This is probably a little advanced, so unless you're using BiaB MIDI in some other MIDI capable DAW or sequencer, this trick might not be usable for you.

Also, apologies in advance if, being a n00b, I "discovered" something that someone else already posted.

But it is a sweet little trick that I was playing around with today, and I liked the sound for jazz.


1) Use "soloist" to auto-generate a MIDI piano solo in the appropriate style for your song. Make sure you have 1st and 3rd verses turned on, not just the 2nd.

2) Once the soloing sounds good, export your song to MIDI, and turn on the option to send the solo to Channel 5, to avoid exporting to the same track as the normal "comping" piano parts in your song.

3) Import the MIDI file into your DAW, split into multiple tracks, and assign each track to the appropriate virtual instrument/sampler. Do NOT assign the piano solo to an instrument.

4) Arrange at will until you have something you can sing to, or record vocals.

5) Create a new MIDI track. Assign its output to your virtual piano, the same as your comping track. This will be your LIVE soloist track. It starts out as blank, and you build it bit by bit using the following steps.

6) Note where there is space between the vocal lines. Section by section, cut up your soloist midi in sensible places BETWEEN the vocal phrases. A LITTLE note overlap with the vocal is okay sometimes. Drag each little slice, as you create it, directly up (or down) to the LIVE soloist track created in step 5.

7) Audition these sections as you go, so that you can hear how well these little riffs work around the vocals.

8) This is optional, but can greatly improve the realism of the overall piano sound: in your normal comping (rhythm) piano track, edit the midi to remove any "right hand" midi notes, but ONLY whenever there is an active soloist snippet. This makes the playing sound like one pianist, playing both two-handed rhythm AND breaking away with the right hand to play little riffs throughout the piece.


So, what NORMALLY happens when you generate the soloist track is that soloing happens continuously. But by judiciously using ONLY the soloist riffs that occur during natural pauses in the vocal phrases, you can create a "tasteful" melodic piano player that knows NOT to riff over the singer.

Of course, I haven't really delved into editing MIDI directly in BiaB, but I suppose you could apply a similar technique right in BiaB without using a 3rd party DAW. I'm just describing what worked for me.


I hope this is helpful and makes sense.