Singers: How to Produce Your Own Backing Tracks in 5 Minutes

Understanding the Terminology

Before I get started, I’ll introduce some common
terms and their definitions in the recording industry for this exercise.

DAW

A DAW, or a digital audio workstation, is a software that
allows you to record and create sounds.

In this tutorial I’ll be
using Cubase as the DAW. You can also use other
popular DAWS including Protools, Logic Audio, and Sonar.

MIDI

How you’ll create a cover song is by first finding a
MIDI version of the song. MIDI stands for Musical Instrument Digital Interface.

When you find a MIDI track on the internet and download it, you are
downloading a file that essentially tells your recording software, in this
case Cubase, what notes to play for specific tracks.

The MIDI file itself does
not contain any sounds or instruments, it is simply a data file that tells the software to play a specific instrument or set of instruments using specific
notes and velocities.

VSTs

A DAW generates instrument sound by using plug-ins
called VSTs. The acronym VST stands for Virtual Studio Technology and
essentially it is a sampler that generates the sounds of the instrument that was programmed

Most VST sounds are samples of actual instruments, the creators
will record actual drums or guitars and create samples from them, which lends
to their ability to sound like a real musician played the instrument and not a computer.

For this tutorial I’m using the following VSTs:

Shreddage II VST—guitar sounds
Shreddage Bass VST—bass guitar sound
Native Instruments Kontact Sampler with Drum Lab
VST
Native Instruments Guitar Rig 5—guitar amp modeler

Effects

To make music sound more produced you’ll also want to
apply some basic effects. Some of the most commonly used effects include
reverb, compressor, limiter, delay, and chorus.

Where to Find Free MIDI Files

You can find finished MIDI files, for a project, on the internet and the best part is most of these file are completely free to
download.

There are a few sites that sell hard-to-find MIDI files which are typically
newly released songs or hard to find songs, but for the most part you will
likely be able to find a MIDI cover song that you want for free.

You can find a song by typing in [name of
the song] MIDI into a search engine.

In this tutorial I searched for I
Love Rock and Roll Joan Jett MIDI.

There are several sites that host free
MIDI files, two of the most popular sites are http://free-midi.org and
http://midiworld.com. I have also found links to free MIDI files in YouTube,
Vimeo and SoundCloud as well.

Tutorial

Once you’ve downloaded a MIDI file and installed Cubase—or
a similar DAW—you can get started making a cover song track with the following steps.

Setting Up a DAW

Launch Cubase.

Import a MIDI file by going to File > Import
> MIDI file and select the MIDI file from the file explorer.

Select MIDI File from the File Import menu — Select “MIDI File” from the File > Import menu

The tracks and their instruments will display.
In some cases a MIDI file may not list the instruments like shown in the below
graphic, which will force you to guess which track is assigned to which
instrument.

This is a rare case that can be dealt with either downloading a
better MIDI file, or by assigning pianos to all tracks and using your ears to
figure out which is bass, drums, and so on, through auditioning each track
separately.

Assign VST instruments

Now give the tracks instruments; follow these
steps to assign the VSTs.

Drums

I’m using Drum Lab which is available
inside the Kontakt Sampler. Select this VST by clicking in the VSTs black menu
space to open the menu, then select Kontakt 5.

Double-click the Drum Lab.nki option as shown.

You’ll see the Drum Lab VST to the right. You
can tweak settings but the defaults will be fine for this exercise. Once you
are done, close the sampler by clicking the red X.

Guitars

I’m using Shreddage II which is also
available inside the Kontakt Sampler, you can follow the same steps as for the
drum VST.

Shreddage II will appear in the Kontakt Sampler.
You can tweak settings, but the defaults will be fine for this exercise. Close
the sampler by clicking the red X.

Shreddage II VST in the Kontakt 5 Sampler

Bass

Shreddage Bass is loaded to the same Kontakt 5
Sampler, however instead of selecting it from the left-hand side as you did
with Drum Lab and Shreddage II, you’ll drag-and-drop the Shreddage Picked
Bass Combo.nki from the file explorer window into the sampler.

Shreddage Bass appears in the Kontakt
Sampler. You can tweak settings, but the defaults will be fine for this
exercise. Close the sampler by clicking the red X.

Shreddage Bass Loaded in the Kontakt 5 Sampler

Add Effects

Guitar and Bass Amps

The guitar and bass right as-is will not have distortion or
other effects that you might want, it will sound the same as the natural
instruments do through an amplifier that has no effects.

You’ll need to
insert an amp modeler to give the instrument the sound you want. In this tutorial
I’m using Guitar Rig 5 and the Rammstein amp modeler.

Click on Inserts as shown in the below graphic
to drop down the window
Select the amp modeler you like by following
these steps

Click Insert to View the Track Inserts — Click “Insert” to View the Track Inserts

Select Guitar Rig from the Inserts menu
Select Guitar Amps inside the Guitar Rig
sampler
Select the amp model you desire

Select the preset you require. Tweak the settings, if you like, by adjusting the rack items on the right.

Inserting Compressors, Reverb and Other Effects

Select effects the same as you selected the amp
modeler in the first step. This graphic shows the selecting of a reverb effect
from the same Insert menu.

You can learn more about the use of effects in the MIDI Effects In Cubase tutorial.

Mix Down

Optimizing the mix is rather complex when doing full
commercial productions.

Skill, as well as a trained ear, is needed to balance the
levels of instruments and to find the right EQ and effect settings so
instruments don’t clash or sound bad, but for the purpose of this basic
tutorial I’ve only presented how to mix the track down using defaults.

Go to File > Export > Audio Mixdown

The Export Audio Mixdown window will appear.

Setup the mixdown as follows:

Enter the name for the track in the File Name
field
Select the path you want to save the file to in
the Path field
Select the File Format, for this tutorial I’ll mixdown an MP3, however you can also select .wav or .aiff file from the
menu if you prefer

Leave the bit rate at 320 and the sample rate at
44.100kHz.

If you want to see the file name and other info
in an MP3 player, check off ID3 tag and then click the Edit ID3 Tag button to
bring up the ID3 tag window where you can enter your metadata.

Click the Export button when you set all the parameters.

The file will export to the location you
selected in the path file.

Conclusion

Setting up a DAW to record cover songs is a rather easy endeavor for non-musicians with the new MIDI and VST technologies. This means that a singer can save not only time, but also money by producing their own cover song backing tracks. While audio recording software can look intimidating, following the basics in this tutorial will allow you to create a basic yet quality cover song for your demo or for a karaoke night.

While this tutorial focused on setting up Cubase to use Native Instruments samplers and VSTs, you can apply the same technique to other digital audio workstations, as well as other brands of VSTs.

Once you’ve created your first song, you can use this song as a template to speed you up on future cover song productions. The more you practice the art of producing music, even cover songs, the easier producing music will get.

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