Backing Tracks A collection of legal backing track sources

[6441]

Some useful links to get legal backing tracks (use according to their license)
Please add more in comments, make them easy to copy to this top post.

Individual Tunes for sale (or free)
There's always YouTube Search
Songlist for Horn Players | Play Jazz Now (separate recordings for a specific instrument)
Apple iTunes Backing Tracks for Alto Sax ($0.69, not bad) Also Jamey Aebersold playalongs, $0.99)
Note: Apple takes 30%, so if you can, buy direct.
Karaoke Version has customizable tracks you can premix before downloading.
PG Music Powertracks multitrack mixer/editor but optionally has 30 original jazz, blues, and rock songs recorded by studio musicians.
Hal Leonard Play Along Books with CD (or nowadays a code to download all the tracks): Jazz Play Along - Hal Leonard Online
JazzBacks and SoulBacks: Professional jazz backing tracks, standards, smooth, soul, blues,
StandardsTrax: Backing Tracks for Singers & Musicians | Standardstrax
ProBackingTracks: Pro Backing Tracks | Blues, Jazz, and Smooth Jazz | Guitar Saxophone
Bobby's Backing Tracks: Bobby's Backing Tracks - Bobby's Backing Tracks

Software to create backing tracks
Erskine Essentials iOS Apps | Peter Erskine is also available as USB for all platforms.
iReal Pro
Band in a Box (BiaB) and BiaB Tracks
Drumgenius to generate beats to practice with
Logic X on Mac has a sophisticated and powerful drummer generator
You can change the key of a track with the free editor Audacity. Works very well for a half step or two.

Miscellaneous resources
The Fake Book Index doesn't cover all of the many, many playalong books out there, but if you are searching for a particular jazz song it does cover most of the Aebersold and Hal Leonard books, so can tell you which one(s) include a song you want.

 

[Jeanette]

Are you volunteering?

Jx

 

[thomsax]

I don't share "backing tracks" or charts/sheet music unless I have persmission to do so from the person that owns the rights. Is one thing to share a MP3 or charts with the guys in your band but to have it on internet?????? I pay for all charts and backing tracks that is not on YT or Spotify. There are some sites that you can trade charts/sheet music. It's not fun to see "my" charts on that site. Nowadays I'm more picky. Today I just give each player thier part. For some years ago I handed out all parts (horn charts and rhythm page/lead sheet) but that is not the case anymore.

 

[6441]

Are you volunteering?

I was considering saying that. If such a list doesn't exist, it would be a great resource. There are probably other "generators" besides Band in a Box and iReal Pro?

While looking for the link of the Peter Erskine stuff, which I bought for an iPod and painfully recorded mixes on my computer, I now see that you can get the same files for use on any computer or device. I wish I'd know that, I would have bought that instead. The Erskine stuff is perfect for saxophonists or other soloists, but you can remove any of the tracks and replace it with your own playing.

@thomsax I never said anything about sharing, the stuff I mentioned is all paid for.

 

[6441]

@Jeanette how about I start a new thread, add the links I know and other can add their sources in the comments. If we all agree, I'd appreciate it if the comments were organized with the link and description at the top to make it easy to copy into the main post. I will do the copying as edits to the original. This will allow someone looking for these to look at the initial post and see links and descriptions. We can even divide the links into tracks/charts and software to generate tracks.

What does everyone think of this idea?

 

[thomsax]

@thomsax I never said anything about sharing, the stuff I mentioned is all paid for.

Sorry my mistake!

 

[6441]

No problem, @thomsax!

 

[6441]

I must get to work now, but I have edited the title and content of the first post. I will add your suggestions if you comment here. I just discovered that iTunes has a big selection of these most for less than $1.

 

[Halfers]

I've used www.karaoke-version.co.uk for backing track downloads. You can edit and amend tracks to a certain degree before downloading.

 

[nigeld]

Here is a list of BiAB files for lots of tunes. But the quality is variable.
Index of /biab

 

[Colin the Bear]

But the quality is variable.

However they're a good staring point for doing your own arrangement. Saves a lot of typing... sometimes.

Every record ever made is a backing track. I've played with some great bands and artistes. Some long gone

 

[6441]

Yes, in fact, Audacity and other sound editor software has special settings to remove a center channel. This worked a lot better in the early days of stereo, because the voice was always in the middle and you could phase it out. There's a cover track of Frank Sinatra's version of Witchcraft on YouTube with voice removed. You can barely the his vocal when you're not playing over it. Seems it's offered by the Karaoke site mentioned above.

IOf anyone is good at modifying the iReal Pro tracks, it'd be great to get a hold of one or more, too.

 

[Halfers]

Yes, in fact, Audacity and other sound editor software has special settings to remove a center channel. This worked a lot better in the early days of stereo, because the voice was always in the middle and you could phase it out. There's a cover track of Frank Sinatra's version of Witchcraft on YouTube with voice removed. You can barely the his vocal when you're not playing over it. Seems it's offered by the Karaoke site mentioned above.
IOf anyone is good at modifying the iReal Pro tracks, it'd be great to get a hold of one or more, too.

The good thing about the Karaoke site is that if you select 'Custom Backing Track', each instrument/voice has its own channel and you can either adjust the volume of each channel or mute it, so if you want to completely remove the singing but leave backing vocals or take out the guitar or keyboard etc, you can. Once you've bought the track, you can create different 'edits' and download.

 

[6441]

That's all you got? There must be several we're missing? I didn't include midi tracks because they're pretty bad, in general.

 

[rhysonsax]

Some good ones that I have used in the past:

Hal Leonard Play Along Books with CD (or nowadays a code to download all the tracks): Jazz Play Along - Hal Leonard Online

JazzBacks and SoulBacks: Professional jazz backing tracks, standards, smooth, soul, blues,

StandardsTrax: Backing Tracks for Singers & Musicians | Standardstrax

ProBackingTracks: Pro Backing Tracks | Blues, Jazz, and Smooth Jazz | Guitar Saxophone

Bobby's Backing Tracks: Bobby's Backing Tracks - Bobby's Backing Tracks

Some of these are quite expensive on a per track basis but you can audition before buying and just purchase the specific song(s) that you want.

Rhys

PS The Fake Book Index doesn't cover all of the many, many playalong books out there, but if you are searching for a particular jazz song it does cover most of the Aebersold and Hal Leonard books, so can tell you which one(s) include a song you want.

 

[Colin the Bear]

I find that other people's backing tracks are either the wrong tempo or the wrong key or too short or the wrong genre. With BiaB you're the arranger. You can fatten out the arrangement with extended chords, change the players, change the instrumentation and change the position of players. That's on top of picking the tempo and key. Any song you have a chord sheet for you can type in and off you go. The real players are real players and as far as cost goes after the initial outlay, there isn't any.

BiaB changed my life. I can't recommend it highly enough.

 

[Reed Warbler]

You can change tempo, key, starting point and how many repeats on iReal Pro. Also possible to create your own tracks, chage backing instruments and their relative volumes. I've found it incredibly helpful as a practice tool and easy to use.

 

[6441]

You can change tempo, key, starting point and how many repeats on iReal Pro. Also possible to create your own tracks, chage backing instruments and their relative volumes. I've found it incredibly helpful as a practice tool and easy to use.

Yes, I find iRealPro to be the best-sounding, most flexible tool. You can create charts from scratch, I finally figured out how the editor works. You can change part of a tune, for example add "Coltrane changes" to Bye Bye Blackbird.

 

[jjazzboss]

I found this post and I'd like to add one brand new software to generate backing tracks: JJazzLab.

JJazzLab comes with some unique features compared to similar apps like Band In A Box:

• It's free!
• Dynamic backing tracks: you can start a solo slowly and build up the atmosphere
• Rhythmic accents support
• Support of Yamaha styles, plus a new extended YamJJazz style format for more variations
• The infrastructure is released as an open-source framework: JJazzLab-X

You can see some video demos on the JJazzLab YouTube channel.

I'm the developer of JJazzLab, it's only a hobby project but I hope you'll like it. Feedback welcome !

Jerome

 

[Vetinari]

I do not have the skill, knowledge or euipment to Biab or ireal pro, so some of these tracks may prove useful for others in this situation.