Creating Original Backing Tracks

I've been tooling around guitar for a couple of years and one of favorite ways to learn more is to groove to the backing tracks provided here and on other sites around the web.
However, I have musical background although it was dormant for about 20 years until I stumbled onto guitar in 2006. I have since found there are still some good ideas bubbling around in this old brain of mine and I want to create my own backing tracks. :rolleyes: I've been researching the how-tos of this on the Net and want to solicit opinions from the group.

Here's my situation: I do not have a home studio, nor do I have access to the various instruments required to lay down a full-blown backing track. My options are pretty limited to software. Of course, the gotcha with software - as far as I've seen - is that you start in MIDI, a format which sounds, well, awful.
I've dug up several packages, such as Finale Allegro (http://www.finalemusic.com/Allegro/default.aspx) and Silbeus, among others. Finale has several packages on the market, but Allegro seems to be a good fit for what I need. Finale and Silbeus are a bit costly, but it sounds like their playback is strong - they really clean up the MIDI element to the point where it sounds real. The others I've looked at (Noteworthy - http://www.noteworthysoftware.com/; Mozart - http://www.mozart.co.uk/) are cheaper but they are also pretty much prisoners of their robotic, canned MIDI universe. You get what you pay for, I guess.

So, questions to the group - what's been your experience? How do you handle this? What do you guys do when you want to create an original backing track, but can't get to the studio/can't shell out $4,000 for a home mixer, equipment, etc.?
Let me add one more layer to this - what do you do when you want to create backing tracks for private use of existing songs, but don't want to go the MIDI route?
One last one - is there a way to polish up and clean MIDI files so they sound like real instruments and not like something spit out by a 1960's robot? :confused:

Anything would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
- John

I don't know a lot about MIDI to be honest. I know that MIDI can be made to sound a lot better than robot-music but I have never been able to work my own magic to do it. I think Kevin (Taylor) does that kind of stuff..

What I do, to create a backing track, is use a program called Reaper to record my rhythm guitar and bass. And then I use a VST plugin for the drums. The drum plugin is called EZDrummer, which is basically the realistic sounding instruments coupled with pre-fabricated grooves in MIDI format. The grooves are categorised and easily previewed to get the feel I want, then I simply drag-and-drop them into Reaper's time-line.

I can either render the track at this point and use it independently of the Reaper recording software, or I can use the Reaper software to play over the top of in its raw form. Since I use VST plugins for my guitar fx as well, I usually just play it within the Reaper environment.

Reaper is free, the plugins are not... but they're not that expensive either. I'm fairly sure EZDrummer has demo plugins you can download to see if they are right for you as well.

Very interesting and thanks.

I'll download Reaper and give it a whirl. Appreciate the help. I'll be back on the post if I have any questions.

- John

Some midi based programs are great.
EZDrummer and FL Studio use midi and wave samples to trigger the virtual instruments.

Download Reaper and a demo of FL Studio. (you can’t save your work on the demo version, but you can get an idea on how the program works)

Both programs can host the EZDrummer VST.

Hope that helps. :cool:

Hi.

Have a look through some of the multitrack tutorials on my lesson pages.

I've done quite a few lessons doing exactly what you're talking about and explaining how you take a cheezy midi file and make it sound like an actual band.

In most cases I'm using plug-ins that I've purchased but there are tons of free VST synths and plug-ins on the market that will do the same type of thing.

Basically what you can do is take a midi file of a drum track (be it either a short midi drum track that can be cut and pasted or even a copyrighted song *that you tweak around so you aren't just blatantly copying somebody... just import something you like and remove everything but the drums then go in and manually edit things)

Next step is to use either a drum machine or drum samples in place of any cheezy built in sounds on your computer.
With some audio software you'll get drum machines with the package or you can buy something like Battery that lets you use any sound file on your hard drive.
Then you go through and replace everything with new sounds.

Next step is to go in and tweak it manually by adding slight timing adjust to make it sound like a real player... and adjusting the volumes of each part of the kit.

Then add some decent compression and reverb to things like the snare and kick.

Another thing you can do is use Loops to flesh out your drum tracks.
There's all kinds of freebies available or royalty free CD's available.
You just drop it in over your drum track and mix it low in the mix.

MIdi files by the way... are a hit and miss affair if you're looking for just backup stuff.
A lot of them are done by amateurs and they sound like it.
Others are very professionally done and can sometimes sound better than the original recordings.
It's just a matter of searching them out.

Anyways, like I said... try checking out some of the multitrack tutorials on my lessons pages. Every song I've ever recorded was done using midi and some variation of the method above. And a lot of the tutorials start with the basic midi drum track and show you how the sound improves as you tweak around with it and start adding other instruments.

Just a fer instance, this song is completely MIDI, except for the guitar parts.
To get a good idea of the various sounds, try using headphones rather than small computer speakers. (and hey... turn out the lights so you can really concentrate or put on a groovy blacklight and do the stoner mello out thing :cool:

This song is just the free drum machine that came with Cubase with some royalty free loops I got from various web sites: (just to let ya know... I used a MIDI drum file I got off Usenet that was originally a Nine-In-Nails tune....
All I did was copy it, then tweak it and copy and paste various sections, then alter the bpm and provide my own sounds)
I also bought a Yamaha DD-65 drum pad... basically a unit with a bunch of round pads that you can go nuts on using your hands or drum sticks to tricker either the built in sounds or any midi drums you want.
(just turn up your song, go nuts on it and then use the built in quantize function of Cubase to fix any mistakes... it definitely gives a more human feel to your drum rolls)

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/GameIsOver_Schmange.mp3

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/GameIsOverInst_Schmange.mp3


.... or you could do something like this using a drum machine, drum loops and samples:

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/Maya_Schmange_320.mp3


Here's a showreel of a bunch of songs I did using MIDI and Cubase just to give you an idea of the variety you can get too:

x

http://s93744050.onlinehome.us/SchmangeShowReel_1.mp3

A lot of these tunes are on my lesson pages and in the next couple of months I'll also be adding Hi-Def videos showing the whole process.