Backtrackit App Now on iOS and Android

The typical backing track has a recording of drums, bass, keyboards, and maybe a few other instruments - all playing a song. You can pick up your guitar and play along.

Backing tracks are incredibly useful for practicing guitar. They help to get the right feel and time with a drummer. And they are particularly useful for experimenting with lead and solo parts.

A number of backing track apps have come to iOS and Android to provide this convenience on your phone and tablet.

Recently, Backtrackit expanded it's platform to include iOS.

So you can now get an excellent selection of backing tracks, with some clever tools for manipulating your own library, on your iPhone and iPad.

What Is Backtrackit

Backtrackit is a musician's audio player. It is designed to be the perfect tool for practicing your instrument to 'live' tracks.

Includes vocals/lead instrument removal, key/tempo detection and shift, backing tracks collection, scales/chords display on guitar and piano, advanced equalizer, and metronome.

Backtrackit: Musicians' Player [9+]
Play, Practice, Rock!
Ziad Al Halabi
Free | Offers In-App Purchases

Types of Backing Tracks

The free version of the app includes a few tracks from each genre. The paid version unlocks them all.

• Rock: Tracks vary from soft rock to hard rock.
• Metal
• Classical: Symphonies accompanied by a choir.
• Drums [only]: Like jamming with a drummer
• Blues: A classic jam-along genre.
• Ambient: These lean toward EDM and extended synth jams.
• ​No Drums: These tracks are rock, blues, metal and ambient tracks for drummers to jam to! There is "challenging" tab which features tracks that are tricky to play to, like odd or multiple time signatures!

!!IMPORTANT (IN A GOOD WAY!)

Backtrackit scans the library of music on your device, so you can jam along to your own tunes! It IDs their tempo and key, and allows you to change their tempo and key!!

I think this is the killer feature.

While playing to generic backing tracks is helpful, it's even more useful to be able to speed up / slow down / change key on that tune you're obsessed with.

More About Features

Lead Instrument Removal

The lead instrument can be vocals or a solo. Backtrackit applies phase cancelation method to reduce whatever is in the lead and center of the mix. This highly depends on the mix of the song and the quality of its audio. It works best on songs where the vocals is centered in the mix and the file is not a low quality mp3. You can quickly reduce the lead instrument to practice guitar solos or sing along!

Key Shift

Clicking on the "KEY" button allows you to shift the key of the song up or down. This is useful when you're a singer and want to shift the song's key to match your vocal's perfect pitch. If you're a guitarist or a bassist, you can quickly shift songs that require changing your instrument's tuning. Songs in D# can be easily played in standard tuning by shifting the key to E.

Tempo Shift

Clicking on the "BPM" button allows you to speed up or slow down the song's tempo. Shredding solos can be slowdowned so you can learn and practice them! If you're a drummer, you can practice your setlist with a faster tempo!

Guitar & Piano

This gives you a quick access to see guitar or piano scales and chords while jamming. There are 16 scales and more than 140 chords! If you're playing one of Backtrackit's backing tracks, clicking on the guitar/piano buttons shows the track's chord progression!

Loop

You can set the start and end of the passage that you want to loop. Jam over a specific passage or practice playing it easily without interruption!

Equalizer

The EQ button allows you to set the BASS/MIDLE/TREBLE of the audio. If your speaker or headphone do not a flat output, you can change the EQ to have a better audio quality. If you're a bassist, lower the BASS while playing your favorite songs.

Save

You can save the song with new modification that you made. The changes can be: different key or tempo, muted leading instrument, or new EQ! The output file is a WAV file stored in your phone under "Backtrackit" folder.

Pros

• Clean, professional app build - no amateurs here.
• The "scan your library" feature worked perfect. And changing key/tempo on my tracks was flawless.
• Downloading the backing tracks included in the app was quick, and the quality was good.
• The developer work on it seems to be consistent and energetic, giving hopes for continued high quality of new tracks.

Cons

• The genres are vary much pop, rock (light & heavy), and blues. There's nothing for country, bluegrass, folk, or anything else from that side of life (which happens to be a favorite family of genres for this blog).
• I would love to see a "Submit a Track" function, so that users could add and share tracks.

Conclusion

A well-built, well-functioning app for playing music accompaniment from your phone. Killer feature is the ability to scan your library and then karaokize-it by changing tempo and key.

Definitely worth checking out the free version, and the paid version is definitely worth at only $1.99