Introduction And Overview
Jamming with other musicians and to backing tracks is an essential part of
learning to improvise solos. This process of jamming allows you to apply what you practice in a real-life
musical situation. And this helps you grow as a musician.
Although I've bought a lot of jazz backing tracks in the past, I must admit my
blues backing track collection has been a bit limited. So I was pleased when I came
across the 50 Blues website…
Product
Overview
50 Blues is the creation of professional guitarist and instructor Zack
Roberts. It comprises of the following…
- 50 blues-based backing tracks. (These are NOT cheesy midi-tracks. They are
professionally recorded using a full blues band).
- Blues Guitar Essential Course. This is a 29 page e-book written by Bob Murnaham
(who is the author of Pentatonic
Power). This e-book covers some of the basics of playing blues guitar. (It covers both rhythm and lead
guitar).
- Bonuses. At the time of writing this review, there are nine bonuses that you receive
when you purchase 50 Blues. (For full details of the current bonuses offered, please visit the 50 Blues website).
Pricing Information:
The price at the time of writing this review is $37.00 US Dollars.
I feel that the pricing of 50 Blues is very fair. If you buy the download version, it works out to
just 74 cents per backing track. And for professional sounding backing tracks, I feel
that it represents excellent value-for-money.
[IMPORTANT: The prices quoted above are accurate at the time of writing
this review. Keep in mind that prices may change. So be sure to check out the 50 Blues website for the most up-to-date
prices].
Guarantee:
50 Blues comes with an eight week money-back guarantee. This is a generous guarantee that gives you plenty
of time to evaluate the backing tracks.
What I Liked About 50
Blues
I bought 50 Blues several months ago, so have had a fair amount of time to evaluate the backing tracks. Here
are some things that I liked about them…
- High Sound Quality: I thought that the backing tracks sounded great. The sound quality
is far greater than any of the backing tracks that I've created for myself in the past. I found that this
made jamming to them very fun and enjoyable.
- Very Musical: I thought that the arrangements of the backing tracks were very musical.
I can tell that Zack has put a lot of effort to make the backing tracks sound like actual songs with proper
arrangements of instruments and song-structure. This adds to the enjoyment of jamming to them.
- Wide Variety: There is a very wide variety of blues-based styles, tempos and keys.
This is important because playing over many different types of backing tracks is one of the keys to
becoming a more versatile blues guitarist.
- Sensible Key Choice: I was pleased to see that the backing tracks were
in important blues keys. I always recommend to my students to master the common blues keys first.
And the 50 Blues backing tracks will definitely help you to do that.
What I Didn't Like About 50
Blues
There were two small things that I felt could have been done a bit better…
- File Naming: I felt that the names of the backing tracks were a bit inconsistent. Some
of the track names had the key and tempo included, while others didn't. This isn't a major problem though,
because Zack does provide documents that tell you the track info.
- Soloing Advice: Although Zack does suggest what scales to use over each backing track,
I felt that that he could have gone into a bit more detail. This would help less experienced guitar players
derive the most benefit from the backing tracks. This criticism is possibly a bit harsh, because 50 Blues
is primarily a backing track collection. It is not intending to be a complete how-to-play-blues
course. (If you are looking for a how-to course, then you would be better off with something like
Playing Through The Blues).
The
Bottom-Line
I'm giving 50 Blues a rating of 4-stars. I would have given it 5-stars if the naming of the
audio files was more consistent. This would have made it faster to find out the key and tempo of ALL the
tracks. I'm being incredibly harsh and picky here. But hey…it's my review, and I'll do what ever I want!
With that said, 50 Blues is an excellent sounding collection of blues-based backing tracks sold at a fair
price. So if you are a blues guitarist interested in improving your improvising, I can highly recommend
checking it out. Just click on the link below now to learn more…
Click Here To Visit The 50 Blues
Website
