Creating your own backing tracks

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Im sick of doing covers and want to start doing my own stuff but  I cant play drums, base or keyboards and dont have any anyway.  I want to create some MP3 backing tracks of my own.  I found www.jamstudio.com and I have been playing around with that but it only seems to let me do 5 pages of music.  Its ok but not brilliant.

What online resources are there out there similar that are fairly easy to use.  I just want to be able to put in the chords, drums etc, Jamtracks is ok but what else is there available to do this?

Thanks
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Comments

  • barrydbarryd Frets: 25
    Nobody doing this then?
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4028
    edited April 2017
    barryd said:
    Im sick of doing covers and want to start doing my own stuff...
    So there might be a bit of ambiguity in the way you've put the question of "creating your own backing tracks."
    I'm guessing that "backing track" for most people means you're making a track, a cover, of an existing song which is out there in the public domain, e.g. "Sex on Fire"
    But..
    "I'm sick of doing covers..."  suggests that you want to do original stuff.  I.e. Not backing tracks but creating your own original material.

    And the answer is that there's tons of info for either of those. But which is it?
    Do you want to make your own backing tracks to existing songs like "Sex on Fire" etc.?
    Or do you want to create and produce your own original songs/ pieces of music?

    The process can be significantly different.
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  • barrydbarryd Frets: 25
    Thanks for the reply. A bit of both really.  I want to start doing my own stuff.  Will do vocals and guitar myself but need to create drums, base, keyboards etc digitally.  Will still do the odd cover but for some less well known tracks ready made backing tracks are not always available.  I made one the other day in Jamstudio for a track in a different key but its not brilliant.  Just wondered what the best and easiest solutions out there were.
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  • GrunfeldGrunfeld Frets: 4028
    edited April 2017
    barryd said:
    ...Just wondered what the best and easiest solutions out there were.
    "Best" is probably not the same as "easiest." 
    If you're prepared to do a bit of learning then a DAW like Reaper is a cheap and full-featured way to "best".
    Because once you're okay with that concept then it's up to you how good you get your drums and keys.
    Drum samples are only limited by your skill using something like, say, BFD3. 
    Keys:  so many to choose from.  Native Intruments' Kontakt covers every conceivable base and can host dozens if not hundreds of keys sample libraries.
    I don't know about bass.  I have a bass guitar and so I record with that.   I'm sure there are bass sample libraries out there, and I'd expect the best to run in Kontakt too.

    So, a bit of investment of time and money required but quality samples and decent MIDI programming make a big difference.  It takes a while to learn how to write well with MIDI, no quick way as far as I know.

    Apologies if you know all that already.  It's kind of basic but wasn't sure where you're currently at.
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  • kennedydream1980kennedydream1980 Frets: 1143
    edited April 2017
    If you wanting to do covers then this is where you need to go.

    You can re-mix the tracks however you want and even add a click and change the key up or down a full tone. They have pretty much every song you can think of and are right up to date with new releases.

    http://www.karaoke-version.co.uk/custombackingtrack/
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  • olafgartenolafgarten Frets: 1648
    If you have a Mac, Garageband has decent loops that you can play around with.
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  • barrydbarryd Frets: 25
    Thanks. Just revisiting this thread.  Since I posted it I spent a long summer (four months) in Germany and France and I started writing my own stuff.  I am well into it now and have written and produced (sounds fancier than it is) about ten songs.  Some ive used backing tracks ive created in Band in a box and others I have just used sampled drums and added all the guitar bits and vocals myself and the Bass.   The only thing I am lacking now is keyboards / synth.  All the tracks are very much guitar heavy and sometimes I would just like to add some keyboards even if its just synth chords backing.  I dont have a keyboard (well an ancient Casio thing) and cant play keyboards.

    Will Reaper or a similar DAW provide that?  Is there anything out there thats quick and simple to deliver what I want?  Ive looked at some of the online stuff but its either very complex or rubbish.
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  • flying_pieflying_pie Frets: 1806
    There are plenty of synth vst plugins for Reaper including free ones.  I've just started recording this year and have had a steep learning curve as I've been midi programming drums, bass and keys for my entry for the composition challenge 
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  • Another vote for GarageBand. The Drummer will lay down great tracks automatically, and the loops work well with that. 

    Or, if you already have a chord progression, play it into Music Memos (Apple’s iPhone and iPad app) and it’ll add drums and bass parts, which can be tweaked to taste (and/or sent to GarageBand for further work).
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  • I use lot's of things, the cheapest being Powertab Editor(free).  You can create some pretty convincing percussion, bass and keys with it that you can export as MIDI files, then convert to WAV files.   Another way involves owning a USB synth, mines an M-Audio Oxygen 25 that I got used for cheap(aboout the cost of 5 or 6 packs of strings.  It uses a free online program called "Ignite" that you can record directly into in multi-track format and then transfer the tracks as WAV files to whatever program or device you want.  Knowing some music theory helps.

    “Theory is something that is written down after the music has been made so we can explain it to others”– Levi Clay


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  • I use Band in a Box when working on ideas for a song, then export the bass and drum tracks to Studio One (any DAW will do) and add guitar and vocals tracks.
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  • FretwiredFretwired Frets: 24601
    I assume Reaper handles VSTs OK. Buy a copy of Computer Music. It comes with dozens of instruments and effects plus tutorials to get you going - you only need to buy one copy. You'll have synths, bass and drum plus usual effects like reverb, delay and a whole host of other stuff.

    Remember, it's easier to criticise than create!
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  • barrydbarryd Frets: 25
    Sorry once again for not coming back and thanks for this useful information.  Garage Band sounds good but I think its only available on IOS.  Will look at some of the others.  I did discover I got a free copy of Cubase with my M Audio interface but I took one look at it and decided to revisit it when I could lock myself in a room for a week.  Looks complicated.
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  • FunkfingersFunkfingers Frets: 14323
    barryd said:
    Garageband sounds good but I think its only available on IOS. 
    Garageband is also available for Apple Mac computers BUT this version is not one hundred per cent compatible with the iOS version. Each has features that the other lacks. Unsurprisingly, the iOS versions exploit the capabilities of the touchscreen. 

    Garageband Drummer will lay down great tracks automatically
    It can even be instructed to *follow* one instrument track. The artificial intelligence algorithm will recalculate how busy to be, depending on whether it is reacting to, say, a busy strumming pattern or sustained organ chords. If the song arrangement changes, the Drummer part can be instructed to change mood, tempo or time signature. (The latter is a bit of a faff in GB.)

    Be seeing you.
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  • barrydbarryd Frets: 25
    Thanks but I only have PC's here and I gather Garageband is MAc only.  It sounds ideal though.
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