Backing Track Maker

How to make a backing track from a song

1. Pick the page for your instrument. Open the guitar remover, bass remover, drum remover or vocal remover. Each one gives you the song without that part, and the part on its own.
2. Add the song. Use an MP3, WAV, M4A or FLAC file, or an MP4 or MOV video. Choose MP3 or WAV for the download before you start. The button shows the cost first: most tools use 1 credit per minute, and new accounts get 5 credits with Google sign-in.
3. Press the orange key. Most songs take one to three minutes. When it is done you have a track without your instrument, ready to play along to.
4. Slow it down and loop the hard part. In the studio player, change the speed without changing the pitch, then set a start and end point to repeat one section.
5. Download it. Save the backing track as an MP3 at 320 kbps or a WAV and take it to your DAW, phone or practice amp.

Which page for which instrument

Want to remove more than one part, such as guitar and vocals at once? Split the song in the stem splitter into six tracks: vocals, drums, bass, guitar, piano and other. Mute the ones you play and keep the rest.

Keep the part you removed

Every split gives you the removed instrument as its own file. Keep it. It is the answer key: when you are not sure what the player is doing, solo that track and listen. A drummer can hear exactly where the hi-hat opens. A guitarist can hear the picking pattern without the band covering it.

Practice with speed and loops

A backing track is most useful when you can control it.

• Slow down without changing pitch. Start at a speed where you play the part cleanly, then raise it a little at a time.
• Loop a section. Set A and B points around the verse, the solo or the fill you keep missing, and it repeats until you get it.
• Know the tempo and key first. The free BPM finder and key finder tell you the tempo and key of the song before you start.

What works best

Studio recordings split best. The model is good but not perfect, and some songs are harder than others.

• Clean pop, rock and funk with a clear drum and bass sound usually produce a good backing track.
• Crowded mixes may leave a faint trace of your instrument. At practice volume you often will not notice it, and you can hear the trace by comparing with the removed track.
• Live recordings are the hardest because instruments leak into each other's microphones.
• Two guitars playing the same part may leave some of the second one in the track.

Backing tracks for singers

For singing, the Karaoke Maker and Instrumental Maker take the singer out and keep the band. Both remove every voice, harmonies included. To keep the backing singers and drop only the lead, use Separate Lead and Backing Vocals.

Using songs you did not write

A backing track made from a recording is for practice. If you plan to perform it for an audience, post it online or sell something made from it, you need the right permissions from the copyright holder. Only upload music you have the right to use.