Have You Tried Using Downloadable Accompaniment Tracks?

When you use downloadable accompaniment tracks with your live band you open up a whole new world of possibilities for your band. I say it time many times on this site and I stand by my conviction when it comes to using backing tracks. They help you to include all of the instruments that you may not have with you on stage to help your band to have a fuller and more complete sound. People react in a good way to this fact too.

The reason that your audience reacts so positively to a band using tracks is this. Most of the people in your audience are music enthusiasts but they are not necessarily music players. Often they don’t know the difference between a bass guitar and a six string guitar. What they do know however is what the music sounds like when it’s played right, and depending on the songs your band chooses to play, you may or may not be able to play the songs in a way that does them justice.

Using downloadable accompaniment tracks fixes this problem for bands. All of a sudden you have the piano or keyboard parts the song requires to make it sound right, without the need to pay a keyboard player extra to come and fill in for the part. Having the keyboard in there on the backing track helps to make the song sound more correct, and of course your audience responds appropriately by loving the songs you play.

At this point I feel like I have to make a balanced argument about using backing tracks on stage. There are those that think using tracks is nothing more than cheating. I have to admit that I can understand where there train of thought is coming from. After all, you don’t have the members on stage with you playing the music or anything. My sense is that these folks have typically seen tracks used in such a way that they incorporate everything on them, bass, guitars, drums etc. I have to admit that even I think that is cheating. It’s a total safety net to play over an entirely prerecorded piece of music, and that has been a topic of hot debate even for the big stars. The downloadable accompaniment tracks that we offer here at Backing Tracks for Bands are not that type of track at all.

The tracks that we produce here offer only the stuff that a standard four or five piece rock band wouldn’t normally have on stage with them. Piano, string sections, horns, layered backing vocals and synth sounds are primarily the type of thing we put on track. That way your guitar parts are not being unnecessarily duplicated and therefore the band has the freedom to do what they do naturally. It’s only the “missing” parts that we include on our tracks. 

My experience has shown me that most people that are not fans of using downloadable accompaniment tracks have that opinion for a reason. You absolutely need to have players that can count and play to a click track.  People that can’t play to a click track often don’t like using tracks and therefore put down the idea of using them.  When you can’t stay on the click you obviously lose your place in the music which is ultimately going to cause the dreaded “train wreck” that all musicians hate to have on stage, but most have experienced one way or another.

The point I’m trying to make is this: Using downloadable accompaniment tracks on stage requires a certain level of musicianship to be able to use them effectively. If you don’t have your music fundamentals down you can expect to have difficulties using them. But the reward is great in that your band will sound huge in a way that it never did before.  I personally am such a fan of using tracks that at this point I would prefer to play almost every song with a click track, regardless of whether the track contains extra instruments or not. I’ve played with artists that have been si gned and a few them you have likely even heard of. We’ve used backing tracks along the way because even they know that tracks make the stage performance sound complete and give the best production you can have during a live performance. Certainly not every musician feels this way but I know that I do and the best musicians I play with seem to feel the same way.

So do yourself and your cover band a favour by trying to use some backing tracks at your next show. It’ll take a bit of practice to run them and learn to play along but you’ll be so glad you did and your audience will respond to it very well too….. It’s the next best thing to being a real “rockstar”.