Hello all. I've recently been learning the ins and outs of BiaB, so pardon me if this is an easy question to answer. I've got a chart I'm working on and I'd like to hear the melody track played by two different instruments; one for the majority of the tune and the second for four select bars. Is there a way to change the sound for a limited amount of time, then switch back?

Thanks.

Olimar,

Welcome to the forums.

Switching midi channels is not the best plan of attack for this. It's much easier to simply change the sound on the Melody track.

To do that....

1. Right-click on the bar where you'd like the instrument change to occur.

2. Select 'Bar Settings' from the menu (F5 is the shortcut).

3. Add a 'Patch change' to a new instrument for the melody track.

4. Right-click on the bar that you want the sound to change back to the original sound.

5. Select 'Bar Settings' for this bar.

6. Add a 'Patch change' back to the original instrument for the melody track.

7. Generate your song and play.

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: So Beautiful

Thanks for the help, Noel. So far it works like a charm. However, one of the instrument sounds I was using does not appear on the list of available instrument sounds; it was "Hi-Q 025 01 Guitar, Acoustic, Nylon Sforzando.tgs" I might just be doing something wrong, but I am able to get this to work for other sounds.

HiQ sounds and Sforzando are a different kettle of fish... more complicated.

My advice above relates to general midi sounds. Sofrazando is not a general midi synthesiser.

To this change sounds using this, the easiest way that I can think of will be copy your melody to to the Soloist track. On the Soloist track load a second instance of Sforzando with the second sound.

Now use Bar Settings to mute the Soloist track and have the Melody track normal for the section that you want the first sound. Then, go into bar settings where the second sound starts and mute the Melody track and bring the Soloist track back to normal. Lastly, where the original sound comes back, again use bar settings to mute the Soloist and bring the Melody back to normal.

Regards,
Noel

Would this be possible if the soloist track is already in use?

No. Sforzando is difficult to work with then it comes to changing sounds because it only loads a single instrument at a time and BIAB requires everything to be set up before the song is generated.

The sort of thing that you are trying to do is much more easily accomplished in Realband rather than BIAB. Realband has up to 48 tracks. Using these it would be possible to have two instances of the melody, each with different sounds, and to weave in and out of the two tracks to get the sounds you want.

It would also be possible to accomplish the same in a DAW. Just save two instances of the melody - one with one sound, one with another - and then use volume envelopes to move between the the two melodies.

The last option is to forgo using Sforzando for the moment and just use Coyote WT rather than HiQ sounds. With Coyote WT, what I wrote in the first post will work.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
Noel

If you delete Sforzando as the VSTi/DXi for that track, it will then be possible to set the track to a guitar sound using Coyote WT (which, I'm assuming, is your default general midi synth).

Though Coyote WT does not sound as good as Sforzando, it may be good enough for what you want.

It is possible but Noel has provided you the best method to accomplish the task. It would only be feasible to use this alternate method if for some reason all the methods Noel explained won't work for you.