Hi,
this is my first post - so go easy if I ask an obvious question. Also I am a complete newbie to anything other than strumming chords etc, so any answer is going to have to be pitched at the lowest level ;-)
So I have managed to learn a few songs, and to practice I was playing along using a drum machine software called "hydrogen" using it a a metronome, but I noticed that there were a few downloadable files for various songs' drum tracks so I have downloaded them and being playing along with them - smoke on the water being 1.
Anyway, this all seems good fun and a nice way to practice, but there are only a few drum tracks available for hydrogen so I was wondering if there was an alternative software that would play the drum track, and or other instruments, and that there were available files to download for most of the popular songs. So I guess I am asking for whats a good piece of software for playing along with...?
Thanks,
T.
welcome to a great guitar forum.
here is a site that has backing tracks. listed by artist. the tracks typically have drums, bass, maybe some rhythm.
come to think of it, some tracks may have the lead guitar so you can play bass. they are easy to download onto your computer.
then you can play them when you want.
the site is pretty easy to navigate. it asks for a donation. I might someday if I use the free service a lot. scroll to the song list.
click and download.
let me know if the link does not work.
EDIT: the link works. at the top look for Downloads. click there and you get the list.
have fun and post again.
Hey, I used Hydrogen a while back and couldn't find much tracks so I went to a drum tab website and just made my own tracks in Hydrogen using the drum tabs. I really only made My Hero by Foo Fighters. It only took an hour or two. I got my friend who plays drums to help me out on any confusing parts since I'm no drummer. It worked pretty well so if you are unlucky in finding anything, you may want to give it a try.
My Recent Tracks
http://imagegen.last.fm/nick9/recenttracks/nickroberts.gif
Some great tracks on that site, Dogbite - but I guess not for much longer after reading that letter from Steve Vai's company's lawyer on the forum page. :shock:
to add to dogbite's link, here is a fav. of mine.
http://www.guitarbackingtrack.com/
Cheers, katmetal :)
One software tool to consider is Guitar Pro (v5). There are thousand and thousands of tracks out there to download, and most of them come with multiple instrument tracks in them. This means that you can switch lead/rhythm guitar, piano, drums, percussions etc on and off at your leisure and play along to any of them. You can also change the speed/pitch etc. And you can create your own instrument tracks, it's very easy. It's absolutely one of the best tools out there for playing along to and creating your own music.
Might be overkill, but Band in a Box comes to mind.
I find Band-in-a-Box to be the ultimate practice tool. You can put virtually any chord progression into it, choose a style from thousands offered by PG Music and myself (Norton Music - a self-serving plug), change the tempo without changing the key, or independently change the key, loop certain parts, and basically hear how your practicing relates to a decent band.
You don't need to know piano type keyboards or anything else, you just type in the chords with your computer's keyboard, click on a few parameters, and play along.
To hear what my aftarmarket styles sound like going through BiaB, go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html - note, they are mp3 and low bandwidth for fast playing
Insights, incites and self-serving plugs by Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton
Owner, Norton Music http://www.nortonmusic.com Add-on Styles for Band-in-a-Box and Microsoft SongSmith
The Sophisticats http://www.s-cats.com >^. .^< >^. .^<