A little while ago we wrote and published an article about great songs to play drums to. In that article our students, teachers and followers on Facebook suggested some of their favourite songs to play along to on drums.
We have been receiving many requests from all over the world in response from drum students asking for help to find “drumless” tracks for good drum songs to play along to.
Below we have compiled a list of the best (and free) drumless songs available. There’s also a list of other sources of play-along songs including the names of the major publishers.
What are Drumless Tracks?
Drumless, or ‘Minus Drums’ songs are recordings where the drum part has been taken out. This enables you to play along to the music and add the drum part yourself. It’s a cool practice tool to not only help you learn new songs, but it is also great for developing timing and timekeeping skills.
Drumless tracks are also a useful practice tool to develop the skills to play in a band. Some people like to use drumless tracks and film themselves drumming. Many of these videos (aka ‘Drum Covers’) then make their way onto YouTube or other video sharing sites.
Drumless songs can be used by drummers of all levels, from beginner to advanced. A beginner’s priority might be to use the backing track in helping learn some new grooves or to get better at playing fills. Whereas, a more experienced player might want to create his/her own version of the song with their own completely re-written or improvised drum parts.
How are ‘minus-drums’ songs made?
It is worth bearing in mind that there are a few different ways that the drums are removed.
There are variations in sound quality due to the way the drums are taken out. Some drumless tracks will not be the official original band version of a song, but an instrumental ‘sound-alike’ version.
The three main types of drumless tracks are:
- Official mix without drums
- Sound-alike versions
- Drums EQ’d out versions
“Drums EQ’d out” means that someone has taken the original recording of a song and used mixing software to locate the main frequencies of the drum sounds, isolate them, and then remove the drums.
This process can only ever be partially successful because it will remove some frequencies from other instruments or the vocals in the mix as well. This often results in a somewhat strange sound. It also not entirely legit and the people that do this modification could be infringing the copyright of the owner of the original sound recording.
It is difficult to tell if the EQ’d-out versions of songs found online have been published legitimately or not. It is probably best to assume that if the files are available for free and they’re the EQ’d-out type then you should exercise caution when downloading or streaming if you’re not using a recognised website.
A sound-alike version of a song is where the music is recorded from scratch and it very closely resembles a famous song. Often the vocals don’t get recorded. This means the song is more like a karaoke version (but without singing and without drums) – you could call it “drumeoke”.
One advantage of using the sound-alike type of drumless song is that it is often specifically created for educational purposes. Although it doesn’t sound exactly the same as the original recording, the instruments are usually mixed in a way that makes it very easy to play along to. It is also usually recorded to a click track (metronome).
With or without click?
We should mention that most ‘minus drums’ songs have a count-off. The count off is the clicks at the start to tell you where to come in with the drums. This means you’re not guessing the tempo and you know when to come in.
Drumless tracks that have been created by modifying an original recording tend not to have a click track all the way through.
If the recording has been created specifically to be a drumless song for education purposes, then it is much more likely that the creators will publish two versions of the recording. There would usually be one version with click all the way through and one version where the clicks are only present for the count in. In our list below, most publishers have provided the two versions for you to choose which one works best for you.
Free Drumless Tracks
Here are links to some of the websites that provide FREE drumless tracks. External links open in a new window.
Vic Firth Education – vicfirth.com/drumset-playalong-tracks
Free Drum Lessons – www.freedrumlessons.com/drum-lessons/drum-play-alongs
Free Drumless Tracks – freedrumlesstracks.net (some free, some you have to pay for).
Drumless Split Songs – drumlesssplitsongs.com/index (some free examples).
YouTube – just search for ‘drumless’ or ‘minus drums’ along with the name of the song, band or genre you’re looking for.
Do you know any more good sites for free play along backing tracks that we have missed? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll update this list.
Places selling Drumless Songs (not free)
The main sources of drumless songs are found in official drum playalong books.
The main drum music publishers are Hudson Music, Hal Leonard, and Alfred Music. Between the three of them they cover pretty much all of the ‘official’ catalogue of playalong drum music.
Subscribers to Rhythm Magazine (Future Publishing) get two or three playalong drum songs plus other tracks every month with the CD that accompanies the magazine.
Online, some of the providers of free drumless tracks also sell premium content you have to pay for. For example, the website called “Free Drumless Tracks” actually only has some examples which are truly free, the rest of their catalogue is ‘premium’ (paid for).
Do you know any more sources of drumless tracks that are worth a mention here? Please add them below in the comments section and we’ll update this article.
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How can i develop myself to be a good and deciplined drummer
just practise and complete all rudiments
Vic Firth has a list of 40 Rudiments you can play along to with recordings. But for Drum Set, you just take those rudiments and apply them to different drums and cymbals in any way you see fit. ??
Rudiments are great but they only help you move your hands/feet properly…i would split early practice into 3 sections. 1. Musical ear. 2. Interdependence of the limbs (marco minnemann’s extreme interdependence is a great resource on the subject). 3. Rudiments. All 3 are important but dont make the mistake that many drummers make…”I learned my rudiments now im good”. Yes rudiments are important but without developing a musical ear and a connection with your instrument, you will have a hard time moving forward and you can get bored if your just trying to fit rudiments into place…Many great drum beats are simple and the reason they’re great is because of the musical ear and “feel” of the musician. Also record yourself if you can even if its just on a cell phone
Check out tommy igoe’s lessons… really effective and free too❤❤
DRPA excellent source for drumless tracks from every genre that are perfect for working your Chops and pocket!
What’s DRPA?
What is DRPA
DRPA was a web app/site that doesn’t exist any more (that was 2016). But you can do a similar thing with apps like Moises nowadays
Another great option is ProJammer, a play-along drum app for iOS.
Great document. Why the drumless versions that i find in internet are not the same duration as the original ones? Usually thera are a few seconds of diference. Thanks!
Most places like youtube look for the tempo of a song to identify copyright infringement so a lot of the people who EQ out the drums also change the tempo slightly to get past those filters and that changes the song length.
drumless tracks to jam with legends and make your own cover videos
Killer Drumless Tracks.
Can you provide me with a list of music minus drums with no clicks,no vocals and real musicians playing?
Thanks, Jim
I think that’s what they’ve written about in the article above?
Lots of drumless trax
Lots of FUN
I broke my back a few years ago, and I recently started playing the drums . My problem is I got bad nerve damage in my right leg and it’s giving me the blues on the kick drum . The thing is I’m not how to fix the problem or will it fix its self over time and practice. It’s really throwing me off constantly.
Retrain yourself to use your left leg Scott… that may be the better solution.
Definitely seek professional medical advice relating to the specifics of your injury. But regarding kick drum issues more generally, if it causes pain there’s a strong indication that something needs to change. That could be a change to your own technique, or the way you’re sitting, or a change to the setup and positioning of the kit. That old saying “no pain no gain” is not necessarily true or helpful. You shouldn’t have to suffer pain during the time and practice it takes to learn and develop on the drums. Check out kick drum technique, your posture, and the setup of your kit (including stool height and the angle of your leg when playing the kick drum).
Excellent resource for thousands of drumless tracks. Sound-alike recordings, including vocals, you get 4 versions of your tune (full mix, drumless, drums only, maybe the other one is without vocals or something like that – you only need the drumless one). The drums-only track you get is often a bit too approximate for my taste, and often midi or elec kit, so could have been improved. As I say you don’t need that one anyway if you have good ears – just refer to the original recording for authenticity. Also worth adding that this site is only audio, no dots, but does also do similar for guitar, bass, keys and vocals.
Nick, what site are you referring to?
this may not exactly be what you’re looking for but this is a wonderful Spotify Playlist exclusively with songs with NO DRUMS
spotify. com/playlist/4Ju89iHxISRR3Wkzw0h9Vd
I think Nick’s talking about the Drumless Version site mentioned in the main article
I like minusdrums.. Decent cover songs and a lot of originals.
I have played acoustic drums and I feel I’m about average but due to neighbors I had to go electronic and I have know idea what I’m doing. Electronic drums were brand new but with no instructions and I’m old and I do not understand this internet stuff so can somebody just fill me in on how do I get a song I want to play along with through speakers or a stereo receiver both are new and up to date and I have an alesis crimson 2 electronic drum set. Thank you
Hi Dan,
You can plug in a mini-jack cable to the input labelled AUX IN at the back of your drum kit’s module. This will mean you’ll have a wired connection from your music device to your kit’s module.
Please let us know if you need any more help to get that working.
🙂
Looking for drumless CDS would like 1970-1980
Lately I have been checking out TomPlay for drumless tracks. It is pretty good but is a Premium paid site.