Hi
It's my way of working with my Korg : I have a style that plays and I change gradually (the bass line, riff, drums ...) until I personalize my style as I wish.
I tried this with Biab but it apparently does not allow this
I clic on specific track : Patch / Select custom MIDI Style for this track / Choose style with this patch
And there the playback stops

Is there a way to browse (and listen) styles for a specific track (ex: bass) while Biab continue playing ?

Band-in-a-Box styles include instruments as part of the style. Style components include tempo, time signature, even or swing feel, key signature, mixer settings and instruments such as RealTracks, midi SuperTracks, Loops and midi patches. All the things I mentioned can be modified or swapped with the deviations saved as part of the song settings but the style isn't changed unless you modify something and then save the style which I don't recommend. If you want to change then save the style under a new name.

What I want is to PREVIEW (listen to) the change before appliyng it

in the style picker you get the chance to try the style. look at the bottom of the stylepicker and you can either play using the chords of your song or the premade demo.

when the stylepicker is open set your options - time signature, tempo and genre and then when you get a list of styles highlight the one you want to audition. if you don't like it, stop it and highlight another. don't press ok until you want to change to the style you've chosen

With the Stylemaker open, use the small box to the left of the mixer window to mute, solo and change instruments in a style plus many more options.

massichat, if I read you right you want to audition a single track while listening to the rest of the style. You can not do that in BiaB. You have to stop BiaB, right click on the instrument you want to either change and/or change the style, pick your instrument and style, press OK and listen to see if it is what you want.

If I read you right put this on the wish list and I'm sure many will +1 it.

That's exactly what I want to do, and it's very handy in a hardware arranger and in a live performance to quickly customize an arrangement without breaking your ideas. Thank you for confirming my doubts: We can't do that at the moment.
I'm going to put this on the wish list
Thank you all

I'm not sure what I'm missing here. When you say; <<< to audition a single track while listening to the rest of the style. >>>; "audition a single track" to me means to solo the track without pausing playback of the other instruments. On a mixer there's a button for that called 'PFL' and selecting the PFL button solo's the desired track and sends the signal to the headphones jack without affecting the Front of House or monitor mixes. This allows the engineer to monitor one or more channels without affecting any other mixes. Since there's only a single Mix from the BIAB mixer, to solo or mute a channel will affect the single mix and that's not suitable in a live venue situation and would require multiple outputs like a physical mixer.

You can "audition a single track" from the Mixer on the Main Screen by selecting the Solo button of any track. Hold the 'Shift' Key to select multiple tracks.
The result is you hear (audition) the solo'd track by itself with all other non-solo'd tracks still playing but muted.

Deselect Solo or multiple Solo's and you hear all of the tracks playing simultaneously together and you are now auditioning any track you wish "while listening to the rest of the style."

From the Mixer on the Main Screen, you do not have to stop playback to select and replace a patch. With the Style playing, Right Click on the desired Mixer Channel and from the drop down menu, select 'Select Midi Instrument (Patch)' and select another patch. You can also select a Hi-Q patch or a Super Midi Patch as well as a Real Track. There will be a pause and/or stutters as the new selection generates but after a few seconds, the desired instrument change occurs.

_______________________

You can also "audition a single track", select mute, solo and replace instruments from the Styles Screen. All the features listed above are also functional and available from the little box with the three dots I posted above. Note that this box only works for playing a Style using the 'Play over current chord sheet of song ' play selection. You can audition every instrument of every style without leaving the Styles Window. You do not have to stop playback to select and invoke the changes.

Using these features are not suitable for live venues, they are certainly functional in the studio environment regardless if BIAB is being used for practice, making accompaniment backing tracks, composition or arranging.

Some times what I do is convert the tracks I want to audio, say, all but the bass, put the newly made audio in the audio track. Then mute all the biab tracks except for the bass and start auditioning styles for the bass track/s I might use. But, I didn't put a whole lot of thought into this. It's just something I started doing a while back 'cause it sort of works. ( I'm still using BIAB 2016 ) Having an actual feature would be great. But, I think that feature is already part of RealBand. Is it not?

Thank you it's a good workaround ! Only a shame that it cuts an idea a bit, especially if this idea is fresh and needs to be previewed quickly as is often the case with the melodies that come to me.

Hi Charlie Fogle,
I put you a video that I hope is clearer than my explanations

Thanks for the video and it does clear up matters for me.

Hopefully I can clear up some matters for you that I suggest you change in order to get the results you actually desire.

What I understand from your video is you like the style but not the bass instrument and want to audition and change the bass instrument.

However, look closely and you'll see that what you're actually selecting is a "Custom MIDI Style" and not an individual Bass instrument. When you select "Choose style with this patch", you are inadvertently selecting an entire different Style but from a list of styles that contain the specific Bass instrument (Patch) you are trying to remove and audition and replace with another Bass patch with a Riff you prefer over the current riff in the current Style.

I suggest you reverse your search parameters so you will retain the style you like and replace the specific instrument patch you want to audition and change.

After hours of trying to do what you suggested, unfortunately I have not been successful.
I ended up opening two instances of Biab on two PCs, for the moment, Tobias' workaround is the easiest / fastest.

I surely led you astray with my suggestion. The method should take no longer than 30 seconds to have you auditioning various instruments using the Style Picker.

Here are the steps:

. In BIAB, load a song, or create a chord chart.
. Select a style
. Play the Style - in this example, you like the style but do not care for the bass part created in the current style and you want to change it.
. Play the song
. Open the Style Picker
. From the Mixer in the lower left corner, just to the right of the channel instrument description, locate small box with two dots on the top channel Bass instrument
. Click on the box to change settings for this track.
. From the Menu that opens- Select Track Settings>Mute and the selected Bass track will mute and all other instruments continue to play
. Click the box again - Select Track Settings> unmute the Bass track and all instruments now are playing
. Click the box again - Select Track Settings> Solo the track
. Click the box again - Select Track Settings> deselect solo
. Click the box again - This time, Select MIDI Instrument (Patch) > Select General MIDI Patch... > Select Glockenspiel - The Bass will change to a Glockenspiel
. You can solo and mute the track as described above.
. You can continue to select and audition various instruments as the song is playing.
. You can select RealTracks, SuperMidi, Loops and any item on this menu - all while the song is playing.

Here is a link to a short, poorly recorded 2:04 minute video I recorded my PC screen with my Ipad but you should be able to follow the process from the video.

StylePicker Instrument solo, mute and midi replace demo

Note in the video the Style you like never changes. You only change the particular instrument you don't like changes. You song continues to play in the original Style but you can mute, solo and audition and change from the original Bass Patch to any Patch you wish.

I'm sorry for any confusion my earlier post may have caused and hopefully this post will explain the process better.

Thank you Charlie Fogle for your explanation, it is very detailed indeed !

Only here, when I try to modify the MIDI phrase (which is not shown in your video), we can't do that.

In your method, you can change the SOUND (choose a real track instead of MIDI, change the instrument (finger bass instead of picked bass), mute / solo) but you cannot change the CONTENT of the MIDI (choose a different riff), you cannot neither "Select MIDI" SuperTrack for this track ... "or" Select Custom MIDI Style for this track ... "without stopping the playback.

You're right changing instruments alone does not change the MIDI notes. Instruments from different styles should play the same chords but have different MIDI notes or riff that plays over the different styles.

What may help is to use the 'Change Style at any Bar' feature.

Using the 'Change Style at any Bar' feature allows you to hear an instrument playing as it's programmed to perform in another style rather than the original style in your song chart so you should hear different riffs and not just hear a different instrument playing the same MIDI notes of the current style loaded into the Chord Sheet. It will still play the exact programmed chords, but the MIDI pattern should change. The downside is each track will be affected and not just a single track.

Access the Change Style at any Bar feature by Right Clicking on the Style Window on the main screen. This is the large window that displays the current loaded style. Change Style at any Bar is the second selection. Here you select specific bars to change the entire style. You can perform the function multiple times throughout the course of your song playing.

Other than opening the Style Picker to select the various different styles, the audition occurs from the main screen and the changes occur automatically. Play your song from start to finish will provide hearing the various instruments play over the chord progression of the current song, each, in their native style.

The result is the same as if you had selected 'Select custom MIDI Style for this track' except it loads the new style for each track and not just the single track. It's also the same as opening the StylePicker and selecting Styles from the list to Play over the current chord chart play option.

This methods does provide a way to browse (and listen) to styles for a specific track (ex: bass) while BIAB continues playing without pausing which is a small advantage over the others listed.

I really like your idea of having the ability to do this on a 'per instrument' rather than 'per Style' and that would be a great feature enhancement and different from any method I'm aware of. Maybe PG Music staff will look at your idea and program it into a future update.

Thank you Charlie for your precious help/tricks ! yes I also hope that possibilities of this kind will be implemented soon, fingers crossed.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Is Biab able to increase choruses incrementally like an iteration? It seems in the autochord generator, that if the time signature changes Biab has a problem following that. Has this been fixed? deCoda has the same issue and song surgeon seems to have a problem with that too. When the tempo rises gracually the score can't follow it? When I importo files with accompaniment changes it doesn't always keep up