In another thread Rustyspoon said,

This really piqued my interest so I figured another thread would be in order! Also, I apologize in advance if these questions have been asked and answered before.

1) The idea of a console is great but for now what would workflow be with current BIAB?

2) Could I just create my song as usual and then export to MIDI and assign EZ Keys to it in my DAW?

3) Which BIAB MIDI is the "good stuff"? I might want to avoid the really old stuff that sounds like classic carnival-came-to-town MIDI. I know a big part of that sound is because of the cheesy default MIDI instruments but I'd prefer to focus on MIDI that was captured from live players and not generated on a computer (unless it has convincing humanizing.) How do I find the MIDI bits that are live players and/or otherwise humanized?

4) Is it possible to export chords from BIAB as MIDI? I'd love to be able to export my complete chordsheet without music so I could import that into programs like EZ Keys or EZ Bass.

I'm always beyond delighted with RealTracks and what I can do with them. I've recently become quite enamored with the EZ Line. So, if I can take my BIAB investment even further by using this "insane amount of MIDI content hidden in BIAB" that will be quite a new direction of joy for me!

Sometimes making music in BIAB with RTs can make you feel a bit like a Disc Jockey. On the other hand, working with MIDI can allow the musician within you to come out a bit more.

JJJ,
#1 Did you watch Musocity's gif video in Dan's heart stopper thread? That is one way to import Chord sheet to EZstuff. I am sure there are more ways than one. You can always export BIAB chord track as a MIDI file. As of now, you have to export whole arrangement which will have all available MIDI tracks, but it will have that separate track with just block Chords in it.



Which BIAB Midi is good stuff? Well if we are not talking about Super Midi, it is difficult question to answer.
But I will try. So we have a few thousand MIDI styles. Most styles have piano, electric piano, organ or other instrument(s) that can be "re-voiced" as piano. So that pool alone would yield thousands of stems that would transpose to your chord sheet and accept changes, could be voiced with any other synths, etc.

Then we have MIDI from RT, that can be sliced in ~8 bar MIDI chops phrases. What is good..? Well out of thousands stems I am sure there will be at least 10%-20% very usable material. Obviously it would have to be curated first time to jump start the feature, but sky could be the limit as pool is deep. I am not even talking about 3rd party...


About console.
It just came to me yesterday, while I tinkered with EZkeys for the first time. BIAB essentially was doing same thing all along, way before EZKeys. Toontrack just sweetened it with easy workflow and hierarchy of files (from simple to more complex). I was not impressed with their "instruments". Good, but nothing fantastic. Useful and fun, I just don't see it as something "WOW". In any case, enough bout Toontrack. I have an idea of how this might work in BIAB, but I need a couple of days to make a mock drawing. I will come back to this thread.

Thanks Rustyspoon! I look forward to more conversation about this with you.

I would def disagree about Toontrack's instruments. I have an assortment of their EZ products and find them to be quite good. And I suspect, if EZD2 to EZD3 is any indication, EZ Keys 2 will be even better!

I agree with your assessment of some similarities between BIAB and EZ. Both are essentially recorded bits and pieces of real instruments that were played by session musicians and recorded professionally. The differences are interesting too. BIAB has many tracks that, because they are audio, tend to have a bit more variety sometimes. But EZ has the benefit of all tracks being totally editable because it is all MIDI. BIAB has an advantage in being a more complete package with tons of various instruments that have been curated into RealStyles so you can put together a complete song much faster. EZ has the advantage of allowing me to select the specific patterns I want from the library whereas BIAB requires me to click the random button over and over until I come up with what I want.

My bottom line is these are two incredible tools to have in my songwriting toolkit! They complement each other quite well!!

I look forward to figuring out how to quickly isolate the BIAB MIDI good stuff and to see your console idea!

Just a quick note on how to actually get the MIDI from BIAB to a working .MID file...

So I went to the BIAB Help and searched on MIDI and found a topic "MIDI File - Saving". It includes the following "menu command File | Make a Standard MIDI File or F6 key" neither of which seem to work!

Then I found "File/Save Special/Save Song as MIDI file" in the main menu and I tried that. I chose Type 1 and I got an empty file with chords but no MIDI information. I tried again with Type 0 but again I got an empty file.

Finally I remembered something someone here had posted (maybe Mario or Dan). So I clicked and dragged my piano track from the top bar to the tiny gray MID box. And, a few seconds later I was able to retrieve an actual working MIDI file from the DragDrop folder!

This is why I never really enjoy experimenting with BIAB! There are just too many empty rabbit holes! But I am happy to have figured out a way to get the MIDI so there's that!

See pic, the only issue is when you drag the "Chords" track from the Mixer into the DAW it will give the part markers A B over the chord name in the midi markers.
This goes into it:
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=758019

and if you want to use PG midi in EZKeys/Drums/Bass here's a sample library
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=756697

There is so much potential in Biab without having to go to other apps.
This is what Biab needs, users that see the potential rather than saying don't worry PG we will use this app or that app. That's why it can be an AIO (all in one) goto.

JJJ,
Toontrack is a fun program. It is useful. It is a bit overpriced in my opinion for what it is. As far as their actual "instruments" I would pick any piano from Komplete base version or ones included in Halion factory over theirs. But I understand it is a matter of taste. We will talk about it later

John, here is a video on how to get MIDI block Chords out of BIAB (2 ways). The last few seconds, you will not hear Strummed Accoustics as DAW is in ASIO mode so did not record the sound to video.

Same here. I can do many things much faster in my DAW than in BiaB. I use BiaB for my chord progressions and style(s) choices then I get out of it ASAP. But that is my workflow and others have other workflows.

Its the little things that get me. Like in the notation view there is a bar on the bottom like every other Windows program. Does it work like every other Windows program, no you have to click on the little arrows. How many copy and paste functions do we really need? I could go on but you all know what I mean.

I appreciate all of the suggested improvements that are mentioned and/or administrated here in these forums but IMHO they are workarounds. I have said many times that BiaB has to be rewritten from the ground up. It is a great little gold mine being held back by old code. YMMV

Good question - don't know the answer

Yes. As you already know you can assign an EZKeys sound source to your track. But if you have a DAW that has a chord track (not BiaB's chord track) and you can assign notes in a track to follow said chord track then yes you can bring an EZKeys MIDI track into your DAW and have it play to BiaB chords. You may have to do some editing but I have found this to be very easy in Studio One Pro 6.

In BiaB the only way is with sm. But you can easily modify any BiaB track to accommodate your wishes. Or in your DAW input a non-quantized MIDI file. With some modification, humanizing, and a very good MIDI sound source you can get satisfying results, at least in my mind I can.

Yes, that is explained in another thread.

Thanks Rustyspoon! I went through your steps and got the chord blocks exported from BIAB and imported into my DAW! I appreciate you teaching me something new! I hope I can remember those steps.

Yeah, I'd agree you can sink a lot of money into Toontracks stuff for sure!

Just as a test for myself, tonight I generated a MIDI piano piece and put it on 4 tracks. Then I assigned EZ Keys Grand Piano to track #1, NI New York Concert Grand to track #2, NI The Grandeur to track #3 and NI Kontakt Factory Library Concert Grand to track #4.

Next I spent about 30 minutes listening to these 4 tracks trying to A-B them and detect qualitative differences. While there were certainly minor differences I personally could not point to one or the other as a "better" grand piano! They all sounded superb. And that was raw without any f/x or processing of any kind. Furthermore, this was a direct comparison of single instruments which, to me, would indicate that in a mix any differences would be mostly undetectable.

Thank you MarioD for sharing your MIDI knowledge with me and the rest of us!!!

John,
You are welcome.
I hope you have seen Musocity's method. Direct dragging is possible from BIAB track straight to EZkeys MIDI window.


P.S. The point on Toontrack pianos I am trying to make is, many people already own similar synths that sound on par or better. Toontrack's instruments are good, but I would definitely use something I already have, if they had a choice to buy just the MIDI version of the software. I will pick it up when it goes on decent sale. It has some cool lines.

I strongly disagree with MarioD's suggestion.



1. This won't happen in the next 10 years. The current version of BiaB is already profitable, why would PG Music risk the status quo to build something from scratch?

2. As far as I know, the old code infested GUI is the main reason prevent young people from wanting to use BiaB. That gives all existing BiaB users the advantage over these young musicians who don't use BiaB.

3. The less young people use BiaB, the more valuable a current BiaB user can be. It would be a nightmare when BiaB becomes an iPhone type of popularity, all of a sudden every young musician knows how to use it, wants to use it, and makes top notch music with ease. It would be devastating to the current music market.

4. A bit of industrial barrier is always a good thing. It prevents new competitors from flooding into the industry.

BiaB's old code embeded interface and steep learning curve is the "protective barrier", and I consider it a bless under disguise.

You would not want a rewrite as you would get the Mac version at the same time with the same features, that's no good, you want 6 months on Win then 6 months on Mac:

JJJ,
As this topic started to accumulate non-related stuff, I decided to move it to wishlist.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=760253&#Post760253

WickWickWick,

You have a dream, but unfortunately it won't come true.


While Rustyfork showed a great video of exporting MIDI from a single track then re-import to BiaB to be played by EZkeys, there is only one flaw.

EZkeys doesn't work without CC64.

As a veteran user of Toontrack for almost a decade, I can confirm this, without the correct CC64 Suspend/Damper MIDI events, EZkeys, along with any piano VSTs, will sound like garbage.

Unfortunately, most MIDIs in BiaB, either don't have the correct CC64 data, or simply have no CC64 data.

Solutions?

You have to draw CC64 event curves yourself, or better off, go and purchase the official MIDI packs from Toontrack, which contain the correct pre-recorded CC64 data.

No pay, no gain, right?

Musicvanillin,
"then re-import to BiaB to be played by EZkeys"
The video was to demonstrate how to get MIDI block chords from chordsheet to DAW

Ezkeys have nothing to do with what I initially proposed. That was a side item.