Making a backing track : Everybody wants to rule the world

in music •  6 years ago 

Hello Steemit!

Today I would like to share with you a rather fun and interesting project I did for my college, which consists of creating a "backing track". Sooner or later every musician (professional or amateur) will need a good backing track, to do karaoke, study, play alone in a performance or even give lessons.

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-What is a backing track?
Well....how many times did you find yourself singing over a song, but would you like to be able to sing it without the original voice below? How many times did you find yourself playing guitar but the original guitars bother you or happen to be playing drums over a song but you wish you could play it without the drummer in the background? Well, the solution to all these problems is to make a good backing track.
A backing track consists of building a track by track (instrument by instrument) using audio programs known as "DAW" (digital audio workstation) like:
-Logic
-Ableton live
-Cubase
Protools and many others
that allow us to use virtual instruments.
By doing this, you can build the song yourself and choose which instruments you want from the song and which you do not.

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The program I like to use is the Logic pro x, this program is great for midi, audio, video and music editing. Unfortunately, Logic is a Mac-exclusive program, so if you have windows, you won't be able to use it. But don't be afraid! hahaha with any of the programs listed before and many others you will be able to do the same job without any problems.

In this case the song I chose is called "Everybody wants to rule the world" by "Tears for fears". (I love this song hahaha)

As a good track of the `80s it has many layers of instruments and many synthesizers, so it is quite tedious to listen to each instrument and find the exact sound (even though it is not a very complicated song). Its important to look to get as close as possible to the original in terms of sound, otherwise the final product will be a poor quality imitation.

This time I limited myself to just using the virtual instruments that come by default in the Logic, so if you pay attention you will notice that several of the audios achieved are not exactly the same; obviously, you could use any kind of virtual sound library and get much closer to the original.

Here's the backing track:

On this track i combine the virtual midi instruments with the beautiful real guitars of my great and beloved brother @pechichemena , which helps to give it a much more realistic feeling, but if you need it you could remove the guitar that plays the main melody, leaving the track ready for anyone who wants to play or sing the song.

One of the biggest advantages of using midi instruments is the ability to transpose the track to any key we want quickly, this is a marvel when we consider that otherwise, we would have to make the track again every time a singer asked for it in another key.......a real torture right? hahahaha.

Here's the original song:

Here a cool version of Mark Lettieri :

I hope you liked my work and that you enjoyed my post, keep in mind that backing tracks can be a source of money since there are many people who need them, so if you are thinking about how to earn some extra money you could start experimenting with your own tracks!

This track is available for anyone who wants it, just ask me for it and with all the love in the world I will give it to you!

Any questions, comments or opinions are welcome!

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Yours truly: @piterman

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@piterman, cool software and creative mind. I never thought of back track can be develop this way. hmm.. did you consider to develop a software for people who like to sing but not good in singing like me? I love to sing but it always out of tune.(hope you know what i mean). It would be very good if there is an apps which it can helps with our tune ;)
Keep up the good work!!

Thanks! im glad you like the post!
you can use tools like "autotune" or "melodyne", this are softwares that you can use in any program, the logic has its own tool call "Flex". All of this softwares detect your voice track, show you how out of tune you are and then allow you to tune your voice. Be careful, if you tune a lot your voice you gonna sound like a robot hahaha.

Hahahaha thanks on the tips. Ok. let me try that.. hmmm maybe robot sound better than my " special" out of tune voice. hehehe

I guess I have also seen similar projects where there will be tune in the background and you have to sing, that app then will give you score based on your singing. I guess its called raaga, though I am not 100% sure.

yes! there ir many backing tracks like the karaoke ones, where is a melody as a guide to sing alone.

Hey @piterman, thank you for introducing us to a backing track. Your backing track rendition of Everybody wants to rule the world is very good. Your brother played the electric guitar parts and you added the rest? It is very impressive.
And thanks for sharing this:

One of the biggest advantages of using midi instruments is the ability to transpose the track to any key we want quickly

I didn't know that. No wonder midi is still needed. I've always had the impression that midis are an 80s kinda thing.
p.s. cool pic of you with the drumstick up your nose :)

thank you @marblely ! first i made the midi part and then i recorded the guitars! the midi world its huge!
im glad you like my picture hahaha.

Dude, there's like a drumstick coming out of your nose....
That's pretty cool, I really enjoyed the Mark Lettieri version. The drummer in it was rather good, too.
About how long did it take you to put that track together? Also how many of the instruments were virtual and how many were live? Do you ever take a piano midi feed and transform it to a guitar? I learned how to do banjo rolls on the keys for a recording 20 years ago, they needed a banjo but didn't have one so we just made one with effects and a keyboard...

thanks bro! yes, that is my favorite picture hahaha.
I spent a couple of hours putting all the tracks together because all the instruments but the guitars, are midi instruments that i played with my keyboard; the guitars are %100 reals.
If you have the score of the song, you can do it faster, if you dont have it, you got to listen all the instruments one by one, play them one by one and believe me, that took a lot of time hahaha.

It seemed like it would take a while to put it together, just plugging in a couple of instruments takes me forever. On the bright side, you did get a curie vote for it, which usually helps. Have a great day.

Great post man, i usually get my backing tracks from youtube hahaha

thanks bro! yeah there is a pretty good ones!

Hi, very interesting topic. I am using open source software like Audacity to make recordings, and Hydrogen to build the drums and I got very good results, so this software would be very good alternative to make good music. Regards!.

thanks! yeah the logic pro x is a great program and its become an profesional standard program to work with

NICE POST @piterman,thanks for sharing about backing track.

thanks man!

Hi piterman,

This post has been upvoted by the Curie community curation project and associated vote trail as exceptional content (human curated and reviewed). Have a great day :)

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thank you so much for the support! im glad you like my post!

Dear friend, you do not appear to be following @artzone. Follow @artzone and get added to our voting list for valuable up-votes!

My bad! I was sure I was following you!
solved!
thanks!

well done

thanks!

Well done !

thanks!

Impressive!

thanks!!!