OK, I've had my biab for about 24 hours now. I've managed to enter a few chords and the software creates songs ...whoop tee dooo. What I really want to do is create bass tracks and drums. I've went to the Notation mode and entered bass lines , I've saved them...but when I push the play button, the system plays a canned bass line not the one I entered. I tried opening the saved version and the notation still doesnt play...Huh? With the hours spent so far I probably couldl have recorded the bass lines i need.... can this really be this hard? I'm no computer whiz but have usesd Excel, auto cad etc etc for the last 25 years.... how do I create a simple bass line from scratch, save and use it?
Sounds like since you went ahead and edited the bass line you may want import the song into RealBand. RealBand will play your tracks as you have written/recorded them.
You may want to start like this: Save the bass line notation as a MIDI file and import that MIDI file into a track in the RB session. You can then drag and drop your other instruments that you created using BIAB from BIAB onto RealBand.
One thought since you are wanting to use just bass & drums. This is what I would do to speed up the results. I would create the song in BIAB. Mute the other instrument parts at the top of the window except the drums and bass. Once I found something close to what I liked, I would export it into RealBand. The MIDI will be easy to edit and make changes to both drums and bass to your exact liking.
Let me know if that works for you. And welcome aboard!
Cheers!
RickeG
Well swivel a few things first.
1. You didn't read any of the sales lit
2. You need to read the manuals
The whole idea of BIAB is to generate canned parts. If you edit parts that are MIDI and part of a style they will indeed revert back to the "canned" part when you hit play. If you want to make changes to these MIDI "canned" parts you must freeze the track first and then it won't change. I wouldn't get too hung up on this though because if you're like most of us you'll want to use Real Tracks & Real Drums and those can't be changed.
Read the book please
Swivel,
Quote:
...how do I create a simple bass line from scratch, save and use it?
By using a program that was designed to do that. Band In A Box is not that program.
The concept behind Band In A Box is that you want the program to automatically create up to five parts of backing tracks, including the bass line.
You can use Real Band, or PowerTracks Pro Audio to create bass lines that will stay just how you created them. You can even use both Band In A Box and Real Band or PTPA together, i.e., to create a full backing sequence, and the move everything to either RB or PTPA, discard the bass track, and write your own.
But, you can not create a bass track in a Band In A Box song and expect to save it, it will auto regenerate each time. This is what the program is designed to do.
Gary
Hi Swivel
The way I get over this problem is to mute the BIAB bass part and then write a bass Midi part in the Melody or Soloist sections and in Soloist edit transpose the newly written bass part down to suit and then save
The program does not regenerate the Melodty or Soloist sections
Brian
Gary,
Although as I said it's not going to work with the Real Instruments one of the new features is indeed the ability to change what each instrument is playing via the notation window and then freeze it. It will not change when you hit play and the song can be saved that way. Again this only applies to MIDI.
Band-in-a-Box has 2 tracks that you can use for your own purposes (bass lines etc.). These are the Melody and Soloist tracks (note: MIDI only, not audio). In addition, you can use any track for your own purposes if you freeze it (right click on the the 'Bass" at the top of the screen and you can freeze the bass track. Then notes entered on the bass track will be yours. You can do that after BB has generated a track, in case you just want to tweak it.
If you want to do a lot of your own tracks, I would recommend booting up RealBand, you can record 48 tracks (audio and MIDI) as well as generating BB tracks from that. It is included with Band-in-a-Box.
There is a RealBand getting started video
http://64.40.109.185/pgmusic/wmv/RealBand.wmv
Swivel, welcome to the forum.
I do it exactly as Brian (jazzman) and Dr. Gannon described, although it's really great that you can now freeze any track after editing it.
Sorry you got blasted with 'read the manual' message. Doing so is a good idea, as well as viewing the videos, but so is trying things on your own. From this thread, you have seen that, next time, you may not have to put in as much time struggling before getting the answer from one of us. And in no time, you can return the favor by answering questions of the new users to follow.
Man for bass lines, in the jazz idiom, Realtracks bass is the real thing. Neil S doing his thing to Satin Doll, Oliver Gannon filling on guitar, and Terry Clarke on drums, all real tracks, make a .wav backing file and Bob's yer uncle and Peter is the man.
The program is best used to back your instrument and or voice. And nothing does it better. You can find thousands of songs on-line, try:
http://members.shaw.ca/glitch/bbfiles.htmlThousands just there. Load them up, change the style, make parts louder, mute the melody and play along, mute the bass and add that yourself, the sky's the limit.
Without wishing to prolong this, perhaps the best analogy (drawing from the original post) is that he is trying to lay out the design for a new house in excel ...
Well it's a good starting point to work out the number of board feet of which lumber and which sheetings sq. footage of insulation, yards of wiring, etc. Add in the monthly fluctuations for the whims of women involved, the frustration levels of their decisiveness, and your tolerances without resorting to staying at the pub with friends consuming single malts at X * Y and you've a start to the decision to go on vacation and purchase something already built..
LOL.
Matt,
I might have suggested to read the manual but I also pointed out how to do it as well long before Peter posted his message. I don't think I blasted.
You know sometimes my posts come off as blunt however I'm a 2 finger typist and so I need to say what I want to say in as few words as possible.
Sorry John. You are correct, 'blasted' was too harsh. I was concerned that your blunt reply could potentially drive a new user off the forum, and he hasn't been back.
I have you beat by one finger. On good days, two!
Best wishes.
And I did tell him how to achieve what he wanted as well.
He's probably off reading the book.
You can use two fingers?!?!?! Dude!
Thanks for the help all. I did try to read what looked "most pertinent" in the 257 page manual. Frankly the quik start could be a LOT better. I guess maybe I bought the wrong product according to some... I thought I could create my own tracks as well as use canned tracks if I chose to. Maybe I can with the workarounds mentioned. thanks again
You certainly can, especially if you use Realband with BIAB. Good luck. We're here to help.
swivel,
Don't get discouraged. This program is very complex. It's going to take time.
I agree totally with Matt
As a long time user of Powertrax (since version 1.06 - pre windows), last year I decided to purchase & try BIAB for my live performances.
Had a problem regarding Midi "parts" that worked differently in BIAB so thought that I would ask the forum.
Got a bad response here, havent posted or used BIAB since
No whinging, just commenting on the point made by Matt. Quite happy with my PT12 thankyou, just will be more careful when asking for help.
Thanks for the verification, tuggeranongcc.
Glad you're back.
Hi Tugger
I do understand your concern with rude replies as I had also stopped using this forum for a time - and then I thought why should I let a few ruin what the majority do in a good and helpful way - including good people like Matt - the John's - Gary - Bob and many more
It would be useful to be able to filter out those who offend you so that you can fully enjoy the wonderful experience as it must be remembered that the forum is a facility that PG Music allows and the only official content from them is PG Music staff posts which are the most accurate
Posters must remember that what other posters write can be read in different ways by different people
I always post as my signature the details of my set up so that readers can be well informed - it could save a lot of time in trying to give suggestions to solve the problems than going backwards and forwards squeezing out the details needed
Brian
Thanks for those replies, Matt & Jazzman, really made a big difference.
For information, my setup down here in Australia is as a one man band, with backing tracks recorded through Powertrax. Only thing I was going to use BIAB for was to play the same backing tracks, but hoping to improve a bit with a slightly better sound & big lyrics sheet, while possibly avoiding the few MIDI issues encountered with PT.
Problem I had was that some of my tracks, the ones downloaded then heavily edited, while playing fine in PT from bar 1 to bar whatever, in BIAB seemed to start in a different way, sometimes starting at bar 8 or 9.
Not a big deal at all, I now realise that BIAB is probably not suited to my needs, but PT does the job admirably, and after so long, I know it well.
I shall continue to be a member of this forum, & hopefully can assist some newcomers to Powertrax in the future.
Simon
Mount Gambier
Australia
1. Communication is 10 percent verbal. You can't get the rest on a computer screen.
2. Some people come across as D and the X(asses) some of us can be go ,. Whoa, RTFM that's page 1.
3. I for one can be suspicious of questions that should go to support come here, and suspect someone got a bitstream and is ..well you get it.
4. Without knowing everything from a one man band setup, We cant' begin to give advice. We have all midi guys, all RealTracks guys, guys who use a b c through Z.
Some have small investments, others have big rigs.
So list the computer, operating system, sound card, type of amp, mics, speakers, type of music, an example of where you play, give us the real dope.
I'm the high end guy, bought the 4k Bose, keyboard not on through, embed stuff in a Band in a Box track to control a Voice box, just bought an EWI 6000s, the wife plays flute, I got a new Audix Mic that is great.
I have lots of songs, over 10,000 songs in Band in a Box format.
I've used PT, and can't imagine using it unless you are recording mp3's or wave files. With a click of a button you can change your bassist, lay things out, and drag the whole shebang from latest version of Band in a Box into Powertracks. Even some of the realtracks have real midi notation, so if you are doing a jazz piece and Peter's award winning brother did the jazz guitar you can pull that as midi into Realtracks or PowerTracks or any other DAW and tweak it.
I watched a video on the EWI the other day and the guy said I'm doing this so because so many people send the thing back, and you just need a hand up.
Stick out the hand, one bad day with someone does not an experience make.
I teach part time (or taught that's a long story), hospitality industry workers.
A customer walks in the bar alone. Sits down, and she goes over to him, chewing gum, Ya waddaya want, looking at her nails.
or Puts a hand on his shoulder, gets to eye level, and says, Hi, how are you, I'm Susie, and smiles.
BTW, the guys is having trouble at home, trouble at work, and health issues. Who's most in line to get a nice tip and a repeat customer?
We can't control your experience here, but an understanding of human nature can go a long way...to getting to where you want to go.....
Guy walks into a bar with a parrot..NEVER MIND.
Quote:
Thanks for the help all. I did try to read what looked "most pertinent" in the 257 page manual. Frankly the quik start could be a LOT better. I guess maybe I bought the wrong product according to some... I thought I could create my own tracks as well as use canned tracks if I chose to. Maybe I can with the workarounds mentioned. thanks again
If you really have no experience at all with Biab then yeah, that manual is a bear.
You didn't buy the wrong product, there's nothing else in the software music world that does this. Also, these suggestions are not workarounds, they're features. The term workaround implies there's something wrong but here's how to work around it. That's not the case with what you're asking about. Peter Gannon is the man, do exactly what he said including using Real Band. To me RB is better than Biab for what I do. Much more flexible, many more options and then there's this from you:
"I thought I could create my own tracks as well as use canned tracks if I chose to."
Absolutely, that is what RB was created to do except it has 48 tracks to work with for your own tracks instead of Biab's two. As has already been said Biab will do what you want but RB is much more and since you're starting out with both anyway, learn them both at the same time. Try Biab for maybe a half hour or so, see what you come up with then switch to RB and do the same thing. Just remember RB is it's own separate program and the configuration and setup is different from Biab. Big point, RB can access and generate every Real Track or Real Drum part that Biab can. RB will open a Biab song file so you don't have to recreate the chord grid. It will automatically put the Biab tracks in blue at the top of the track screen for reference but you have 40 more blank tracks to use below them. If you're not importing a Biab song, there's a checkbox to release those 8 Biab tracks at the top for use as regular recording tracks. Even that is a bit tricky to explain right now, just accept that that is a very flexible option depending on what you're trying to do. You can keep those first 8 tracks as strictly Biab tracks and use them just like you would Biab or not, your choice. You can also simply right click any other empty track and generate a Biab part for that one track only.
As to your original question, you can write your own bass parts in RB no problem and combine it with many different Biab tracks, maybe other midi tracks you imported from another midi file or your own recorded parts but you could also write several different bass parts each on it's own track in order to test them. You mentioned drums, how would you like to create say 3 or 4 different drum tracks each using a different Biab style and mix parts of them together in order to create one killer drum track? Can't touch that in Biab but I do that all the time with RB. It is very flexible but certainly confusing at first.
Watch the video's, they're the easiest to understand, play around with it and come back here with more questions.
Bob
Swivel,
I don't think you bought the wrong product either. On the other hand, the learning curve on this stuff is daunting.
Let's go back and recap a little bit
1. Band In A Box automatically generates new parts each time you press the play button. So, any work that you've done modifying the bass track will get wiped out. You can press the RePlay button, and it should not change.
2. Saving the file will not, to my knowledge, save an edited track, UNLESS that track is either the Soloist or Melody track. Those can and are saved.
3. Dragging tracks, edited or not, to Real Band (which you should have included in your purchase) will allow you to edit and save those tracks. You can drag other tracks from BIAB to Real Band, saving all of them as 'static files.'
4. In Real Band, you can also use Real Tracks for non-bass tracks, if you wish.
You *do* have the right program, you just need to learn how to best adapt it to your needs.
Gary
Quote:
Well swivel a few things first.
1. You didn't read any of the sales lit
2. You need to read the manuals
The whole idea of BIAB is to generate canned parts. If you edit parts that are MIDI and part of a style they will indeed revert back to the "canned" part when you hit play. If you want to make changes to these MIDI "canned" parts you must freeze the track first and then it won't change. I wouldn't get too hung up on this though because if you're like most of us you'll want to use Real Tracks & Real Drums and those can't be changed.
Read the book please
I answered the guy right off the bat with how to do what he wanted to do however because I dared to suggest he also read the manual I'm the biggest A**hole to walk the planet.
If you open the manual in the bb folder and type in "freeze tracks" it jumps to a very nice explanation of how to do that. I mean should I have retyped all that ? or copy and paste?
I agree John, I thought your reply was ok just a bit blunt is all. This from the guy who has done exactly the same on occasion and caused some consternation. Sometimes when I do that it's because I had just composed my first draft of an answer and my first draft can be a little strong, then I got interupted so I hit continue rather than taking a second look first. I'm making an effort to soften my approach a little.
Bob
Too Cool, Peter! Thanks for pulling that tutorial. I have been spending all of my time learning BIAB that I put down Real Band until I got better with BIAB. However, based on this tutorial it looks like RB will do some things that I have been wanting to do along with the visual screens to see the parts as they play. I particularly liked the "Fade record" function where you lowered the mandolin solo at the end. One of the reasons I have not used solos is because often times their endings do not seem to resolve the way I want them to. With this, I can fade the solo during the track without having to either play the solo to the end to fade or accept the break where I stop the solo.
I do have a suggestion on your tutorials. Because they have been very resourceful for folks like me, would it be possible to add some new ones that speak of the features that are new to 2010 as well? I suppose that may be for the Wish List board. Sorry.
Thanks,
RickeG
Aw Come on now John, you not the biggest A**hole on the planet ...............
-----Ducks and hides!------
Wow he can't have my moniker. It's reserved for me. It's mine. And we can share the curmudgeon part, depending on the level of
a) sugar
b) no sugar
c) beverages that alter one's attitude
d) lack of c.
e) what you might ingest or inhale
f) what you didn't of the above.
geez I take white pills to calm me down, somedays the wife looks at me at noon, goes and gets the pill box and danged if they aren't there, untouched.
then I wake up in the morning and I've posted something after my hockey team got smeared and I took it out on some poor guy who's version that's 10 years old sounds like crap.
And on it goes.
I think we are all human, but I for one expect Silvertones to live up to his actual name, silver..tones. No bad tones, just peal those bells. Or did your's like the famous one get a crack!
(my turn to duck)
wait I forgot Mack, he's from that other planet....unless he can prove that like those in my family who are former Lords of the Isles he has the hairs stand on the back of his neck when the bagpipes creep across the burn through the mist calling us up the hill.....
No I know he's from the planet perfection, no wrong answers there....
That's how I got so many posts, just used to type, this is a start but wait until Mac shows up and he'll explain it...better...properly...
Yep, some of the answers can be pretty far off from what is asked. Sometimes what seems simple to users who have used the software for years is extremly difficult and it seems that sometimes we can't really answer the question because we miss the point of the question. It is to simple for us to comprehend.
As to the idea of doing work arounds the thing is that this really doesn't require a work around at all. It'll help Swival, if you understand that you got two programs for the price of one. Real Band is a stand alone sequencer with some of band-in-a-box features in it. BUT Real Band and BIAB are two different programs. They work well together and both can use real tracks, midi tracks, and Audio tracks.
For what you want to do, I think most of us here would recommend using Real Band and coming back to BIAB later when you start getting into the need for something more complex in the way of auto generation. In the meantime believe those here that tell you that you got the best package on the market for making your music.
And yes, it is that hard. Thats one of the reason colleges are now coming up with music tech degrees. Those programs are all about learning how to use these very powerful tools.
Best of luck . and keep at it. It will make sense in a short while. Don't give up and put the programs on the shelf like I did for years and miss out on making the music thats in you.
John,
I'm 100% pure blooded French Canadian. I have an excuse.
I think you need to go home. Sugar Pie, Tortiere, some Laurentians, free health care, and if it's really in you it's coming back. Don't lock the door, walk in the neighbours house with a bottle of wine, and laugh yer butt off. Even here I have the french community all around me.
The wife has forgotten her language, (not me), but she's still mostly that way. The cultural part runs contrary to even English Canada, we are like some tight butt people. I would say the difference is open vrs closed, hospitable vrs reserved, spur of the moment vrs lets wait, and not so much anymore for me, but the weekend starts at Friday noon and I'd better get some shuteye on Sunday afternoon, I have to go to work in a few hours....
The fiery part is part time, you punch each other out, and then drink beers with black eyes. Hard to convey on a forum. You never get to the booze LOL. (or the being nice equivalent.)