By Carvel Avis in How-To Guides

Just below the Tab/Staff area you can load a number of different infinite loop backing tracks in different styles and keys to play along with. The left menu sets the root note, the middle menu sets the overall style and sets the options in the right menu from which you can choose a specific track.

At the time of this recording, in the Rock style, there are 3 minor tracks, one major track and the Pop Rock track that plays a simple major chord progression.

The pop style has one minor track, the country style has a major and a minor track the blues style has a single chord track, 2 12-bar blues tracks and a m7 chord blues track. The jazz style has a jazz 12-bar blues a V7 to 1maj7 track and several one chord latin and swing tracks.

You can sample each track by clicking the play button beside each of the choices in the menu on the right. When you make a choice in any of the 3 menus, that track loads and is ready to play in an infinite loop by clicking the play button. The rewind button stops the track and moves the notation to the beginning.

There are 3 play options, Riff, Track and Both.

1. If a riff is loaded in the notation window, you can watch & listen to it play without the backing track by selecting Riff.
2. If all you want to do is pull up a fretboard display and play along with a background track, select Track and the Tab/Staff area will be ignored by Riff Lab.
3. If you want to watch and listen to your riff being played with the background track, select both.

If you choose Riff or Both, you have 3 options under Riff Speed - Half, Normal or Double. See the help video on Tempo settings for more information.

1. If you choose Half, the riff will play at half speed.
2. If you choose Normal it will play at the tempo set in Settings or, if playing along with a track, the tempo of the track.
3. If you choose Double, the Riff will play at double the Tempo in settings or, if playing with a track, double the track’s tempo.

When you play a riff with a backing track, the track will continue to loop after the track has finished playing, allowing you to play it again as many times as you like.

If the track is still playing and you click the play button to play the riff again, the Riff will automatically begin at the beginning of the next measure of the track. This is so you don’t have to perfectly time clicking the play button with the track.

And those are all of Riff Lab’s Play Options.