... with quite a few things here. Putting in a basic song is easy, but I find the Style Picker confusing e.g. for easiness I've just typed in Roll Over Beethoven, which it found - Chuck Berry, Lite Pop ... but most of the 18 items on the list... 5 R, 2 RM, 11 M ... are nothing like it! Cuban Son Montuno Quintet? Rock Samba?? Pop Rock Bossa?

Also, I'm struggling to check whether all the RealTracks are in there, though I'm sure I dowloaded and installed them all... in Style Picker, without any filters (I think), I'm counting about 90 R tracks and 90 RM tracks, but there are supposed to be 202. There are 756 items in total on the list.

Another puzzle, part of what lead me to buy BIAB was a recent review I found online in Sound on Sound, and it mentioned two features - SoundTrack and Song Picker, but I can't find either of these things.

This is my fist contribution to this Forum so I'll be interested to see what responses I get...

Hello Everyone...

Nick

Nick
Firstly, Welcome.

1:
Which BiaB Package did you purchase? That might limit what Styles you have available.

Roll Over Beethoven comes up with 3 suggestions for me, as seen in the first image below.

The number of Real Tracks will depend on the package you purchased. Do let us know so we can explore further.

2:
Shortcut function key <Shift><F3> launches the Song Picker for songs you have recently opened.

Function key <F3> opens the directory for you to load songs from.

3:
From the Help: "The SoundTrack feature allows you to generate music in the style you choose for any length of time you specify. As the "producer," you select the genre, length of time, instruments, and fade-in/fade-out options."

"To use the SoundTrack feature, choose the Melody | Generate SoundTrack menu item. You will then see the Generate SoundTrack window."

Hope these responses help in some way.

Best regards,
Nick

PS I'm not sure I've done this quoting business in the best possible way either?

For item 3, the naming convention might be different on the Mac version. I'll report it to the developers.

To insert a quote within your post, start with left square bracket the word 'quote' and a right square bracket. Then insert the text you wish to quote, and close the quote with the following string: [/quote]

It would look like this, without spaces:

[ quote ]this is the text you wish to quote [ /quote ]

Does a search for 'Roll Over Beethoven' come up with Hip Hop on the Mac version? I don't understand your comment. Can you explain more what you found? You asked for 'Roll Over Beethoven' then you stated "Roll Over Chuck Berry - Hip Hop?"
Is that the exact result you found?

Nick, welcome. Until you feel comfortable moving out of the Beginners forum into the BIAB for Mac forum, keep adding the info that you use the Mac version. Sometimes it makes a difference to us.

And of course, the suggested styles are not going to be "the song". The styles are not meant to be cover versions of the songs, but a suggestion as to the feel, tempo, etc of the song.

The good news is that PGMusic has been working to update the style-based-on-song suggestion database, but it is still their interpretation of which styles go with which songs. I'm hoping in the future that we can do our own "user" database to match styles to the songs we do (and then maybe have a facility for sharing with the rest of the world).

As Videotrack mentioned, it would be good to know which version of BIAB your purchased, as that determines the number of styles you have available to you. The program itself is the same in all the versions (ProPak, MegaPak, UltraPlusPak, EverythingPak, Audiophile); but the styles, RealTracks, RealDrums, Super MIDI tracks, etc differ in quantity (and in the case of the Audiophile edition, quality). Obviously the higher priced Paks contain more content.

And welcome to the forum. Try not to get too frustrated, as there are lots of folks willing to help you out here with not judgment as to your skill level.

Just a quickie to say thanks for the friendly welcome everyone - I woke up this morning to find comments from around the world! Will follow them up later on today. Encouragement much appreciated.

Sorry, I was just making a bit of a joke... I thought it was funny it came up with Hip Hop in answer to the "Beethoven" search ... not sure what Chuck Berry would make of that.

I've just done the search again and it came up with the same results as yours - there are just some very odd matches to it, but I also take on board what jford says earlier, the styles are to do with feel, tempo etc.

I'll continue exploring ... with a very open mind.

Welcome from us, too! Nice to have you with us.

BIAB has a pretty strong learning curve but the more you work with it, the ore familiar you'll become with it's various attributes.

As far as all the "other" styles you get in the style picker, one way to eliminate some of the unwanted styles is near the center-top of the page. You'll see a box labeled "Include Similar". Uncheck that box ... that will narrow the results somewhat. But you'll always get more than the specific style you want. Just look through them and find the one you specifically want.

You can preview each style by double clicking on it. A few seconds later, you'll hear a sample song using the style you clicked on. I often have to click through a number of them to get exactly what I want.

What I described above is for a PC. Not sure if a MAC is the same. Hope that helps a little bit. Hang in there! You'll be surprised how much easier it becomes as you work with it. Hope you have success with it and enjoy it as much as we do! best to you.

Alan & Di.