Practicing With Multi-track Music . . . Help Please

[Auguste]

While surfing youtube for bass covers and ideas I read that I practice with multi-track music using my computer and simply turn off the bass and increase the volume for the drums so that I can sinc with the drums

Sounds logical to me but it leaves me with these questions:

Where do you buy/get high quality multi-track music . . . I like playing covers?

What type of software do you need to play this music and adjust the volumes of the various tracks?

Many thanks in advance for your answers!

 

[jkramer5]

A lot would depend on the songs you're talking about. After the guitar hero type games came out, the tracks were ripped off the game disks and uploaded and shared to various places. they are in a multi track format although not completely so, and what you're describing cane be done with them.

Originals and even covers could just be done by the person your watching or their band etc so that would be a source. There are also a number of tracks available not from the game disks or covers but stuff swiped by people during digitization or remastering. The sources vary widely. I have some disks put out by different bass players that have a version of each song that has a "minus" bass mix.. meaning the bass isn't on the track.

The software that comes to mind to play them all back for the least money would be Reaper. It's an inexpensive but well made recording program.

 

[Already In Use]

Iuse You Tube to practice. I got a plug in so I can download the music. I play it back thru my PA and EQ out the majority of the bass. At that point I become the bass player for the selected tune. It's worked well for me over the past few years. I had an audition on Monday. The band leader sent a 4 song list to know Sunday afternoon. You Tube again was my friend. I use Take It Easy for Winamp to change pitch. You can slow music down with it also. I belong to e chords which enables me to save fake chord charts in my song book there..I can also transpose charts with the click of my mouse. You just have to careful you are getting accurate charts to begin with. All that keeps me prepped for live practice and performing.

 

[Auguste]

Thanks for the above answers . . . I will look at REAPER . . . I also use TRANSCRIBE which works well for slowing things down.

Under the Miscellaneous Forum I found Invalid Link Removed

This seems to be the solution I am looking for

THANKS

 

[Roy Vogt]

Great ideas. Before there were computers and DAW software I used to use the Standing in The Shadows of Motown cassettes and a Tascam 4 track. I would dub off two tracks and then use the remainder of the tracks to overdub. I learned a lot about time, groove and tone doing that as well as by transcribing other bassists and playing along with their recordings or playing along with a drum machine and recording myself. It's how I kept sane on the Road in the 80s and 90s.

 

[mebusdriver]

The Amazing Slow Downer is my go to for practicing material. You can change pitch, isolate sections, loop them, and slow them down without changing pitch, there's also EQ to help you get rid of the low end, and you can export tunes with the pitch changed so that you don't have to do it every time you want to practice. It's a great program and has been awesome.

 

[Roy Vogt]

Transcribe is on my Must Buy List. I am using The Amazing Slow-Downer, but that seems really, really useful. Both Adam Nitti and Bryan Beller praise it highly.

 

[warnergt]

Where do you buy/get high quality multi-track music . . . I like playing covers?

Well, I wouldn't call it high quality but, except for that, Guitar Pro
fits this description pretty well. You don't need really high
quality; just something that is reasonably good and pretty
close to the original.

Guitar Pro is pretty amazing. There are literally tens of thousands
of tunes available for free. There are separate tracks for guitar,
bass, drums and often others. You can turn off the bass track
and play along. And you get the score and tab for the bass line.

Another similar technique that I use it to get MIDI files off of
the Internet and drop them into Logic Pro. Again, many
instruments are represented in the MIDI files. You have total
control of them once you drop them into the right application.
MIDI files range from low quality to high quality. There are
websites that sell the higher quality MIDI files. The can run
about $10 each. But there are many quality MIDI files on the
Internet available for free. You just need to look around.