Hey everybody. I have a few songs that have an acoustic guitar and vocal only first verse. Then I want the band to join at the beginning of the second verse. I have tried doing this by muting all instruments during the 1st verse but can never keep my timing right by watching the movement of the bar marker.
What's the best way to handle this? I have a USB foot pedal that I have programmed to trigger F5 to start the song at the appropriate time but I have timing issues there also.
I would sincerely appreciate any and all input.
Todd

You can use C.g that will play guitar only till you have C then the rest of the band will come in, or C.dg for guitar and drums then bring the bass in C.bdg then the rest of the band C mute the guitar if it is you playing.

I think this means you are playing the guitar part. If you can't get the count right, just let the bass play from the beginning also. Or pick some instrument that won't compete with the guitar, but will allow you to get the count right.

You could use the visible metronome. It would be easier to see at the right time than just the moving indicator in the chordsheet. Options, Preferences, Count-in/Metronome.

But I like the other ideas, too, especially hearing a drum part (which you could make a very low volume with F5 until you need to bring up the volume).

Sorry I didn't make myself clear. Yes I am playing the guitar part.
Maybe I could try something unobtrusive like high hat only?

Yeah, I've done that before just using a simple closed hat. Not sure if there's a RealDrums style you can use for that. I always just created one using midi.

You can try it in Realband, go to the metronome and see if that helps any.

All of the advice above plus if push comes to shove I add a low volume bass track to play along with until the entire band joins in and at that time I also increase the volume of the bass.

Later,

Thanks to everyone! I am going to try all suggestions this weekend.
Todd

Yeah, I've done that before just using a simple closed hat. Not sure if there's a RealDrums style you can use for that. I always just created one using midi.

A MIDI one would work. If you prefer audio, You could also just put a wav file (1 bar ) with the drum pattern that you want, and put it in the BB\Loops folder. Then you can make a song or a style use that loop.

Thanks again everyone. I used bass guitar only at low volume and it suits me just fine. With my electric/acoustic over PA, the bass part is hardly noticeable before the full band comes in.

It's probably going to have to be done out of a DAW rather than in BIAB. . I use in ear monitors so I can feed sound to the monitors that the audience can't hear. . One solution was to use a spare drum machine that also had midi bass guitar built into it and have output from it bussed to the monitors and not to the mains. I could just put down a bass and drum rhythm section that only I could hear to keep me in time when I just want vocals or Vocals and my live guitar.

Keith's method is a good one, as it opens up a ton of options, click track in the ear, drum tracks, even a melody track to help pitch in a noisy room