PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Tips on how to choose suitable styles?

One thing that I find difficult, is trying to choose a style. I start out with the original song's beat and feel in my head, but as soon as I start trying out potential styles, my head just starts to spin. Even using the categories on the left in the stylepicker still presents sooo many choices - which is both a good and a bad thing .

I know about trying styles that match a prototype - that helps a lot. I also, have started adding styles to a favourite list, as I think that will help narrow down choices a bit (but I don't want to narrow it too much and have all my songs just use half a dozen different styles).

What tips/tricks do people use to keep track of styles, and to select something that might work for particular songs.

This will be a sort of contrarian answer. As I don't know you, let me explain first that I think very highly of BIAB as a music creation tool and have used it with great satisfaction. That said, the fact is that if you have a firm idea in mind of what your song should sound like, BIAB can become a positive distraction. A sequencer such as Cubase, Sonar, Power Tracks Pro Audio, etc. can be a better place to start as they provide you with a blank slate. Of course, that leaves you with the work of creating everything from scratch, which is why you got BIAB in the first place, right? Neat!

I will let others relate how they deal with this issue and continue working on the project they had in mind when they started. In my case, I sort of gave up and let myself be inspired by the distractions. BIAB usually has a different, and sometimes better, approach to a chord progression. I have learned to cherish the 'mistakes' and run with 'em. But I am in the vast minority. (Think everybody else vs. me. )

There really is no substitute for intensive listening sessions and copious note taking. After you have spent time with BIAB and sifted through the various Styles and Real Tracks (which, after all, is the only way to answer your question fully) you will begin to have a sense for what will work. Since at least v. 2009.5 there is an option to "Show Styles by Feel and Tempo," which will help to narrow things down a bit.

Finally (he said, with an evil gleam), if you want to nail it, learn how to use the MIDI Style Maker, which, until Real Styles came along, was where the sorcery of BIAB lived. Here you can create your own grooves more or less exactly as you hear them. Mwa-hahahaha, etc.

Having muddied the waters completely, let us await someone who will give a practical answer to your question. Have fun!

Richard

Without any doubt BIAB is invaluable tool for creating songs.

I'm gonna ride two ideas mentioned above.

One "Auditioning" styles is extremely important to me. Prior
to making a song. See(hear) whats available. I've only been
with the BIAB parts for couple of years, but still learning about
"new" finds in the style auditioning.

Listening to other folks music and the songs they create is a second
tool mentioned. The ingenuity of how the styles are used, the tracks
and how the are used is invaluable. The Mix, levels, sounds each
person uses with their music.

Another tool albeit not quite as nifty is going onto YouTube and searching
for similar songs to what your ideas are. Then go back to BIAB auditioning
and find this style.

This all takes bit of time, but is well worth the efforts.

Good Luck, and by all means enjoy these challenges.

I don't know of any superfast shortcuts to finding an appropriate Style for a given song due to the large number of available styles as well as the fact that there are many times when even genre identification can cross over from one to another, ofen yielding a surprisingly good result.

But here is how I handle the situation:

Inside the Stylepicker window is a checkbox towards the bottom that allows us to load and play a style with a doubleclick, let us hear that style play without leaving the Stylepicker window.

There is also the Filter that will indicate any styles that share the same Tempo and Feel as the file already loaded into a song. There will be an asterisk (*) displayed in front of each suitable filename. That narrows the choices down quite a bit in most cases, although the other styles still appear in the listings, they can be ignored.

I first lay out the songfile chords on the main Chordgrid and then choose one of the simple MIDI styles that has near the right Feel and Tempo desired. These are easy to find as they are mostly the ones that begin with ZZ, but not always.

Then, before leaving the main view to go to Stylepicker, I make sure that the "Loop" box to the right of the Songtitle window slot is also checked.

Hit Play to start the song.

Now open the Stylepicker window, make sure that the above mentioned PLAY ON DOUBLECLICK is invoked and that all important filter as well.

Then, AS THE SONG IS PLAYING, I start at the top of the Styles list and doubleclick on the first asterisk preceded file and let it load and listen to what it sounds like.

I don't typically stop on the first Style that works or sounds okay, I just jot the filename down using Notepad and keep on doubleclicking Styles and AUDITIONING them in realtime like that.

*The MIDI styles will load and play in this "Audition" mode much faster than the Realtracks files, although with a modern pc, fast processor with lots of ram, etc. I've noticed that the time to generate playback with realtracks files is greatly reduced.

So I will generally use the all MIDI styles at first to narrow things down, simply because of that faster loading time. Once I have found a MIDI style that seems to really fit the desired result, I leave that style file loaded into the actual songfile -- and then revisit the Realtracks with the Filter in place as to Tempo and Feel and star auditioning Realtracks styles in the same fashion.

Yes, it is time consuming. But in my case I have found it to be time well spent. And for more than one reason: As I've gone through this procedure so many times in making up my songfiles, I find that I do indeed get a little better grip on all those stylenames, Feels, Tempos, genre and the fact that some crossover between the identified genre and the target.

By "crossover" I mean that sometimes a style that is identified as a "country" genre may work well in a rock, pop or even some jazz instances. Or some of the contemporary gospel styles may do so.

Many times, I've been pleasantly surprised by the audition of a Style that I wouldn't think should work in a particular song, only to find a new direction to take the project or a really good match for one genre that is labeled as being for another.

I guess the main thing is to set aside the time to go through this process with the goal of "having fun" doing it rather than viewing this necessary step as a drudge or something.


--Mac

Mac,

Most Excellent.......

Thanks Mac. I found the double-click to audition, and I use it to work through the files, as you suggest. I like your idea of finding a simple style (ZZ* types) first, then using that as the prototype, try all the ones starting with asterisks.

I must remember to set loop before going into the stylepicker, yes. It is annoying to have the song stop while auditioning. Also, pencil and paper is needed, as yes, I soon forget which styles sounded OK as I move down the list.

I also agree about crossover styles. I have used a few that way already.

So thanks for the great post. Good to know some of the things I was doing are right, can't wait to try out the new suggestions.

This sometimes is hard. I was lucky started with 2004 ver. alot less to choose from then. I also had some help I was given 5000 songs of people ver. of songs. so I had a starting point. all I did was rearange them the way I wanted. Today I listen to the song I want to put in biab and then see is I have a style in a song I have or close. A simple midi style is best. then get the chords where I like him. you can go back later and teek it. I then go in and add realtracks and replace the midi if I can find one thats better. sometimes I add a only for the intro or have it or something else spilt the lead up me play half and maybe a steel play the 2nd half. where else can you have Brent Mason and Paul Franklin and Wanda Vick playing back to you Ity has raised the bars to what a do thanks to to biab

In addition to what Mac said - btw: thank you, Mac, for the huge number of all your helpful contributions on that forum! - I do the following:
First I came up with my own set of categories that fit better to my personal way of making music with BIAB. I copied the lines of the styles I could imagine to use in the future into my new categories. Some styles I copied into 2 or even 3 categories. Thus I'm sure to find this suitable style when I would need it. (You may consider these as 'corossover styles'). I did this more than 10 years ago when I began working with BIAB.
Everytime since I then when I upgraded to the newer version - and I did this regularly - I rehearsed the new styles and added 'my favorites' to my special sub categories. Again - some styles fit to 2 or even 3 sub categories.

Since BIAB offered the option to mark favorites this also was a great help. This option is much easier, but for me my own set of categories is a even more effective system.

When the Realtracks came up I started a additional set of categories for the RTs.

For me these 2 own systems are very effectiv. But it takes a lot of time to keep it actual when a new version of BIAB comes up. But when you want to work effectively - for me(!) this is the way.

In the following I give you my(!) system of categories.
It's without the thousands of lines with the actual styles information. (Would be too long in this post).
But you get the idea of what I'm working with:


~~~
~~~

~My FAVORITS:
~ Folk & Country
~ Ballads: Pop & Country
~ Pop & Rock
~ Gospel & Church Hymns
~ Praise & Worship (Set#18 & 52)
~ Ethnic
~ Reggae, Caribbean, NewAge
~ Contemporary
~ Latin, Salsa & ClassicDance
~ Modern Dance
~ Fusion, Tek, R&B
~ PianoSpecials, Banjo, Shuffles
~ Jazz, Blues & Soul
~ Vint-Jazz (peppig)
~ 3/4-Takt
~ 5/4-Takt
~ 6/8-Takt
~ 9/8-Takt
~ 12/8-Takt
~ 2/2-Takt
~~~~

~REALTRACK-Styles:

~ SPIRITED Acoustic & 12String Guitar [RTs#49,98,150]
~ PRAISE & WORSHIP: Shinig,Uplift,Power,Believe [RTs#116,117,134,135,151]
~ COUNTRY & FolkSwing [RTs#65,81,97,101,118,121,132,133,136,139,141,149,154]
~ Ballads & More [RTs#61,137,150]
~ POP-ROCK-Crossover: Piano, Organ, Harmonica, Bass
~ (12-)Electric Guitar [RTs#87,88]
~ Rockin' - Folk, R&B, Country & Others [RTs#41,43,45,60,68,71,83,85,105,108,150,152]
~ Blues Rock [RTs#86,137]
~ WALTZES: Pop, Rock, Country & Jazz [RTs#58,63,64,76,76,82,96,99,107,126,148,153]
~ STRIDE, MemphisSw, BOOGIE, DIXIE & More [RTs#77-80,137,139,143,144]
~ 70s Soul, Boogie & Texas Rock [RTs#42,122,138,140,149,154]
~ Blues Guitar & Organ [RTs#44]
~ Western Swing & Bluegrass [RTs#62,100]
~ Uptemp Reggae & Calypso Pop [RTs#102,103,106]
~ Celtic: Hornpipe, SlipJigs [RTs#104,123]
~ Gypsy: Jazz, Latin & Waltz [RTs#109,110,128,129]
~ Ballroom:Bossas, Latin & More, Fast Samba [RTs#50,51,52,74,75,147,148]
~ Smooth Jazz - Swing, Ballad & Pop [RTs#72,73,91-95,111,112,127,131,138,145]
~~~~


This is part of the (beginning of the) original file BBW.LST.
When my system shouldn't give me a satisfactory styles for a special song, then I still have the possibility to acces the 'normal' BBW.LST-category. (Remember: My set of categories are only a selection of all available styles. (But the selection is a lot of thousand, too).

Hopefully this post can help you, too.


Greetings from Germany

Ulrich

P.S.:
I didn't re-categorize the new RTs of version 2012.5 yet. I'm playing on my new Yamaha Tyros keyboard more than with BIAB. (You can spend your time only once ;-) - that's why the RT section doesn't include the newest RTs yet.

A great idea, but, as you say, a lot of work. I will see how I go.