Producing Backing Tracks for "Live"..Drums and Keys.

Bellycaster

THE RANT

The other Band I'm working on has reached such frustration point that we are going to head down this route. We have had 6 Drummers who either a) Aren't Good Enough b) Say they can commit when they really can't, or, c) Just don't turn up to audition.

It's a long story, also Keyboard players are as rare as Rocking Horse Shit round here and the 2 we found let us down, fed up of all the work and being let down. Unless a Drummer and Keys player falls from the Sky into our laps we will not be wasting anymore time finding them.

THE POINT

It's a Funk/Soul/80's and 70's R&B Cover Band, we have 1 Guitarist, 1 Bassist(and Backing Vocals) and 1 Female Vocalist.

We need the Drums and Keys doing for our selected set, sooooooooo, I can record in Cubase, can do Instrument Tracks(Midi Piano Roll etc) and put in Drum Samples from Groove Agent(or manually) and mix down to MP3. I can easily transcribe the keys parts using the Guitar and then putting the notes/chords in Cubase and I have a decent selection of Keys of sounds to work with.

I kind of ok with compression and effects in Cubase too.

NAIVE QUESTION ALERT!

So, is this all there is to it to make a decent backing track?

Really appreciate help here as this is the last resort and we really want to get it going.

Thanks.

mike257

A friend of mine recommended www.karaoke-version.co.uk to me - haven't used it myself but have played with the samples on their page and seems decent.  They have a massive library of backing tracks that are a pretty decent standard, but the good bit is that once you pay for each track (about 2 quid, I think) you get access to the multitrack version and can reel off as many custom mixes as you want - so you could have tracks of just drums, keys and brass, and then if you took a drummer out for a gig you could download versions without the drums on without having to pay out again, or add the backing vocals in. It'd be a few quid to get a full set together but for the time you'd invest in self-producing, it might work out worthwhile!