5 reasons why you should use Multitracks in your church, and 3 reasons why you shouldn't

You should use Multitracks, to encourage the creators to continue worshiping Mammon, I say it sarcastically because, there's no good reason to sell a song for 30 bugs and more or a click track for 5 bugs, only a click, nothing else.

I play electric guitar, the original key of the song is modified often. Yes you can hear the individual tracks for all electric guitars in the song (in the modified keys) but I don't see any tabs or notes for those. Am I missing something? Song chart has chords only.

Is there a reason to need to "sound like the record" when the goal is simply to lead the congregation in worshipping The Lord? This is my biggest gripe with multitrack. I can get over using keyboard pad sounds in a multitrack, but when I hear prominent instrument parts that no one is playing I do feel like there is something off spiritually. I'd rather something be simplified if need be and keep it human.

small annoyance but guy on the right looked at camera way too infrequently... great content tho...

Im not really a fan. As I say in my MT video, it takes the spontaneity out of Worship.

Guys! I just got Loop Prime and a couple multi tracks. Have to say it is the BEST practice tool I have ever used! Thank you for letting me know about multitracks

i am a pastor in a church plant in south texas, i don't have any musicians besides myself, (i play the guitar), you guys don't recommend that i use multitracks? i literally don't have a worship team but myself and my daughter who sings

Talking too too much guys!!!... Let's get to the point... Thank you for sharing though... I only watched4 mins... Sorry. (not that affects you or you care about it, but...)

You guys nailed it again!!!! Weve used them for some time now and I teetered on the edge of how much and what. Our Worship arts pastor and I have talked many times about this ... He allows me to pick which guitar parts to mute and which to leave in or dial back. When I know that many songs have layers of stems for guitar and realize “I cant do it all” and then its an easy decision to leave in some to beef up the song and give it more presence and texture . Ableton now runs alot of our production and using tracks is a natural fit. Mind you... if you pick a part and mute the stem. YOU BETTER NAIL IT!!! 😂😂.

Another reason not to. You are using floor monitors.

Don't disagree with most of what you are saying. However, when you have the musicians and singers you can make statements as to why not to use multi-tracks. We come from a rural town of 1700 with six other churches in town. Thirteen in a ten-mile radius so you can see that available talent can be extremely limited. We use multi-tracks but mute any available instruments or background singers that we have on the team. We aren't looking to sound professional just well rounded and full. And I agree that God doesn't care if we have a bass player (we do) or a drummer (we don't) but anything that distracts the congregation isn't good. There are enough worldly distractions already.

So all, ALL the reasons you said NOT to use tracks is what we have at our church (but a few more musicians than organ and drums). That was funny! Like you were talking specifically about us.

I’ll give another “for” as well. If you’re a WL with an instrument, vocal cues stop you needing to rock your head back and forth, stand on one leg, wink at the drummer (thats wrong in any scenario) just so you know where to go in a song

And if your drummer goes off the click, there aint a pretty way to recover that one either

I’ll give you another reason not to use them. It strikes me, particularly if you are a small church with limited resources. Paying 90 dollars a month for cloud hosting plus 30-60 dollars for a good quality Multitrack isn’t really being a good custodian of the resources you have. Im not anti MT, in fact our church uses them but I really think the cost is exhorbitant!

Yes, let us be lead by a pre-planned program. I'm sure the Holy Spirit loves working within the confines of a multi-track.

Click tracks really do instantly make the band better. No joke. You may not like the first time you try it, but give it a few go's and see the instant difference it makes once it's not messing you up, it will actually make you better.
Our church uses click tracks and just a base pad of the root note of the song; so if a song is in the key of A it's just a very low and subtle "A" chord underneath everything, it's never at the forefront. It just adds a little flavor, like what they are talking about in the video.
I'm not a huge fan of the section cues, but not against them. They are right, they help especially with not being too repeat-y of bridges, etc. But just know that using them limits you, you cannot do any spontaneous worship with them. While you should know your church and know your congregation, and even if you never really do anything spontaneous like that, I still think we should be open to what the Holy Spirit is doing during a set. Our church rarely breaks out in spontaneity, but I also don't want to lock us in to something that doesn't allow the Spirit to move, if He so chooses.

We do use a click, but I can also remember when a band practiced for hours a day and played by feeling and groove. I have played with some musicians with “perfect time” and no groove, As well, I have played with groovers whose time is not the greatest, use what is right for you. i have the click off in my ears unless i am starting a song.

I will give a extra offerrig 😂 to play with a click and guide... Repeat ing something make the music bored.. I suggest it... But not many people like cus they leazy irresponsible and not committed to became better... I refuse to practice with metronome.. THE BEST TOOL EVER CREATED

Do you think anyone will notice, when we replace our singers with multitracks?😉😂

Our church is small and we have very few musicians. I record and build all my own multi tracks, and then we play acoustic guitar and piano and vocals live. It works great for us! Why have a small sounding worship experience when I have the ability to make it so much more impactful by using the skills God gave us?

Great stuff as always guys

Another issue with using multi tracks is copyright issues. If your church streams the worship live on Facebook, the multi tracks sound so much like the original song that Facebook will warn you about copyright infringement. After a couple on repeat warnings, your Facebook account will be shut down.

Hate them!! We have started to use them - feel like it’s fraud. Click track is a must!!

The more you control worship the less God will be in it

We use multitracks at my church, and as "Worship Tutorials" said, there are pros and cons. I love the "guide voice" that lets me know what's coming next, the Chorus or verse 2, etc. We already played to a click prior to using tracks, so we were already used to keeping time. I think there is a learning curve on how much to use on each song. My preference is to keep it minimal, but use the extra stuff that would be hard unless you had 2-3 keyboard players or things like that. Good presentation @Worship Tutorials.

I've just introduced tracks to my student band. They loved it, but they also learned how difficult it can be to play along with them. I created the multi-track myself with my home recording software, so this was an advantage in that I added only the instrumentation they need (i.e. I have bass, drums, piano, acoustic, electric, and plenty of vocalists). However, the students don't have a good synth that produces a good pad sound, so I added a couple of layers of pads. The drummer I have is getting better, but as a student he's still learning -- so I added in a couple of frame drums and synthesized drum loops to make his sound bigger than he's capable. Also, since our vocalists don't have an in-ear system, I added a couple of synths with arpeggiated chords to help them keep the tempo. Again, they loved it and it really helped them -- but like you said, it is easy to forget where you are and that's what happened in rehearsal several times, so we're going to try again in a couple of weeks.

I’m a young musician and I lead a youth band in my church. There’s not a lot of youth band content and I would love to see some on your channel. Btw you guys are amazing and do a great job!

I've never had an experience where multi tracks was used correctly. Moreover, over time it creates lazy musicians because we don't need to work to create the sound, the tracks supplement everything. Also, what is most important is that you never have to strive to sound like the record. Why? Avoid becoming karaoke worship teams and instead create your own style and sound while constantly trying to develop musically. Let your team's learn to feed off each other and the worship leaders, not off a robotic click or guide track.

Never!!!!

If you use a click or multitrack how do you go back to the chorus, or hang on one chord or have any spontaneity?

At my church we have a lot of spontaneous thing because it feels right.

You nailed the 3 reasons not to use Multitracks. Especially #3.

Great video, looking forward to part 2. Question: we have been using stems from both LoopCommunity and Multitracks in worship for a while. But a big change is coming as we are starting to Livestream in a few months and I have seen there may be issues with copyright depending if the stems are master tracks or not. Anyone had experience with this or have any problems using them over Livestream?

You could also listen to the worship leader as you are playing.

Click tracks and section cues are great. I'm not a fan of backing tracks though. Just tends to change the whole thing from worship to Karaoke...

I’m not a big fan of stuff that’s not on the stage live being played through the speakers, I feel that we have enough musicians to cover a full sound (keys/synth, 2EG, 1AG, Bass, Drums/Perc). That being said there is no excuse ever to not at least play to a metronome. We also use the guides so we are all heading the same direction, then just let the click continue for the spontaneous stuff. Best of both worlds imho.

Multitracks and click tracks have been amazing! But with a lot of this, human error can and does happen. We were getting ready to play Do It Again, and the wrong click track started playing - about 1/3 slower (or more) than the song. We didn't notice until halfway through the first verse but by then...too late! 😅

Tracks make me lazy, whenever I play at my larger church campus where they use tracks and since modern Christian music is so easy to play, I find I don’t need to practice the songs and still sound great, pretty much no one can hear me anyway .
I’ve played classical and jazz piano for years and now just sit back and play basic 1-5-6-4 progression in 4 “different” songs along with a bunch of synth tracks. But at the smaller campuses we don’t use tracks and people get up. And clap and actually sing and play, you are more exposed. Plus we can’t afford the infrastructure to use multi tracks in the smaller congregations. Also I’m old and used to play in a Funk band.

I'll do what's asked of me, but as a musician playing along with six other tracks of the same instrument that I'm playing has no appeal

On many songs we use the Multitracks, but on ALL songs we use the click track.

I'd like the click,music direction and nothing else.

First

We use multi tracks in our services. It changed my life. For real. I love it. I was apprehensive about it. But now I can’t see it any other way! Lol thanks guys!