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I think you only need the Pro version, but then you have to buy the Django tracks from the Django in a Box website.
Band in a Box Pro is on sale for $99 at Sweetwater
Django in a box is more about the transcriptions. For backing tracks, once you buy the main software, you buy Real Tracks Gypsy jazz pack. It's an amazing software but even it isn't ideal for slowing down. It'll do it obviously but quality can suffer with it too. It all depends at which tempo the "real tracks" were recorded. Say, it could be at 240 BPM. At this tempo and nearby it sounds incredible. But go too far from it and it won't be as good any more. There's a ballad track that I load and use for slow practice, that works well. It certainly does the job for practice if you can spend the money. It's really an impressive software overall. Steep learning curve though. Until you learn what you can ignore.
@Azazzell I got the basic software (also on sale for $100) then you can buy real tracks a la carte, each pack is $30.
Azazzell, I never buy any of that extra Megapack stuff. I just buy their cheapest option.
The only settings I ever use are the Gypsy Jazz Fast and the Gypsy Jazz Waltz. I find that that’s basically all I need.
I make my own backing tracks and load them onto my iPod (remember them?) then use that whenever I play a solo guitar gig. They disappear into the background in a very appropriate way and to be honest most of the time the audience doesn’t even notice them.
i find that audiences today are- how can I say this?- too ADHD to listen attentively for longer than five seconds at a time. They do like music, but since they are accustomed to talking over recorded music at home, they do the same thing with live music outside the home.
Trying to play louder than the audience’s volume level can often end in frustration, since they are totally comfortable shouting over even the loudest bar band. So i deliberately keep my whole shtick backgroundy and make it a selling point.,.. no singing, no jokes, no chat between songs… the audience doesn’t really want to hear any of that stuff anyway. They want to talk to each other. You can’t stop them.
So I just play whatever I want to and have fun. If anybody accidentally listens, fine. Works for me and works for the audience, too.
I actually have no problem with all the great backing tracks that are available online, but I like to make my own because a lot of the tunes I like to play are a bit outside usual GJ repertoire… “The Lady is a Tramp”, “Laura” “I’m in the Mood for Love” “Stealin’ Apples”… American songbook tunes like those are the ones I love best.
Good luck!
Will
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
@Lango-Django " ... Trying to play louder than the audience’s volume level can often end in frustration, since they are totally comfortable shouting over even the loudest bar band. ..."
My wife can report similar stories from her job. When she sings with a group of little children at the nursery school where she is is working, some collegues not only don't stop their private conversations or leave the room at least, but stay and start talking louder.
some collegues not only don't stop their private conversations or leave the room at least, but stay and start talking louder.
Yeah, isn’t human behaviour funny?
Another behaviour I sometimes wonder at is the tendency of people to want to socialize in a narrow corridor or other location which blocks others trying to walk past them…
…though I must admit that social distancing has had the unintended side effect of temporarily eliminating this one…
Edgar Degas: "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the painter do good things.... To draw, you must close your eyes and sing."
Georges Braque: "In art there is only one thing that counts: the bit that can’t be explained."
Another behaviour I sometimes wonder at is the tendency of people to want to socialize in a narrow corridor or other location which blocks others trying to walk past them…
I think this behavior stems less from the inconsiderate nature of the talkers, but more from the narrow corridor itself. Most likely it was this narrow corridor which saw them passing each other and they struck up a conversation as they met. Hopefully they would have awareness of others approaching and allow them to pass through.
Yeah, I also wish that somebody would put on Youtube purposely made slow backing tracks for practice at 100bmp.
I use Transcribe software, developed by guitarist Andy Robinson, as it does this effectively with downloaded videos and mp3s. It also works well at looping tricky passages and allowing you to annotate them with text.
It has a 30 day free trial and costs 39$ after that.
https://www.seventhstring.com/xscribe/overview.html
You can find hundreds of YouTube jazz backing track at about 100 BPM. You can play GJ style soloing to any of those.
Hey ! I just wanted to add something, more on the pedagogical side than technical side.
Playing swing tunes (that are usually played, let's say, from 150 to 200+ bpm like Minor Swing) at a very slow tempo like 100bpm or slower is not such a good idea to my point of vue : it's better to learn to play fewer notes at a tempo that makes a swing tune sound good like 150 and more, because Minor Swing played at 100bpm won't easily sound good.
Remember you have tunes that sound good at a slow tempo : swing ballads like Out of nowhere, or ballads like Danse Norvégienne.
I hope that help :-)