Hi folks. Finally started playing with BIAB in over 2 years of silence.

As I only sing and play rhythm guitar I find some of the RealTracks "melodies" helpful when compiling a song. However each new Regeneration changes the melody and I may have discovered yesterday that Regeneration is also effected by the key of the song, length of song and maybe the tempo of the song? I could be wrong but definitely the key of the song effects the "guitar 3" melody in Regenerating "_ACCFOLK.STY BBStrings_Real 2444 Guitar, Baritone Electric,". The key signature of the song is in F. Change to Bb and the "guitar 3" plays a different rift and sounds completely different no matter how many times I regenerate.

I would like to be able to have more control over what BIAB decides in it's Regeneration and if possible select make my own selection rather than the way it is at the moment - like playing the slots machines? I keep regenerating to either find a guitar rift I like or get back one that I preferred earlier. I have been editing my new song length, key and tempo and have lost the Baritone Guitar rift that I liked in the intro and cannot get it back now, even when I change all the settings back to what they were. Only way I see is to create as many Regenerations of "guitar 3" as possible then edit them all into one track in my DAW but thats a lot of tedious work.

Help would be appreciated, thank you.

Paul

The Real Tracks are real musical phrases played by real musicians using real instruments. Many of the phrases have been recorded differently, multiple times. This is to provide variety and interest to the arrangements.

When you hear a 'rendition' of a Real Track that is acceptable, you can freeze that particular track (or multiple tracks) and then next time you play it won't generate a different arrangement for that instrument(s), but will play the arrangement you 'saved'.

MIDI tracks on the other hand will give you more consistency in the 'repeatability'.

So you have several choices.

Thanks VideTrack

I knew they were real audio from real musicians but as BIAB changes some of the instruments when you Regenerate I was asking if there's any control over what is chosen by the Regeneration process? Let say there were 7 different renditions recorded, then I assume that BIAB can choose out of those 7 when it's Regenerated? If so can I have a say what is selected or is it pot luck? Sound like pot luck to me.

Regards

My understanding is that you cannot control which musical phrases are generated each time. Once you hear one that you like, you can freeze the track to retain it though.

Paul,

One change you can make is to migrate from Band-in-a-Box to RealBand as quickly as you can once you have the basic song structure arranged in Band-in-a-Box.

RealBand offers several advantages over Band-in-a-Box when you're focusing on track details versus the overall song structure.

RealBand can import MGU and SGU files while retaining most of the song details. Some details, for example the F5 settings (I think) do not transfer with 100 per cent accuracy but things like style, tempo, initial instrument patches, chord sheet do. Since everything does not transfer and I've never discovered exactly what does and does not transfer I've found the sooner I move to RealBand the better. Some users start with RealBand instead of Band-in-a-Box but I believe Band-in-a-Box is the better program to begin a song project.

RealBand allows you to select, modify and regenerate individual track bars versus regenerating the complete track.

RealBand has a feature called "multiriff" that will regenerate selected bars of a track up to seven or eight times so you don't spend as much time regenerating.

RealBand makes it easy to mix midi instrument patches with audio so, for instance, you can use a midi bass to play a specific riff and RealTracks bass the rest of the time.

There are other reasons to use RealBand but those are some of the reasons I do.

If the way I interpreted and rephrased your earlier statement and if you also want to remain in Biab, then I recommend you experiment with converting tracks to Performance Tracks.

Performance Tracks will give you more control and flexibility over generated Biab tracks more so than exporting WAV files and freezing tracks.

Rather than discuss methods and techniques you and others may not be interested in, if this thread continues to draw discussion, interest and some members would like to go deeper in discussing Performance Tracks, I'll explain some of the things I've tried and the methods and techniques I've used. Others may decide to contribute their methods as well. I like and use Performance Tracks but there are other conventional methods where moving tracks to a DAW will accomplish the same results with even more control, flexibility and they may be more intuitive.

Charlie

Yep... each time you change something, it regenerates the tracks and that cool lick might be gone.

If you really gotta have it, freeze it and export it.

You mentioned that generating multiple generations and editing them in a DAW was a tedious job. Yes it is BUT.... the amount of work you're willing to invest in a project determines the quality of the song to a major extent.

I and others have done this very thing. My song THE BEST CHRISTMAS... on my music pages, has 3 piano tracks and 5 guitars that are the same real track generated multiple times and edited for what I wanted to hear. None of them are perfectly what I'd really like to have there but they are close and the editing solves the issues with a single track.

Embrace the edit.

Yep, in other words, it is what it is ... if you like it the first time, freeze.

Paul, others have suggested ways to save your favorite licks or phrases but I would like to point out what you're asking about is one of the oldest and best features of Biab. It's not a flaw.

Think for a minute what the name Band in a Box really means. It's an intelligent music arranger trying to duplicate what a real band would do. A group of real musicians will not play a song exactly the same way every time. If you want exactness there have always been loops available. Peter set out to deliberately NOT have Biab generate a song the same way every time. However, knowing some folks do want to save a certain version they really like he provided the tools to do so.

Bob

Does it help to know you are know alone?
I fully understand what you are saying and appreciate and share you frustration. For "song writting" purposes this regen feature of BIAB can be painful as the melody is impacted each time a different notes are played. Freezing is not the answer since the writting process changes chords. Seems there are only workarounds at this time.

One of the main reasons I am now using RealBand after BIAB. I suspect my live show will either move to RealBand or become wave files.