Kim Gentes

For twenty years I have been involved in worship ministry in local churches. It has been from both a sense of joy and calling that someone does that. In that time, I have had the opportunity to be involved in churches from 20-500 people, including two church plants and 3 established churches. Along the way, I've been invited to lead at various places with groups ranging from 10 to 1000 and more. Every context is unique and leading worship through music for each context means that you need the right tools and resources. 

In many situations, having a compliment of skilled musicians for a full band is not possible. Church plants, special events, youth nights and other situations sometimes leave you standing there with your guitar, playing away, worshiping your heart out. I believe that God is honored when we give Him everything we have each time we worship- our surrendered hearts are what He looks for (Psalm 51:17). That being said, as your community is gathering you can sometimes find yourself with parts of a band (such as a drummer and keyboardist, but no bassist). These people are ready to serve, but it would be helpful to be able to "sub" in that missing player until a person arrives at your church who can serve in that role.

Enter "Worship Backing Band" (WBB for short). A couple years ago, I noticed that a number of these software tools were releasing to supplement musical tracks for musicians in local church settings. I had known the folks at Musicademy because of the great training resources they released over the years (which I had tried and reviewed favorably). So I knew I wanted to check out there new "Worship Backing Band" software at some point.

The version I was able to download is the latest (1.5) and it comes available for the Mac or PC. I choose to do my testing and using it on both a PC and a Macbook Pro so I could get the feel for both environments interactions. Downloading and installing it was simple enough. Once installed, I went and acquired a few songs to do my testing (I chose "Bless The Lord/10000 Reasons", "How Can I Keep from Singing", "Let God Arise" and "You Alone Can Rescue"). The model for this is that you purchase the player for $25 (it always comes with one free song of the month), and then you purchase individual songs that you need (priced from $8.99 down to $6.91, depending on how many songs you buy).  Compared to the hundreds of dollars you might spend on Ableton Live (which I have and use, as well) on just the software, this is very, very affordable.

Once you download and install all the songs, you are ready to use the software. The nice thing about the software is that using it on PC or Mac is identical. The interface and functionality is replicated perfectly. Using the system is, above all, simple! The right pane of the application contains a playlist for the songs you want to use in your worship set. You load songs into it by clicking on the "library" button and exposing the songs available to you in the middle pane from your library. Drag and drop the songs from the middle library pane into your playlist on the right. 

On the left side pane is a mix control panel for each of the instrument tracks in the song. Everything from lead voice, background vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitars (2 tracks), keyboards (2 tracks), bass, drums and couple of click tracks (regular and shaker) are available. There is even a vocal cue track.

Here is how you use it: 

1. First, select the "mute" button for any instruments that you have in your band. (leaving un-muted any tracks you wish to play out loud with your band). Make sure to save your song "mix" by using the "Save Song Mix". 
2. In the middle pane, adjust the pitch and tempo to your desired settings for your band.
3. Click Play.

Basically, 90% of what you will want to do with WBB is covered by those instructions. However, you can adjust the volume for any track if you want more/less of any instrument. As the song plays, you can also jump to or repeat sections using keyboard keys "<>" and "g". The beauty of this tool is that it is clear, simple, and easy to use. If you use a PC or Mac laptop, and want an easy-to-use software package for adding virtual instruments to your regular band members, you should really look at Worship Backing Band.

Once it was installed, I grabbed my guitar and was ready to go within just 30 seconds using this software and my Macbook Pro. While there are no advanced features for saving the segment flow of a song (only the mix), or for adding your own custom tracks, this program allows you to do what you minimally want to do.  Musicademy has over 125 popular worship songs in their purchasable song library for your church, which would be 90% of the common songs used by many churches. That along with the the minimalist approach on the interface of this tool makes Worship Backing Band simple, clear and easy-to-use. The nice thing is, you don't have to spend any money to try WBB out. Musicademy has a functional demo version of the software that you can download for Mac or PC. Below is a summary video that is all the instruction I needed to get going and use WBB. 

If you want to try out Worship Backing Band, go here and check out the details, download the demo and see the song library: Worship Backing Band

NEW WBB 2.0 Update: After I had completed the initial review of version 1.5, I was able to get a sneak peek at the latest update to WBB version 2.0.  This new version comes with a number of significant updates for those who want more power and control. It is important to note that the new Worship Backing Band software (v2.0) will be called "MultiTrack Pro Wav Player". The current version will still be available for those wanting the current functionality and not needing anything else.  The main updates I found bring the player up to another level of helpfulness for the local church worship leader. Here are the highlights:

• Seamless Loop & Navigate - Now you can seamlessly loop and jump through song sections. Want to do the chorus again? Now it is easy in "MultiTrack Pro Wav Player". The player automatically queues up the exact right spot to jump back to the start of any section, so it feels musically seamless. You could navigate sections in v1.5 but you had to perfectly time the keystroke required to do so, which is almost impossible if you are also playing an instrument (even with a pedal) and leading a congregation. Now, looping, section navigation and such all keep the song together and flowing like a real band would.
• Save Section Structure - like the above navigation, you can also save the song flow instead of having to remember your customizations.
• USB foot pedal support - you can now navigate through a song by controling the player from a USB foot pedal. Great update.
• Audio WAV Hi-quality- the tracks are now full WAV files and as such have more control and clarify of audio.
• Customize your own instrument tracks - you can now load your own WAV files into a song by importing them. Got your drum loop or track you want to use? Just hit CTRL-m on a song and you can now load your instrument as part of the song mix. Great for more advanced users.

All in all this "MultiTrack Pro Wav Player" update is great. Be sure to check out Worship Backing Band.

Review by Kim Gentes

MasterWriter is an innovative and easy-to-use software program for lyric writing, but includes well thought audio recording and copyright record keeping functions. While MasterWriter has the best rhyming dictionary available online or offline, it is better defined as a songwriter’s workspace. MasterWriter is the pinnacle for lyric writers, though it doesn’t contain melodic or chordal songwriter development tools. This excellent creative and organizational tool is available on Mac and PC.

I recently had the opportunity to try out Masterwriter personally and enjoyed it so much, I wanted to meet the people behind it.  A few weeks later, I had the opportunity to talk with Barry De Vorzon who created the software.  I caught up with him at a songwriters conference out in California. Barry is a wonderful guy and has a real heart to see songwriters equipped with a tool that is both helpful and easy to use.  

If you get a chance to check out Masterwriter, I encourage you to do so.  Several well known songwriters are using it and it can be literally mastered by wathcing the amazingly well-though 18 minute flash tutorial.  

Songwriters- MasterWriter is a slam dunk for you.  Add it to your toolkit. You'll be glad you did!

Check it out at :

http://amzn.to/IRPO2z

Kim Gentes