PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Adding Real Track Soloist issues in BIAB

Hello - - I'd like to ask the members of the BIAB forum to check my following work flow for inaccuracies when it comes to adding Real Track Soloist parts to my BIAB songs.

My issue is that these Real Track solos often come out sounding - well, not so good. (I still love BIAB however!!!)

I use 100% Real Tracks in building my songs in BIAB - and I use 100% Real Track soloist tracks when it comes time to add a solo part. (Nothing against our MIDI friends out there! It's just the way I roll!)

When finished in BIAB I move all my Real Tracks into my Reaper DAW to add vocals, other instruments, etc. to finish them off. (I have done some limited experimenting with RealBand's re-generation process, but didn't have enough success to justify walking away from Reaper - not yet anyway!)

I start my process with picking a BIAB style and usually add or delete a few different Real Track rhythm tracks to that style until I am content with it. That process generally goes well and fairly quickly. Once all the rhythm tracks and drums are working together to suit me, I'll go hunting for a Real Tracks soloist part to add to the mix at certain points in the song.

Here's where the issue appears. After the rhythm tracks are 100% where I want them to be, I typically pick a Real Tracks Soloist track to add to my song. Today it was "Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist Bluegrass Doc Even 100 #597." (I don't want to pick on that individual track here, it's great!) However very often when I add a Real Track soloist track (typically piano, acoustic/electric guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro...) to my BIAB concoctions and generate it, the resulting solo will often sound "off" tone-wise in many places. I take care to stay within tempo guidelines when picking my Real Track solos - and I also experiment with double and half time generations as well...

Sometimes it's just a little bit off, almost workable - and sometimes it is just horribly off, as if the song were in the key of C and the soloist is playing in every key but C! [I make it a point to be sure the song's key, tempo, etc. are all set correctly right at the beginning of my song building process.]

I use the F5 key to set up where I want the solo parts to come in and go out of the song before I generate the Real Tracks solos. (I tried generating the solo for the entire length of the song too - just to see if that had any effect on my problem - but it did not.)

This "adding a Real Track solo" issue happens to me a lot. I'd say about 1/3rd of the time I am OK, even thrilled, with the outcome of adding a Real Track soloist to my BIAB songs... But the rest of the time I'm not so thrilled - - and after many attempts trying to re-generate it into something I can live with, I'll give up and try to edit a workable solo together from several re-generations of the Real Track solo I picked. [I do know enough not to try to make waltz tempos work with 4/4 stuff or mixing differing genres with one another...]

Does anything I'm doing (or not doing) here stand out to anyone as what might be causing causing this problem? I spend about 25% of my BIAB time generating great rhythm/backing tracks - and the rest of my BIAB time attempting to generate lead/solo parts that often cause me a lot of heartburn. [I typically work in the Country, Country Rock or Rock genres. I am NOT a literate musician, but with a phone call or two - or forum help such as this - I can generally get to where I need to be with most of my musical conundrums!]

This problem happens whether I insert my Real Soloist tracks in the BIAB Soloist track using the Soloist function, or whether I just add the Real Track Soloist track to one of the top 5 "general" track areas above the Melody and Soloist tracks.

Am I expecting too much of BIAB here? I know a lot of folks have mentioned they heavily edit their BIAB solo parts later on in their DAW's...

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated regarding this issue!

Hi Silverback,

What you describe sounds like the key of the song hasn't been set. In this instance, that can't be the case, though because you say that you are meticulous with setting this.

A couple of thoughts...

1) Do your accompaniments sometimes pass through other keys? I've found that even though the originally set key signature doesn't change, sometimes incidental key changes can impact on the solo.

If you go to the below link and play "Can You Imagine", you'll see what I mean.

https://vimeo.com/143978481

In the bridge (bars 23 - 31, 49 - 57), the song moves through two keys. These are: (a) 23-26 = key D; (b) 27-30 = key A. Even though the original G key setting remains constant, there are two incidental key changes along the way. To get the best out of the accompaniment generation, I found that I had to use F5 to set the key for these two changes and to set it back to G at bar 32.

2) Right click on the Chord Sheet and select Song Settings. Double-check that the setting right down the bottom that relates to transposing audio is set to 0.

If neither of the above suggestions help, can you post a rendering of a problem file so that I can hear it and it may give me extra ideas.

Regards,
Noel

Thank you Noel!

On this tune, what you suggest may well be the case... It starts on a B chord and the entire song is a repetition of the chords B-E-A-D...

As its notation shows 3 sharps in the treble clef, musically wiser people than I have told me this song is in the key of "A". The song's two solos are 8 bars long and start on the "B" chord passing through the "A" twice. B-E-A-D-B-E-A-D

However, at this point you lose me, as my musical theory skill set is to "find a guy that knows what he's talking about". (And I think I have here!) I watched your video, but must admit I'm not too sure on what constitutes an "incidental key change" or how to deal with them. Perhaps you can educate me. I'd be VERY interested on your thoughts on this tune - a song that passes through it's key note once every 4 bars... and how I could "F5" it to solo correctly...

I checked and my "transposing audio" is set to 0...

I'm not too experienced in attaching files here on the forum, I don't see an "attach an mp3 button" anywhere... May I send you my email via PM so we can exchange an mp3 example that way - or would you prefer to keep it on the forum? If so I believe I've seen an article/video titled "How to post things to the forum" here on the PG site somewhere, so I'll try to find it and educate myself...

(A nagging thought I'm having is that I believe I've also had this soloing problem with simple 1-4-5 rock tunes as well...)

SILVERBACK,

Great question. I bet your post will start plenty of discussion.

You mentioned you haven't tried RealBand because you don't want to quit using Reaper. The good news is you don't have to; it's not an either \ or situation. You can use both programs! Actually you can use all three programs BiaB, RB and Reaper.

Your complaint is it is difficult to get a solo you like. That is one area RB excels in because RB has two advantages over BiaB. First BiaB is limited to eight tracks while RB can have up to 48 tracks. Second RB allows you to highlight a section of a track then regenerate just the highlighted section while BiaB always regenerates a complete track.

Not only will RB regenerate track sections you can also use the multi-riff feature. Multi-riff is when RB gives you up to seven selections to choose from for each highlighted section. That means you have seven choices to choose from.

Another way RB can help you build the perfect solo is you can select multiple solo variations when they are available. For instance there might be both a fingerpick and chet style of a guitar solo so you can use Four bars of one and four bars of the other.

Finally you can change styles or modify the RB chordsheet to add variety to your solo.

Once you've generated lots of solo variations then move the variations to Reaper for more processing.

"Am I expecting too much of BIAB here? " Yes. This is a RealBand solution. Reaper nor Sonar will save the day here.

In BIAB, using F5 only mutes or unmutes the existing audio. Reaper and Sonar only manipulate the audio that is there.

RealBand changes the audio.

Once you have the correct key issue resolved, try this:

1. Create your song in BIAB as normal. At this point you can either create a solo track or wait to do so in RB. I suggest you create the solo from within RB.
2. Save the song.
3. Either export your tracks to a folder and import them into RB or open the sgu file in RB. Save this as a RB seq file.
4. I will explain this as if you want your soloist to do fills and a solo break or two.
5. select the bar or bars where you want your soloist to be heard for the first time. Your selection should include the bar(s) for the length of time to be played.
6. Right click and select multiriff. Select your soloist if necessary. Generate the multiriff.
7. Select your favorite generated part from the seven possibilities. (for simplicity, we will assume you do not want to make your fill by editing more than one part into a single part. That is also possible.)
8. Proceed to the next area where your soloist will be heard and select the length of bars to cover the length of time he will play.
9. Repeat 6 and 7 and 8 for this selection.
10. Repeat 9 for the remainder of the song at each place where you want your soloist heard and make your selection for the length of time accordingly.

I created my soloist track this way in my last User Forum song post, "Say I Do". The track contained 18 selected areas of varying length for a total 126 unique,individual choices. It is not nearly as daunting a task as it sounds and only took a few minutes to complete.

There are additional alternatives you can try if you still aren't happy with your solo but try this and ask here on the forum if you need more help.

Silverback,

That's a great idea of Jim's. Multiriff is a Realband feature that I use regularly.

In relation to your chord pattern B E A D, it's interesting because it does have at least one temporary key change. What the key change is, depends on how one looks at it - it's a little bit confusing in this regard. Let me explain...

The chords that are associated with a particular key are called diatonic chords and these are built on the scale of the key. I always use C major as my reference key for all major keys.

Here's the C major scale. I've put the note numbers under the scale. That is, 1 = first note, 2 = second note, etc.



To get the basic diatonic chords for C major, I simply add two notes above each note in the C scale. (If the note is on a line, I add two notes on the next two lines above the note. If the note is between lines (i.e. a space), I add the two 'space' notes above.) This gives...



In the above image, I've included the name of the chords formed by doing this.

This shows me the pattern that applies to every major key. That is, the chord built on notes 1, 4, and 5 are major chords. The chords build on notes 2, 3, 6 are minor chords. The chord built on note 7 is a diminished chord (this has limited usefulness).

Back to your chord progression. You said it's been set to the key of A. Since the notes of the A major scale are...

A(1), B(2), C#(3), D(4), E(5), F#(6), G#(7), A(1)

Translating your chord progression into numbers means that B E A D becomes chords based on notes 2 5 1 4.

From the key of C reference above, the chord based on note 2 (I'll call this chord 2) is minor and the chords on 1, 4, and 5 are major. Therefore, if you want your chord progression to be exclusively in the key of A, it would need to be...

Bm E A D

The fact that your progression has B for chord 2 instead of Bm, indicates that you have temporarily left the key of A.

Alternatively...

If I consider the song to be in E major, then I have the scale notes...

E(1), F#(2), G#(3), A(4), B(5), C#(6), D#(7), E(1)

So if B E A D was a diatonic chord progression in the key of E, it would need to be B E A D#dim. Having the chord D instead of Ddim indicates you have probably left the key of E. In this case, though, D is actually a flattened version of chord 7. This is a chord that is quite common in popular music so B E A D could possibly work in the key of E. Change keys and test it to see.

Considering the above, if you want B E A D to play in the key of A, try setting the key of the bar that has the B chord to E (use F5 to access this) and then the bar that immediately follows this back to the key of A. It may or may not work... your ears will tell.

Hope this helps with some added insight.

All the best,
Noel

Jim, Charlie & Noel:
Gentlemen: Thank you all very, very much for these great answers and the thought you have all obviously put into them! I sincerely appreciate the time you took to send me such detailed responses.

I've been buying/upgrading BIAB every year since 2005 - I'm not sure when Realband first appeared... but it's about time I gave it a very serious look. Sounds like I've been by-passing a very good opportunity to improve my BIAB musical output.

I have my work cut out for me. It's a good thing I love the work!

I will report back on my progress... THANK YOU!

SILVERBACK,

Hope to hear a song by you in the User Showcase forum soon.

Noel96, Always appreciate your informative and detailed answers. I'm VERY weak in music theory so I always learn a lot from your theory responses.

Thanks, Jim.

I've found that knowing some basics about diatonic chords can be very useful. It makes using the Nashville notation method so much simpler because the numbers stay the same whatever the key.

So for a major key...

chord 1 = major

chord 2 = minor (sometimes used as a m7 chord when leading to chord 5 7th)

chord 3 = minor

chord 4 = major

chord 5 = major (often used as a 7th chord - especially near the end of a section)

chord 6 = minor

chord 7 = diminished (has limited used)

Now if you get used to thinking in terms of numbers, then it becomes very easy to enter chords in BIAB.

Simply set the key and type a number for the chord then information for what kind of chord.

e.g. in key C, the progression C, Dm7, G7, Am, F, G7, C becomes 1, 2m7, 57, 6m, 4, 57, 1.

These same numbers will give me the same progression in all keys. All I have to do is to set BIAB's key. Under "Chord Display", it's possible to set Nashville Notation so that you only ever see numbers. It's a truly excellent system.

Once a person gets used to working with the numbers, it's easy to see that there aren't all that many different chord progressions used in popular music. All that happens is that they're in different keys.

Hope this makes sense,
Noel

Years ago a schooled player called those scale tone sevenths because in the real world of playing, they're all 7th chords. Either dominant or major 7ths. To those who don't know, a dominant 7th is like a blues or country 7th. It's the Bb note in the key of C while a maj7 is the jazzier sound but of course there's plenty of exceptions in all genres. The maj7 is out of the major scale or the B natural in the key of C.

Silverback, this is an example of you don't really need to be a schooled musician to use Biab UNTIL you start getting into more advanced stuff. Biab does follow correct music theory so the more you know the better off you will be.

I don't know why so many users simply overlook Real Band. To me RB is the big kahuna in PGM's world. Biab has the bigger name and is great for simple song making but only 7 tracks and limited features while RB is where you can do everything you're talking about.

It's true that the RT soloists can be pretty good but many times the phrasing goes off course with certain chord changes. Creating a ton of different versions of the same solo in RB allows you to cut and paste to your hearts content until you get what you want. AND, to get even more advanced users will use Melodyne to tweak a RT solo even further by changing the actual audio notes.

Bob

My first thought as I read your OP was that the key isn't set correctly. If that's the case, your soloist is following lets say, the default scale of C major and the band is playing in B major.

You want to double check that to be sure the keys are properly set.

Having said that, I tend to work a lot in the country genre. Several of my songs actually modulate in the song..... moving up from one key to the next, and IIRC, some of that was IN a solo. This is one of them.... http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=13017714 fiddle is playing in the modulation and nails the change perfectly.

I also do not use BB and F5 to do this.... I move the tracks to Sonar as complete tracks and use envelopes to do the automation.

Instead of trying to set up the automation in BiaB with F5... try this. Write the song in BB and get the structure right....intro, verses, choruses, bridges, and outtros....save it and close it and close BB. Then open it in Real Band. It will generate all of the tracks into waves or the equivalent. Export those tracks one by one to your DAW. Finish your work in the DAW and automate in the DAW.

That's the way I do my work and everything works and sounds like it's supposed to sound.