FAQ

Well hello there! We are Joe and Nikki Davison, music producers with our studio Auburn Jam Music in South West London. We met in 2005 at the University of Warwick where we were both doing a little bit of studying and a lot of Musical Theatre Warwick! After leaving uni Joe started working as a music producer & manager of a recording studio in Wimbledon, freelancing for music publishing companies and MDing shows for several theatre production companies. Nikki, in the meantime, was working for AKA Promotions doing theatre marketing for shows including Sister Act, La Clique, 39 Steps, Hairspray, High School Musical.

In 2009 we got married and decided it was time to put our unique blend of skills in MDing, arts marketing, music production & musical theatre into setting up our own studio, with an emphasis on orchestrating & producing records for bands & songwriters, Musical Theatre solo albums and cast recordings, and composing & orchestrating for film & TV. We’ve been running AJM for 10 years now, with the support of our dog Jonsi!

Working so frequently with Musical Theatre performers and producers on recording projects, we found ourselves receiving a huge amount of requests to make high quality, realistic-sounding backing tracks for musical theatre songs, and realised there was a huge need for a website like this – so here we are!

For legal purposes, we are:
Auburn Jam Music Ltd
Company registered in England & Wales no. 09410232
VAT No: GB208856290
Trading address (i.e. the studio!): 580a Kingston Road, London SW20 8DR

There are a few other places on the internet selling musical theatre backing tracks… so why, you might ask, should you buy from us?

• We’re fast!
  Tracks are downloadable instantly once your payment has been processed. You will receive an email receipt containing your download link, or you can return to your account page after payment and find your downloads in there. Each track has a download limit of 3 attempts, so make sure you save your file carefully. If you have any problems, just drop us an email.
• We’re good!
  – We have over ten years experience working in both professional musical theatre and the recording & music production industry. We’ve composed & produced music for TV, film and national advertising campaigns, we’ve orchestrated and conducted for West End and international shows, and we’ve produced Original Cast Recordings and albums for Broadway & West End stars. So you know you’re getting the best quality music AND sound… the best of both worlds!
  – All our tracks are made using a mix of real instruments and some of the best instrument samples & plugins known to man.
  – We provide you with high quality MP3s at 320kbps – the highest quality MP3 you can get online! This means you’ll be able to hear loads more of the detail in the track and distinguish the different instruments, articulations and tones. Wonderful!
• We don’t pitch-shift… we re-record.
  Where you find our tracks available in different keys, they’re not pitch-shifted like most backing track retailers out there. Oh no… we actually record and produce the tracks in each different key. You see, when you pitch-shift a recording you get lots of strange artefacts and lose a lot of quality. If you’re putting so much effort into perfecting your performance, the last thing you need is a poor-quality backing track ruining that, so we’ll make all the effort we can to give you the quality you deserve! If the track you want isn’t available in the key you need, see FAQ 6 below and we’ll sort you out!
• We’re tempo-synced!
  We carefully tempo sync our tracks, wherever possible, to exactly match the cast recordings… not just the starting tempo, but every pause, rall, and vamp are all matched to those recordings you know and love. If there is more than one recording for a musical, check the notes in the description for details of which we’ve used.

Each track you download comes as a high-quality MP3 at 320kbps. This means you’ll be able to hear loads more of the detail in the track and distinguish the different instruments, articulations and tones. Wonderful!

• If you’re not in a rush, you can visit our ‘Suggest A Track’ page and fill out the form. Your request will be added to our list, and the most popularly requested tracks will be made first.
• If you need your track(s) urgently, you can pay to ‘fast-track’ the production. Please drop us an email with your request and deadline, and we’ll get back to you asap with a quote based on how complicated the track is (a 5-piece band track is much quicker & easier to make than a full orchestra!) and how quickly you need it made.

Absolutely!

• If you need a full score backing track, drop us an email with the details of your musical and the date for which you need it, and we’ll give you a quote!
• Please note, if you’re using the tracks for a public performance, you’ll need to chat to the publishers of the musical, or PRS on 0845 300 6033, about getting permission and a license to use the tracks for that purpose. For the website, we are only licensed to make and sell individual songs as they exist on released recordings, and for personal use only. But if you have permission from the rights holders, we can make backing tracks for full shows from the scores. The folks at PRS are very helpful and friendly and will be able to point you in the right direction!

You sure can!

• You’ll see on individual track pages that some songs will already have a choice of keys available. These are either keys that have been previously requested, or that we thought might be useful! You’ll find these listed as ‘Original’ key (i.e. the same as on the original cast recording) and options marked with how many semitones away it is (e.g. ‘-4’ is 4 semitones down, ‘+4’ is four semitones up). We try to be musically sensible about this because composers do choose their keys carefully – it might be impossible for most mere mortals to sing it any higher/lower, and sometimes the arrangement will just sound odd in a different key, so it’s not always a good idea to transpose.
• However, if you’d like the track in a key which isn’t there, get in touch and we can do this for you for £15+VAT. We arrive at this cost because we completely re-record and re-sample each new key, rather than just pitch-shifting the file, as we want to provide top-quality, professional standard backing tracks. Simply pitch-shifting a track will result in quite a loss of quality and you’ll end up with some weird, warpy-sounding artefacts. (If you’re not that fussed about that, you can always pitch shift it yourself in some free audio software!) Just drop us an email with the song title, musical and the key you want and we’ll sort you out!

• MusicalTheatreBackingTracks.co.uk endeavours to respect all music copyrights, and all musical material is re-recorded in a professional music production & recording studio, and does not use any feature of the original recordings. For more info & any queries on this, please go here.
• Our license allows for permanent download of tracks to be used in the home and privately. All uses other than home and private will require you receiving permission and/or a license from PRS. They’re very friendly and helpful people, so give them a call on 0845 300 6033 and they can advise you on what you need!
• Please note that all our tracks are ℗ and © to Auburn Jam Music and it is not permitted for them to be shared, copied or broadcast without permission. Please try to point your friends to our site rather than sharing your tracks with them, as this is illegal and means we won’t be able to keep making backing tracks for long! Thank you!

Firstly, sorry you’re having problems! We’ve tried to make the site compatible with as many browsers and devices as possible but unfortunately it’s frustratingly beyond our control sometimes. A few things to check:

• Are you using an iOS device (iPhone or iPad)?
  Apple haven’t made it possible to download MP3s to these devices currently, so please try again on a computer. We may need to reset your download limit for this so just drop us an email via the below form and we’ll do this as quickly as possible!
• Are you streaming the file rather than saving it?
  On some browsers, clicking the link will open and stream the file rather than saving it. To get around this you can right click on the file and choose to save instead. We may need to reset your download limit for this so just drop us an email via the below form and we’ll do this as quickly as possible!
• Are you using wifi or internet at a school or other public place?
  There may be a firewall in place on public networks that prevent downloads. Please try again on a private network.
• Are you using an up-to-date version of your web browser?
  Old browsers do throw up problems occasionally as they are not compatible with the latest download technology, so it’s always best for our site (and for your general internet browsing experiences) to be using the latest versions of your browser. Internet Explorer 6,7 and 8 are particularly tricky ones – you can update to the latest version IE10 here, or we personally recommend Google Chrome as a great browser. Again, we may need to reset your download limit for this so just drop us an email via the below form and we’ll do this as quickly as possible!
• Still not working?
  If you’ve tried again and you’re getting a message saying your download limit has run out, or you’re finding any other problems, just drop us an email via the below form. Please include details of any error messages you’re getting and what device and browser you’re using, and we’ll help out as quickly as possible!