any way to music work for you? You may as well just buy karaoke tracks and sing on top of them. And we don't even know if you can sing. You have never posted anything of you playing or singing. How can we be of any help when we have zero idea of your skill level? There is a language that goes with music and unless the more experienced players here know how much you know, we have no way to know how to talk to you. Most of your posts are "How do I" posts, but they are rarely if ever about the software. It's like you want to find a way that we can all practice for you, learn for you... It simply doesn't work that way. Your ear can grow by using it with a basic knowledge of music behind you.

Way back in my early days on the forums I tried to make a point and I asked 'If you were teaching a total newb, how would you answer him if he asked how to make a major chord?" Within 10 minutes I had 5 replies that said "A major chord is 1-3-5." Then I replied "What is a 1? What is a 3? What is a 5?" The replies to that were "The steps of the scale." And my reply was "What is a scale? What is a step?" You appear to be at that level of not knowing half steps and whole steps, major from minor, 3/4 time from 4/4 time from 6/8 time, what the notes on a keyboard or guitar neck are, and want to be out playing arenas next weekend.

Start at the beginning.
Move forward and try to get to the end.

PS There is no end. The road to music knowledge never ends. April marked 66 years since I took my first music lesson. I am still learning. I don't even really play out anymore, but several times a day I spin the computer chair I am sitting in around to face the Kurzweil I have in this room because some musical thought crossed my mind and my curiosity drove me to quench that thought. "Oh yeah. That's a Dm7b5. In a strange inversion, but that's the chord." From what I just said there, I think I can safely assume that the only word you understood in there was "strange".

I don't know in what part of that large NYC you are. I would call Castellano's House Of Music on Staten Island at (718) 982-8548 and ask for their suggestion for a music teacher near you, and start learning music. Not songs. Music. Once you know basic basics of music everything else will come clear in 4-6 months. At that point it's just a matter of how much you are willing to practice. Learn the notes on the keyboard. Then study where those tones are on a sheet of music. Learn how to form and play scales. Major and minor is a good place to start. Once you know that, and take note of where the whole steps and half steps are, things will start making sense. That will get you moving forward.

That will NOT, however, turn you into a stage ready performer simply by osmosis. Those things will be your screwdriver, drill, and screws. Then you go build your first end table and slowly move up to building a China cabinet.

There are no shortcuts. There is no replacement for dedication and determination. If you are going to tell yourself "I just don't have time", don't bother trying. If you want it bad enough, MAKE time.

There also is no replacement for talent.

I have a friend who in the now 16 years I have known him has told me "I wish I could play guitar" at least 5000 times. He also constantly tells me he doesn't have time to practice. Every night after work he goes and wanders around Walmart for 90-120 minutes. Guess what he should be doing with those 90-120 minutes? He "wants" to play those 6 guitars he owns but continues to make excuses for why he can't.

There is no golden nugget. No silver bullet. No magic Elixer.

There is hard work and dedication. And manageable expectations. I don't know anything about you. I don't know your age. I don't know your skill level. I don't know your end game. You are probably aware that you will never play The Enormodome in your area. MSG is out of the scope of reality. If you want to do this for personal growth, then you need to start musically personally growing.

You can also go out and hire 6 great players and singers, have them write and record 12 songs, and salve your ego by paying for it all and putting your name on the sleeve as Executive Producer, then say "Yeah boyeeee. Didn't WE make a great album?" having contributed nothing musical to the product. (It's been done before. Believe me.)

This is 100% on you. Get to work. Then come spring, post the link where we can buy your new CD, and I will buy the first copy.

PS. Practice with a metronome.

Joe,

What method I used to make backing tracks always depended on what I was going to use them for. If I just needed a quick backing track for a fiddle tune I would always use BIAB to do it.

If I wanted a backing track for a song I'd written I would usually just play all of the instruments myself. I never attempted to play piano on any of those since my piano chops were less than mediocre. LOL

If you're just looking for something to practice to then just use BIAB.

Edit: If you're wanting to learn covers of pop/rock/country songs then getting some good karaoke covers will help you learn the basics of the song. Don't delude yourself into thinking that you'll EVER sound like the recording. I don't remember the name of the site but I do know there was one where you can download individual tracks for each instrument.

+1.
In many ways biab is a form of metronome.
Ban DinaBox is always right when he counts the tempo.

Relentless that band is.

That would be https://www.karaoke-version.com/ which Joe says he is already aware of.

Thanks Dan. I bookmarked it in case I ever needed it. I purchased a song from them years ago but I never used it or even looked at it much. Don't have a clue now what the song was.

Joe V,

As you can see, there are many here willing to be helpful with advice/guidance and answer questions. It would be, however, most helpful in providing relevant and useful information if you could give a little background. Without that, the advice can be pretty meaningless or of no use whatsoever.

What exactly is your goal?
For example:
- Want to have backing tracks to .... jam along with for fun... maintain or improve improvising or melody playing skill... sing along with... as a guide to learning a song

What is your level of musical ability?
For example:
- Have a Masters in Music Composition and am struggling with writer's block
- Strum simple chords on a guitar and sing songs, nothing fancy or involved, just hobby fun stuff
- Played for 10 years, now wanting to move from shred metal to jazz
- Play really well, 20 years and counting, but know nothing of reading music or music theory

Keep in mind that everybody starts at the bottom... with no skill and no knowledge. Each person progresses at their own pace. Each person learns various things in various ways at various times.

Or maybe its just as simple as "Looking for a website to buy backing tracks". If that's the case....
I have no knowledge of any websites. I used BiaB to MAKE backing tracks.

It's possible to create near-perfect cover backing tracks with only BIAB. It's all programming so BIAB determines the key signature, tempo, chords and progression, and provides the band style and arrangement.

Here's a link to a previous thread about this subject where I posted a YouTube link to a cover song backing track I did completely in BIAB.

My YouTube Link to a backing Track Cover

I am a full-time working musician, I play in a duo, and we have over 600 backing tracks. https://www.nortonmusic.com/cats/songlist.html

I don't buy them, I make them myself.

Years ago I bought a few, thinking it would save time, but I spent more time customizing (“fixing”) them than I would have spent creating them.

I either make them from scratch, with Band-in-a-Box, or a combination of both. Here is how I make and use them: https://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

Some of our competitors use Karaoke tracks. I don't.

• Karaoke tracks are in 'record key' and can't be transposed very far without getting weird sounding artifacts. Making my tracks with MIDI, I can put them in the best key for the person who is going to sing the song.
• Karaoke tracks have background vocals, a sure way to tell the audience you are using them. I can create the backing vocal parts using synth patches
• Karaoke tracks are mixed like the recording. When you hear the band who recorded that song live, the mix is different. The groove may be exaggerated, the snare backbeat pumped up, bass edgier and hundreds of different things. Making the tracks myself allows me to make us sound more like a live band, and that means better than our competition.
• With Karaoke tracks, you sound just like every other single/duo/trio/band using the same tracks.

Making them myself is definitely more time-consuming, and with practice I'm much better at it than I was when I started. That makes me an all-around better musician than I was.

Plus, the music is our product, so it has to be as good as it can be. If I'm lucky, I'll get to play the songs I make tracks for hundreds of times. Knowing they are the best I could do is important.

I've also remade some of the tracks I did decades ago, using what I've learned since then to make it better.

If you are gigging, you are in competition with all the other similar acts in your area. A big part of staying booked is to be better than they are. Any extra effort that makes you sound better is worth it.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Exactly.

Even those Karaoke sites that allow you to download stems, or make (limited) changes to the arrangement are cumbersome to use. Lots of time an effort to get not exactly what you are after. Been there, done that.

None of them I have run across give you the capabilities that BIAB for building your basic tracks.
Tempo,
Key
Feel
Composition of band members

At your fingertips, in a moment.


Purely my opinion, but if you're going to play it note for note, put on the record.
I would rather hear Carlos play Samba Pa Ti, Coltrane play Giant Steps or Wierd Al Yankovic play Eat it than some guy in a bar with basically a tape recorder.
For me its respect to cop a few lines from their stuff (I do it), but note for note all the way through?
Not for this guy.



Hit the shed. As mentioned by numerous others, there's work involved here.

As always - thanks to all of you for your insightful comments and advice. They were all really helpful. Perhaps soon I'll record and share something so you guys can gauge my ability. This forum, for me, replaces the 'music shop' I used to hang out and talk about music. I know it can offer far more if I would share more, but I'm just not at that level of playing and performing.

Someone has probably mentioned this in one of the comments above... I didn't read them all. There are several folks with sites online that have already taken the time to create MGU and SGU files of quite a few of the hits from the past. That will certainly save you a lot of time and effort if the songs you want are in the list. And with time being equal to money.... it might actually be cheaper to buy them if they are not too overly expensive.

I don't know if they are free or you have to pay. I don't know if they are as close to the original as one can get with BB or if they are loose interpretations of the song. And I don't know the names of the sites or how many there are.

I've never had the need, curiosity, or desire to go looking to find out. On the rare occasion that I did any covers with BB, I worked in the program to create my own. One was a loose interpretation of the song and the other two were actually fairly accurate versions of the cover. Yeah... In all the years Ive had BB I've only done 3 covers.

Sorry, just had to say something as this information is largely incorrect.

You CAN change the Tempo of the songs.

You CAN change the key

The feel...that's a little different. You can change the feel through changing the above two and maybe adding or eliminating instruments. Some of the songs also have alternate versions, like acoustic and live versions in addition to the original.
You can also augment the production using BIAB or your own additions.
OR maybe this is a point you just use BIAB. It's not like I'm opposed to that obviously.




Using backing tacks that are close to the original with your instrument and voice will never be like "the record." Besides, you can EASILY slice and dice these tracks to have your own versions...extra chorus, half of a chorus, breaks, drums only sections, acapella. MANY options.



Agreed. No matter what method you go with, there will be work involved. You just have to decide how much time you want to put in, and how much time you have to get there. Then pick the work accordingly.

Hopefully one of us strikes the right approach to help. But the information has to be accurate. Opinions are one thing. Inaccuracies need to be corrected. Opinions...have at it.

I'm with Bob. I always want to put my own stamp on anything I play. Why bother to try duplicating the recording when I can just buy it for $1.29?

At the risk of being shot down for unsolicited self promo (but really trying to be helpful) I have a membership site with currently 285 backing tracks. New ones are added every week. https://www.band-in-a-box-files.com/

Here are some free ones you can download https://joannecooper.co.za/files/403221/all-band-in-a-box-sgus.zip

When I make my backing tracks, I use my experience to try to anticipate what will work best for my typical audience. Try is the most important word. Sometimes I nail it, sometimes it's a learning experience.

Being that it's a business, it's more important to me to do it the way the bulk of the audience wants to hear it than how I might want to play it. If they are into the music, I'm having fun.

Sometimes that means making the track as close to the famous version of the song as I can. There is no shame in that, after all, I've played Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and The Beatles note-for-note in my lifetime. Some songs are so etched in the audience's mind, that changing them will result in a significant part of the audience disturbed.

Sometimes my backing tracks will have significant elements like a guitar figure or brass stabs like the original, but otherwise be more our interpretation than a note-for-note copy.

Other times I might drastically change the song, make a rock song Reggae, another Latin American, another Swing Jazz, or whatever.

There are many right ways to do this. I've played in cover bands that tried to do everything note-for-note and jazz bands that did nothing note-for-note like any recording.

Some musicians don't want to play songs like the record. Others strive to make it as close as they can. Either way is fine as long as what they are doing goes over with the audience they are targeting.

If the audience is enjoying what you are doing, you are doing the right thing. After all, music without a listener isn't complete.

I've been a live performer since I was in junior high school, and many decades later, I'm still learning what my audience wants to hear, and how they want it presented. As time changes, the tastes of my targeted audience changes, and it's my job to adapt. That is, if I want to gig and buy groceries next week.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

If you interested in full MIDI arrangements for popular songs then https://www.midi.com.au/signin.asp
is a great source. Cost is ~10 USD, but these guys are pros and arrangments are as close to note for note as you can get.

If you want instant results, buy the files. If you want to learn something and put your touch on it in the process, roll your own songs.

I've told this story before in these forums....This is what it used to be like creating your song covers in the days before BB made it a simple process accessible to all with a modicum of musical ability.

So... It had to be 40 years ago now.... I was on a staff retreat with the company that employed me at the time... In Myrtle Beach SC. The swanky place we were staying had a bar and the bar had a band. The band was 2 guys. One on bass and one on guitar and both sang. They had a full band behind them that I thought initially, was tape, including background vocal harmonies.

On their break, I talked for a bit with the guitarist who showed me they were running one of the earliest versions of Cakewalk sequencer. Everything was midi going to synth sound modules. Drums, piano, strings, guitar switching from rhythm to lead, vocal harmonies were all midi controlled, and even the lights were controlled by midi. All running from a 286 DOS machine. State of the art at the time.

In talking with the guitarist, I asked how long it took them to sequence a song. He said depending on the song, it could be a week or more. They were both studio musicians and highly proficient at their job.

Point being, it takes about an hour or so to set up a song in BB for a cover.... and we're complaining about how long it takes and how much work is involved. Give me a break. We have it so easy compared to what used to be involved in creating covers and original songs that sound professional.

Yes, using BiaB will get the job done quickly.

However, using BiaB in many cases will not get you the best backing track, depending on the song, and how close to a famous recording you might want to play.

For me, there is room for more than one approach.

• Completely Band-in-a-Box. In the arrangement I want, and if there is an appropriate style, I can make a backing track quickly
• Band-in-a-Box plus. I can make a MIDI Band-in-a Box arrangement, export it, then import it into a MIDI sequencer or DAW and then change instruments, add song specific licks, and edit to my heart's content. I can even make an into and ending with the same MIDI instruments that I choose for the rest of the song.
• Partial BiaB. I can make a BiaB track, export MIDI, import into a DAW or sequencer and use the BiaB parts as “comp” parts while I build the song around it recording directly into the sequencer/DAW
• From scratch. Sometimes BiaB, as versatile as it is, won't do justice to a song the way I want to do it, so I do the entire thing in a MIDI sequencer/DAW playing the parts in, one at a time. This is time-consuming, but worth it.

There is more than one right way to do it, and sometimes a different song requires a different approach.

I play music for a living, so my tracks can't be “just good enough” they have to be the absolute best that I can make them.

A good customer requested a Metallica song, so we did “Nothing Else Matters”. Absolutely impossible in BiaB, it took 2 or 3 days to get it right, and it goes over phenomenally. Worth the time and effort.

Another asked for the Commodores' “Night Shift” which only took one day (with the sheet music). Also, not a BiaB style matches, so I did it from scratch.

Someone else asked for the old standard “Near You”, it was their wedding song. BiaB to the rescue. Found a good style, exported MIDI to Master Tracks Pro, played the song figure on another track, added an intro and was done.

It's nice to have more than one tool in your digital tool box.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫