Real Book Backing Tracks for Jazz Standards

[Jujo]

So I want to start leaning and jamming with the standards. I see Hal Leonard has Real Book editions that include backing tracks. Are they any good? Are they better sources for this? I'm not necessarily looking for free stuff, I want good stuff.

Suggestions?

[russintexas]

The Hal Leonard backing tracks are pretty good, but are not that long; your typical medium-tempo song has 4 choruses, ballads have 2, and uptempo tunes around 10. These are "realistic" lengths, but not good for woodshedding IMO. If you want to shed, you probably want something significantly longer.

I like the way that the aebersold tracks split the rhythm section; the hal leonard doesn't do a hard piano/bass split. I prefer to play with just bass & drums in backing tracks, but that may just be me.

That said, I do enjoy the variety, and the CD sets come out to around half the tunes in RB1 and half the tunes in RB2. That's a pretty big amount, and you can find some new favorites this way.

[vhollund]

The Ireal app has more than 1200 standards and you can add more
And it plays it back in different genres
You can mix the drums less loud and it's pretty nice actually

[FatJeff]

Band in a Box is the obvious choice, if you can afford it. The iRealBook app is good too, and significantly cheaper.

Free backing tracks are available here: http://www.ralphpatt.com/Backing.html

If you have original recordings of the songs you want to play along too, you may want to check Roland's R Mix out: http://www.rolandus.com/products/pro...ProductId=1176. There are some pretty impressive demos on the InterWabs that I've seen, but I don't know anyone who actually owns this product. it was supposedly released last November, then supposedly released in January, and now it's supposedly released in March. I don't even know if you can get it yet. In them meantime, if you have Sonar or some other DAW that accepts VST plugins, you can try this out: http://www.quikquak.com/Prod_MashTactic.html

[Jujo]

Thx guys. I put the irealb on the ipad today. I had no idea about this app. A most excellent place for me to start.

[Sensible Musician]

Originally Posted by vhollund

The Ireal app has more than 1200 standards and you can add more
And it plays it back in different genres
You can mix the drums less loud and it's pretty nice actually

+1

aebersold stuff is real hit-and-miss IMO. i used to get those back in the cassette tape days and some of them are hard swingin inspiring groovefests, while some sound like they were done by high school kids.

also used BIAB for years and still use it for a few specialized things (e.g. very lazily writing harmonies for other people's tunes) but the irealbook "style packs" or whatever they are called are just no-BS solid. not really inspiring or high energy or anything but accurate and true to the style and neutral enough to stay out of your way and let you shed

another option: there's a lot to be said for making your own 1- or 2-chorus loop of tunes by reverse engineering the recordings you're studying. i like to tempo-map the timeline of my DAW to an MP3 and try to nail the exact groove with kontakt instruments. IMO takes you much deeper into the universe of which the recording is a snapshot

[jazzrat]

A great local musician puts this blog site up with jazz standards as a focus.
He has the chart, backing track and examples of the tune played by the big guys.
Terrific resource. Free.

http://www.learnjazzstandards.com/

[poolguitarblog]

I use all of the above.
Another great way to practice is using a looper pedal. Boss, digitech, eventide, etc there are quite a lot of these pedals to choose from. You can play 1, 2, 3 chords, the whole song. I wasn't sure when a friend recommended it but you can create custom backing tracks on the fly + I've learned to be more accurate when accompanying someone else.

[Lucidology]

Originally Posted by vhollund

The Ireal app has more than 1200 standards and you can add more
And it plays it back in different genres
You can mix the drums less loud and it's pretty nice actually

Downloaded the iReal book and found out that though it's great to have all the real book tunes with the charts ...
the 'styles' offered are extremely limited ... the bass notes often are wrong ..
& some other obvious remissions...
Not to mention, it's somewhat on the expensive side ...
especially compared with some of the other apps which are capable of doing basically the same thing ..

The real iReal book rip off is you have to download any of the styles & PAY for them too...
before you can play along with the app...
Then arrange them to be a bit longer then just once or twice through the song...
But all only after you purchased the styles,
& then have to join the forum in order to access tunes ... kind of too much IMO ..
Too much work & too much money ...

One app in particular called Midi 3.O
not only has most of the standards from the real book in tact for free
(which is great if you already own a real book) ...
plus many more midis from a lot of different genres already in their files,
All ready to go with full arrangements including intro, fills into regions & endings ...
Plus you can isolate any track in the re-mix section...
even change instruments from which they have a bunch of 'em to choose from ..
Not to mention you can download midis from anywhere on the web,
directly to the app from your e-mail attachments ... Now how easy is that...!!
& the Midi 3.0 app is way, way cheaper then the iReal book ...

[arthur rotfeld]

Originally Posted by jazzrat

A great local musician puts this blog site up with jazz standards as a focus.
He has the chart, backing track and examples of the tune played by the big guys.
Terrific resource. Free.

http://www.learnjazzstandards.com/

Nice.....great just for the links to the youtube performances.


To the OP, I use the Jamey Abersold and Hal Leonard, both are generally good.

[FatJeff]

Originally Posted by Lucidology

Downloaded the iReal book and found out that though it's great to have all the real book tunes with the charts ...
the 'styles' offered are extremely limited ... the bass notes often are wrong ..
& some other obvious remissions...
Not to mention, it's somewhat on the expensive side ...
especially compared with some of the other apps which are capable of doing basically the same thing ..

The real iReal book rip off is you have to download any of the styles & PAY for them too...
before you can play along with the app...
Then arrange them to be a bit longer then just once or twice through the song...
But all only after you purchased the styles,
& then have to join the forum in order to access tunes ... kind of too much IMO ..
Too much work & too much money ...

If iRealBook is too expensive for you, don't even look at Band In A Box. Orders of magnitude different.

[Lucidology]

Originally Posted by FatJeff

If iRealBook is too expensive for you, don't even look at Band In A Box. Orders of magnitude different.

As a matter of fact, I own all the latest Band in a Box stuff too ...

Midi 3.0 is a great deal simpler & immediately accessible ...
but of course, it can only do a fraction of what BIAB can do ..
But I highly recommend it over the iReal book app as really being a much better deal IMHO...

[wailsound]

I'll check out Midi 3 in the flesh later on but from the looks of it it only offers playback of tunes not editing and creating your own tunes. One of the great strong points of ireal books is for practicing you can create your own changes for phrasing and practicing scales over ect, also they have a great editing and song creating software. I do agree it's a pain to find songs on the forum but I also like to point out that the earlier versions had a ton of standards loaded but as I understand due to copyright issues they had to remove them from the software. I still have an early version on my 1st Gen itouch. I just got my new ipad and I love ireal books on it and i think they have improved it over the early version . I also use band in a box and I find it a bit clunky and the basic sounds sound basic to tell the truth also the cost is a bit over the top. I understand you can get a band in the box app for IOS but it's only for the windows version of band in the box. Thats another reason I have moved to Ireal books but I'll let you know how Midi 3 performs. To be honest you can't go wrong with any of these any thing to get you playing more is worth the money

[vhollund]

Originally Posted by Lucidology

Downloaded the iReal book and found out that though it's great to have all the real book tunes with the charts ...
the 'styles' offered are extremely limited ... the bass notes often are wrong ..
& some other obvious remissions...
Not to mention, it's somewhat on the expensive side ...
especially compared with some of the other apps which are capable of doing basically the same thing ..

The real iReal book rip off is you have to download any of the styles & PAY for them too...
before you can play along with the app...
Then arrange them to be a bit longer then just once or twice through the song...
But all only after you purchased the styles,
& then have to join the forum in order to access tunes ... kind of too much IMO ..
Too much work & too much money ...

One app in particular called Midi 3.O
not only has most of the standards from the real book in tact for free
(which is great if you already own a real book) ...
plus many more midis from a lot of different genres already in their files,
All ready to go with full arrangements including intro, fills into regions & endings ...
Plus you can isolate any track in the re-mix section...
even change instruments from which they have a bunch of 'em to choose from ..
Not to mention you can download midis from anywhere on the web,
directly to the app from your e-mail attachments ... Now how easy is that...!!
& the Midi 3.0 app is way, way cheaper then the iReal book ...

I never paid for extra styles

I Payed for the upgrade though when the app changed from irealbook to ireal
If you look at what other simular apps cost, it's really not that much we are paying

I use it mostly for Jazz jams where I can always find a songs chords and transpose it in a second. Its very handy

For backing I find the 20 styles to be pretty diverse

It's not like a real band but who wants that ?
I mean you never get the same interaction anyway,

[Grantme]

Originally Posted by vhollund

I never paid for extra styles

I Payed for the upgrade though when the app changed from irealbook to ireal
If you look at what other simular apps cost, it's really not that much we are paying

I use it mostly for Jazz jams where I can always find a songs chords and transpose it in a second. Its very handy

For backing I find the 20 styles to be pretty diverse

It's not like a real band but who wants that ?
I mean you never get the same interaction anyway,

I agree. I dont have any of those issues that Lucid is. I love it. Its really freakn handy.