Why Drumless Track and Drum Playalongs?

Music Drumless and You add the drum part yourself. It’s a cool practice tool to not only help you learn new songs, but it is also great for developing timing and timekeeping skills. music and add the drum part yourself. It’s a cool practice tool to not only help you learn new songs, but it is also great for developing timing and timekeeping skills.

Drumless tracks are also a useful practice tool to develop the skills to play in a band. Drummers like to use drumless tracks and film themselves drumming. Many of these videos (aka ‘Drum Covers’) then make their way onto Vimeo and Facebook or other video sharing sites.

Drumless tunes and drum playalong can be used by drummers of all levels, from beginner to advanced. A beginner’s priority might be to use the backing track in helping learn some new grooves or to get better at playing fills. Whereas, a more experienced player might want to create his and her own version of the song with their own completely re-written or improvised drum parts.

How are drumless tracks songs made?

It is worth bearing in mind that there are a few different ways that the drums are removed.

There are variations in sound quality due to the way the drums are taken out. Some drumless tracks will not be the official original band version of a song, but an instrumental ‘sound-alike’ version.

The three main types of drumless tracks are:

• Official mix without drums
• Sound-alike versions

A sound-alike version of a song is where the music is recorded from scratch and it very closely resembles a famous song. Often the vocals don’t get recorded. This means the song is more like a karaoke version (but without drums)

One advantage of using the sound-alike type of drumless song is that it is often specifically created for educational purposes. Although it doesn’t sound exactly the same as the original recording, the instruments are usually mixed in a way that makes it very easy to play along to. It is also usually recorded to a click track (metronome).

I should mention that most ‘drumless songs” have a count-off. The count off is the clicks at the start to tell you where to come in with the drums. This means you’re not guessing the tempo and you know when to come in.

Drumless tracks that have been created by modifying an original recording tend not to have a click track all the way through.

If the recording has been created specifically to be a drumless song for education purposes, then it is much more likely that the creators will publish two versions of the recording. There would usually be one version with click all the way through and one version where the clicks are only present for the count in. In our list below, most publishers have provided the two versions for you to choose which one works best for you.