Hi All and Happy Weekend to Everyone,

I'm new to this forum and getting ready to use BIAB 2016 so have a lot of homework to do with familiarizing myself. I had BIAB way back in 2001 but the software has come a long way since then.

Although I was familiar with BIAB as well as using hardware sequencers and VS series of recording workstations, I've only been doing totally "In The Box" DAW stuff for about three years. My first batch of mixes then...compared to what I do now...SUCKS!! (LOL!)

So I've been wondering how best to import older stems to BIAB and do remixes. Anyway, here's some questions:
1.) Can BIAB interpret wave files? (so I can import stems and experiment with different real tracks (oops wrong wording? sorry)
2.) Importing midi for solo tracks? For example if I create a lead guitar solo on my midi keyboard, can I import that to BIAB and experiment with the different real tracks/sounds in the same manner as I experiment with different amp simulators in my DAW for tone?
3.) Working with reference tracks in BIAB and Real Band?
Can I just leave imported reference tracks alone while making adjustments in BIAB and Real Band?

Thanks in advance for any advice. Once I have the software installed (new computer coming) I will be a bit better with description of questions than now. Sorry if I'm confusing folks.

If you did the older songs in an older version of BIAB and still have the .SGU or .MGU files then you should be able to open them in BIAB 2016 and quickly re-work them different styles which will including real tracks and also super midi and other new features.

Other than that; BIAB would not be the program for importing multiple stems of .wav or .aaif etc...

However, to answer Q#1: Yes, you can use any one of your single .wav tracks that contain mostly chords and/or single notes and have it interpret the chords and closely auto build a BIAB chord sheet for you. This seems to work best if you do not import the whole song mix but only import something like a strumming acoustic guitar or piano mono track that plays consistently through all or most of the song.

The answer to each of your three questions is yes.

If you are importing audio or with midi, you have access to a better workflow and more tracks available using RealBand.

If you have questions when working on a particular file, you will get a better response to the specific issue when you encounter it during a project. Just come onto the forum for specific advice.

Charlie

LinMar,

I'm doing the same thing so I'll be following this topic with great interest. Thanks for starting this. I know several here who are in the same canoe wanting to improve very old files.

Donny

Thanks for the quick reply sir. I was just about to do a "P.S." to this post.

4th question...converting from wav to midi and midi to wav? Specifically for when I want to create my own say "Guitar Solo" using my midi keyboard. Does BIAB have the ability to read the midi and do generating from that?

5.) I'm also wondering about individual drum tones from midi drum sequencers? Can Real Band and/or BIAB import those as well so I can do advance tweaking in my DAW? after?
Ah...so many questions...so little patience ha ha!

Marty

#4 - For BIAB - No. But some RealTracks have Real Charts and so midi can play those notes. Real Charts are transcriptions of RealTrack audio.

#5 - RealBand is a DAW and individual drum tracks can be imported and have processing done to them.

Little patience ... You may have to work on that. As with anything worthwhile, time and patience are paramount.... <G>

Charlie


PS: I'm looking forward to your first post on our User Showcase. Something tells me it will be quite a treat.

Hi
To create a midi file from a wave file you can use melodyne. Just import the wave file, make sure the tempo is correct and then export as midi. I do it all the time with my vocal line.
Regards
Ps if you don't have melodyne and would like me to do it for you send me a pm

Hi Joanne,
What's MELODYNE it is a transcription software?

Melodyne:
Wikipedia
Tuning Vocals

Melodyne:
Wikipedia
Tuning Vocals

Hi Joanne,
Thats a very interesting reply on Melodyne,
1.When you export the midi file of your voice to BIAB will the resulting real track backing tracks be specific to you?or could anyone sing to the same backing track taking into account the Key of the singer once you have it created?
2.Does the quality of the singer effect the midi your sending?i.e If a poor quality singer like myself sings the song will the midi be also unusable for a good quality singer if you get my meaning.
3.Does the Pitch to midi in BB do a similar thing?(i think thats what its called)

Also Could you do a blog on that subject pretty please.....if you have the time..
Thanks a mill
Hugh

Linmar,

If you have the original BB files, as was pointed out, you can open them in BB.

If not, you can use the auto chord wizard in BB on a wave or MP3 of the song to have it pick the chords out...

Or... what I have found, sometimes it's best to simply start from scratch and reenter the chords of the old songs you want to work on and work from the ground up. I found out that doing it by entering the chords was faster than using the ACW for one song that I was trying to put into BB. ACW just wasn't picking the chords very well. It's like that on some things especially if the chords are one thing with numbers behind them and the bass note is something different.

As easy as it is to enter the chords, you're only talking about a few minutes of time to get the structure in place in BB. Then open it in RB and pick your real tracks and add the extra things,,,,, heck you can even record your vocal tracks in RB.

Melodyne is a pitch correction program that is also the best audio to MIDI converter that I have found. If you have Melodyne Studio you can convert polyphonic instruments to MIDI, the less but still expensive version will only do monophonic. I use it at times to take a rhythm guitar part, convert it to MIDI then have the MIDI play another instrument in unison with the guitar. I also use it to change timbres, pitch correction, adjust vibrato, etc.

Now to your questions:

1- There is a big difference between Realtracks and MIDI. Realtracks are professional players that play what they want to play to fit your song/style. They will not play what you have as MIDI notes. You must use a MIDI sound source to play a MIDI track. Both are valuable but different tools, much like a hammer and a wrench.

Anyone can sing along with a monophonic track. To help singers I might play the lead line in MIDI, assign a vibraphone to it and have it playing softly in the background as the singer sings.

2-The answer to this question is yes and no. When using a pitch to MIDI program you should not have any effects on with your voice. Effects like reverb, delay etc and mess up the conversion. Also avoid pitch bends, but these can be added later as MIDI is much more versatile to Realtracks when it comes to modifying a track.

Thus don't worry if you sing off key. Melodyne can easily correct those notes so they are perfect. It can also correct the length of the note if needed. When finished you will have a perfect track for your singer and/or any instrument.

3-I haven't played with BiaB's pitch to MIDI in a long time so it might work. Just give it a try.

One final word on pitch to MIDI programs: none of them are always perfect. You may have to do a little editing with the final MIDI track. Like I said I have found Melodyne to be the best but occasionally I have to do a little editing, but much less editing than any other pitch to MIDI program that I have tried.

For Q#2;
Amp simulators are intended for DI recorded instruments such as a guitar recorded directly to the track with no amp or microphone. But's since this is art feel free to convert your midi tracks to audio and try some amp simulators on it. The results may not be what you want but will surely be unique.
You can put your midi guitar solo on BIABs Melody track. You won't be able to experiment with RealTrack "sounds" because RealTracks are not midi samples.

However, you can easily change the midi instrument by right clicking on the Melody track and use the dropdown box/es to choose GM/GM2/other midi voices. I, myself have not had great success at getting IK Multimedia SampleTank to function within BIAB. But, it works fine in Reaper DAW ($60)
I think what most of us do is punch out the chords how we want them in BIAB, choose a few styles that we think fit well, then move the individual audio and midi tracks to a DAW to do the things you are looking to do.

If you just want to import stems to remix you should do that in a DAW like RealBand that come with BIAB. Import each stem onto it's own track, then remix. Hopefully your stems are .wav and raw with no FX. If your original tracks you recorded elsewhere have a click track or midi drum track you should import that also. That way when you change tempo or stretch timing you can include the tempo track to help keep all in sinc.

What did you originally record your songs on? The VS workstation... is that a hardware digital recorder? Like an old Mini Disc multitrack recorder? Can you connect it to your computer via USB, Optical LightPipe, or a multi pin interface that was made for it? If so, you might be able to dump your tracks directly to your computer without the wait time to do each track one at a time.

Q#3; What are "reference" tracks?

Hugh. Will cover this in my feb blog. For now, Mario has answered your questions. A couple things to add. You don't need the polyphonic version to do this. Just the cheapest version. The trial version will also let you do this (for a month).

It is best to tune and adjust the timing of your vocal before saving as a midi track. And as said before, make sure the tempo is right. Then open up the midi file in your daw and as Mario said you will need to adjust a few bad notes. I use the piano roll to do this (I'm not so good with the score).

Will do that blog post..,,

[quote=JoanneCooper]Hugh. Will cover this in my feb blog. For now, Mario has answered your questions. A couple things to add. You don't need the polyphonic version to do this. Just the cheapest version.....quote]

The cheapest version is Essentials and it will not save to midi. You have to have the next version up which is Assistant - which sucks imo that you have to pay for an upgrade just to save a file to midi.

Thanks Mario and Joanne,
The process I am doing and you can correct me if im wrong which I could be.
1.I create a midi melody which I am going to (use as my Vocal Melody later)
2.I create the backing tracks to that midi melody in Biab in whatever style and with realtracks etc
3.I then want to vocalize that melody or put words to that melody(from here on it becomes difficult to know that what I have vocalized is correct)
So I think Melodyne or Pitch to midi could help me check what I have actually sung goes as well with the backing tracks as the midi melody.
Thanks for the replies and the blog will be very useful Joanne much appreciated,
Hugh

Hi Sundance
Thanks it looks like a good product.Ive added it to my wishlist and I hope to invest in a few products later in the year.I like the look of Izotope as well and it seems to come recommeded on the forum.Are their any must haves for mixing and mastering that you recommend?
thanks Hugh

Many users here feel Izotope Ozone is one tool where you don't want to try the demo unless you are ready to buy it. After trying it, you will want it.


If I somehow lost every record of my copy of Ozone .. I'd go out and buy it again quickly and hope I could work it out with Izotope later, if needed. Yep, I'd risk buying it twice as opposed to not having it for a period of time.
That's about the closest *I* can come to a 'must have' recommendation.
Ozone is different than the above mentioned Izotope program, but after that you asked about 'mixing and mastering' must haves.
TBH I've used Ozone at both the track level and the mastering slot. Each instance would have much different settings, but it can be used in both ways, though it is most known for mastering.

Hugh2,

My only must have is Ozone. I also like Nectar 2 another Izotope product for vocals.

Re: voice to midi -

There is a voice to midi program called Imitone for $25. I haven't tried it but it looks like a lot of fun. It's not Melodyne but not the big price tag either if all you want is voice to midi.

Another vote here for Ozone I got it a few years ago and have been amazed at the difference it can still make to what I previously thought was a "finished" track. The CD Master preset in Ozone is excellent for adding a professional sparkle and gain level.

I also highly recommend ozone. Use it all the time.

Josie, thanks for pointing that out about the melodyne versions. It used to be that you could do the audio to midi with just the free version but they quickly removed that. I have the full blown multi track version and use it all the time to line up harmonies. I doubt I could do without it anymore.

Hugh, I think to be honest to do what you want to do you probably need the multi track version of melodyne. Melodyne studio. Here you can play multiple tracks at the same time and actually see if they line up with each other. note. The multi track version is very very expensive!

Have you got the trial version of melodyne studio? If so, import the wave files of both the midi vocal
line and your vocal and you will be able to see where you are off key.

(Ps you can also tune your vocal and "learn" to sing it in key, although I am sure there are cheaper tools to do this)

Hugh, if you want I can use my Melodyne and import your wave files and send you a video of the result. PM me if you want me to do that.

You're welcome Joanne. I've never seen a free version other than a trial or unless it came bundled with another DAW. I read somewhere a version of it comes bundled with Studio One now.

Hugh2 - For me the studio version of Melodyne would be overkill because with Reaper I can use Melodyne as a vst plugin on whatever tracks I want. It's really easy to move things around in Reaper. So picking a version really depends on the DAW you are already using as well as the features you want and how much you want to spend.

FYI - The version of the monophonic Melodyne is bundled with Sonar. Sonar has ARA (Audio Random Access) so you can edit audio within Sonar using Melodyne. I have the Studio version that I can use within Sonar.

Your last sentence says it all!

Hi Joanne
Thats an incredibly kind offer and I may take you up on that!My songs are just not fully ready yet.Alot of them have the lyrics and music but I havent put them together yet.
I got a couple of songs produced professionally ,really because I wanted to see whether my songs could come out any good.
I was encouraged but I realized that studio produced songs have limitations.They sound great,they hit every beat on time and technically they are spot on but they can lack any individuality and you cant experiment much or add a little idea here or there.Their is no "lets try this" or "lets try that" if you know what I mean.
So like alot of people Im on the curb of trying to produce a good sounding demo with some life in it.Band in a box is just such a great tool for that.
Much appreciate you taking time out to do the blog.
Yours Hugh

Thank you Sundance for your advice,
I am going to have a look at ozone and nectar and imitone .
It looks like it worth a go at 25 dollars.
Yours Hugh

Josie. The free version is really just an audio player. It is what you are left with after your free trial is over. I used to use it to make midi files from a wave file but they removed that functionality. It was about that time I decided to buy it.

The full studio version is useful if you have multiple tracks that you want to line up with each other. The album with my old band mate Karen Wilmot "Alice band 20 years on" would have been a bit of a mess without it because I had her vocal and my vocal that where just never in time no matter how hard I tried and how long I practiced. With melodyne studio you can line everything up perfectly so that the plosives "p's" etc sound at the same time and the words start and end at the same time etc.

For me it is simply the best tool for manipulating audio.

Edited to add; I think in the "old" days you just had to spend hours and hours in the studio trying to line up vocal parts. Now with melodyne you don't have to do that (of course the vocal needs to be quite good to begin with otherwise the results will not be great). So you can get quite a good out come with relatively little effort and that, I am for

Blog post on How to createa melody line form a vocal using Melodyne now available

Joanne, this is excellent and should be copied to the Tip and Tricks' forum.

If one has the DAW Sonar all one has to do is to drag the audio track to the timeline and it will automatically convert it to a MIDI track while still retaining the audio track.

Hi Joanne
Great detailed post which is will be really handy for anyone who wants to instrumentalize if thats a word a vocal line and keep it perfectly in sync with the backing music.Im going to try this out as soon as I get Melodyne which I believe comes with Sonar.I will ask Mario D as he posted on subject,
Thanks again for your time
Hugh

Hi Mario
I have to get a DAW and wonder whats the ups and downs of Sonar?
I checked and Sonar Pro and Platinium have Melodyne Essential is that the reason Sonar converts to Midi so easily?Is it generally good with Midi as I use it all the time?
Thanks Hugh

The ups:
It is rock solid
It comes with a lot of new softsynths and effects.
Melodyne can be used as an VST3 ARA plugin.
Very good for MIDI and audio tracks.
Number of tracks limited only by your system.
Many other features.

The downs:
Can have a steep learning curve for a novice.
Only fair for notation.
Melodyne Essential will only work with monophonic tracks.

Since you have been using MIDI for a long time I will assume that you are familiar with DAWs so the learning curve may not be that steep.

Yes Melodyne Essential can very easily convert audio to MIDI while keeping the audio track. Drag the monophonic audio track or clip to the time line and it will generate a new MIDI track containing the notes in the audio track. You may have to do a little editing. I have tried a number of audio to MIDI converters and Melodyne does the best job. The more expensive Melodyne programs allow polyphonic editing.
You can correct pitch and timing with Melodyne.

If you have any questions just send me a PM.

I hope this helps.

Thanks For the review,It helps a lot,

It looks reasonably priced as well,so il download the trial version and see whether il be able for it,
It wasnt on my radar until i saw this post but its a handy midi feature,
Yours Hugh

Hi Mario,

Can be used MELODYNE for transcription solos eg. the guitar tracks of audio that has a polyphony of other musical instruments?

Melodyne Studio will show all of the notes in a track but it can not pick out one instrument and only display it. No program that I know of can pull one instrument out of a multi-instrument track. It's like trying to pull the eggs out of a cooked cake.

You could go into Melodyne and start deleting notes that are not the guitar but that would be very time consuming, a real PITA and I'm not sure that that would work.

Sorry to be a killjoy here - I really don't mean to be. Mario is the midi master for sure and one of my fav people on the planet. And Joanne has done a wonderful blog on the subject.

However Melodyne ESSENTIAL does NOT save an audio as midi file. You will have to get a higher version of the program to do that.

Hi Josie. I saw that when I was doing the research for my blog. On the celemony website it says you need melodyne assistant to convert wave to midi. Noel commented on the other thread that RealBand can do this conversion so I am going to try that out.

Yes, I second that.
+1

Sundance, thanx so much for correcting me on this. I have used Studio so long that I assumed that all versions of Melodyne did audio to MIDI conversions. My bad. It looks like assumed made an @ss out of me again!

Thanx again for correcting this.

Ps - you could never be a killjoy!

Melodyne essential can convert as a plugin in the DAW application. The procedure is: Load the wav file mono instrument (singing) to the DAW application. Control M stretch over to track MELODYNE and let retrieve mono algorithm. After that I returned to the DAW application will appear in the track dashing. In the DAW application, add a midi track and penciling in wav track, drag into the midi track. I've got Melodyne Studio 4, but this process I have seen in the course Studio One. (English by creating through google translator, so I hope everything is translated understandable).
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BIAB 2017, Windows 10, Studio One PRO 2.6, Melodyne Studio 4, Sibelius 8, Music Creator 6 Touch, ACID Music Studio 9.0

I was going to mention Studio One. The full version also includes the basic Melodyne and you get a discount if you want one of the higher versions.

Bob