Finding Backing Tracks

Alot of students have asked me how to find backing tracks for practice, and/or for bringing to their own performances. Bear in mind that you can use tracks on youtube and sing along to them as much as you like, no problem. However, unless you purchase your instrumental tracks, downloading anything from youtube is a violation of YouTube user rules (and the law).

However, there may be some flexibility for educational uses, and because we are singers in training in a dedicated vocal school, there might be some elbow room here, although frankly, not much (take note that this post is “private”).

Nevertheless, I wanted to outline the two methods here I have found to be most useful:

Itunes: Search Itunes for the backing tracks you are looking for. Remember to search for both “karaoke” and “instrumental” as they can both bring up different results. Sample the tracks by listening to the quality and arrangement of it. If it’s a track you enjoy, use your apple account to purchase the track. For $1.29, it ain’t bad! The problem with itunes tracks is that you can’t easily transfer them because of their digital rights management system (DRM). Youc can however use it for your own practicing.

YouTube: Search YouTube for the tracks you’re looking for. Same principle applies as above: make sure you search out both the “karaoke” and “instrumental” as they can both bring up different results. When you find an arrangement/track that you’re happy with, copy the URL to a notebook for your own reference. If you’d like to download the track *for your own “educational” purposes*, you can download the track by copying the URL of the YouTube link into either Dirpy.com, or flvto.com. Both allow you to download an mp3 version of the audio file.

Enjoy!