The ShadowMusic Web Community

Hi All,

Just been pondering the sounds of my backing tracks, i use the UB Hank ones. I've noticed that although they sound brilliant, they are not completely authentic sounding, to the original recordings.
Although most of us are trying to get that 'Authentic Hank Sound', (of the original recordings) i wonder if we would be better off trying to get a nice echo and tone sound? One that mixes nice with the backing tracks and sounds as though the guitar was recorded at the same time as the rest of the instruments, so it sounds like your in with the band.
I wonder even if i could get the sound identical to Mr Hank himself (on the original recordings), would i then be the 1 sounding like i didn't belong with the track?
This may sound like a bit of a mixed up kind of question, but there you go
This question is mostly aimed at people who use and record themselves to backing tracks at home, but any thoughts would be appreciated.
Although i will still aim to get THAT sound, it's part of the fun of it
Cheers
Ryan

Ryan there is a way of removing Hank from some original shadows tracks if

A. The track is in stereo
B. The guitar is not sharing its stereo placement with another instrument and not too much reverb present.

To remove it you need certain software tools which effectively do a Karaoke type of removal. Or a vocal remover or similar. There is a tool in Adobe audition called 'Centre Channel Extractor' which will do a good job for instance. You can also use the Channel mixer to improve the sound as well and use also EQ to try to carve the signal out that is left in after removal. Not perfect and does not work on all of the tracks but many people have done these backings to improve the recordings they do to try and match the originals.

Another simple way is to split a stereo track and invert one channel and then that will remove a centre guitar/vocal track and create a resulting mono track.

Failing all of this the only other way is to get hold of the best possible backing for the tune you can or do one from scratch yourself ! Not easy that !

The three "That Sound!" backing track CDs (available from Leo's Den) are fairly authentic, albeit with a more modern "narrow" stereo image.

They were made by Maurizio Mazzini with the assistance of Roberto Pistolesi, back around 2000.

One or two Shads tracks have the lead guitar in one channel and everything else in the other. In such cases it is a simple matter to remove that channel leaving you with what is effectively a backing track in the other - although of course, as has been said, in mono.

(One example is Fandango although I'm sure there are several others.)

If you're not happy with a mono backing track, you can cheat (if you have access to a studio) by adding additional tracks left and right, for example extra rhythm guitars or assorted percussion; tambourines/claves/handclaps etc.

Another little dodge is to copy the one channel onto the other, then delay one by a few milliseconds for a sort of pseudo-stereo effect.