Originally Posted By: vic
Hello Folks;

When working with modal tunes in BIAB, e.g. So What, Crescent, India, etc... I find that the accompaniment generated by BIAB tends to be quite straight forward and not terribly interesting.

How do you folks configure BIAB to provide more interesting accompaniment to modal tunes?

Thank you very much,
vic


Here is my two cents on the topic.

Capturing a Modal Sound or playing modally requires that, the backing track (chord progression) and the melody or improvisation, target the unique notes which define the mode. In the case of So What, the backing moves over a simple Dm7 chord where Miles plays D Dorian and then goes up a half-step to Ebm7 over which he switches to Eb Dorian. The tough part is you are faced with 48 straight bars of Dm7 before the switch which allows me to get lost and miss the modulation to Ebm7.

Keep in mind, Ebm and Dm do not uniquely specify Dorian, as any other minor mode could be played over this backing. So what is poor BIAB to do with these two simple chords. It doesn’t know you want Dorian all it sees is two minor chords a half step apart. And the two chords just ain’t much to work with. So it can use a Minor Pentatonic or a Aeolian or Phrygian all of which will result in a different vibe.

In my opinion, BIAB does not play modally since you can not specify this unless you define the backing chords to be very specific to identify only the specific unique notes of the mode (for example, natural minor scale with the sixth degree raised a semitone forces a Dorian). So while the midi arrangements may follow this detail, it is unlikely any real tracks will unless you find RT’s by Santana who favors Dorian.
Good luck.

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