Hi Folks, I'm new here. I play a 12 string guitar, banjo, and am learning mandolin. I also have a cajun accordion, but haven't been able to practice it too much. I'm mainly focusing on the banjo now. I've had BIAB about 2 months now and am finally starting to get the hang of some things.

I was wondering if anyone had experience or could shed some light on this problem:

I have the BIAB with the 'Bluegrass pack' which came with 30 songs in the 'BGFAKE' folder.

I had downloaded many songs from VirtualBluegrassBand.com that were in a .SGU format. I copied them into the BGFAKE folder and they worked fine in BIAB. I could hear all the melody tracks play along with the chords in those songs just fine.

After hearing about it on The Banjo Hangout, I purchased, downloaded, and installed the BIAB Bluegrass Rhythm Real Tracks #11.

Now, however, I can no longer hear ANY of the melodies for any of the VirtualBluegrassBand tunes I open in BIAB. When they play, I can only hear just the chords, whether I use a Realtracks, or a midi type track for the style. If I open any of the 30 BIAB songs (.MGU) I can hear the melody play along with the chords just fine.

Any tips or ideas you have would be helpful. It would be great to get those melodies back and not have to look up and enter the notation for each tune I'd like to practice.

Thanks

Bill

If you are loading a Style that happens to have a RealTrack on the Melody track, it will oberwrite the MIDI Melody notes that were already on the Melody track for that song.

Try doing it this way:

1) Load the song that has the melody in it. Play it for a few secs to make sure. Hit Stop.

2) Now let's say there is a MIDI Bass on the Bass track and you would like to have a RealTracks bass play there instead. RightClick on the Bass trackname and select, "Assign Realtracks..." The Realtrack picker window should open.

3) Find a bass RealTrack that fits within the Tempo constraints and apply it to the song.

4) After closing the Realtracks picker window, you can hit Play and listen to the song, you should hear the Melody along with any other MIDI tracks playing, with the Bass substituted as a RealTrack now.

5) You can repeat the process on the Guitar track, as above, only you might add a RealTrack guitar there. Then you can add maybe mando on the Strings track in the same fashion, put a Fiddle on the Solo track, things like that. *Just don't put anything on the Melody track, or you will overwrite the Melody*

You can Save the song, with all RealTracks, I'd recommend using the Freeze feature (the snowflake toolbar icon)-- if you ar eusing the new BB2010.


--Mac

"I had downloaded many songs from VirtualBluegrassBand.com that were in a .SGU format. I copied them into the BGFAKE folder and they worked fine in BIAB. I could hear all the melody tracks play along with the chords in those songs just fine."
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I am more than a little confused here. First of all, a SGU file is rhythm only. From what I have learned over the years, a BIAB file that has a melody track is a MGU file. When you load one of the SGU files, the MELODY track is in white, indicating that it is blank. If you SOLO that track, you will hear nothing.

I just played about 10 of the files from VirtualBluegrassBand.com and none of them have a melody track to begin with. They all have the extension SGU.

I am a semi-pro banjo player and have been using these files for practice for a number of years now and I never recall any of them having melodies. I loaded "Way Downtown" from the website and it plays just fine using the 5STRING.STY style from the VBB website and also plays just fine using the BIAB J_JETHRO.STY style. When I load _FIDRHYT.STY the song plays with all the real tracks placed where they should be in BASS, PIANO, GUITAR and STRINGS. The only MIDI track is DRUMS, with the standard drum kit. That does not play; it only shows up in yellow, indicating it is MIDI.

I just loaded a MGU bluegrass file and changed the style to a real track bluegrass style and the MIDI melody track is still where it should be, playing in the MELODY track along with the proper real tracks in the BASS, PIANO, GUITAR and STRINGS tracks.

I do not see a problem.