construction of backing tracks

[steve mac]

I realise that this has been touched on in other threads and I have been through them but remain a bit confused re the following (oh and please I am a total novice at BTs so not too complicated a reply would be appreciated)

 

What I am trying to achieve is after a first acoustic set (whilst people are eating etc) I would like to have a second set with more of a dance flavor. Therefore I was hoping to achieve this with the addition of some backing music.

I have considered using a looper, but as others have mentioned, the first time you see it, it is novel but I couldn't go through that for every song when the object is to seamlessly keep people on their feet, even if I had the skills to make the loop in the first place.

Then following a recent thread I considered a drum machine but having had a quick go using the drum functionality on my Zoom have abandoned that as half way through the first song I was bored with the continuous unchanging beat.

Which leaves my with (unless someone could suggest anything else) Backing Tracks and specifically their creation.

 

 

Do you buy them if so where from?

 

I only really want drums and bass, so if you buy them can you leave out things

you don't want?

 

If you create them, well I could do the backing vocals and lead guitar but I wouldn't have a clue how to add drums or a bass line, so is everyone who creates them experts in other instruments?

 

 

As always any and all help gratefully received and apologies if some of the questions are a bit obvious but like I said this is a whole new world to me.

All the best

Steve

[Mike McLaughlin]

I use midi backing tracks running in cakewalk Sonar. Sonar provides a great synth, the TTS-1 to render the midi to audio. There are a couple ways to get the tracks. You can search the internet for free midi files. That can be a crap shoot, as you will find some good and a lot of bad. My preferred source is midi-hits.com. There you can buy good midi files, and it's the only place to find very recent hits. They cost $9-10 each, but they run sales of 3 for 19.95, 5 for 29.95, and 10 for 49.95 usually a couple times/month.

 

Once you have the midi file and you open it in a DAW like Sonar, you can mute or delete the unwanted tracks, and leave just the bass and drums, or what ever instruments you want to leave in. You can transpose the key to fit your vocal range, and change the tempo if you like. What I like about midi-hits is that you can get the midi in a cakewalk format, and the lyrics are synced. If I find a decent midi on the net, it is a little more work to copy/paste the lyrics and sync them with the music.

 

For my own songs, I use Band-in-a-box by PG Music. There, you just chart the song using the chords, select the style and instrumentation and it will generate the track. When using BIAB, you can use midi, but they also have "real tracks", comes on a 160gig hard drive. They are real instrument samples that play along to your chord progressions. I take it a step further by generating several instances of a backing instrument, say pedal steel and importing each instance into my DAW, where I'll edit and use just portions of each instance to produce the best fill at the appropriate place in the song.

 

Bob Norton will post a link to his page explaining how he creates them.

[steve mac]

Thanks Mike, I am glad I asked for the "simplified" version, I will take what you have said and start trolling through the web so its a great starting point.

Again thanks

Steve

[espgold]

I'll second MidiHits.com for quality tracks of recent hits and some other hard to find songs. You gotta pay for those, as mentioned, but they're worth it, IMO.

 

Mostly I've found free midi's on the web and fixed them up in Garageband. In addition to what Mike said, you can change the instrument sounds themselves -changing a fretted bass to fretless, for instance - or make it a different instrument altogether. Some of my tracks had acoustic or electric guitar parts in them that I changed to banjo, steel drum, or whatever to add texture and let me do the guitar work myself. Copy/paste to change the length of a song or part. Create intros and endings (hate those fade-outs). Etc, etc.

 

It's a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you get going and see the possibilities you'll be proficient and having fun in little time. All of my tracks are "custom" in some way and consistent in sound quality and volume due to careful processing at the tail end of editing. Yes, I compress. I know some have suggested that uncompressed tracks will blend better with live instruments, but in the live environment my guitars are compressed as are my vocals and it sounds to me like they all exist in the same space. Different discussion, I know, but the AUMulti-band compressor in Garageband is a thing of beauty and if anything, gives a much more "live" feel to my tracks.

 

Side note: It's cool to see Notes Norton here on the forum as he was/is one of the giants in midi from the time I first got online and began assembling tracks in my primitive Cakewalk program. This was 1997 or so.

I guess you could say he was "instrumental" in my development as a solo/duo performer and I read his posts with great interest and reverence.

[Mike McLaughlin]

 

I'll second MidiHits.com for quality tracks of recent hits and some other hard to find songs. You gotta pay for those, as mentioned, but they're worth it, IMO. Mostly I've found free midi's on the web and fixed them up in Garageband. In addition to what Mike said, you can change the instrument sounds themselves -changing a fretted bass to fretless, for instance - or make it a different instrument altogether. Some of my tracks had acoustic or electric guitar parts in them that I changed to banjo, steel drum, or whatever to add texture and let me do the guitar work myself. Copy/paste to change the length of a song or part. Create intros and endings (hate those fade-outs). Etc, etc. It's a bit of a learning curve at first, but once you get going and see the possibilities you'll be proficient and having fun in little time. All of my tracks are "custom" in some way and consistent in sound quality and volume due to careful processing at the tail end of editing. Yes, I compress. I know some have suggested that uncompressed tracks will blend better with live instruments, but in the live environment my guitars are compressed as are my vocals and it sounds to me like they all exist in the same space. Different discussion, I know, but the AUMulti-band compressor in Garageband is a thing of beauty and if anything, gives a much more "live" feel to my tracks. Side note: It's cool to see Notes Norton here on the forum as he was/is one of the giants in midi from the time I first got online and began assembling tracks in my primitive Cakewalk program. This was 1997 or so. I guess you could say he was "instrumental" in my development as a solo/duo performer and I read his posts with great interest and reverence.

 

Good post, yeah, I also change patches, and edit the midi files as you suggest.

 

I'm one of those Apple-phobs, so I don't use Garage band. I don't use compression either.

 

When Norton speaks, people listen!

[JimboKeys]

 

I wouldn't have a clue how to add drums or a bass line, so is everyone who creates them experts in other instruments?

 

You've gotten some great replies so far. Just go off in a different direction, in answer to your question above ... most any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) software has a mode where you can place blocks on the screeen to build a drum pattern. Very much like programming a drum machine, but it's very easy to combine any number of patterns into a song (again, usually done graphically). Bass parts can be created similarly. The result can either be saved as a MIDI file (you do have to know a bit about MIDI to make this work, i.e. channels, program select commands, etc.) or you can use the DAW's built-in instruments to save the track as a wav or mp3 file. It's not rocket science --- this is how i've made most of the backing tracks i use (though lately i've been getting lazy and buying tracks off the net).

 

- Jimbo

[steve mac]

Just to clarify, I would need Sonar if I go down the purchase tracks route and that alone would be sufficient and Band in a Box if I wish to create my own "instruments" . Can I just get one of these or do they work in tandem? I only ask as they are quite expensive each one,(several hundreds). Also can I then convert the files to MP3s and lastly if I buy an iPad would that play Midi files via Onsong.

Again thanks

Steve

[Mike McLaughlin]

 

Just to clarify, I would need Sonar if I go down the purchase tracks route and that alone would be sufficient and Band in a Box if I wish to create my own "instruments" . Can I just get one of these or do they work in tandem? I only ask as they are quite expensive each one,(several hundreds). Also can I then convert the files to MP3s and lastly if I buy an iPad would that play Midi files via Onsong. Again thanks Steve

 

Sonar has a home studio version, but you can choose any DAW that handles midi to edit midi files. That alone would be all you need to edit midi and convert to mp3. I use BIAB in tandem with sonar when I create tracks for songs I write. I think onsong plays midi from what others here said.

[Notes_Norton]

<...>

 

Insights and incites by Notes ?

[John Ellis]

 

I make my own, see: http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html for how I make them and how I use them on stage An app like band-in-a-box might help you with the bass, drums and comp parts What I want on the track depends on how I'm going to use it. We are versatile and have songs for different venues. With BiaB or any purchased MIDI track, you can mute any part you want. I'm not sure about karaoke type tracks - never used them. I am a multi-instrumentalist (sax, flute, guitar, wind synthesizer, keyboard synthesizer, bass, drums, and vocals) plus I've been schooled in theory and arranging Up until now I've always played the backing vocals on a synth voice. Same part as the vocal but appropriate timbre voice. Lately I've been thinking about putting our own vocals on the backing track as most people are now accustomed to duos using tracks and I don't think we are fooling many into thinking we're playing all the parts live Insights and incites by Notes ?

 

 

I'm wanting to add background vocals to the backing tracks too. That way they aren't following my real time vocals for any given show.

I'm currently using compression on the lead voice and not on harmonies and that helps but me thinks taking it one step further will create less "real time" work and sound better.

[EightString]

I sequence my own MIDI in Reaper, although sometimes "sequence" means playing the parts myself on a keyboard, and sometimes it means creating/editing the MIDI by hand.

 

I'm very, very picky about my virtual instruments, to the point where my software "rack" includes 4 different drum kits, three basses, several analog synth sounds, various horns, strings, two different pianos, two different organs, some percussion patches, an electric piano, and more.

 

I also spend a fair amount of time "humanizing" any parts I didn't play directly into the sequencer. Little timing and dynamics variations can breath a lot of life and groove into sequenced parts.

 

Then there's mixing and effects. I approach this in a way where I try to create a "live" sound, which is different than what I would do for a CD. In particular, the drums and bass need to have that "in the room" feel, ideally so that if a person weren't looking they might think an entire band was in the room.

 

Bottom line, these aspects all take a lot of time, effort, and learning.

 

But being self-sufficient like this... Totally worth it.

[EightString]

That said, start with simple drum and bass backup on a couple of songs, and work on getting a good sound out of just those two elements. Even if you never venture farther than that basic sound, it can carry you quite far if you use quality virtual instruments and take care with each song's MIDI.

[EightString]

Finally, there are online MIDI resources, should you choose to go that route, where you can freely download MIDI sequences of entire songs, and many of these songs are arranged with individual "tracks" for each part, making it easy to keep only what you need, such as drums and bass.

[steve mac]

Cheers, for all of the helpful advice from everyone

Steve

[Notes_Norton]

 

<...> Bottom line, these aspects all take a lot of time, effort, and learning. But being self-sufficient like this... Totally worth it.

 

 

+1 on that.

 

Learning to sequence and record into a DAW is like learning another instrument. You didn't pick up the guitar or piano or saxophone and learn to play in a day. Nothing about playing good music is instant gratification. But we should be glad. If it was easy, anybody would be able to do it, and then people wouldn't pay us money to have so much fun!

 

Insights and incites by Notes ?