Recording backing tracks at home

Jigsaw

Hi folks,

Was hoping someone could give me a bit of advice here.

I recently heard a guy in a bar singing and playing guitar to backing tracks that I thought were of fantastic quality. At the end I asked him where he got them from and he said to me that he used samples and cubase.

I play guitar and sing live a bit myself and this is something that I'd quite like to get into but just don't know where to start so I was wondering if someone could advise me what would be the best programs for me to buy and what else I would need. I use an Apple Macbook so it has Garageband but perhaps I'd need something a little more advanced. I'm fairly technically literate but would of course be a beginner at this so this should be borne in mind if anyone has any suggestions.

Mates of mine have spoken about drum machines and sequencers etc so I don't really know where to start.

Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Cheers

cornbb

Garageband would in fact be enough to get you started but is geared more as a hobbyist application than anything else. It might be worth your while investing in Log Pro 8 which has just been released by Apple at a very attractive price: http://www.apple.com/logicstudio/logicpro/

Its part of the new Logic Studio bundle which includes sample libraries, loops etc so it should be more than enough for what you need.

Also, if you get it, you can report back here and tell the rest of us how it is

Jigsaw

Cornbb, cheers for that. I checked that link out and Logic Studio seems amazing.

However, do you know of anywhere that I could get my hands on drum loops and samples fairly quickly and cheaply to use in conjunction with Garageband to begin with?

Would you say it is a fairly difficult procedure? Take for example Comfortably Numb. Would it be a case of taking the first 4/4 bar, setting the bpm, and then inserting the desired snare drum sound on the 2nd and 4th beat then build up the rest of the bar, then loop that for as many bars as required or until a drum fill comes etc?

Sorry for all the questions - I'm a bit of a novice I'm afraid

cornbb

Jigsaw wrote:

However, do you know of anywhere that I could get my hands on drum loops and samples fairly quickly and cheaply to use in conjunction with Garageband to begin with?

Not off the top of my head. AFAIK Apple offer some sort of add-on for Garageband (JamPacks?) but I don't know if they're any good or whether they offer value for money.

Actually it might be worth checking out the DVDs that come on magazine covers too (eg Music Technology, Future Music) as they sometimes offer free samples or loops.

Would you say it is a fairly difficult procedure? Take for example Comfortably Numb. Would it be a case of taking the first 4/4 bar, setting the bpm, and then inserting the desired snare drum sound on the 2nd and 4th beat then build up the rest of the bar, then loop that for as many bars as required or until a drum fill comes etc?

It can be a pretty simple process, depending on the software you use and the quality you want to get out of it.

I just threw on Comfortably Numb there. Its about 65bpm (fairly slow). You would build up the drum pattern just as you describe it. Arranging drums is a matter of putting blocks on a grid; the exact process varies from sequencer to sequencer. In this case you wouldn't so much loop it, you'd copy and paste the bar until you had as many as you needed til the next fill/variation (say 16 bars), then create your variation.

Its a lot of fun and what you want to do doesn't take a huge amount of musical/technical knowledge. You can spend as long as you like getting the sequence right, then you can carefully choose your drum sounds and apply effects, master it etc.