Ways to remove drum track for practice...

[mbrown2112]

Hi Gang,

 

Any of you drummers know of a way to remove the drum track for practice purposes. For example, Jamie Borden in his Rush-Legendary Licks for Drums DVD, uses some form of electronic recording (sounds like Muzak) that keeps the basic rhythm of the track but without the drums. I assume it is some sort of MIDI recording? Perhaps something like I would find here: http://www.rushmidi.com/ If it is a MIDI track, is it possible to manipulate it so that you can take out the drums? How about the original recording in .mp3 format? Is it possible to manipulate the .mp3 of a song and take out the drums?

 

Thanks for your help,

Matt

 

 

[MarkScudder]

It is probably MIDI or a studio reworking without the drums. It is unequivocally impossible to "un-mix" a recording. Vocals sometimes kinda work because they are usually recorded in the dead center of the stereo spectrum and there is a trick you can use to remove everything "common" to both channels, thus leaving only the differences, but that usually results in other things panned dead center (usually bass and kick drum) to disappear as well. Drums are all over the spectrum and so it's impossible to remove them.

 

I played drums for years and I don't think there's much any reason to play without the drums in the music. When you're playing with other humans you may notice that slight human timing errors mean that no one of you will have a rock-solid metronome-like tempo, and the other instruments will be following you (a good musician can follow another one subconsciously). But most everyone is always following the drummer. So, if you were to take a drummer out of a recording where the other instrumentalists are following that drummer, you may actually find it's harder to keep up because Ged and Alex (in this example) aren't following you, they're following Neil. And if you're following a recording, you actually have to hear the drummer more than the other guys.

 

I never had any problem just practicing along to regular good 'ol Rush CDs (well, back then they were tapes, but y'know...)

 

 

[Drumnut]

Using a program such as Powertracks Pro, simply mute the drum track and play along. Using Powertracks, you can play and edit all the Midi-files on that page.

[mbrown2112]

Hey guys, thanks for your insights and comments.

 

Thanks,

Matt

 

 

[launchpad67a]

If you're working with the 'final mix' of the midi file, then there is no way to remove the drums, or anything else for that matter. ONLY if you have the original, tracked out version, could you put it in an audio editor and remove tracks.

[Drumnut]

You can do just about anything you want to any midi file with Powertracks. You can add parts, delete parts, duplicate tracks, change keys, tempo. Copy and paste tracks. Powertracks is a very effective midi editing program.