Backing tracks?

P

PhilA

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Practicing techniques, theory and learning other people’s music is all great stuff. However I find playing over backing tracks gives me best bang for buck when I want to improve my musicality and learn to use what I’ve learned in practice.

Aside from making your own do you use any commercial pre made backing tracks products? What’s good? all styles considered.

Thanks and happy holiday limbo what actual day of the week is it day.
 
Lately for generic jamming or if I am setting up a preset and want to hear how it will sound in a mix, I just find something semi random on YouTube via search. There is a lot out there it seems for any genre key and tempo I care about.

If I am actually working on something I lean towards a fairly basic looper with a drum beat. These days it is a Mooer GL100.
 
They’re great for home practicing and more fun than using a metronome. There’s lots of options, but I use iReal Pro on a tablet to run through playlists of jazz standards to prep for jam sessions. It has charts for the 500 tunes from the 2 volume Jazz Standard Bible (like a Japanese Real Book) in use at several nearby venues that host jazz jam sessions. I like the ease of changing keys and tempo and customizing chord charts.
 
I use YouTube backing tracks quite often when I just need to play and relax after a long work day.

Improvising is better than here & now meditation.

Elevated Jam Tracks, Now You Shred are probably the YT channels I use most.

I have a love/hate relationship with backing tracks: sometimes I hate that you have to improvise on a chord progression without a melodic context, a theme that sets the tone. Sometimes I love it.
 
PhilA said:
Aside from making your own do you use any commercial pre made backing tracks products? What’s good? all styles considered.
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We rehearse with a PreSonus 16 track StudioLive board and record every practice. Everything is mic'ed. We upload the tracks to the cloud for the entire band to use. I often mute my guitar during playback and jamtrack leads over our music. A lot of the time I will also mute the singer if the lead section is similar to the verse or chorus. My singer does the same thing I make him a karaoke track so he can practice at home or in his truck. We paid $450 used for the board, it was the best investment we ever made.

In the rare instance I do pull up a jamtrack from YouTube it is something random in the key and style of what I am working on. But that is rare since getting the PreSonus board.
 
If you really want to see improvement set a metronome on 2 & 4. Full tracks give you too much information.

Or the Wayne Krantz method which is harder. Record yourself playing to a metronome for one minute, then listen back. It can be a tough listen but it fixed any timing issues I had.

As the studio guys used to say, tape doesn't lie.
 
OG-T said:
If you really want to see improvement set a metronome on 2 & 4. Full tracks give you too much information.

Or the Wayne Krantz method which is harder. Record yourself playing to a metronome for one minute, then listen back. It can be a tough listen but it fixed any timing issues I had.

As the studio guys used to say, tape doesn't lie.
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I’m talking about using them to improve musicality not timing here. I practice to a metronome but that doesn’t give me musical information to make melodic note choices 😎
 
PhilA said:
I’m talking about using them to improve musicality not timing here. I practice to a metronome but that doesn’t give me musical information to make melodic note choices 😎
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There is the school of thought that lines have harmonic information that should be made obvious without underlying harmony.

It’s not like you have to react to the unknown unless you have some one push play not telling you what’s coming next.

As in you will always pre think what changes are coming. Unless you want to sound like a clown when improvising.
 
Ed DeGenaro said:
There is the school of thought that lines have harmonic information that should be made obvious without underlying harmony.

It’s not like you have to react to the unknown unless you have some one push play not telling you what’s coming next.

As in you will always pre think what changes are coming. Unless you want to sound like a clown when improvising.
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Haha 😁 have you seen the size of my big yellow shoes
 
OG-T said:
If you really want to see improvement set a metronome on 2 & 4. Full tracks give you too much information.

Or the Wayne Krantz method which is harder. Record yourself playing to a metronome for one minute, then listen back. It can be a tough listen but it fixed any timing issues I had.

As the studio guys used to say, tape doesn't lie.
Click to expand...
One issue I had with doing things like this is when playing in bands with others. Most people have a varied time throughout the songs. You timing may be dead on but you very well could be the only one in the group that is dead on. I had to adjust and go with the flow. I think it is good to get your timing solid but you have to be able to ebb and flow.


I use Band In A Box to create any tracks I want. I can decide which instruments are in or out at any given moment.
 
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