Backing Tracks Backing tracks for classic modern pop sax?

[ZeroZero]

Hi, I have traditionally used Aebersold and Band in a Box, but now I want to learn more contempory "pop" (ish) based stuff. This series, below on utube will give you a flavour of the material I am talking of. Does anyone know a source for the backing tracks he is using, they sound good? Both backinbg track and notation would be good but I want to avoid beginner simplified stuff. I am on tenor

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7abgFKonl-8

 

[rhysonsax]

I don't know where he sources his backing tracks but one thing I do is to search on Download your instrumental songs in MP3 format - Custom Backing Track - Karaoke Version which has many, many "popular" songs and tunes available as "Custom Backing Tracks" where you can tailor the song to some extent (e.g. change key, mute particular instruments / stems) and then download either the whole track or all the individual "stems" for later mixing.

Of the tunes in Jamie Anderson's video above, the following tracks are available for £2.49 each from Download your instrumental songs in MP3 format - Custom Backing Track - Karaoke Version.

1. Baker Street
2. The Logical Song
3. Just the Way You Are
4. Still Crazy After All These Years
5. Us and Them (studio and live versions available)
6. Money
7. Let's Stick Together
8. Brown Sugar
9. Born To Run
10. How Sweet It Is
11. Street Life
12. Native New Yorker
13. Pick Up The Pieces
14. Soul Power (the James Brown version rather than Maceo's recording)
15. What's Going On
16. After the Love Has Gone
17. Young Americans
18. Deacon Blues
19. One Step Beyond

So they do every one of these tracks (or all but one) in very good "soundalike" recordings that you just need to download with the saxophone muted and you are good to go.

Hope that helps

Rhys

 

[Colin the Bear]

Baker st.🙉🤮


🤗

 

[Pete Effamy]

You use the word modern, not just Pop, so I’m assuming that you mean contemporary stuff and not tunes that are 40 years old.
In this case I think you’ll be best served by searching for backing tracks for singers, not sax - we don’t tend to keep up with the times.
There should be tracks available that allow the music key to be stipulated or even changed if the format allows. Tell them you’re a sax player in Bb and see if they’ll send you the track but the dots up a tone. Or you’ll be transposing.

‘Beginner / simplified’ stuff - most tunes are both simple in rhythm and range, that’s the nature of songs so you add the “pezazz” yourself.

 

[atwl77]

Assuming you're after songs to play to a backing track (i.e. "karaoke"), and not just sax solos as in the linked video, another option is to use a stem splitter to extract your own backing track.

Assuming you own the song you want to play, you can split the song using stem splitter software and then mute the vocals to get the backing track. Then transcribe the vocals to get the melody to play.

There's one downside to using stem splitter though -- most purchased backing tracks may allow some sort of public performance or social media use, but extracting your own backing track from a song does not give you that privilege. Not an issue if you're just playing privately and don't ever intend to post online (though realistically, you might get some leeway on Youtube, but other sites like Soundcloud will almost definitely ding you if you post a recording of you playing to one of these backing tracks).

As to stem splitter software, BIAB 2025 comes with a pretty good one. I believe Ableton also includes one, though I don't have Ableton so I can't confirm. Then there's MISST, which is free, but might be a bit tricky to install and use if you're not used to messing around with PC software.

 

[BalancedReaction]

Jamie used Tomplay several times for his live playing sessions such as this:

View: https://youtu.be/yJlsHYz51Zs?t=181


It's likely that he used it for the pop sax solos series as well.

 

[eb424]

You cant go wrong with karoke version. I play the melidy and once bought you can ammend the key, remove vocals ets.

 

[thomsax]

I like Karaoke Version as well. I think the word "Karaoke" is sounding a little bit negative among (most?) sax players. I find Karaoke Version Custom Backing Tracks useful because I like to potter with my saxes on my own. Just some planless playing; catching some phrases ...... . It just a more modern way to play along compared to vinyl and reel to reeel. MP3, smartphones, headphones are handy but maybe the new technique is holding us back? If I was young today and was playing along with moden stuff I doubt that I would have the same tone/sound? We get more mainstream today?

Custom Backing tracks are good to learn to play songs as well. The last band/group I played with was just rehearsing two times/month. So we decided what version of a song we wanted to play. The singer and rhythm section played from rhythm page/lead sheet and the horns (trp, ts, bs) from horn charts. I could pracitice tenor and baritone lines with custom backing tracks. This cut time but I also relized that the ordinary "once a week" rehearsals are outstanding. But we wanted to continue to play as a group. The guy in RI, USA who transcribed the horns ask me how the song was going to end? Vamping and fading or vamping and cut off? So you can't always follow backing tracks because they use to follow the recoding of the song.

The list above is terrible. Ok, songs are called pop but it's just two real Rock & Roll Saxophone players: Bobby Keys (The Rolling Stones; "Brown Sugar") and Clarence Clemons (Bruce Springsteen & East Street Band; "Born To Run") 😉

 

[Pete Thomas]

The list above is terrible. Ok, songs are called pop but it's just two real Rock & Roll Saxophone players:

But was the list meant to be rock & roll purely? I don’t think so and it includes some other really great players on the originals including Junior Walker, Raph Ravenscroft, Phil Woods, Wilton Felder, Pete Christlieb, Michael Brecker, John Helliwell, Lee Thompson…

 

[thomsax]

It was meant o be a little bit provocative from my side. The 70's was the decade when it was hard for many good Rock & Roll Saxophonists to get into the studios. Allround sax players connected to recording companies/label became "the first call"? I talked to David Woodford about this and said something like ".... many other sax players had bigger sails and they could also take up more wind ...." .

I don't think Jr Walker played on Marwin Gay's recording from 1965. It was "The Funk Brother". Later on, 1966, Jr Walker & The All Stars made thier version of the song. David Sanborn played alto sax played on James Taylor' s version from 1975. Taylor's version; "a relaxed rendition", "desecration of Marwin Gaye", "music for the park on a Sunday".

For a Rock & Roll Saxophone enthusiast like me, I don't understand the meaning with the list. But on the other side I'm glad that other can. To have a good selling pop or rock record they started to add saxes. I like Jagger and Richards ballad "Waiting on a Friend" with Sonny Rollins playing tenor sax. I often wonder how much better it would be if Rollins had put more soul in his playing?

But was the list meant to be rock & roll purely? I don’t think so and it includes some other really great players on the originals including Junior Walker, Raph Ravenscroft, Phil Woods, Wilton Felder, Pete Christlieb, Michael Brecker, Lee Thompson…

 

[Pete Thomas]

I don't think Jr Walker played on Marwin Gay's recording from 1965

I didn’t mean to imply it was, I just saw the title How Sweet it Is and assumed Junior Walker’s version (but now I know his was later than the original).

 

[ZeroZero]

Thank you all. Tomplay looks interesting. I don't really use the notation past the first couple of days with a tune, I like to memori9se everything and I think if you learn to play be reading you also have to unlearn to play this way (only) if your playing live.
If hte backing tracks are as good as Karaoke, then this is interesting, but a bit expensive.
For me the most important thing is to be able to AB repeat.
The "watch Video" is absolutely appauling, it tells you nothing and the music is terrible muzak.

 

[eb424]

Thank you all. Tomplay looks interesting. I don't really use the notation past the first couple of days with a tune, I like to memori9se everything and I think if you learn to play be reading you also have to unlearn to play this way (only) if your playing live.
If hte backing tracks are as good as Karaoke, then this is interesting, but a bit expensive.
For me the most important thing is to be able to AB repeat.
The "watch Video" is absolutely appauling, it tells you nothing and the music is terrible muzak.

Think you need to be online with Tomplay not 100% sure tho..i thought kv was good value for what you get tbf..not many hobbies where £2.50 will last the duration, heck half a pint of maggots for fishing gone in 2 hours..love that your playing by ear..wish i could..

 

[thomsax]

You can make most mp3 better. Take the backing track into good computer programs. I can't do that so I have to a person that helps me with it. I'm not ready to buy expensive programs and start to learn how to use the programs. I want to play and sing. If use backing tracks as is I think are ok. The person who is helping me says ok, but it's sound ****.

 

[Ghr9204]

@ZeroZero , have you had a chance to look over the sections with "Song of the Month" and "Ballad of the Month"?

The free to download backgrounds and PDF music sheets in keys C, Bb, Eb go back more than a decade, are definitely not muzac and they don't expire.

Plus if you want, you can post your performance (link to YouTube, SoundCloud or other) under the song you picked for others enjoyment, request critique or just to say "I'm here!".

 

[ZeroZero]

@ZeroZero , have you had a chance to look over the sections with "Song of the Month" and "Ballad of the Month"?

The free to download backgrounds and PDF music sheets in keys C, Bb, Eb go back more than a decade, are definitely not muzac and they don't expire.

Plus if you want, you can post your performance (link to YouTube, SoundCloud or other) under the song you picked for others enjoyment, request critique or just to say "I'm here!".

I shall be hunting particular solos. It's really the backing track that is critical. Are they downloadable? I keep a small device in my case and connect to a PA in a local studio which has no wifi.

 

[Ghr9204]

Are they downloadable?

Yes.

 

[LostCircuits]

I like Karaoke Version as well. I think the word "Karaoke" is sounding a little bit negative among (most?) sax players. I find Karaoke Version Custom Backing Tracks useful because I like to potter with my saxes on my own. Just some planless playing; catching some phrases ...... .

Karaoke is Japanese and means "empty orchestra", like karate means empty hand.
That's the literal translation but the "correct" meaning is rather "nothing but" orchestra or hand.

@ZeroZero, you can also use YouTube in a legitimate way by shortening the link from Youtube.com to yout.com and it will strip the song of its video and give you the audio file in MP3 format as download.

One caveat is that if you want to publish songs you play along with the yout MP3s, you may run into copyright issues if you try to go on SoundCloud for example. But if you use it to generate another Youtube video, that does not apply, especially karaoke and other backing tracks on Youtube include a re-use license as long as you stick with the same publisher.

I am not saying you should go that route but there are millions of backing and karaoke tracks available at no cost and most of them are very professionally produced. Some channels have public tracks and subscription only tracks, where you pay $1.- month to get access to the entire channel.

 

[thomsax]

Karaoke is Japanese and means "empty orchestra", like karate means empty hand.
That's the literal translation but the "correct" meaning is rather "nothing but" orchestra or hand.

But still "Karaoke" is a often mentioned with diminishing attitudes. Not by you and not by me .... . I like to go to places with "Karaoke". Many good singers ... who could join local rock or pop bands. The drum leader of a cheering section (handball), with a heavy beat, joined our blues and rock band. I didn't know that was a former blues- and rock-drummer aus Berlin.

 

[mizmar]

But still "Karaoke" is a often mentioned with diminishing attitudes

Well, yeah. "Karaoke" is, largely, something people do as a drinking entertainment 'samatterofact.

If the business, Karaoke Versions Ltd/AS/Inc. decided to use that word in their brand they knew they'd be associating the product with drunk people having fun and singing variously well or badly.
I guess if they see a market amongst musicians their product manager has a choice; stick with the association, rebrand, have a second brand or such. Their choice.
But it's not the fault of the general public (us) if we smirk at the karaoke association and imagine people belting out I Will Survive My Way hoopy hoop