[thesleeve]

Thanks, gseshleman. That’s helpful… I’ll try to open the demo version and compare. However, my demo version just expired, so I have a feeling that I might not be able to open it at all any more.

If somebody from Toontrack could respond, I would be very thankful!

[thesleeve]

I guess I’ll play devil’s advocate here and give the standard warning about copyright infringement.

In order to reproduce a song with a copyright (even if it’s just the chords and melody, entirely in MIDI), a license is needed. Otherwise, it’s copyright infringement. This is why a lot of times, companies or websites that offer jam tracks or minus-one tracks of a certain tune will change the chords and/or melody slightly in order to avoid legal issues. Even crappy MIDI karaoke tracks, if they reproduce the melody/lyrics of a song, are required to pay royalties to the copyright holders.

I buy Band In A Box midi arrangements of Beatles songs to jam along with (from a company called Norton Music), but the author made sure not to include melody or lyrics in the files, because those (along with the actual studio recording of the music) are the things that are protected by copyright law. Often, the author makes small chord substitutions as well just to be on the safe side.

That being said, if you can get a license, then you can copy the song outright!

There are several sites on the web that offer professional-quality backing tracks and have licensing agreements with the artists or copyright holders. One that comes to mind is Guitar Tricks. I know that they have a couple hundred backing tracks of popular songs, although I can’t vouch for the quality because I’m not a member.

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