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Warning: This is a long post, but I wanted to present my ideas regarding what was a good start to disassociating track names in BIAB from the instruments selected for the tracks. Changing BIAB to display actual instruments on the different tracks, rather than the legacy names ( Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, Soloist, Thru, and Audio) was a huge step in the right direction. However, this has now led to a lot of confusion, especially for new users, since the BIAB User Manual, as well as many of the program screens still reference (and in some cases require) the legacy names. What needs to happen is that track names need to be completely disassociated from instrument names and then labeled and referenced more generically. This needs to happen throughout the application interface, as well as the accompanying documentation. My suggestion, and this is just a suggestion, would be to letter the track names, except for " Drums", " Melody", " Soloist", " Thru", and " Audio", because of the specific nature of those names, and because they do not reflect the instrument used. The other accompaniment tracks could then be lettered – for example, Track A, Track B, Track C, etc. For backwards compatibility, those tracks could be mapped to the legacy tracks when reading in an older file. So legacy Bass track becomes Track A, Piano becomes Track B, Guitar becomes Track C, Strings becomes Track D. And for lettering purposes, the other previously listed tracks can be: Drums becomes Track X (I’m thinking crossed drum sticks here), Melody becomes Track M, Soloist becomes Track S, Thru becomes track T, and Audio becomes track W (I’m thinking Wav file here). What this would allow would be for shots/holds/rests to work by using the new letters. Older files could be read in using the legacy names, but converted upon load to the new format. So to hold all instruments except the legacy bass and drums track, you would enter something like C7...AX (exclude "Track A" and "Drum Track"). It doesn’t matter what instrument is on the track, because BIAB already knows which MIDI instruments are Bass or Piano or whatever, and can adjust accordingly for program functions that use that information (such as piano hand split in notation). NEW FEATURE SUGGESTION: And of course, with all the above being said, as a future feature, it would be nice if MIDI tracks and audio tracks could be separated. Why do RealTracks/RealDrums have to overlay the MIDI tracks? Why not have completely separate tracks for audio versus MIDI. For MIDI, essentially extend the Sequencer feature to allow for separate tracks for each of the 16 channels and for audio, allow some number of RealTracks/RealDrums in addition to the MIDI tracks. This would also allow for both a MIDI drum track and an audio RealDrums track (I’m thinking percussion here), not either or. But I digress… Something like this will also require the user interface to clearly label the track names, as well as its associated instrument. Thinking out loud (since my typing makes noise), it also seems that the radio buttons are somewhat redundant given the mixer shows all the necessary information. But that’s just an idea. I went through the BIAB user manual PDF that came with BIAB 2015 and found the following references that would be points of confusion, because even though the track names on the main display change according to the instrument selected, the legacy names are still throughout the documentation. These aren’t every reference to the legacy names, but it definitely shows how confusion (especially for new users) can ensue. - Chapter 1 of the BIAB User’s manual even starts with: “Just type in the chords for any song using standard chord symbols (like C, Fm7, or C13b9), choose the style you’d like, and Band-in-a-Box does the rest, automatically generating a complete professional-quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar, and strings or horns in a wide variety of popular styles plus live audio tracks with RealDrums and RealTracks.”
- Chapter 4, “The Main Screen” section lists: “The Bass/Drum/Piano/Guitar/Strings/Melody/Soloist and Thru buttons refer to instrument parts.”
- The plugins screen still shows legacy names.
- The “Slide Tracks” screen shows: “This is a menu command (Play | Slide Tracks…) that allows you to move any of the Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Soloist tracks ahead or behind by a definable amount.”
- The text describing the “Normalize Velocity command says: “The normalization will affect bass, drums, piano, guitar, and strings.”
- In the description of RealTracks, the user manual says: “RealTracks can be built in to the style, and would replace the Bass, Guitar, Piano, or Strings part…”
- Under “Add a SuperMIDI track”, the user manual says: “For example, let’s add a MIDI SuperTrack to the Piano track.”
- Under the “Freezing Tracks” section, the user manual says: “MIDI tracks for bass, drums, piano, guitar and strings.”
- Under “Saving Track as Performance”, the user manual says: “Performance Track can be made by simply making an audio file (WAV, WMA) and naming it the same as the song, but with the track name (Bass, Piano, Drums, Guitar, Strings, Melody, Soloist) added.”
- The hot keys for the Conductor window in the user manual shows:
F#5 Bass Mute/Unmute Alt-3
G5 Piano Mute/Unmute Alt-4
G#5 Drums Mute/Unmute Alt-5
A5 Guitar Mute/Unmute Alt-6
Bb5 Strings Mute/Unmute Alt-7
B5 Melody Mute/Unmute Alt-9
C6 Soloist Mute/Unmute Alt-8
Db6 THRU Mute/Unmute Alt 0
- In the “Previewing Chords” section, the user manual says: “This enters the chord onto the chordsheet and then plays the chord for you, using the patches on the Piano part and Bass Part”.
- Rests, shots, holds still use the legacy names: “The coded names for the instruments are B for Bass, D for Drums, P for Piano, G for Guitar, and S for Strings.”
- In the “Copy/Move Tracks” dialog box it says, “Source track can be any of the Band-in-a-Box tracks – Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Soloist.”
- In the Piano Roll Window track selection, it says: “Select the Track - Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Solo.”
- In “View and Print Notation”, the user manual says: “Click on the instrument buttons to see the notation for the different parts: Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, and the Melody, or the Soloist.”
- The “Channels” screen to see if it lists legacy names.
The user manual says (in the RealTracks section): “There are many Band-in-a-Box styles that use RealTracks, and they can be built into any style to replace the Bass, Guitar, Piano, or Strings part”. - Under the “Standard Notation” section in the user manual, it says: “Notation display for the Bass, Drums, Guitar, Piano, Strings, Melody, or Soloist track.” Also, it says: “When checked, the Piano track (not any other track) will be displayed on both clefs with intelligent hand-splitting. You can print out the Piano track with the hands separated.”
- In the section on MIDI Style Wizard, the user manual says: “The Style Wizard analyzes the parts and guesses at which Band-in-a-Box part - Bass, Piano, Drums, Guitar, or Strings to use for each track”. Also, for the “Advanced Settings” screen, the user manual says: “The advanced instrument settings allow settings for the instruments (drums / bass / piano / guitar / strings) to be included in the style.”
- The Style Maker interface screen still uses the legacy names for each of the parts.
- In Style Maker, Piano and Guitar macros are track specific.
The “Make Hybrid Style” dialog uses legacy names. - The shortcut keys section of the user manual reference the legacy names.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2024/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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Thanks John for going into such detail, and articulating the points so well.
Yes, the track naming convention in 2015 was a big step forward, but only a single step, and a few more need to be taken.
I think there was a suggestion that tracks could generically be called T1, T2, T3 etc until named, the exact same way you would use strips on a mixing console.
I hardly ever use the radio buttons to select anything, I nearly always gravitate to the mixer. So yes, some items are perhaps now unnecessarily duplicated and have more legacy than functional value.
+1 for these ideas, and thanks again for substantiating your thoughts so well.
Best
Trevor
BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
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Great work, John. Very thorough.
You will probably remember that my very first post in beta testing version 2015 was to point out how this great new feature had ramifications throughout the program and required revisions to the documentation (though there is at present no solution to put in that documentation). I'm actually surprised we have seen so few posts by people confused about it.
I remember the discussion Trevor mentioned, and I really liked the idea of track numbering. Someday, I would hope that BIAB would support the use of control surfaces, and then track numbers would make even more sense. With scribble strips, you would see at the top of each fader whatever the track name was. The Mackie Control can do that now with DAW software, but I think we will see real demand for this feature when the Behringer X-Control comes out later this year for half the cost. How glorious it would be to be able to control the BIAB mix on the fly and automate levels.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
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Thank you John. You are a wise user and know more than I about the program.
When replacing tracks and gernally fiddling about in BIAB I have found the specific names can vanish and go back to the generic names - which are highly misleading to users. Its not only the manual that confuses.
I think this issue needs a complete rethink. I cant see what is wrong with the logic of having T1, T2, T3, and then, where necessary having the name of the actual instrument using the track - i.e in the mixer. This is conventional and will be familiar by default to many users. There is much to be said for modelling BIAB on a sequencer, even though some religious thinkers might say its not a sequencer (it is).
A bit guarded about suing A B C for coding.. as one can run out of letters with expansion and the letter does not give the apparent info to the user staring at "track f". There are workarounds though such as tooltips.
To your comprehensive post I would add that I would like to scrap the concept of "thru" to melody or soloist tracks - its highly counterintuitive and unnecessary - a track is a track, why not simply leave the melody and soloist and other tracks alone and call it a user track.
Proper Sequencer view
There seems to be an attempt at a sequencer window(the green button). The logic of that idea is beyond me, the way it restricts itself to the melody and soloist. If we have a proper sequencer view and we could see the tracks as Chords, Audio tracks or MIDI tracks in a timeline this could be very useful and wholly intuitive to new users that use the main sequencers.
Why all these counterinutive labrinths?
64 bit rewrite - the only way to go IMO
Z
Last edited by ZeroZero; 03/12/15 01:33 AM.
Win 11 64, Asus Rog Strix z390 mobo, 64 gig RAM, 8700k
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ZZ
I guess most of us certainly agree that a rewrite / major overhaul is required. It used to be 'sooner or later' but this has become more of an urgency now.
The evolution of this great program is leading to its demise with all the legacy and obsolete items still adorning (plaguing?) its many features. Not meaning to hijack the thread. John's points are the most important ones in this instance, and these would definitely be part of the requirements for an overdue major update.
My 2 cents.
BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
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I feel like I'm hijacking my own thread.
ZeroZero, we've discussed this before. The Thru track is your "play" track. Remember, BIAB is a PERFORMANCE tool (among other things), and lots of folks use it for live performance. The Thru track allows you to play along in real time, with DX/VST effects applied, regardless of other already recorded tracks present. If you wish to capture your playing along, yes, you can record what comes "through" the "Thru" track to either the melody or soloist track. Once you do that, the Thru track is available for you to play something else.
But the fact is that you can already have data on all the recorded tracks - bass, drums, piano, guitar, strings, MELODY, and SOLOIST tracks. And you can still play along (just because it's called the melody track doesn't mean it has to contain the melody - you can have a soloist on the melody track and then you play along live via the Thru track). If you did away with the Thru track, how are you going to play along with BIAB going through the same sound system as the rest of the tracks (and especially if you want to add effects).
That being said, I think there are things that could be done to enhance the concept of the Thru track, but I won't get into that in this thread.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA BB2024/UMC404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/MixBus/Notion/Finale/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com
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I feel like I'm hijacking my own thread.
If you did away with the Thru track, how are you going to play along with BIAB going through the same sound system as the rest of the tracks (and especially if you want to add effects).
That being said, I think there are things that could be done to enhance the concept of the Thru track, but I won't get into that in this thread.
OK John, I agree the concept needs 'enhancing' rethinking - but that's another tale... good thread.
Last edited by ZeroZero; 03/12/15 06:52 AM.
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Boy I feel knee deep into this issue this morning. Trying to adjust shots, pushes and holds on the guitar - except the guitar was on the "old" strings track. the chord setting menu still uses the old conventions so I have to count over how many instruments to get to where the guitar is. Worse part is I have to explain to a newbee what I am doing....
Dan, BIAB2024, SoundCloud Win11, i7(12thGen), 32GB, 1TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD), 2TB Libraries, 1 TB(WD-Black), 2TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD)Data, Motu Audio Express, Keystation 61, SL88 Studio, Reaper
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Thanks John! Great post and very helpful.
Peter
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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