PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Please forgive my ignorance-- Melodist / Soloist, etc. Handful of questions!

Bought BIAB years ago... enjoy it, even though it's often tough to wrap my head around.

In general, I have a good idea on how to use the Melodist to create random progressions in usable (simple) styles, for my students to practice soloing over (keyboards and guitar solos). Fairly straightforward. Main thing to always remember--- UNCHECK "Allow Style Change." And keep the tempo the RealStyle was made in, or go slightly faster than it, for the most realistic things for students.

My questions are, re: the Melodist styles/types:

1. Melodist 127-255-- there are no notes about any of these. I have no idea what genres they fit in... are all of these simply Jazz swing (Jazz)? They only show up in that sub-category.

2. Are there any Melodists that work best with pop styles? 1-5-6-4 chord progressions, with the V chord at the end of a part? Nothing crazy, no weird 2-5-1's... but standard pop? I have such trouble finding Melodist styles that are more simplified / poppy.. in a word, "cliche" or boring. It helps, with students learning basic pop structures, instead of 6th chords, dominant 9ths, etc.

3. Are there any RealStyles that have lead parts (whether "Soloists" or simply, "RealStyles Solos" (which to me, are two different things, are they not?) where it's not so much shredding or ultra-fast licks, but simple phrases? Nearly all of the Styles I have auditioned have solos that are just simply too busy, too insane, too shreddy. Doesn't matter if it's a slow jazz style or a chill pop style. The solos are always a bit much. Take for instance, the 60bpm Jazz Style with the Pat Martino solo. The solos are insane! It's a 60bpm, jazz brushes, pretty, coffeeshop vibe... why are the solos so fast and intense? It's like the soloing doesn't match at all, compared to the bass, drums, and piano under it.

4. Any way to constrain Soloists to stick with mostly chord notes (especially for MIDI soloists) and slower, more simple phrases? I teach a lot of intermediate students and no one is capable of soloing the way these pros PGMusic has brought on, can solo. I want them to stick with simple Pentatonics (minor and major) and just keeping things vibey, simple, normal. Any help/guidance is sincerely appreciated.

5. Is there any way to create Melodist "rules" that can create chord progressions in simple, cliche pop styles? Again, sticking with I, IV, vi, V, and occasionally, as needed, the ii and the iii?

6. Is there some sort of repository somewhere that has BIAB "BB Song" (*.MGU) files, of famous pop songs? It seems like there should be, as long as BIAB has been out there.

7. Soloist-- I honestly have no idea how to use this properly. I would think the MIDI Soloists over the most power/tweakability, because it's MIDI. But oftentimes, any Soloists I generate just do not match my chord progression. I could have the most basic Am-F-C-G thing... and the Soloist is throwing in non-chord tones throughout, making it sound ridiculous, and not necessarily a good guideline for a kid to listen to, if they don't know what to do at all. RealStyles offer a lot better phrasing, even though I tend to hear the same licks generated, over and over (it's different and fresh, but once you generate a lot of stuff, you hear the repeated licks a lot). Main thing is... I just want the Soloist to be more simple... "phrasing"... which is everything. It doesn't ever seem to think in phrases... just random notes being sprinkled everywhere. There's got to be a setting I have wrong. Can anyone help me with some better results?

I haven't used the program in some time, but I'm getting back into it and it just makes my head spin, sometimes. I mainly just want simple, simple styles, simple chord progressions in pop contexts (love the whole Nashville sus2 thing, too)...

I just want more simple, stripped-down things, to generate with Melodist. I don't want insane chords, unless I'm going for a jazz thing for a kid... mainly simple pop/rock stuff.

I've reached out to Henry Clarke, who makes great BIAB Youtube videos. But, his responses to my questions are often dismissive: "Don't know, try different things.... or, that's weird I never have that problem, or... your question seems a bit complicated. Experiment" I don't think any of these questions are unreasonable or weird in any way. Figured I'd hit up the forum... hopefully you pros can help out!

Thanks so much!

Hello Major7th,

Groove3.com has a sample +++ video tutorial +++ featuring the Soloist. Click on the link and the second sample tutorial is "Using The Soloist".

To me your question reads somewhat like a comment or observation that many of the Soloists are too busy. If that is in fact the case then you may want to consider composing a suggestion to post in the +++ Band-in-a-Box Wishlist +++ forum section.

Here are a few suggestions you may have already considered:

Open the Soloist using Shift+F4 or the icon, select a Soloist then select the "More". Changing "Use large Soloist files" & "Create long phrases" changes the material the soloists uses to create its solos.

In the Soloist window select the Soloist Maker "Edit..." button. Then try different settings with the checkboxes in the bottom right corner of the screen.

If you are not familiar with these settings, the Help button in each window is your friend.

There are several PG Music video tutorials on the Soloist feature on the +++ Support +++ webpage. I opened a search window using Ctrl+F and using the search term "solo" found multiple videos with the latest from 2019.

Hi Jim! Thanks so much for your help, will check out.

I was trying to point out the negatives and the positives for my issues... wasn't so much commenting, just trying to strike a balance. Explaining, then a question.

I'll experiment (as I've always done) and see what works. Thanks!

Anyone else ever confused insanely by the Soloist and Melodist configurations? Would love to hear other people's opinions.

Never have worked with the Soloist. There are so many solo RT instruments to choose from I never had the need to do anything other than load and run.

I worked with Melodist only once, and just a couple weeks ago. I did a lot of experimentation and was actually pleased with what I came up with. I may actually even use it in my next project.

I will tackle some of your questions...



These are just undefined (empty) Melodist slots.



Try the "Light Rock 8ths" category, which use the MELPOP8.st2 database, or "Rock 8ths (Pop)" (MELROK1.ST2), or "EZ Listening (Pop)" (MELEZ.st2). You're right, even with the simplest settings it does try to be interesting. You won't get it to create a song that is mostly a repeated I vi IV V. If you want that, you should just type it out. If you then want a melody you could use the Melodist with "Generate chords" unchecked. It is a good feature suggestion to restrict certain chord types.

Also the "Edit menu | Chords | Jazz down" might be useful - this doesn't change the chord progression, but makes the chords less complex.

Just for your information you *can* define your own Melodist but it's not a common thing to do. (1) Choose a simple Melodist, maybe #89. (2) Click the Melodist Maker Edit button. (3) Click Export, and save the M1 file. (4) Choose one of the aformentioned undefined slots. (5) click Import, and select the M1 file you saved. (6) Type in a title, and edit some settings, for example uncommon chord progressions == 0. Now you have your own melodist saved in this slot. Note that if we update the main melodist file you would need to re-import your M1 file so save a backup of it.



Well, Pat Martino was a virtuoso... this is the style of playing of this particular RealTrack - I'm assuming you're talking about #2156 (Guitar, Electric, Soloist JazzBalladPat Sw 060).

However, you CAN 'tame' it by selecting the "simple" variation. This is a checkbox in the RealTracks Picker. I loaded in a style demo for _SBLPAT and rendered 8 bars playing the regular and 'simple'... here they are:

Regular:
https://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/support/misc/2156.m4a

Simple:
https://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/support/misc/2156_simple.m4a

Note: There is an S in the "Simple" column in the RT Picker which tells you that a simple variation is available.

But in general it is dependent on the particular RealTracks. You just need to find a less intense one. One idea is to use Background type RealTracks instead of Soloists.



If you're using RealTracks, this is mainly dependent on which RealTracks you are using. You could start with one of the demo songs - these typically have fairly simple chord progressions that are appropriate for the style. Either load in a demo from the StylePicker, or find a Soloist/Background RealTracks in the RT Picker and use the Load Demo button there. Then, just simplify, modify the chords to suit and save the .SGU as a different file name (to not overwrite the original). For example, I took _cursed.sty and here is the Guitar Electric soloist #3362:
https://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/support/misc/_cursed_quickdemo.m4a

Also, have you seen the Instrument Studies? If you have the Songs and Lessons PAK then you have these in the Songs and Lessons folder. They focus on teaching licks using common chord progressions. Not beginner, but can be slowed right down, and there is detailed and accurate notation / tab.



No, but it is a nice feature idea. Please put it on the wishlist forum.



We don't have anything like that here. However, you can enter the songs yourself in under a minute per song. There are a bunch of keyboard shorcuts that can speed this up. For example, of you type K <enter> this will copy the previous 8 bars to the current position. K4<enter> for the previous 4. There is a list in Help --> reference --> Shortcut keys.
There is also a song titles feature (top right-hand section of StylePicker) that you can use to search up a popular song - I think it has over 20K songs in the database. This will start you out with the correct feel / tempo / etc. of the style, so you then only have to worry about the chords and melody.

If you want to enter a (MIDI) melody for the song, this would take a little bit longer but there is a trick you can use that is easier than entering the melody note by note with your mouse:

(1) First enable the 'wizard playalong feature' under the Play menu.
(2) Record MIDI, and tap the melody on your (QWERTY) keyboard. Don't worry about the note pitches, just rhythm.
(3) Open the Notation window and toggle Editable notation mode.
(4) Now, hold down shift and use the right/left cursor keys to step through and highlight the notes. Use the Up/Down arrows to change the pitch of a note.

Andrew... THANKS! That is all extremely helpful.

WOW!! Never thought I was dismissive. Sorry I gave you that perception. In all fairness I do spend over an hour per week just responding to comments and I just don't have the cycles to dig too deep into certain subject areas. Especially areas that are used by very few. For that I apologize. Hopefully someone in this forum can assist better I.

Np Henry, thanks for responding. Yeah, I mean... I know how DEEP this program is, but it seems like, from PGMusic to experienced random Youtubers like yourself, there is never a simple step-by-step... maybe like, having 5 different examples of Melodist's creation, or 5 different examples of Soloists, you know? A lot of videos are simply "look at all these options, try things out!" I don't have time to try things out, by and large. I want to hear someone with a straightforward video go "Example 1. Click. Listen. Example 2. Click. Listen."

"Melodist - making a nice Bill Evans progression"
"Melodist - making a nice Taylor Swift-style pop arrangement"
"Soloist - making slower, more flowy solos for slower music."

And just, choosing the right settings... instead of a lot of "Here is where you can do this and that. And this setting can do that." Ok... that's great. I know how powerful it is. But, anything shown step-by-step, how to nail something in your head, would be so appreciated. That's what I'd love to see more of.

Andrew's response-- that. That's definitely good stuff!

I'm hoping someone in the community can go "hey, I can do videos like that!" I would immediately subscribe to them and spread the word around like wildfire, if they had an under-5-minute video series, similar to those people with their Adobe Premiere tutorials (Adobe In A Minute, etc)... that would be so wonderful.

Following up. I'm still a bit confused!

I primarily use RealStyles, for the record... I can't get on with the MIDI stuff because it sounds so bad, and I don't know how to use a multitimbral plugin properly (such as Sampletank) to get it to make the sounds I want it to, without sounding terrible. RealStyles give me the most happiness, right off the bat (and my students, too! To practice over).

Still struggling with #2 and #3, above. The best Melodists I've found for pop/rock chord progressions so far is "Children's." It gives me standard triads (major/minor) and catchy chord progressions. Any other style is insanely jazzy and complex, even the ones Andrew mentioned, above.

Re: #3-- I can't find any slow / chill guitar solos, at all. I mean, I know when you have the UltraPak+, there are basically 10,000 RealStyles... and I just can't seem to find a soloist for slower stuff (60-90bpm) that isn't quite honestly, "too fast / busy". I love the Slow Jazz with Pat Martino style, still... but, I wind up muting his leads. They shred too much... too off-time, even. He was an amazing guitarist, no doubt... but, none of his generated solos sound musical at all, to me.

The cursed style demo audio Andrew provided... man. Some of those licks were alright but just... whoa. Way, way, way, way, way, way WAY too much.

New question about endings and re-generating just a few bars

Is there a quick way to re-generate an ending, or just like 1-2 bars of a song? If I highlight 2 bars, then click "Generate and Play" - it just re-generates the entire song, instead of the two bars. There's got to be a more simple way to simply re-generate 1-2 bars... because I notice when I make stuff with Slow Jazz w/ Pat Martino, I keep hearing this piano melody going upwards, a quick run.... "doodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-y-do-- PLINK - bop-bop-doo....." - it's such a cliche and it seems to be in every single song I generate. I would love to just not hear that melody, anymore.

Can anyone help? Thanks!

Highlight bars then Alt+F8. This assumes you have BIAB version 2023.

I have 2022. Is it different? Also, thank you.

EDIT: yeah, it doesn't work with 2022. Is there a different command?

Actually, I think it requires the features of 2023 version.

Bummer, thanks. Will have to update sometime later

This late in the year i would update in Dec for 2024.

As far as midi, it is just a matter of a good sample set and some effort to "humanize" the midi If you learn it you open up a lot of options. None of this is easy. I also had BiaB for a few years and shied away from some of it because it is deep and wide. I did last year dive into the melodist and i found with a bit of work i can get some decent results. I used Real band for a few years rather than dig to deep into BiaB it was more familiar due to years of traditional DAW work. One thing that slowed me down was over thinking it to some degree. Sometimes this stuff it easier than it seems. The other issue i had was Not wanting to dig deep enough, and just wanting everything to just happen by magic. You know in the Box!