I'm working on a 50's-style tune and I'd like "the band" to give me a couple of eighth-note shots near the end of a verse, to kind of build up some musical tension and anticipation. Basically, if you're counting in straight four, such as, 1 - and - 2 - and - 3 - and - 4 - and, I'd like the two shots to occur on beat 1 and the "and" of of beat 1.

I see where I can have quarter-note shots and that works nicely with the ".", "..", and "..." variations, with commas, but I'd like my shots to be more rapid fire. How do I do that?

Rutherford,

There a couple of things that you could try. Success of these will depend on the style and instruments you are using.


ONE
Try putting a chord with a shot on beat one and then a chord with push and shot on beat two.

The syntax is C..,^C..

It may well be that shots do not work using pushes when Real-instruments are used. I haven't tried this.


TWO
This is more involved. Basically it involves inserting an extra bar and changing time signatures.

Let's say you want the effect in bar 30. Insert a bar after bar 30. We'll be setting the time signatures of Bars 30 and 31 so that these two bars play in the same time as a single bar.

1. Right-click on bar 30, choose bar settings, set the time to double your song speed. (This means that bar 30 will now play four beats in the time of two normal beats. There will now be 4 chords that can be set in the bar but they will effectively play as eighth notes. Use chords with shots on beats 1 and 2.)

2. Right-click on bar 31, choose bar settings, set the time back to normal. Also, set the "Beats per bar" to "2".

3. Lastly, right click on bar 32 and set the "Beats per bar" to 4.

Bars 30 and 31 will now work individually and play in the same time that a single bar at normal speed will play.

As mentioned, success with either of these approaches will depend on the style and instruments. It may or may not work for you but it is worth a shot

Regards,
Noel

That's why I invented EXPANDED styles.

EXPANDED styles make 2 BiaB cells equal one 4/4 measure of music.

The style is EXPANDED so it sounds right.

With EXPANDED styles you can have a different chord on every eighth note

1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & can all have different chords.

To listen to a few EXPANDED styles, go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html

Who says math and music ain't related?? *lol* What an ingenious solution. I'm anxious to try it out. I'll be sure to post my results. Thank you!

OMG!!! Making two double-time measures out of the one in regular-time worked GREAT! I got cymbal hits, bari-sax blasts and B3 organ shots going on at that point so it sounds GREAT! One important thing to remember is to set the measure AFTER all that back to the original tempo. *LOL* The rest of the song goes by kinda quick if ya don't!

One thing I also noticed is doing something straight on beat 4 after a measure of shots provides a nice lead-in into the original groove.

Thanks for the wonderful advice!

I'm glad to read that it worked for you! Excellent.

Okay... maybe there's just one small bit of tweaking yet to be done. When I saved my BiaB song as an MP3 it seems to be having trouble with my mini "double-time" measures. The bass and drums are continuing in straight time while those mini measures are playing as expected. Once it hits that spot in the song the bass and drums are out of sync with the rest of the band and never catch up.

Is there some way of creating the MP3 that will avoid this? Even RB is doing weird things with it.

Thank you!

I will let you in on my secret. Don't tell anyone as I'm not really interested in stirring the pot. More interested in getting done musically what needs to be done and having fun at the same time.

My workflow these days is to start the entire creation process in BIAB and then export the tracks as quickly as possible to Reaper. Use the right tool for the right job. Nothing does what BIAB does, but BIAB don't do it all (although it may try). So in this case, export (drag and drop) the tracks to Reaper and use it to render to mp3.

But you didn't hear it from me.

Hi Rutherford,

I, too, do what Dan does. As soon as I'm happy with the sound I have in BIAB, I centralise the panning, set reverbs to zero and export to Reaper. (I like to add my own reverb and pan in my DAW.)

The above being said, when BIAB plays everything correctly but renders the sound differently, something is amiss.

Some thoughts that would be worth trying ...

1. Double-check that the faulty tracks are not frozen.

2. When everything is sounding good, freeze all the tracks in BIAB prior to rendering and see if that helps the rendering pocess.

Regards,
Noel

It just so happens that I purchased Reaper a month or two before I purchased BiaB but haven't yet done much with it. As far as the "drag and drop" that you mention. I see the Drop rectangle at the top left of the BiaB window with the four panes. I clicked on the Master radio button and drug it to the Drop window in the MP4 quadrant, just to pick one, since my BiaB production contains both MIDI and Real Tracks.

I then opened Reaper and drug the highlighted Drop quadrant to Reaper and it said "1 of 1 files not processed." Obviously I'm doing SOMEthing wrong but, at this point, I have no clue what it might be.

Would someone be so kind as to show me the error of my ways, please?

Thank you.

It is not exactly intuitive, but you will love the BAIB-Reaper combo when you sort it out. Hint, I don't use any of the four panes, just drag from Combo Button to a Track in Reaper and when asked say "all individual tracks".

You know what they say about great minds...