Using Stem Tracks and MultiTracks in Worship: An Independent Guide by a Worship Leader

Despite having a worship band and being a talented multi-instrumentalist himself, Florida-based worship leader Shawn Thomas has been using MultiTracks in the services he leads for the last five years.

When talking to musicians in other churches Shawn realised that there was a lot of confusion and misinformation about MultiTracks. He created this video which does a great job in explaining how MultiTracks work and how he uses them in his church. And this was NOT a paid endorsement!

He blows the myth that they are only for high-tech people, and also that they are something that only big churches use.

He explains that MultiTracks are a far cry from the ‘canned’ music you might think them to be and goes into detail about how you can easily use them to keep a truly live feel to your worship – keeping a song going by repeating a chorus or play a section with instruments only while you lead a time of prayer.

Shawn also talks about why he chooses to use Worship Backing Band rather than the other MultiTrack providers. And no, we have not paid him to create this video!

Black Friday Sale: Everything at Worship Backing Band is 20% off

We are offering a blanket 20% discount on everything from the Worship Backing Band website this week.

Use the coupon code BLACKFRIDAY19 at the checkout.

That’s 20% off on top of the usual bundle pack discounts for MultiTracks, Chord Charts, DVDs and Split Tracks.

Go to the website to select your items:

https://www.worshipbackingband.com/

Do remember to put the coupon in at the checkout though as we can’t retrospectively credit your discount.

The new Transition MultiTrack Player for Mac, PC and iPad is here

The new Transition Player: everything you need to know

The new Worship Backing Band Transition Player is an easy-to-use MultiTrack Player for Mac, PC and iPad. It incorporates touch screen support for devices with that functionality and can also be used with a footswitch.

It has a number of exciting new features that were not available in our old Player. Whilst based on the functionality of our iPad Player, the new Mac and PC Transition Player also allows you to import your own and third party MultiTracks.

It also comes with EIGHT free MultiTracks!

MultiTracks are designed for worship teams with missing musicians. They give the versatility of live worship even when you have few (or no) musicians.

Choose your instrument mix, adjust volumes, loop, jump and repeat song sections, change key and tempo to suit your congregation.

Import your own or third party MultiTracks

Continue reading “The new Transition MultiTrack Player for Mac, PC and iPad is here”

Why we have vocals in our backing tracks [Customer review]

vocals on tracks

Unlike most other MultiTrack and Split Track providers, Worship Backing Band has always included lead and backing vocals on its backing tracks.

Our customers love them. Here’s a review from Matthew Bessant in the UK:

“A big thank you, to WBB for including the lead vocal, trying to learn a new song and when to come in with just the instruments is a real headache.”

These cost us a lot more to produce but we find they are essential, particularly for smaller churches that either have no singers, or whose singers need a little help to know where to come in (or to stay perfectly on pitch or time).

You can choose the level of the vocals against the rest of the instruments and, with our MultiTracks, to have the vocal fed only to your band.

More information on the MultiTrack stems below:

The MultiTrack Player Stems Explained

New MultiTracks from Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, Housefires and more

New Worship MultiTrack StemsWe have released a set of brand new MultiTracks featuring many of the current “big” worship songs from Hillsong, Bethel, Elevation, Housefires and more. The songs are also available as Split Tracks and have Every Key Chord Charts too.

The songs are as follows:

Behold Then Sings My Soul
Our version of Hillsong’s new take on the classic hymn. We’ve recorded it in the more congregational key of A and made it more usable as a multi track by avoiding the slowed down final verse. (We keep the feel by a clever use of dynamics but make it MUCH easier for a band to follow!)

Here As In Heaven
Our take on this Elevation Worship song includes all the dynamics and key song sections of the best known version but cuts down some of the repeated sections, long intros, outros and solos that can sometimes disengage a congregation.  Of course you can still do the full length 8 min version if you want to by repeating and looping those sections in the Worship Backing Band player.

Build My Life
We’ve reworked Housefire’s song to a congregationally-friendly length of 4.49, as opposed to the more usual 8+ mins. Of course if you would like a longer version simply use the MultiTrack Player to repeat song sections just as you would with a live band.

Chain Breaker
Here is Zach Williams’ song Chain Breaker but recorded in the more congregationally friendly key of E. You can use the MultiTrack Player to change the key if you’d like. This works well particularly if you have your own vocalists and would like to adapt the track to suit their range.

Jesus
We’ve given the Worship Backing Band treatment to Chris Tomlin’s song keeping the arrangement as per the studio version but changed the key to G  to make it  more congregationally singable.

Look To The Son
We’ve kept the standard arrangement to this well known Hillsong track but taken it down a tone to the more congregationally singable key of A.

Never Gonna Stop Singing
Newer worship songs like this Jesus Culture track often have EDM based arrangements, with parts that can be difficult to reproduce live. But because we’ve taken time to put each element into a playable instrument part, the MultiTrack stems are much easier for your worship team to learn and play along to.

Tremble
Our take on this Bethel/Essential song includes all the key song sections but cuts out some of the repeats and links to become a more congregationally friendly 4.45 minute arrangement. Of course you can still do the full length 8 min version if you want to by repeating and looping those sections in the Worship Backing Band player.

Reckless Love
For our version of this Corey Asbury/Bethel track we’ve mixed the best elements of the definitive studio and live versions to give you an arrangement that works well for all manner of congregational settings.

What format are the new songs in

The songs are in MultiTrack/WAV format. As always the MultiTracks come pre-configured for our own Worship Backing Band PC and Mac MultiTrack Player as well as a set of stems for our iPad Player. There is also an Ableton Session File for people using a DAW.

There are also Split Tracks available for non MultiTrack users.

There is also an EveryKey Chord Chart available for each song.

Are there savings for bulk buys?

Yes!

When you buy 10 or more MultiTracks at the same time a bulk buy discount is applied at the checkout.

Where can I see a full song list?

There is a complete list of Worship Backing Band songs and formats here and also a printable list here.

Worship Backing Band master song list: download and print!

Worship Backing Band Master Song List

Fed up trudging through the website looking for MultiTracks and Chord Charts?

Not sure you have all the Worship Backing Band repertoire in your collection?

We’ve made it super-easy for you with a downloadable and printable list of all our backing tracks and chord charts.

The list includes links to all the tracks and details the format each song is available in.

Click here to view, download or print the list.

New MultiTracks about to be released

We’ve a bunch of new MultiTracks about to launch for Worship Backing Band:

  • Behold (Then Sings My Soul) (Hillsong)
  • Build My Life (Housefires)
  • Chain Breaker (Zach Williams)
  • Here as in Heaven (Elevation)
  • Jesus (Chris Tomlin)
  • Look To the Son (Hillsong)
  • Never Gonna Stop Singing (Jesus Culture)
  • Reckless Love (Bethel)
  • Tremble (Hillsong)

The songs will all be available as MultiTracks and Every Key Chord Charts. Keep an eye on Facebook and your email.

Best selling MultiTracks for the last 12 months + thoughts on how the CCLI lists have changed

We’ve been totting up the totals on the MultiTracks you’ve purchased in the last year, so we thought we’d give you a peak at the 25 most popular. Perhaps unsurprisingly the list broadly mirrors last year’s CCLI top songs choices, so in other words the MultiTracks you’re buying roughly line up with the popularity of what the wider church is singing.

What’s interesting is that comparing a song’s CCLI position from previous years shows that a song can now become very popular with a worldwide recognition much more quickly than ever before. For instance, ‘What a Beautiful Name’ is number one both in our chart and CCLI and yet is a 2016 song. In years past it would take a song over 5 years to get to that number one slot. Conversely, songs that took 4-5 years to gain that kind of usage would often stay in the top five for a good 5-7 years, whereas now the speed at which churches are adding new songs their repertoire and discarding older ones is also much faster too.

With the advent of apps like Spotify and YouTube it is now much easier to access new songs outside of conferences and summer festivals, but equally I wonder what the impact is of introducing so many more new songs to your congregation?

This article on the lifecycle of a worship song is worth a read.

Andy Chamberlain, Co-Founder, Worship Backing Band 

Worship Backing Band’s Top 25 best selling MultiTracks for the last year

  1. What a Beautiful Name
  2. Good Good Father
  3. The Lion and the Lamb
  4. This is Amazing Grace
  5. 10,000 Reasons
  6. O Come to the Altar
  7. No Longer Strangers
  8. Great Are You Lord
  9. How Great is Our God
  10. Holy Spirit
  11. At the Cross (Love Ran Red)
  12. Amazing Grace (My Chains Are Gone)
  13. Agnus Dei
  14. My Lighthouse
  15. O Praise The Name (Anastasis)
  16. Revelation Song
  17. Open The Eyes of My Heart
  18. Our God
  19. Blessed Be Your Name
  20. Mighty To Save
  21. Oceans (Hillsong)
  22. This I Believe (The Creed)
  23. Jesus Messiah
  24. Lord I Need You
  25. Forever (We Sing Hallelujah)

This list is for individual tracks purchased and excludes sales of our pre-selected bundle packs.

 

 

The Worship Backing Band iPad MultiTrack Player is here!

We are delighted to announce that our long awaited MultiTrack iPad Player is now available. Keeping with our simple-to-use methodology, the iPad Player is a step up from our PC/Mac Player with some additional features such as ambient pads for song transitions, a global mix option, the ability to save and name playlists, easy iCloud storage and more.

  • New iPad touchscreen interface design
  • 14 instrument stems inc. vocals, clicks and cues
  • Mix mute or solo any instrument stem
  • Loop or jump to any song section
  • Key change and tempo change
  • MIDI footswitch compatible
  • Ambient pads for seamless song transitions
  • Save and name setlists/playlists
  • Lossless audio compression for easy song import/iCloud storage

The Player comes pre-installed with 3 MultiTracks plus you get 2 free CCLI top 50 tracks of your choice (worth $34!).

Buy the iPad Player on the App store and come back to Worship Backing Band to buy the MultiTracks. You will also have free access to iPad versions of all your existing WBB MultiTracks that you have bought in the past.

Buy from the App Store

Watch the video to see how it works

Your questions answered

I need more information about the iPad player before I buy

We’ve created a series of how-to videos that explain every aspect of the Player.

I want to use the old PC/Mac Player as well as the iPad player. Will you be charging me twice?

You will need to buy the new iPad player (as well as the PC/Mac Player that you already have) but when you buy tracks you’ll get the PC/Mac/DAW MultiTracks as well as the iPad versions. You’ll get iPad versions for all your existing WBB MultiTracks free-of-charge.

Will the iPad tracks work in any other programs?

No. You will need the Worship Backing Band iPad Player to play the tracks. However, once you have purchased the tracks you will also get a standard uncompressed WAV file which you can use in any DAW such as Ableton as well as Worship Backing Band’s Mac/PC MultiTrack Player.

What about technical support?

We’ve tried to make the iPad Player as intuitive and simple-to-use as possible but if you need some extra help we’ve an extensive FAQ section on our website as well as email technical support.

What about other tablets?

At the moment the Player is iPad only.

 

New MultiTrack, Split Track and chord chart bundle packs: great savings for the top selling songs

When you first start using MultiTracks building your library of songs can be a bit daunting.

What are the top songs churches are singing today? What is going to go down well with my congregation? What new songs are there that are being used at the conferences and my team will enjoy playing? How do I find the budget to pay for all these tracks?

Whilst the average church only uses about 70 songs a year, taking a look through the entire Worship Backing Band back catalogue can end up with you feeling like a kid in a sweetshop that only has a few coins in his pocket!

And whilst Worship Backing Band MultiTracks are still the cheapest on the market (compared to providers such as MultiTracks.com and Loop Community), the nature of MultiTracks, and the licenses we pay to sell them to you, mean that they are priced higher than a song you’d buy from iTunes to listen to on your phone.

But don’t worry – help is at hand to select not only our top selling MultiTracks, but also to save you even more money.

Our bundle packs are heavily discounted from our usual prices and include our very best selling tracks – old favourites, contemporary takes on old hymns and of course lots of the newest big songs.

And if you prefer to select your own songs, then do look at our bulk buys. With these you save increasing amounts when you buy 10, 25 or 50+ songs at a time.

Choose from the following bundle packs (click to see the songs featured):

As well as the MultiTrack bundles you will find bundles of Split Tracks and chord charts, again at discounted prices.