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Backing track generator for guitar

This backing track generator plays your chords. Type a progression, pick a style and a tempo, press Generate and play, and drums, bass and keys play it back while the fretboard shows you which notes to improvise with. There is no library of recorded songs here: the band is built in your browser from the chords you write. No account, nothing to install. It sits alongside the rest of our free guitar tools.

How to make a backing track from chords

1. Write the chords

Type them in the Chord progression box, one per bar, with a bar line between them: Am | F | C | G. The preview under the box shows the bars it recognized.

2. Pick a groove

Choose a style and a feel, straight or swung, and a tempo from 40 to 220 BPM. The line under the menus says what the drums, bass and keys will play.

3. Generate and play

Press Generate and play. Set Loop to Whole progression to keep it going, or to A/B loop to work on a few bars only.

Not sure what to type? Our chord progressions page lists the progressions behind most songs in every key. Copy one, paste it in, and you have a band for it.

Eleven styles, straight or swung

Each style changes the drum pattern, the bass line and the way the keys play the chord. The Feel menu switches it between straight eighths and a swung, triplet feel.

Style What it plays
Pop Backbeat on 2 and 4, root and fifth bass, short keyboard answers.
Rock Firm kick, snare on 2 and 4, root and fifth bass and driven chords, with shuffle pickups when swung.
Reggae Offbeat skank, one drop, round bass with few notes.
Funk Syncopated kick, short bass and a clipped clavinet.
Jazz Swing ride, walking bass and sparse comping.
Swing A clear ride pattern, four to the bar walking bass and offbeat comping.
Blues Shuffle when swung, a straight blues rock feel when straight.
Bossa nova Soft kick, syncopated rim, root and fifth bass, nylon string chords.
Electro Four on the floor, offbeat hats and a sequenced synth bass.
Soul Laid back groove, syncopated bass, soft keyboard answers.
R&B The same laid back groove as soul, with a round syncopated bass.

Improvise with the fretboard

The fretboard stays in view while the backing plays. Set the key of your progression and a scale, and it lights up every note of that scale across the neck, with the root marked. Arpeggios, on by default, also circles the notes of the chord that is playing, and Next chord tells you what is coming and when.

That gives you a simple way in. Start with the pentatonic for the key. Then aim for the circled chord tones on the first beat of each bar, and the solo starts to follow the changes instead of floating over them.

The scale menu holds sixteen scales and modes: the seven modes of the major scale, both pentatonics, whole tone, two diminished scales, harmonic and melodic minor and two of their modes. Notes ON and OFF show or hide the note names, and Export PNG saves the fretboard as an image.

Practice over your own audio

The tool also plays a file you already have. Drop an audio file, or paste an audio URL or a YouTube link, and it plays inside the tool with the fretboard beside it. Advanced settings then give you a speed from 50 to 150%, with the pitch kept or not, a transpose of twelve half steps either way, and an A-B loop.

With Auto ticked, the tool listens to the audio you load and suggests the key it hears; Lock keeps that key once you agree with it. Shortcuts: Space plays and pauses, the arrows jump five seconds, A and B set the loop points, L turns the loop on and off, and plus and minus change the speed.

A routine for a first solo

  1. Two minutes: play the chords along with the backing, so the changes are in your ear.
  2. Three minutes: one note per bar, the root of each chord, on beat 1.
  3. Three minutes: short phrases from the pentatonic, two bars long, with a bar of silence after each one.
  4. Two minutes: end each phrase on a circled chord tone, and listen to how much more finished it sounds.

If the notes still feel like a map you cannot read, our interactive fretboard teaches the neck itself. For a drum groove with no chords, use the online drum machine, and to record your own part and play over it, the online looper. The online metronome is there when the timing needs work, and the chord chart maker prints the progression for your music stand.

Frequently asked questions

Does it come with backing tracks of songs?
No, and that is on purpose. There is no library of recorded tracks here. You type the chords, and the tool plays drums, bass and keys over them, in the style and at the tempo you choose. If you have a recording of your own, you can load it as a file, an audio URL or a YouTube link and practice over that instead.
How do I write the chords?
One chord per bar, with a bar line between them: C | Am | F | G. Each chord lasts one bar of four beats. To hold a chord for two bars, write it twice. Sharps and flats work (F#m, Bb), and so do sevenths, maj7, m7b5, dim, aug, sus2 and sus4.
Can I slow the backing down?
Yes: set the Tempo field anywhere from 40 to 220 BPM before you press Generate and play. The Speed slider in Advanced settings is for audio you load, from 50 to 150%, and can keep the pitch while it slows down.
Which scale should I improvise with?
Set the key of your progression in the Key menu and pick a scale in Scale / mode: the fretboard shows it across the neck. The pentatonic is the safe start, major pentatonic for a major key, minor pentatonic for a minor one. When the tool follows the key of an audio file live, it also suggests four scales that fit under the fretboard.
Does it work with a YouTube video?
Yes. Paste the link in the audio or YouTube field and press Load. The video plays inside the tool, and you can loop a passage between A and B. For the key detection to hear it, use Analyze this player, which captures the sound of the browser tab.
Yohann Abbou, guitar teacher and founder of Guitar Social Club

Who made this

Guitar Social Club is the work of Yohann Abbou, a guitar teacher in Paris. He teaches adults, which shapes everything here: people with jobs, limited practice time and a clear idea of the songs they want to play. Playing over a band is where scales start to sound like music, and this tool puts a band behind any progression you can type. None of the tools asks you to sign up before it works, and the rest of our free guitar tools work the same way.

More about Yohann on his page, and about why Guitar Social Club exists.