Why You Should Consider Running Backing Tracks in Ableton Live 10
YouTube & MP3s
When my family and I first started attending the ministry in Tampa, Florida, the worship team sang with mp3 tracks. The tracks were rich and full, often containing the full instrumentation of the original song. Ministries today that lack in house (or even hired out) musicians typically sing along with YouTube videos or mp3 tracks. While this is convenient and free, it lacks all FLEXIBILITY! The order of the verses, choruses, bridges, and the like are at the mercy of the pre-recorded song arrangement.
Want to repeat Part D a few times?... NOPE.
Want to play Parts A, C, and the B... NOPE.
NOPE, NOPE, and NOPE!
One Or A Few Musicians
The worship team at this ministry desired to have more flexibility in their songs and myself, being a musician, agreed to help out. I brought my keyboard to the church and began playing for the team. The flexibility of having a musician that could repeat Part D a few times and play other Parts in any order, was freeing and refreshing! In order to fatten the sound I typically layered the piano & strings sounds together. After a while it was easy to realize several things.
- I only have 10 fingers - Most modern songs have a vast number of instruments, memorable licks, punches, and melodies. It’s almost impossible to play them all with only 10 fingers, lol.
- No Bass - Everyone loves to hear that low end but my keyboard doesn’t split, yikes!
- Is this a funeral? - Without drums it can be hard to keep the momentum. Hard to keep people from dragging with their singing and off-beat clapping. Hard to keep your wrists from dying while rhythmically banging on the keyboard to keep the tempo.
About a month ago I started looking for way to run a drum machine or some sort of beat in order to address the issues I listed above. This search ultimately led me the world of Ableton Live. I took a free online course and was able to purchase the Ableton Live Intro version for only $49!!!
Ableton Live 10 To The Rescue
Ableton Live is a DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). The website says “Live is fast, fluid and flexible software for music creation and performance. It comes with effects, instruments, sounds and all kinds of creative features—everything you need to make any kind of music.”
With Ableton, I was able to merge the rich full sound of the YouTube & MP3 tracks with the flexibility of playing the keyboard by myself. I found several places online to purchase backing tracks such as LoopCommunity.com and Multitracks.com however, I’m a musician — so, I’ll just create my own :)
I used my AKAI MPK249 Midi Keyboard to create tracks for each song we played. I typically re-created the Drums, Percussion, Bass, and Guitars from the original songs. Using Arrangement View in Ableton allowed me to create locators for the beginning of each major part of the songs. I then programmed the buttons on my Midi Controller to trigger those different parts. During our live ministry gatherings I would play the tracks through Ableton as well as play the keyboard, pads, and strings live. Now it sounds like there is a complete band on stage. We’ve got the punches, we’ve got the bass, and we’ve got the beat!
With backing tracks, your music can sound rich and full. Couple that with Ableton, and you can play those tracks and repeat those tracks, in any order, as many times as you want. Welcome to FLEXIBILITY!
