Monday, February 7, 2011

Toontrack Rock Song midi pack

I love to write music.

Usually just a certain riff from the guitar or some chord progression from the piano catches my attention, and then blossoms. Then, as I try to get to sleep, it takes shape in my head. But, by the time I should be fast asleep, the song has a verse, chorus, bridge, and some rough vocal ideas. So, pushing sleep aside, I get up and start to record it before it is gone forever.

It comes in waves for me.

Sometimes the process of putting a song togather is painfully slow, sometimes it is blazingly fast. Sometimes it is as if I can't get one part down before the next part is perfected in my head, and it too will need to get recorded or it too will be lost. Yet, at other times, the next piece of the puzzle just will not go into place. No matter what I try, it just does not fit. Sometimes it is a bass line that fights with me, but most of the time it is a solid drum score that eludes me.

I love being able to audition drum lines using midi drum libraries. I can't always find that “perfect line of midi”, if there is such a thing, but I can usually get very close. I can always go back and move midi notes around, like moving a snare hit to a rim hit. I can also chop up the midi information to make things fit better. So, let me introduce what has become my favorite midi file library to start my search in.

Rock Songs, from Toontrack, is the songwriters dream. As taken from an email that Toontrack sent out, “Rock Songs midi pack, Played by Swedish powerhouse drummer Owe Lingvall...... Rock Songs MIDI pack comes stocked with a variety of songs in different feels, styles and tempos. Part from the individual, full 4-8 bar song structure building blocks (verse, pre chorus, chorus, bridge, fill etc.), it also includes each entire performance from start to finish as a Jamtrack, which means you can fire that up and jam along to the original take right away.”

Let me elaborate some more, and explain what I like about Rock Songs midi pack. I like that it is set up as songs are. You can quickly and easily select from different “variations” of the same part, for the verse, chorus, and so on. This is what makes finding that particular sound fast. Perhaps verse two needs some more cymbal work, or more toms, or some off the cuff snare is all in here! Customizing the midi is a snap, and before you know it, a song is born! Top it off with a nice selection of fills, taken right from Rock Songs midi pack, and it is done!

Rock Songs contains the following.....

Approximately 450 individually played files


Full Jamtrack of each song performance

Ballad / Halftime / Midtempo / Uptempo / Shuffle variations

With a price of only 29 Dollars, what else are you waiting for? Go get it!


  1. Sometimes, I write one that just flows out of me, and I think, "That's the one that is meant to be", and/or "This must be my true style" since it came so easy. Other times, the paper just ends up in balls all around the trash can!

  2. I have two songs completed and waiting for instrumentals.