PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Is it possible to create automatic accompaniment for any melody in midi?

Hi,

First of all, I apologize; perhaps I'm attempting to use Biab 2024 in a way that wasn't intended.

My goal, when I bought the program, was to use my own melody and have the software provide the accompaniment for me automatically.
I started by just humming a voice recording on an audio. It was unsuccessful. My fault; I read the handbook and it’s not the way. I realized that I required the melody in a midi format in some way.
I therefore used another piece of software called Dubler 2, which gave me the ability to hum and produce a midi melody.
After I got the midi file, I tried a few different approaches, but I was never able to get the program to add an accompaniment to my melody.
Firstly, I click Melody and importing a midi file. Then I just press OK: Source and Target are melody (there is one channel only).
After that, I have five instrument tracks visible in addition to my midi file, Atmosphere: channel 1, when I use Eagles style. I can hear the melody midi file if I hit the play button. The soloist, which is blank, is visible below, but the melody track is not visible.
After that, I select Melodist-Generate Melody and Chords, and I turn off Melody in the pop-up window that appears because it makes sense that, should I have one, I wouldn't want a new melody.
Then, The song begins and I notice a lot of chords in the window. However, to my surprise, Atmosphere: channel one is silent (the midi file). All I can hear is the bass, Elec. piano, drums, guitar, and strings tracks. Atmosphere, the sixth, appears to be empty. When I hit "Solo," nothing happens.
To sum up,
Is it feasible to receive a midi accompaniment for my melody?
If yes, what am I doing incorrectly?
I appreciate your assistance.

David Navarro

I think you've misunderstood a bit how BIAB works, though hopefully we can get a good outcome fairly quickly.

BIAB dos not create accompaniment from the melody, it creates it from the chord progression that you enter on the chord sheet. Whether that's OK or a concern probably depends upon whether you understand chord progressions, and/or how quickly you can learn them.

I like Henry Clarke's videos on using BIAB, as I think he describes things more from a user's perspective than from the manufacturer's perspective: His YouTube channel is here . PG Music's tutorials are on the Support->Videos page and this one may help Making a Song in Band-in-a-Box®

If chord progressions are a complete mystery, say so and it's very likely that someone will try to point you in a useful direction.

You can try the re-harmonist feature (I've never tried it):

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=208388

It might be a stretch, but you could try recording your humming as an audio file, then put it through the Audio Chord Wizard in Band-in-a-Box so that you can send that info into BB to add the accompaniment (either keep or don't keep that recorded audio once you've sent the details to BB): https://www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2024full/chapter11.htm#analyzing-chords-in-audio-audio-chord-wizard

(feature video, created in 2020)

-Callie

Actually, even though the styles are somewhat limited, you can enter a melody and have the MELODIST feature REHARMONIZE. Make sure you uncheck "Generate Melody." Give it a shot.

Also...

If you record yourself humming a melody in BIAB, it's possible to transcribe that to MIDI using the Audio menu option shown below (#2). When it comes to chords, you would get a much better result if you can determine the key signature of what you hum and then set that key in BIAB.

Funny that you mentioned using the Eagles style, because many years ago I was doing some deep experimentation with various features in connection with the Melodist, Soloist, and perhaps Style making wizard, and, while I cannot for the life of me recall what potpourri of parameters I tweaked and whatnot, I know for a fact that this jam with RTs was generated from MIDI, and particularly midi notes from the Hotel California solo.

FWIW, this may or may not have come from a BiaB melodist file that would have had the general chords for the song and the basics of the MIDI solo--in which case this will be much less relevant for your purposes. Furthermore, I may have used the melodist or style wizard (I don't recall which) on importing a MIDI file that had the chords as well as the melody, in which case it's ALSO not relevant, haha. In fact, now that I think of it, I did use the style wizard and then the soloist (there are a lot of settings in the soloist that can get you some absolutely insane results if you have the patience to tweak them)

But on a (potentially) more helpful note, I've done a lot of experimenting in trying to get BiaB to generate excellent accompaniments that "hug" the melody as closely as possible, and I found the MIDI style wizard incredible, (and spookily accurate when you use the style wizard and opt to check the option for preferring realtracks over MIDI).

HOWEVER, that said, I got the best results when I transcribed the melody into GuitarPro using major and minor thirds, sixths, and a few fifths thrown in, but in no event more than two strings at a time (i.e. dyads) before exporting the score as a MIDI file, and only then importing to BiaB and generating the accompaniment in the style wizard. The simple addition of these intervals gave the melody more "girth" and flavor, which the wizard style seized on and generated incredible music.

If you want to hear how that plays out in action, check out these two tracks generated from the same single-channel MIDI file using only dyads!

https://soundcloud.com/user-423212678/labor-day-old-friends-passed

https://soundcloud.com/user-423212678/labor-day-pt-ii-1

I should also mention that you need to pay particular attention and care to the timing/pacing/duration of your notes. Simply entering the notes as a whole note for each chord or a quarter note pulse or something entirely static like that will not give you an accompaniment that really "breaths." Even throwing in a pattern of hammered-on or "slid-into" notes can make a great difference!

Also, here's the link to the Hotel California jam in case you're interested in checking it out as well.

https://soundcloud.com/user-423212678/biab-jamming-hotel-california-inspired-solo

Also, I recognize that the jam is not a note-for-note reproduction of the solo, of course, but IMO, it is all the better for that because the different instruments and RTs all bring different flavors and musical styles/perspectives to the table. As it is, it took me hours of tweaking in the soloist settings to get it to this place, but I think the results are well worth the efforts :-)

Edit: Actually, now that I think of it, I may have used the Import Melody From MIDI File or Import Chords From MIDI File feature for Labor Day: Old Friends Passed. (either way, it interpreted the chords from both those songs from a melody fleshed out with 3rds and 6ths). Sorry for all the conflicting information! I used to experiment with so many features and approaches to achieve various sounds and results, by the time I would port everything over to Reaper I no longer had any recollection as to which approach got me there

Experimentation is key, and never forget to have fun while you learn along the way!


DB09