Dave Hum On How He Makes His Own Backing Tracks

I have done my best to recreate several dozen of Dave Hum's backing tracks. I share them FREELY for the pure love of music. My only motivation is to promote the cheerful music of Dave Hum, to help other banjo enthusiasts learn, encourage others to purchase original backing tracks from Dave Hum's family, and not least of all to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with others (so you can know that your name is written in Heaven too - Luke 10:20).

In his own words, here's how Dave made his own backing tracks...

The album “TRAVELLING LIGHT” is a culmination of 15 years passing. When I have had spare time between teaching, learning, busking and making videos of 5 string banjo tunes , I have recorded original compositions which have more of a unique contemporary approach.

I arrange and play all the instruments and program the beats myself - The software i use is Reason for the midi samples such as basslines, loops and effects - which lets me export as WAV files into a program called Sonar for the audio recordings - i then combine the results in Sonar - to record the actual instruments i use a Zoom H2 straight into my laptop which makes the whole process easy as it has it's own soundcard which Sonar recognises.

I enjoy many styles of music and feel that the banjo is capable of being more than a bluegrass, Celtic, ragtime or classic style instrument. Essentially, a lot of the techniques used in the Travelling Light album on the banjo are the same as the aforementioned but by giving the banjo, and mandolin for that matter, more of a contemporary rhythm and backing so to speak i think they can be used to play most styles of music if sympathetic to the emotion of the tune. —Dave Hum (from his website)

Here's the newer Zoom H2 model. There are also more advanced models of the Zoom unit, reasonably priced, that have guitar inputs. It appears that Dave recorded his musical instruments live, and not directly into the recorder. A lot of people are fascinated with Dave Hum and his banjo music, myself included. I had read in the Banjo Hangout Online (BHO) forum that Dave made his backing tracks using Reason software, so in my ignorance I went and tried it for free for 30 days at their website. 

It turns out that Dave only used Reason for his MIDI portion of his recordings, and nothing else! So the BHO gives INACCURATE advice to people! In fact, Dave recorded his instruments with a Zoom H2 personal recorder into his laptop, using Sonar software! I'm sure a lot of people have been frustrated trying to figure out how to use Reason to make Dave Hum's style of backing tracks. Now you know the whole story!

I use MixCraft Pro to make all my backing tracks. Lately I've been just using MIDI bass, which is remarkably indistinguishable from playing a real bass guitar. Everything you need comes with MixCraft. I use a Scarlett Solo interface to input my musical instruments to my computer. There are several other models available. Each backing track is unique. It's much like an artist with a blank canvas, deciding what he is going to create.

There are millions of free audio loops online for your projects (please make sure you have a good antivirus program through before download free loops. Bitdefender is a FREE program that works well, which is what I use). I have downloaded thousands of free audio loops (like a kid collecting baseball cards). I only had one virus problem. I don't know where it came from, but Bitdefender removed it. You may not even want more loops, because MixCraft Pro already comes with over 7,000 loops in their Library.

Plus, in the Library section of MixCraft you can search online for thousands more free loops in the public domain. Dave Hum used audio loops in many of his backing tracks, like this really cool Rattle Shake (pun for Rattle Snake) loop that I found online. I sometimes use the Rattle Shake at the very end of a backing track. Audio loops are resources to implement in your songs (e.g., drums, shakers, sticks, djembe, bongos, Cajon, chimes, tambourine, organs, pianos, et cetera). Loops are repeating patterns of real instruments that can be used in your songs to make them realistic.

You can also use YouTube videos. I found this cover drum track on YouTube for the Bee Gee's song Jive Talking. Look what I did with the track for my Bluegrass backing track for Temperance Reel. I used a MIDI kickdrum and tambourine, added a real shaker loop, and I used a MIDI bass (I entered all the bass notes with my mouse into MixCraft). I humbly think it came out nice. There are so many creative things you can do with MixCraft and all the resources available. I have also purchased several audio loop collections for my projects. If you decide to use MixCraft, there is a wealth of helpful information online to help you. I don't receive anything for promoting anything, I just want to help other musicians.

There are many different DAW's (Digital Audio Workstations) for sale. I love MixCraft and have used it for over 10 years. I recently tried the 30-day free trial of Ableton Live, which I hated. The software has bugs in it. I've never had any problems with MixCraft. Ableton kept erasing audio files of my bass and guitar that I had preciously recorded. I had a bunch of latency issues, so that the recordings were echoing. I spent hours trying to fix the problem, and read dozens of websites, but couldn't remedy the issue.

Ableton is interesting, switching between the Session View and Arrangement View. I really like the Groove Samples in Ableton. I am not familiar with all the different styles of music. By applying a Groove Sample to your song, it overlays a specific drum pattern to a song, giving it a unique rhythmic pattern. MixCraft doesn't have that nice feature. Ableton's full program costs $749; MixCraft's full program costs $149. So, there's that. Since Ableton was causing me a bunch of grief by not being able to get it working properly, I removed it from my computer. The company is in Germany, so I was surprised that it wasn't better quality to use.

Also, Ableton does not fully support MIDI. I couldn't adjust the timing of my MIDI tracks in Ableton, because there's no way to do so. MixCraft does let you adjust the track length by holding down Ctrl while grabbing the edge of the track to move it. In Ableton you need to hold down Ctrl + Shift and then drag the edge. But it only works for audio tracks, not for MIDI.

Dave Hum used the Reason DAW, which is still available. I tried it several years ago but didn't like it. Honestly, it has been so long that I cannot remember anything about it. I went last week to try it again for their 30-day free trial, but they want my credit card information to charge me $1, which I don't like. Plus, the program costs $499, which is expensive in a struggling economy. My main thought is that since MixCraft works for me, why spend three times more for a program that essentially does the same thing? Yet, I admit I am intrigued. It's like different musical instruments of the same type—they all basically do the same thing, but each has it's own unique look, feel and sound. Reason comes with different audio loops, which I am curious about. Most of all, Dave Hum used Reason, which is the main reason (no pun intended) I want to try it. I cannot remember why I didn't like it several years ago. I'm getting older...lol.

Making your own backing tracks is rewarding, fun and a fulfilling feeling. I love it as a hobby. I love playing the banjo and backing tracks make it much more interesting and enjoyable. I love sharing my tracks freely with everyone. I just love music and want to spread the same cheer that Dave Hum did through his music. We have a good God in Heaven who has blessed us with music. By the way, there are 7 notes in a diatonic music scale, 7 colors in a rainbow, 7 days in a week, et cetera. God likes the number 7. I am a born-again Christian, since age 13, so please bear with me if you are not and I brag on my dear Savior from time to time.

I am very thankful to Dave and his family for sharing this information with others. I pray for Dave's family often, as I know that is what he would want, and am glad that God made Dave Hum! Music makes the world a better place. Thank you friend for visiting my music blog.

Musical Artist Dave Hum (1966-2012)