What are the technical requirements for my computer to run the MultiTrack Player?

PC – minimum specification:
Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7 with 1Mb RAM

Software to be installed:
iTunes version 9 – download iTunes here

Any of the following web browsers:
Internet Explorer version 8 or version 9 (please note, the save set list function does not work in IE)
Google Chrome version 6
Safari version 4

Whilst the player will function on Firefox, you may experience some problems (i.e. library and mixes won't save).

Mac – minimum specification:

Mac OSX 10.6 with 1Mb RAM running

Software to be installed:
iTunes version 9 – download iTunes here

Any of the following web browsers:
Google Chrome version 6
Safari version 4

Whilst the player will function on Firefox, you may experience some problems (i.e. library and mixes won't save).

You MUST have Javascript enabled.

Will the MultiTrack Player run on both PCs and Macs?
Yes – please see the technical requirements FAQ for software and web browser requirements. An IPad version is coming very soon.
What other hardware or software do I need to run the player?
You need a PC or computer to run the player and amplification so that you can hear the tracks. All you do is simply plug the headphone output of your laptop into the amp via a standard headphone mini jack to 1/4 inch cable, and that’s it!

What cable do I need and where do I get one from?
If you want to use the two separate congregation/band mixes available you need a standard cable that goes from your 3.5mm stereo computer headphone output that splits into 2 inputs on your church mixing desk, which are most likely standard ¼ inch, jack plugs. If you’re church/small group doesn’t have a PA system and is just using a single amp then a standard 3.5mm to whatever input your amp has (again probably ¼ inch stereo) will be fine.

How do I purchase and download the Player?

There are instructions on our How To page.

Can you change the mix on the fly as the song is being played?
Yes

You talk about stems, what are they?
When we talk about stems we mean each instrument as it is separately recorded. So drums are one stem, as are lead vocals or bass. Electric guitars have two separate parts so they are listed as two separate stems. Backing vocals or BV’s are grouped as one stem even though the BV’s have multiple harmonies. For user simplicity we have decided to standardize with 10 instrument stems plus tow click track stems, a spoken word vocal stem and a 2 bar intro click stem. Here is a blog post explaining the stems in more detail.

Do the songs have click tracks?
Yes, and more besides! Each song has a click track you can select or de select, and put in just the band mix if you wish, plus a shaker if you prefer a more natural sounding click or don’t want to set up a separate band mix. Also each song has a standardized two bar intro click that again you can just select in the band/monitor mix if you want to

I find it hard to follow some backing tracks that have no lead vocal. Do yours have lead vocals?
Yes, and more besides! All our tracks have a top quality lead vocal sung by great session singers who are also worship leaders too so there’s real meaning and emotion in the singing, not just ‘canned’ music. Because you can change the volume of any instrument stem you could also Also, to help you follow the structure of the song there’s an optional spoken word vocal cue. If you want, you can have the lead vocal playing in the “band” mix so that only you can hear it. You sing along to the load vocal and the congregation hear just your vocals rather than the Backing Band vocal.

Will you make an Ipad and Iphone app for the MultiTrack Player?
Yes, an app is planned very soon. We chose to go the Mac/PC route first because that’s most small churches still use.

Is there any kind of ‘try-before-you-buy’ / trial version?
Yes, there is a trial version which comes loaded with a number of partial songs which you can experiment with to learn how the player functions. This trial version , whilst working in the same way as the full player, will only work with the pre-loaded songs, so you will then have to buy and download the player when you decide to purchase additional songs.

Does the software come pre-loaded with any songs?
No. We wanted to keep the price of the software to a minimum so have not bundled any songs with it as different churches would want very different songs. There are approximately 100 songs to choose from in the library with more to be added in due course. There are discounts available for multiple purchases.

Is it possible to adjust the tempo on the MultiTrack Player?
We thought long and hard about tempo. In future it is certainly possible to add as a feature, but for the time being we chose just to record songs in great, singable tempos and leave as is. Most of the time we find less experienced musicians play songs too fast (nerves generally) or way too slow (or worse, a combo of both in the same song) and there is a sweet spot where a song just feels good, so if we can get that to begin with then why change it? Of course you can do some songs at various tempos but with most if its good to begin with, adding the option to change it could cause more trouble than its worth for someone who doesn’t really know what they are doing. The point of the MultiTrack player is to reduce the number of things that can go wrong, not add to it. There are more complex players like Ableton Live that would allow this but good users of these types of software tools are generally a bit more accomplished and technicallly adept whereas we are trying to focus on the churches with non pro musicians that could be scared off by the complexity.

Can you change the key the song is recorded in?
We’ve recorded most of the first batch of songs in very church friendly keys. We will be adding songs in alternative keys as we go but didn’t want to go the route of software ‘pitch shifting’ as it can just sound pretty fake, especially when you shift vocals and guitars. That said, again most songs have a congregational key that works for the generalist so that’s what we’ve gone for and most churches should be good to go straight away unless you have a worship leader with an unusually high or low voice.
As artists and record labels add their songs to our repertoire, you should find that a number of alternative keys to the same song do start to become available.

What songs are available and how did you choose them?
A list of the songs available is here. We’ve chosen lots of popular songs, based mainly on the CCLI top 100 plus some new titles and a few classics. There should be plenty to keep you going for a nice long while and more are in the pipeline.

Are more songs going to be added to the list?
Yes, we’ are recording new songs all the time and have also been approached by a number of artists and record labels to add their songs to the repertoire.
Our plan is to broaden the range of genres to include kids songs, choral songs, gospel and other styles as well as the range of contemporary worship songs we have launched with.

Who is singing and playing on the songs?
All the current songs have been recorded by Paul Burton at The Old Chapel Studios, Chichester. Paul was the producer behind Musicademy’s original Worship Backing Band DVD recordings, having produced the five Encounter Worship compilation CDs. Paul is “the” producer in the UK contemporary Christian worship scene and has worked with Delirious?, Graham Kendrick, Stuart Townend, Soul Survivor, Spring Harvest, Matt Redman, Tim Hughes, and many others as well as other well known artists like Snow Patrol and Athlete.
Musicians on the recordings include Paul Evans (Delirious), Matt Weeks and Dan Wheeler.
The singers include Ben Cantelon, Cathy Burton, Marc James (Surrender), Quintin Delport (World Wide Message Tribe), Lizzie Deane (Boy George) and many others.

How much would Musicademy charge for a song I would like to add to the portfolio available to the Worship Backing Band MultiTrack player?

Additional songs need to be recorded from scratch. Where songs are from the CCLI top 100, its likely that they are already in the pipeline, however, if you require a relatively unusual song that is not commercially viable for us to record, we would need to charge something in the region of several hundred pounds/dollars.

I’m an artist / record label and I’d like my songs to be on the MultiTrack Player
In due course we are very open to adding songs from a variety of artists and/or record labels to the repertoire. You will need to provide the “stems” from the original recordings (we will provide a specification for this) and there will be a charge to convert those stems into a format suitable for the Player. Publishers will earn commission on sales, and of course, when songs are sung in church, CCLI will also pay a royalty to the publisher directly.

Can the songs be made available in a format that works for people already using Ableton Live or Garage Band?
We are considering this. Please let us know if you would find this helpful. We are happy to offer that in the future if there is the quantity of customer demand but the reason we specifically developed this player is for the many folks out there who aren’t that technical and therefore would be put off by Ableton and its associated extra costs. Obviously Ableton is a very powerful tool and simple by Pro Tools/Logic standards but in our research we found most small churches find something that resembles a DAW too much of a technical leap… hence the need to go to the expense of developing something bespoke for churches that hopefully everyone regardless technical ability will find easy and intuitive to use.

With the player as it is currently you cant output the stems into mp3s, Wavs etc. The player is really designed for churches with limited technical knowledge and to that end we spent a long time developing a unique propriety file format that allows you to access a multi track song in a single downloadable file.

The advantage of this is that you don't need to download and assemble each stem separately, its all lined up automatically and even installs directly into the player library.

Is it possible to print chord/lead sheets from the MultiTrack Player?
The printing of lead sheets via the player is something we are looking into and one of the big publishers has given us the go ahead, but printed music is the one area its very difficult to get licensing for is sheet music as its the portion that publishers guard most. Adding sheet music to the backing track would add significantly to the cost and there are a number of software programmes out there that allow you to print off worship music in multiple keys anyway, so there would be little point in re inventing the wheel. So in the meantime use CCLI’s SongSelect, chord charts or one of the similar chart software products out there such as Song Base. We’ve kept to pretty standard arrangements and give you the key so you should be fine.

Will the MultiTrack player pre-arrange a set to play later during worship?
The way its designed is you’ll have a library area of all the songs you own and an additional playlist area. Simply drag the songs you want from the library into the playlist area and start it whenever you want. You can skip songs on the play list but not rearrange them (that functionality will be available in a later upgrade). A workaround to rearranging the songs will be to create a new playlist with the songs in the order you now require them.

Is it possible to produce a play list with the instruments pre-configured?
The answer is yes and no. Yes you can, in that once you select a song and adjust the instrument mix (e.g. mute bass and drums) it will stay that way until you change it again. So if you choose five songs you can pre configure each song without bass and drums and each song will play like that. What you can’t do right now is say choose 20 songs and and globally mute bass and drums via one instruction.

We experimented with a ‘global mix’ idea but put it on ice for now because if you have to manually configure a song mix just once then it at least guarantees that you will have listened to it all the way through and have hopefully rehearsed it once before attempting it live.

It sounds obvious but we’ve met so many underprepared musicians who don’t rehearse a song they don’t know that well and then live it falls apart because they hoped that winging it/blagging their way through/trusting in God/being Spirit led would be enough for the practical elements to come together.

How easy will it be to repeat choruses etc in the middle of a song? Is there an easy external control (e.g. a foot switch/controller) that can be used by the worship leader in conjunction with the software or will it require someone separate dedicated to the computer to manage those live changes?
One of the things we are beta testing right now is jumping backwards or forwards to any section of the song or being able to loop the current section via a standard 3 button footswitch connected to effectively mouse click (or foot pedal) functionality. That said, its quite difficult to do if you are using the lead vocals on the track as many worship songs have pickups. I.e. the vocal comes in before the bar line, which is where you digitally ’split’ it to make sure it seemlessly connects to the new section. (e.g. “blessed be the…(bar) name of the Lord”) So we would recommend that lead vocals are turned off if you are going to make use of this, but i would imagine that if you do lots of freeform worship then you are a fairly confident vocalist or leader anyway. For other customers, just to say, if you need to use the lead vocals just play with the tracks and rehearse them thoroughly beforehand to see what works well for you in terms of arrangements changes (as any musician should anyway). In reality we think many church bands that struggle to play a song well together without a backing track would find it difficult to follow an arrangement change if they haven’t got a strong ‘live’ lead vocal, so if this applies to you it might be good to take it a step at a time and leave this feature alone until the band gets used to play with backing tracks. We are and will continue to constantly develop and update this software as we want to give you as much control of the player and the tracks as we can while still keeping it simple to use, non techie looking and intuitive, so believe us when we say there is much more to come!

Do most of these songs contain loops and synth pads and auxiliary guitar lines?
Yes! Each song has two electric guitar parts and at least one is textural so there will be plenty to back up your existing players. Indeed you could leave both of these parts in but set them low in the mix if you want to fatten out the sound to augment your live setup. Its the same with the two keyboard stems. One may be piano but if it is the other is often strings, pads or Hammond. Or it may be a synth and a Hammond in which case you’ll have loads of ’space’ for your piano players as again there’s generally something textural in each song arrangement.

We’ve also got a stem in many of the songs we call ‘extras’. This contains many of the elements that won’t fit into the standard track format. So sometimes there are loops, maybe extras keys, synth or guitar parts that are naturally set low in the mix to add to the texture, some sounds have some programming, others even have a bit of brass. It really varies from song to song but these extras will give a bit of width to the live sound.

Does a church need to purchase a separate player for every pc/laptop we use?
Currently it is one purchase per user – i.e. if you as a worship leader uses it on your laptop then your church is licensed for that laptop but we will look into church licenses in future. As the cost of the software is pretty small to begin with hopefully the model of one purchase per user is acceptable to you - this has cost a small fortune to develop after all!

Answers - MultiTrack Player After Purchase

I need to download the How-To Guide for installation and use

For detailed instructions on installation and use, see our picture guides - How To Guide - PC and How To Guide - MAC.

What keyboard shortcuts/hot keys are there?

Once you have the player installed you will find the following hot keys helpful:

esc => stop

space => play

left arrow => back (prev)

right arrow => forward (next)

'm' => mute

'p' => pause

After I install a song it isn't showing up in the library

You need to refresh the player (i.e. reload the page) after installing a new song in order for it to show up in the Library. It shouldn't be necessary to close the browser completely.

The playlist and mix settings aren't saving in Firefox

Some versions of Firefox to not properly save the playlist and mix settings. This is apparently due to a mimitation in FireFox where the FireFox developers have effectively interpreted part of the html5 specification in a different way to everyone else. The feature (known as localStorage) has a limitation in FireFox whereby it doesn't work for html pages on the local machine. Solution - use another browser such as Chrome.

The software is "browser based". Does that mean that I need to be online to use the Player?

No you don't need to be online to use the Player. You just have to go online to initially purchase and download it and any of the songs. Once they are on your computer you can use the player offline.

How do I set up a song mix?

When you first use the player the easiest option is to simply mute the instruments you have playing live, and once you’ve saved your song mix you’re ready to go. However once you get familiar with the MultiTrack stems you could try mixing in some of them in conjunction with your live instruments at a lower level by using the volume faders to fatten up the sound of your live band. The obvious stems to try this with are electric guitars and keys 1 & 2 so it’s worth soloing these for every song you’ve got to hear exactly what’s being played.

From a music production perspective, good parts to mix in at a low volume level are the ones that add a sense of width to the sound by using textures. So distorted low end electric rhythm guitar parts and Hammond organ washes work well here. If you are mixing in a more ‘lead’ orientated part be careful that it you don’t mix it so loud that it cuts across the vocal melody but mix it loud enough that your live players can hear it so that in turn they don’t cut across it themselves with their parts. I.e. two lead parts played simultaneously often sounds confused to the listener. That’s why a well mixed studio album will only draw your ear to one part at a time.

Please note:

In a few songs we’ve deviated from the 1 acoustic guitar, 2 electric guitars, 2 keyboards format purely for production reasons. So there might be no acoustic, 3 electric guitars and 1 keyboard for example. In that instance we would place the additional electric in either the acoustic, keyboard 2 or ‘extras’ stem. As you play with the backing tracks you’ll find these as you solo through each stem and decide what you want in your mix.

We've written up additional simple guidelines for setting up separate band and congregational mixes as well as advice on click tracks. Click here to download the information.

How do I set up a play list?

Open up your song library by hitting the Library button. The library will appear in the centre section over the player controls. Simply drag your chosen songs in the order you want them from your library into the play list area on the right. The first song selected will automatically be highlighted so all you have to do is hit play. If you want to remove a song simply click on the song to highlight it and then hit ‘Remove selected song’ at the bottom of the play list pane.

For Mac users when you download a song, the file will appear in your "Downloads" folder and it will have a ".dmg" extension and show as a file of type "Disk Image". You need to double-click that file and agree to the license conditions. That will create what's known as a "virtual volume" and mount it on your desktop (along with other "real" volumes, such as "Macintosh HD"). When the volume is mounted, it should show a window containing a file named "Double-click to install". When you double-click that file, it will copy the song files into the folder where the player is located. After you have reloaded the page, you need to click on the "Library"button, then song should appear in your song list.

I'm having problems with Norton

A number of customers with Norton installed are having problems with installing the demo and full version of the MultiTrack software. The problem with Norton is that there are many versions and the features on each version are in different places, or are missing, so instructions for each version are different. Please first follow the install directions in our How To guide. Norton's software currently treats the WBB player as a threat because it is an unknown ".exe" file so might place it in a "quarantined" area. Details on moving the WBB installer from this area depend on the specific version of Norton that you have but, generally you need to open the "Security History" window, where there should be an "Options" setting to "Restore and Exclude" the file, after which it will be moved to the original download location (e.g. the "Download" directory) and the file will be excluded from future scans (to prevent it being quarantined again).

Here is a fix for Norton 360 premier edition Version 5 (the latest)
Open it up
Click on “tasks”
Click on “Check Security History”
Select the file “Worship_backing_band"…On the right side under recommended actions is “options” click on that
Click on restore
Click on YES

If you are still having problems, please email us.

Answers to Video Download FAQs

What software do I need to run the video downloads?
You will need Winzip (or a similar package) to open the files then Quicktime or similar to play them

Answers to Video Lesson FAQs

What software do I need to run the video lessons?
You will need Winzip (or a similar package) to open the files. Once opened the files are are Quicktime Video Files so are designed to be played within a standard freely available media player with Quicktime built in like Itunes. So simply purchase the songs you want and build them into play lists as you wish. If you need itunes download it here.

What are Worship Backing Band Video Downloads?

Worship Backing Band Video Downloads are downloadable backing tracks to worship songs featuring automated onscreen lyrics and "split track" vocals. This means that you can individually download the songs you want to PC or Mac (Quicktime format), build your own play lists and control the volume level of the lead vocal from 0 to full. Perfect for churches and small groups without a strong worship leader/vocalist or musicians.

How do I build a play list?

Simply drag the songs into a play list within Quicktime, Itunes or another Quicktime compatible media player and drag and drop them into the order you choose.

What are split track vocals?

Split tracks are a specially mixed version of our backing track recordings that allow you to adjust the level of the lead vocal from full volume to down to zero. This is really helpful for churches without confident worship leaders or singers that need just a little bit of a good strong lead vocal to help guide them through the song. It’s done by mixing the full band plus the lead vocal in the left hand side of the sound and the band only without the vocal in the right hand side. So as you adjust your audio balance control from left to right you get more or less vocal volume according to your requirements.

Where is the balance control on my system?

Either use the one on your computer or on your PA system. If you are inputting your computer into your church PA system there are a couple of ways of doing this. Firstly you could connect the 3.5 mm headphone output of your computer via a standard stereo cable into an input of the mixing desk, sound system or amp that has a left/right pan or balance control and simply adjust as you wish.Alternatively you could get a splitter cable that still goes from your headphone output but now splits into two inputs on your mixing desk. Then use the volume inputs or faders on the desk to balance the level of the vocal. The other option is to use the internal left/right balance control on your computers own software volume mixer. This should be within the audio settings on the control panel on a PC and within system preferences on a Mac. Alternatively if you can’t find your computer’s balance settings you could use a media player that has separate left/right balance controls. How do the on screen lyrics work? The lyrics are basically a movie that runs in time with the music and automatically changes in synch with the song. We’ve improved them from our original worship backing band DVD with an even crisper high definition font and adjusted the timing so each new lyric screen comes in well before you need to sing the words.

Do the on screen lyrics have videos or images behind them?

No, we thought long and hard about including images or video but in our research found that roughly there where as many people who didn’t like videos and imagines projected behind the words as those who did. Also those who did like the concept of still or movie backgrounds were then split as to what content they liked or didn’t. So we decided to keep it simple. Our lyrics are straightforward, easy to read modern fonts with white typefaces on a black background with large letters and not too many words on the screen at one time.

How do the downloads differ from the Worship Backing Band DVD?

When we surveyed our existing customers about our original WBB DVD we found two key things. First, most customers wanted to be easily able to build their own play lists, something not easily achievable within the DVD format, and second, most customers used the DVD on a computer (rather than a home TV/DVD) anyway. So the obvious choice was to go for an individual download format. The original 54 songs from the DVD are available to download but with a clearer, high def lyrics font and now the words come up much earlier too. But we’re also adding lots more new songs as well. The DVD is still available and a great value product for budget consciences church and small groups. Its only £31.99GBP ($49.99 USD) in our web store. That’s only 59 pence (83 cents) per song!

Answers to All Products FAQs

How does the licensing work for CCLI and multi users/multiple computers?

Worship Backing Band pays a license fee (to MCPS and/or the relevant publishers) for the rights to use the various songs (audio & visual) on its products. Churches using the products for public worship will still need to complete their usual CCLI return which reports each time the song is sung.

Your licence from Worship Backing Band and Musicademy when you purchase a single download or physical product from us is as follows. If you purchase one product you may use it yourself on the computer you have initially downloaded it to. Should you wish to transfer it to another computer you must delete the copies from the original computer. You are not licensed to share the files in any way with other people. They must purchase their own copies.Please do not abuse this. As a small company we are hit very hard by illegal file sharing. It is theft and is illegal and unethical.

The same will apply if a church has purchased any of the products. You may use the products in your worship services but they may not be copied and distributed to members of your worship team or to multiple housegroups. They will need to purchase their own products each. For ease you are welcome to purchase multiple copies of each product (and obtain the volume discounts that apply) and then circulate to worship team members in keeping with the number of copies you have bought.

Can I get discounts for multiple users?

We do not currently have a multi-user license. Each use must purchase their own copy of the MultiTrack Player, MultiTrack songs, Video Downloads or Video Lessons. If a church does want to purchase copies for multiple musicians there is a way in which you can enjoy bulk purchase savings. One person will need to purchase everything at the same time. Within each of the above product categories, the site is set up for the following:

Buy 10 items and get 2 free
Buy 25 items and get 5 free
Buy 40 items and get 10 free

So if, for instance, you have 4 musicians that you want to purchase three MultiTrack songs for (4x3=12), put each of the three songs in the shopping basket and update the quantitiy to 4. You will be charged for 10 songs but effectively receive 12. You can then either download the songs and email to your musicians (or save to a memory stick) or alternatively give each musician your login details to download the songs from My Account. Note that you will have a maximum download limit of 3 attempts per song (so if you have purchased the song 4 times you will have 12 download attempts). We allow more than one attempt per purchase in case of computer crashes or sudden loss of boradband/server connection.

FAQ

FAQs - MultiTrack Player - prior to purchase

FAQs - MultiTrack Player After Purchase

FAQs - Video Downloads

FAQs - Video Lessons

FAQs - All Products

Answers to MultiTrack FAQs

Answers - MultiTrack Player After Purchase

Answers to Video Download FAQs

Answers to Video Lesson FAQs

Answers to All Products FAQs

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