Is that finally possible in 2012, without resorting to complicated workarounds? It occurs in music, seems like by now BIAB should be able to do that. IT should work for triplets as well, including quarter note triplets.
You can try Edit|Expand your song. This doubles the tempo and essentially gives you more beats to work with.
R
Edit 'expand' is only good in theory IMHO and not a serious option unless using a solo piano/guitar accompaniment. Even then you'd only want to maybe alter the tempo at specific bars, not the whole tune.
Best results I've found is two sets of changes, one for the regular 4 beats and another for the eighth notes in between. The first set can be moved to the soloist or melody channel and then offset by 60 ticks or less/more for a human feel. Tweak this to make it more convincing.
Makes a mess of your sheet though unless you merge the second set of changes with the first in Copy/Move tracks.
And you're right... its a relatively complicated workaround that surely ought not to be required in this day and age.
Regards
Alan
How are you doing that, Alan? Play, Slide Tracks?
Matt, you can do it by using either Play > Slide Tracks or in the Edit Melody > Timeshift Melody. The trick lies in not being too precise about the 60 ticks. Something like 50-55 often works better.
Regards
Alan
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Sadly no.
Regards
Alan
That capability has seemed to be a wish of many for a long time.
If any PGMusic staff is reading , please let us know when that will be implemented.
Thank you.
What piece of music changes chords more than 4 times per bar? I know some classical music does in effect but I'm hard pressed to recall anything from a standard repertoire I know that requires that feature.
This is indeed asked for, I'd just like 3 or so examples off the top of someone's head. Realistically, in order to rewrite the math behind this to accomplish that, then change the input methods, etc, well that must be quite a task. So let's build up a wish list of songs that we can't do and see what shakes out.
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Edit 'expand' is only good in theory IMHO and not a serious option unless using a solo piano/guitar accompaniment. Even then you'd only want to maybe alter the tempo at specific bars, not the whole tune.
the ability to do this is a function of the style more than it is a function of the program. Notes Norton sells styles that do what you want... and I believe there are PG styles that do the same thing. And the ability to make your own styles that solve this problem has been part of the package for years.
But, having said that, here is a workaround that requires both BIAB and RB together (or RB alone):
I've found that it is interesting if all the instruments don't change chords at the same time. In cases where you want one instrument to change chords more often, while other instruments play againsts a simpler set of changes, this might work:
In BIAB You could edit-expand and generate a single instrument accompaniment to get up to 8 chord changes per bar. (If you don't need that many chord changes, then simply hold the same chord until a change is required. The point is that you have 8 opportunities per bar instead of 4)
Then export to Real band, generate the single track at the BIAB expanded tempo to keep the chords the way you had them. Then change the tempo to what you really wanted and add the rest of the tracks. Keep in mind that the rest of the tracks will only have 4 chords per bar, so you'll need to trim out the unneeded chords before you start to generate new tracks. Also this means that the subsequent tracks will not make all the changes made by the original track... but that can add interest to the song if you judiciously trim the chords so that the extra chords work in passing.
Since real Band doesn't automatically regenerate everything unless you tell it to, the expanded track will continue to have twice as many chord opportunities. It works best with sustained chords or simple patterns that don't reveal the tempo difference.
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What piece of music changes chords more than 4 times per bar? I know some classical music does in effect but I'm hard pressed to recall anything from a standard repertoire I know that requires that feature.
This is indeed asked for, I'd just like 3 or so examples off the top of someone's head. Realistically, in order to rewrite the math behind this to accomplish that, then change the input methods, etc, well that must be quite a task. So let's build up a wish list of songs that we can't do and see what shakes out.
I find that it's not so much a matter of replicating written chord changes so much as the ability to define your own accompaniment patterns on the chord sheet that fit the rhythmic movement of the tune.
Sometimes you might want patterns that give you a rhythmic/chordal embellishment of the main chord, a sort of cadence within a cadence if you like. e.g D7,Eb7, Emaj7 where Eb7 is an eighth after D7 and Emaj7 an eighth after that...just one possibility.
This capability along with shots holds and the ^symbol to define anticipations would be all you would need to make user defined patterns that fitted almost any song.
And there's the rub, because any improved BIAB arrangement capabilities using overriding commands, run counter to the idea of 'auto' accompaniment as a one-click-it-does-everything-for-you routine that can only be altered at the level of the stylemaker.
Regards
Alan
Well, as replies go, that was a nebulous as corncrake sightings on Colonsay.
That said I liked the list of songs where they are written in not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5, 6, 7, 8...etc. and so on up to such things as 22/4, which I would eschew.
Once we get to 50 on the list we can present it with a petition!
Take 5 is #1, it's weird, and Brubeck himself just had a birthday, I think it was 91!
1. Take 5/Brubeck...but I forget the sigs, though it may never need more than 4 chords per measure.
after re-reading what I wrote above, if you're starting in BIAB, it would probably be easier to just export your expanded track as audio, then start a new RB project at half the BPM and import the expanded WAV. That way you don't have to enter the chords one way, generate, then delete half the chords in the same project.
This is another reason why RB is a good DAW companion for BIAB... you can keep loading and generating tracks after BIAB did its part. That adds options you wouldn't have with other DAWs
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What piece of music changes chords more than 4 times per bar? I know some classical music does in effect but I'm hard pressed to recall anything from a standard repertoire I know that requires that feature.
This is indeed asked for, I'd just like 3 or so examples off the top of someone's head. Realistically, in order to rewrite the math behind this to accomplish that, then change the input methods, etc, well that must be quite a task. So let's build up a wish list of songs that we can't do and see what shakes out.
John-
It is not that it is common for songs to regularly change chords every eighth note, eight chords to a 4/4 bar. That would be pretty uncommon.
But it happens sometimes in songs--not for a whole bar, but a particular beat on which there are more than one chord.
Think of the following rhythm in 4/4--two quarter notes followed by three quarter note triplets. On the quarter note triplets the chord changes on each note. That would not be so uncommon. YEt, is there a way to do that in BIAB, with the normal interface, not having to resort to complex convoluted workarounds?
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Well, as replies go, that was a nebulous as corncrake sightings on Colonsay.
That said I liked the list of songs where they are written in not 2, not 3, not 4, but 5, 6, 7, 8...etc. and so on up to such things as 22/4, which I would eschew.
Once we get to 50 on the list we can present it with a petition!
Take 5 is #1, it's weird, and Brubeck himself just had a birthday, I think it was 91!
1. Take 5/Brubeck...but I forget the sigs, though it may never need more than 4 chords per measure.
Sorry if I wasn't being clear but it's not that difficult a concept. Having the ability to make a chord sound as an eighth note makes it easier to write your own accompaniment patterns/riffs on the fly.
Often modern jazz players will at times play short chordal riffs made up of 8th notes in their comping patterns. I want to be able to replicate that on the chord sheet. Hope that's clear enough for you.
I'm sick and tired of people in this forum disrespecting others because they make suggestions for improvements that don't happen to fit in with their musical aims.
Regards
Alan
It's easy enough to post in the wish list forum and hope for the best.
I'm sure the doc and the software team sit down and look at the user base, the numbers and the desirability of each potential feature. To deride those of us who try to understand the opportunity on the basis we are tiring doesn't cut it for me.
is.
There are of course other options. Oliver Gannon who has our equiv. of an OBE for jazz performance and his contribution to music, is Peter's Brother and helps with the program. You could email him. He's a busy touring jazz guitarist, but I'm sure he'd be more attuned to your plight(s).
I, on the other hand, try and limit myself to simple jazz trios, playing piano or horn. At even a modest tempo I'd be incapable of 8 chord changes to the bar on any regular basis.
I'm sure creative users can find a way to silence bars and stuff a full strum 8 chord changes or more to a bar while the audience goes wild.
I see rhetoric but no list of tunes or even common progressions I can examine. Perhaps my understanding is pre-rhetoric and neanderthal, but I watch hockey, even the fights.
The other question is always this. If you can play it, why do you want to the back up band to do it too? I've never, in all the years, got a good reply to that.
The problem ( as I see it) is it is not just the need for more chords per bar, but also the resolution of the bar for where you can place the chords. With quarter note reolution only 4 chords are posssible, with eight note, 8 chords... and so on. Now BIAB can push a chord to place in at an 8th note resolution but then it can't place a second chord an the next eighth note... So while John has a good point and I agree (this is unusual
), rarely do I like to play four chords, or more) per bar except slow tempo stuff however, However, where these chords are placed in the bar can be critical.. Does that make sense?
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Is that finally possible in 2012, without resorting to complicated workarounds? It occurs in music, seems like by now BIAB should be able to do that. IT should work for triplets as well, including quarter note triplets.
the thought occurs to me that the reason this same question keeps getting asked is because people insist on regarding the panels where chords are entered as though they were measures... but they're not!
Sure, in many songs the structure works out that way, but the logic of considering those panels as measures breaks down when you need more than 4 chords in a measure (but can't fit more than 4 chords in a panel)
It is the users responsibility to understand the software, not the manufacturer's responsibility to accommodate user misconceptions. If you consider each panel to be nothing more than a 4 chord grid (NOT a measure) then it starts to make sense.
If you need more than 4 chords per measure then you need more than 1 panel per measure, simple as that.
As stated many times before, the ability to use more than 4 chords per measure is a function of the style, not of the program. Many people have tried to use an inappropriate style in a song that requires more than 1 chord panel per measure, and they didn't get the results they wanted.... but that's not PGMusic's fault, any more than it would be their fault if somebody tried to use an inappropriate style in any other situation!
Maybe we are going about this the wrong way... there are probably a handful of songs that people struggle to recreate in BIAB because they require more than 4 chords per mesure. Maybe if we identify those songs and provide expanded styles that work for those songs, this poor dead horse could stop beng beaten. There are already many such styles in the style picker. Start by searching for the name of the song you are trying to duplicate... you may be surprised to find a style made for that song
If its an original song, you may need to make an original style if you can't find one that's close enough... and the ability to do that has already been provided.
I guess the ultimate question is: how much of the creative process is the user's responsibilty, and how much is PGMusic's responsibility? The demands one makes on the software are directly related to how one answers that question.
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Is that finally possible in 2012, without resorting to complicated workarounds? It occurs in music, seems like by now BIAB should be able to do that. IT should work for triplets as well, including quarter note triplets.
the thought occurs to me that the reason this same question keeps getting asked is because people insist on regarding the panels where chords are entered as though they were measures... but they're not!
Sure, in many songs the structure works out that way, but the logic of considering those panels as measures breaks down when you need more than 4 chords in a measure (but can't fit more than 4 chords in a panel)
It is the users responsibility to understand the software, not the manufacturer's responsibility to accommodate user misconceptions. If you consider each panel to be nothing more than a 4 chord grid (NOT a measure) then it starts to make sense.
If you need more than 4 chords per measure then you need more than 1 panel per measure, simple as that.
As stated many times before, the ability to use more than 4 chords per measure is a function of the style, not of the program. Many people have tried to use an inappropriate style in a song that requires more than 1 chord panel per measure, and they didn't get the results they wanted.... but that's not PGMusic's fault, any more than it would be their fault if somebody tried to use an inappropriate style in any other situation!
Maybe we are going about this the wrong way... there are probably a handful of songs that people struggle to recreate in BIAB because they require more than 4 chords per mesure. Maybe if we identify those songs and provide expanded styles that work for those songs, this poor dead horse could stop beng beaten. There are already many such styles in the style picker. Start by searching for the name of the song you are trying to duplicate... you may be surprised to find a style made for that song
If its an original song, you may need to make an original style if you can't find one that's close enough... and the ability to do that has already been provided.
I guess the ultimate question is: how much of the creative process is the user's responsibilty, and how much is PGMusic's responsibility? The demands one makes on the software are directly related to how one answers that question.
Again, and it would seem that I'm in a minority of one on this, this is not all about songs with eight chords. It's about replicating accompaniment patterns that have chordal movement within an eighth note time base.
Okay, you can make a style that would do it, or use the melody harmony feature to harmonize the top note of the pattern input as a 'melody' then reimport that as a style. But you'd still end up with a set riff as a style pattern with no ability to alter its changes within that riff for other songs/compositions except in the stylemaker.
This might all sound picky to some but for me thinking in eighth notes and defining the rhythmic character of your comping patterns, using just the chord sheet and without the use of the 'style' as such, puts the creative responsibility back into the users hands not the program's. You're forced to think about comping in a way that suits your own aims for the tune.
The chord panel problem is admittedly an issue that could maybe be addressed by an expansion of one bar into two for these purposes, and only as an 'opt-in' function.
The only other program that has unlimited input of chords per measure is Jammer but the issue of being able to view the chords persists unless you alter the view capability. Without holds and shots which that program lacks, its still down to the style riff whether they actually play so it's a bit of a non event.
But then its not so much a matter of viewing the chords so much as hearing them. These eighth note chords are 'passing' or 'lead-in' chords resolving to a chord of longer duration.
Or as was suggested, you could just play it yourself, which isn't an answer in my book when we are talking about improving an auto accompaniment program.
Regards
Alan
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Or as was suggested, you could just play it yourself, which isn't an answer in my book when we are talking about improving an auto accompaniment program.
Good point Alan... there are so many ways to use this software that I forget about the ways I don't use it. All of my suggestions apply to the task of using BIAB to rough out a song that will end up as a recording.
Apologiers if my remarks seem to deny credibility to your request.
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Edit 'expand' is only good in theory IMHO and not a serious option unless using a solo piano/guitar accompaniment. Even then you'd only want to maybe alter the tempo at specific bars, not the whole tune.
the ability to do this is a function of the style more than it is a function of the program. Notes Norton sells styles that do what you want... and I believe there are PG styles that do the same thing. And the ability to make your own styles that solve this problem has been part of the package for years.<...>
Unlike a style you EXPAND in BiaB, the Norton EXPANDED styles are designed to be played EXPANDED and therefore sound MUCH, MUCH better than a non-expanded style that has been forced to expand.
With Norton's EXPANDED styles you can get up to 8 chords in a 4/4 measure of music. You can also get a chord both on the beat and the "pushed" beat before that very same beat. Impossible to do with normal styles.
Plus Norton EXPANDED styles were invented a full decade before PG Music implemented that feature.
Norton Music BIAB innovations;
Norton Music's Band-in-a-Box Innovations
Norton Music invented and implemented these innovations first, years before they were incorporated into the Band-in-a-Box program itself:
* Norton was the first to substitute other instruments into the piano/guitar/strings patch inserting synths, saxes, brass and other instruments
* Norton was the first include "shots" in the styles, years before PG (Norton called them Kicks)
* Norton was the first to make Multi-Styles, years before PG (Norton called them Mix and Match Mega styles)
* Norton was the first to introduce EXPANDED and REDUCED styles, a full decade before PG Music included them
To hear Norton's EXPANDED styles go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html
Notes
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Or as was suggested, you could just play it yourself, which isn't an answer in my book when we are talking about improving an auto accompaniment program.
Good point Alan... there are so many ways to use this software that I forget about the ways I don't use it. All of my suggestions apply to the task of using BIAB to rough out a song that will end up as a recording.
Apologiers if my remarks seem to deny credibility to your request.
Pat, no offence taken to your comments which at least didn't stoop to John's somewhat derisory dismissive approach which I was taking issue with. BIAB doesn't need defending in that way because no one is attacking it. I take Mac's stance on these things; if you can't find anything good to say about a suggestion then don't say anything at all.
I hadn't forgotten about Notes Norton's styles and have every respect for his efforts in this area of Expanded styles. Unfortunately he doesn't cover much Modern Jazz (and none of the Roy Hawkesford Modern Jazz Styles he resells are expanded ones). Otherwise I'd be beating a path to his website right now.
Regards
Alan
Well I see the ability to have a discussion is limited by something I do not understand.
I asked for some clarification, and deemed it nebulous. That's is certainly not derisive. I can do that.
I am interested in lots of types of music. Primarily hebredian stuff, which is often in weird keys. For that, my wife and I spend time working it out, and I do not use band in a box. I also mess with the keys, trying to get gull sounds and things from a piano/flute.
This is tough, because my wife, despite where we are at, finds C or B natural the lowest playable note (with a foot on the flute), and I can no longer hear a lot of the higher notes she could play.
I understand that there is a major problem with making the software do 7/4 so I don't expect it to. But my wife has enough fancy music ed that we can figure that out. (Cronan Bleoghain).
For me, Band in a Box has provided hours of study and help with practice.
NOW to the crux.
If you cannot have a discussion about a topic and carry it to a conclusion personally attacking someone does nothing for your points, nor your ability to back them up. That is just a general comment.
Since the issue was raised, no one has actually given me an example of this deficiency. I'm willing to listen.
I do not claim to know the most music, but I do have a cursory knowledge of some stuff.
Now to throw a herring into the works, or a kipper as grandad would say, I would point out that in many instances, less is more. In making a bass run, an implied chord change or note even, can be more dramatic that actually playing it. This is a concept I work on all the time, drop out some notes or chords in my compositions.
In my brass arrangements I'm even dropping the tied notes in many cases, it just opens up the next notes and allows for a comma to get inserted. A purist would say, wait, you missed a note.
To the audience they just hear something that is more crisp.
I salute any improvements to the software that make it more marketable. Development needs to bear in mind that certain improvements have appeal. I don't know country really, except for what played on the counter in 1960 or so when Mom left the radio on. My daughter asked me if I liked some swift girl last week and I admit, I never heard of her, nor her music.
I read classical music and brass band music magazines, and keyboard stuff, and I study the years 1500 go 1900.
Every year, during testing, I listen to country tracks. Just not my thing.
Well back to Christmas dishes. Ye olde daughter, who's 20, is moving to England for 2 years on a visa, leaving in 2 days. So we did it all early.
Merry Mithros/Christmas or whatever you celebrate. I'm going to try Satin Doll at about 300 bpm tomorrow. Then Favorite Things, which is fun for improv, in that song you can hold for 2 bars and no need to even state a chord. Just come back in, that's fun. In my mind.
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I hadn't forgotten about Notes Norton's styles and have every respect for his efforts in this area of Expanded styles. Unfortunately he doesn't cover much Modern Jazz (and none of the Roy Hawkesford Modern Jazz Styles he resells are expanded ones). Otherwise I'd be beating a path to his website right now.
hey Notes! "your mission, if you should decide to accept it is..."
I see great marketing success in a disk containing nothing but expanded styles in a variety of genres... and Alan has already said what he is willing to buy. (Me too, now that I think about it. )
Thanks, I'll put that on the list as soon as I finish the PA80 collection.
Right now I'm being bogged down by mother-in-law problems. She had spinal cord surgery and since I don't punch a clock on days, Leilani and I take the day shift. Her sisters take the night shift. Unfortunately I can't do styles there :-(
She is improving and I hope to have 4 new disks released in January. 2 Style disks and 2 Fake disks.
BTW, there are some modern jazz rhythms in the EXPANDED department; check out
Afro Latin Jazz 1 & 2,
Bossa Nova 7,
Expanded 16 beat 1, 2, & 3,
Expanded Jazz Funk 1 & 2,
Fusion 1 & 8,
Jazz Cha Cha 3,
Jazz HipHop 1, 2, & 3,
Jazz Rock 3,
New Age 1, 2, 3 & 4,
R&B Shuffle (HipHop) 3, 5, & 6 (these may be a little to hard for some jazz tunes),
and Smooth Jazz 4 & 5.
The number/link to the left of the demo link brings you to the disk that each style is located on.
You can audition most and buy them as single styles here:
http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html or you can buy them in money-saving "disk" collections.
The reason why single styles are more expensive is that for everything sold, the 'silent partners' take a flat rate and percentage out of it (credit card authorization company, credit card merchant's account, and business bank).
Notes
then it's not a chord....if you play chord progressions too fast it merely becomes a melody....just harmonized notes. A chord has to last at least a beat in order for it to be a chord, depending on tempo. And even so, you can play as many 'chords' as you like if you halven the tempo, so if the tempo is 130 bpm, record at 65 and put all the chords you want, but the thing is, even though the tempo is 'half', the frequency of the chords has to be slow enough for them to be chords.
Sorry to disagree. I have complied and released 29 fake disks and am working on two more to be released early next year. All but one were entered using standard off-the-shelf fake books published by companies like Hal Leonard, Warner Brothers, Alfred, etc., and quite a few of the songs could not be played correctly without expanding them as they had more than one chord per beat.
Even many simple chord progressions like these publicdomain ones cannot be done without EXPANDED styles (please excuse the use of the lame sounding computer sound card for the voices). There are other, better examples, but PG Music asks that we do not put any copyrighted chord progressions in this forum, so these public domain demos will have to do:
http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/68_blues_2e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/68_rock_1e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/afro_pop_2e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/ballad_5e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/club_dance.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/ex_jazz_funk_1.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/open_rock_2e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/fatback_3e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/heavy_rock.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/jazz_rock_3e.mp3http://www.nortonmusic.com/mp3/smooth_jazz_5e.mp3I don't think the examples of having one chord per half beat in any of these makes a melody, and to get a chord on any beat and the upbeat before that same beat you simply can't do it without an expanded style.
Notes ♫
Again, there is no list of songs in the "American Standards" that have chord progressions requiring more resolution than 4 chord changes per 'unit', 'cell', or 'measure'. I don't think I need to open any book. I do have all the Mantooth books and most of them are dog eared and falling apart from use, I something from them every day. I thought at first maybe Elmer's tune, but I pulled that out and I'm just remembering my embellishing some runs, but it's just a shell game at that point.
Several songs in my memory ring a bell but each time I check one out it's just my brain making up more or less chromatic things that imply chords.
That said things differ when you get to 12/8 or some other time sigs you don't find often in the standard repetoire.
A lot of 6/8 and 12/8 songs have 8th note chords, which especially don't work if implemented as "swing 4/4", which many of the 6/8 tunes do. You can do it if you enter it into BIAB as two 3/4 bars, but of course notation suffers then.
I've seen 8th note chords show up quite often in the bar before the song modulates to a different key, as well as a pickup note into the next bar. In this case, in BIAB, the problem is not needing more than 4 chords per bar, but that fact that you can only push a chord ahead in time, not delay it. So a song that just needed one chord on beat one and then an 8th note pickup chord on beat 4 1/2 resolving to one chord on beat one again, can't be done in BIAB. that's just two chords in the whole bar, but it can't be done.
Ideally, I'd like to see 8th note resolution, but I'd happy if in addition to "pushing" chords ahead, we could also "pull" them back, as well.
I like the push ,pull idea John !
Been reading this thread with interest. I can see all sides of this but to me it boils down to what exactly is someone like Alan trying to accomplish here? Is it originals or covers? We've all known for years that Biab is not what should be used to create an exact cover of anything. It's an autoaccompaniment program used to create backing tracks, not covers. If it's originals then again it's primarily used as a sketchpad to help someone get the structure, basic chords and melody. Once that's done it's time to play it for a producer and whatever musicians you want to use and start paying for studio time. Or transfer it into your high end DAW and start putting it together for real.
As for me, I'm sort of with John I do a lot of jazz and rarely run into that and I never use Biab for really complex tunes. I admit that's because I can never get them to sound good which is what Alan's point is. Maybe it could be made to do that sort of thing better but for me Biab would not be my first choice anyway, I would use Real Band or Sonar.
I completely understand the wish for Biab to be more functional, more professional and be able to generate a polished, studio quality product that's fully ready for marketing. To date, it's never been that and I personally doubt there are enough users that would appreciate that level of technical sophistication. There's enough comments/complaints that Biab is too complex as it is and this kind of thing could make that problem worse.
Perhaps PG could create two versions, Standard (what we have now)and Pro? Would they make enough money from selling the Pro version to warrant the development costs? Who knows, that's above my pay grade. Maybe with all the enhancements they keep coming up with twice a year they may already be on a long term path to create that Pro version.
Bob
I don't think any auto-accompaniment software product can ever make polished arrangements ready for mastering. At least with foreseeable technology.
Why?
It is auto-accompaniment's nature to be generic. Each style should fit a large number of songs or else why write the style? For example: By request of one of my customers I wrote a style for the Elvis Presley song, "Don't Be Cruel". It came out well for the state of the StyleMaker at the time I did it, but there was one problem. It was basically only good for "Don't Be Cruel". Using the style on anything else made it sound like "Don't Be Cruel" because of that signature guitar motif.
So why write a song-specific style when you can use Sonar, Cubase, PTPro or any other sequencer to create the song much easier than you can make it work in an auto-accompaniment program like BiaB?
This is one reason why I prefer MIDI styles. I can export the good BiaB output as a MIDI file, import it into a sequencer and then massage it by adding song specific motifs, re-arranging parts, exaggerating the groove (or inserting it in the styles that use the drum grid), and adding a great number of musical enhancements that I am not able to do with the Real Tracks. With a half hour or so of tweaking, I can turn the good output from BiaB and turn it into something truly excellent in a MIDI sequencer. And after all, I did buy BiaB to play with it. If I wanted something per-recorded that I couldn't play with, I'd buy a karaoke file.
Still, there are parts of BiaB that are antiquated, and I suppose stay that way because PG is very interested in keeping backwards compatibility with previous versions. The styles I wrote in 1992 still work on BiaB today - and that's a good thing.
But I would really like to see things like:
- Resolution of at least 240 ppq
- The ability to build any chord at all via a custom dialog box that lets you pick or omit the root, third, fifth and any/all extensions
- Real crescendos, dimuendos, accerandos, ritardandos, and fermatas
- Native ability for other time signatures so that 6/8, 5/4, and other meters don't have to be forced into the BiaB grid
- More tracks (instruments) so that I could make a 7 voice band
- The ability to tie certain parts together in the StyleMaker so that if one pattern is chosen, other patterns could be tied to it (for example in a straight 8 style, if the drum pattern was set for a triplet roll, other instruments would also play triplet patterns for that bar
- Support for triplets of 2 beat duration (like quarter note triplets in 4/4 time)
- variable length endings that could actually follow chords entered for that ending
- Both long and short (or major and minor) drum rolls and the ability to enter them when desired
- an option to go from the A substyle to the B substyle without a drum roll
- a requirement that all BiaB users buy Norton Music disks <HUGE
GRIN> - and many, many more - which I have entered into the wish list in the past.
Some of the above can be accomplished with my EXPANDED styles, but having them native in BiaB would be a good thing.
Personally, I think Band-in-a-Box plus a good MIDI sequencer plus a good MIDI synthesizer or sound module is an unbeatable combination. I find all 3 tools essential to making good music.
Insights and incites by Notes ♫