How can I make midi backing tracks sound more real?

[breezin']

As most of you musicians know organising others to play gigs can be a chore and often you get let down! I've resorted to start making my own backing tracks and have been using midi backing with Powertracks pro my problem is I don't like the sound of midi and would like to know how to make more professional backing tracks and the tools that I need to make midi sound better or to take another approach. I mainly need drum, piano and bass backing. Appeciate any help and advice you guys can give me, thanks.

[fep]

Go listen to the midi samples on this page, they're pretty amazing...

Jazz & Big Band

I think theres' a forum over there, and those folks are probably pretty expert in the details of creating good midi tracks

It's actually not easy to make good midi backing tracks.

It really helps if your strong at arranging and have a good understanding of all the instruments that you're going to record on the piece. If you play the guitar, bass, drums and piano you've got good skills to make backing tracks. (I don't play drums but I know what a drummer plays and can tap them in one part of the kit at a time with my drum controller and build a drum track that way. Another way is to buy midi drum loops and edit them to fit your tune, there's an art to that editing also.)

It helps to play it in via a midi controller to have a good human feel and groove. To do this well you need to be a good musician.

Hi quality samples is another ingredient to make a good backing track.

Or take the easy route and buy the new full blown Band in a Box, it's getting rave reviews for it's quality of backing tracks. Of course these won't be as custom tailored as you could do yourself, probably not the best route if your into composing or arranging.

Pat Metheny's recent tour has him playing with backing tracks that he created himself... He's using actual instruments being played via machinery. I don't see how sound wise that would be much different than using really good samples of the instruments. So, you're in pretty good company.

[billkath]

I use the Garritan Jazz and BB samples that Fep mentions-I think they're brilliant. I also have the Garritan personal orchestra. These are hugely tuneble samples- you can adjust growl, flutter, key notes--lots of stuff. It takes work to make them sound good. If you don't like sitting at a computer tweaking samples, a better option for live work might be to buy a midi module. I use a Korg iS50M module for doing some live stuff, as it's more or less plug and play. you can pick them up very cheaply second-hand. Here's a backing I did with the is50m yesterday afternoon for a girl who's doing a talant show at the weekend-Don't Rain on my Parade.
http://www.heartbeatstudios.com/Rainnovox.mp3

[breezin']

Thankyou for your handy information I will follow your advice and I was impressed by your backing track.

[HeyRockMe]

you can make midi sound totally awseome for playing live , just not the midi guitars but everything else,will rock your world like you never herd before

now what i explain here do not take as a joke becouse if you try everything i explain you will be so happy and never regret it you can download everything for free trial but you will have to spend money at the end but at least you can sample what im saying and here how awesome it sounds,

you have to spend around 600.00 ,you can download everything for free to try it to see what im talking about ,the drums will rock your world for live performance they will sound better than any mp3 you ever listen to and sound better than the original recording , first dont use your daw go and download mixcraft to try for free it works better than a 1,000 daw and the program is only 75.00 , the reason is becouse they desighn there own midi engine in there program so midi off the back is going to sound better than any hard disk recording program you ever use, just for this reason, second have a external sound card i use motu mk3 lite it kicks butt , but it is expensive not eveyone can dish out that kind of money but thats okay just a good external sound card , now download Addictive drums and install; .mixcraft picks up the program in there vsti and download studio devil bass
and there are other vsti programs for synth pianos, violin sounds you can download : the 3 important program is:
mixcraft
Addictive drums
studio devil bass
remember mixcraft has its own midi engine so its going to sound better than any other programs out there , dont worry becouse its cheap in price, i tried everything out there , this is the best for midi playback
Now insert your midi file into mixcraft and the mixer look for the drum track click on vsti and open up Addictive drums you wont have alot there becouse your only dowloading trial version set Addictive drums to live position and to gm mode,most midis are gm so if you dont set it to gm you wont get the proper sound , now dont hit play on Addictive drums hit the play button on mixcraft instead , now you should be in a stairway to heaven and go to plugins for studio devil bass and set the bass to your liking ,it will sound better than anything you ever herd , this i gaurantee yah it is important to set Addictive drums on gm mode , to hear its full potential , you can try all this for free, I Bought the complete packs for Addictve drums i have almost everyone but when you set it on live mode and play threw a P.A look out ,you will one kick ass bad ass superb rocking computer , this info is verry well worth 1.00 for this information you will be so happy send me a dollar heyrockme@aol.com

[HeyRockMe]

Originally Posted by breezin'

As most of you musicians know organising others to play gigs can be a chore and often you get let down! I've resorted to start making my own backing tracks and have been using midi backing with Powertracks pro my problem is I don't like the sound of midi and would like to know how to make more professional backing tracks and the tools that I need to make midi sound better or to take another approach. I mainly need drum, piano and bass backing. Appeciate any help and advice you guys can give me, thanks.

check out my thread from heyrockme

[HeyRockMe]

check out my thread from heyrockme

[markf]

why not just record your own, on your computer, using a program like cubase, or pro tools?

its easy.

[whiskywheels]

I use Sonar 8 Producer for recording. Using soundfonts gives me better sounding MIDI, and I've had good results for drums, bass, electric piano, orchestral strings and sax. I play these on a A-500 Pro midi controller, and then play the guitar for real!