Making simple backing tracks

oldden

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Hi,
I have been using a program called Chordpulse for making simple backing tracks for home use while practicing, nothing fancy, simple to set up and use. It’s good but I wondered if there is anything better. I dug out an old copy of band in a box, so old, it’s midi only and found it was almost impossible to set up without spending ages to get it anything close to right. So is anybody using anything that they can recommend.
Thanks
 
I've been using iRealPro on the iPhone. It's also available for Android. Very easy, does a good job of filling in instruments, and has a huge library of community sourced tracks with chord progressions set up for many songs. You can also enter your own. As you might guess from the name this started as a Jazz tool with the Real Book, and it's extended into more other genres. IIRC it's about $10, so much less expensive than Band In A. Box
 
I still use Band in a Box and I still use the MIDI features almost exclusively. In fact, my version is 2013 when they really switched over hard to "real tracks".

I also occasionally use iRealPro and ChordBot on iPhone/iPad
 
iRealPro works well
 
I thought Band in a Box was easy to use: set meter, amount of measures, type in chords and select the style. A couple minutes of work for a typical pop or jazz number. If you want simple backing tracks, record yourself playing the chords in GarageBand and practice soloing over it. If it's a repeating pattern, you can loop it. You could use the automated accompaniment features—drums, bass, keyboards—but then it sounds fake. I prefer playing the percussion and bass myself. GarageBand works on the Mac, iPhone and iPad so it's pretty portable and omnipresent if your want to collaborate on tracks.
 
I’ve downloaded iReal pro and I’m very impressed, it seems to be the best option for me. When I tried band in a box It was very easy to put the chords in, the difficulty I found was getting a style that matched the song. Perhaps the new versions would be better but they cost far more than I’m willing to pay.
Thanks for the info. Oldden
 
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