Hi
I'm looking for an idea on how to add various percussion instruments that are not part of an existing real-drum track. I know I can play and record them in Real Band but was hoping there is a way they can be tied to the "clock" rather than count on my time to be perfect.

Any suggestions??

Thanks in advance

Jay Arnold
Plainfield IN

You can add various percussion sounds, including cowbell, as loops in BIAB.

Frank

Thanks for your reply Frank. Can you please give me an idea where to begin. Would this be listed in one of the videos?

Jay Arnold

Search "biab Loops youtube" at Google.com; plenty of videos.
Even Bing has a decent list!

OK Thanks Frank

I appreciate your help !

Jay

You can also, right click on any of the instruments in BIAB, and towards the bottom of the list is a choice to add loops.

Frank

the drum kits in GM synths have a bunch of "alternative" percussion instruments. You can generate your sounds that way too perhaps?

one very useful thing about the way that BIAB incorporates loops is that ANY snippet can be looped.. you aren't locked into using commercial loops with the right header.

So, if you can...
1) record a few bars of a sound you want to use,
2) then hilite it and save it as an audio file
3) then copy the audio file to your LOOPS directory (assuming you have a version of BIAB that is new enough to include loops)
4) when you add a loop, select the snippet you made... the dialog box that appears will give you the opportunity to declare the info that would normally be embedded in a loop's header. Depending how you enter those values your results will vary.. so just play around with it

Looping is an EXTREMELY powerful feature that hasn't gotten the exposure it deserves on the user showcase... but I think it's about to. I look forward to hearing what you come up with!

While you might think you want or need the perfect timing of midi, the slight "off-time" inflections that are inherent in human playing are what gives a song it's "human feel" and groove.

If you record with midi, you can use quantize to get the beat exactly on the mark or use it to create random variations in the beat.

Some DAW's include a function called "audio snap" or some other name that does essentially the same thing with audio.

Guitarhacker has this one nailed. "to loop or not to loop". There are ways to modify either audio or midi to tighten or loosen your timing. In addition to time, velocity is also flexible. Now the only remaining question is "do you have all the insruments that you want to record?"For that matter, you can do both!Example: lay down a bongo loop via audio and then write a part with midi instuments like agogo, etc. There are lots of GM percussion lists out there for reference. Just Google it.