PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BIAB and Ableton

I just got back into BIAB after a long hiatus.

After discovering Real Tracks, I have figured out that it is a gold mine for people who use non-linear production tools (Ableton, Bitwig) as well as samplers (Digitakt, Akai MPC, etc.).

It is so easy to export tracks that can be used as loops or samples for these applications. I am surprised PG does not devote more marketing to this crowd. Many give a lot of $$$ to sites like TrackLib to get cleared samples.

Anyone using this type of workflow?

Tony,
I am sure people are using it like that. But keep in mind, BIAB Real Tracks are much more than loops. If you chop a loop, that is what you will have, a loop. You will have some control over it, but changing it drastically will make it sound somewhat unnatural. With BIAB it lets you regenerate a different takes of same section. Variants of same section - that is actual recorded take, not overmanipulated static WAV. If you are not there yet, I encourage you to explore a feature that is called Partial Regeneration. One of the best features BIAB adopted in recent years.

Think of it as a loop in a liquid form, while it's in BIAB.

I am definitely familiar with that and learned all about the partial generation feature. However, in more experimental music and genres like low-fi, you are not looking for realism. You are just looking for cool sounds to mangle. Are you familiar with Mr. Bill?



Or Ricky Tinez:

"Are you familiar with Mr. Bill?"
I am not, but I've seen similar. I just don't get this concept...
"in more experimental music and genres like low-fi, you are not looking for realism"
RealTracks are about realism

If I would be in search for realistic audio loops - that I can make sound unrealistic... It still would make sense to go to Mothership-BIAB and generate something that is useful for a particular composition, instead of using short pre-made snippets.

What I think can be useful for loop/section based DAWs is this: If you get your section way you want it in Trackview (or audio edit, etc.)... select a part and drag it directly to DAW. So instead of the whole track, only selected area will be dragged. That actually would be a neat item for wishlist, perhaps not too hard to implement, and can be useful for other things too, not just for loops.

Understand that the loops I am referring to can be of any length.

That is the beauty of a non-linear DAW.

You can combine a 16-bar loop with an 8-bar loop, some 4-bar loops, some 2-bar loops, and a single-bar loop. Plus, you, can trigger short samples as well.

They can all play at the same time.

I was experimenting with this earlier in Ableton. I created an 8-bar loop and played and then chopped up the loop into snippets using the sampler. I also had the individual tracks to play with.

I can take the same loop and only have Ableton play a small section of that loop, copy it, and play another section. I can also transpose the loop for key changes.

You can do a lot with a longer loop in Ableton. Or a whole song as an audio file or individual tracks.

Buttery butter.
Tony, what I am saying, if person is able to drag out a selection of 1/2 bar, 21 bars or 121 bars, workflow would improve for loop type production, instead of dragging out or exporting whole track. You are defying your rough loop points at the source, not target, yet retaining ability to dramatically change that selection via partial Regen. Simple as that.

I think I follow what you are saying. THANKS!

The thing is, I requested a similar feature couple of years ago, before the Track View - to be able to export selected segment. Track view is still very raw at this point and very likely, it will get more tools/options. I am not a programmer, so not sure how difficult it would be to do something like custom clip drag/export, but it seems like a good candidate to request in wishlist. I can see it being useful not only for loop extraction.

tony and rusty.

i really wish users would read manuals...lol.

you can easily export a section of a genned track in rb....to your fav daw eg ableton.

eg...as follows which i tested this morning with reaps v2...i dont have ableton here.
but im sure ableton has a import feature of course.

test if this meets your needs useing rb....all done in rb tracks view.

1. import song from bb...OR..layout song in rb chords window.
2..generate track or tracks....eg lets say track 19.
3..highlight the genned section you want of track 19....useing mouse.
4..ctrl+DRAG highlighted section to a free track eg track 20....lets call 20 named "sections to transfer"
or do 5 and 6 below IN TRACK..i just like order to things....or you could copy/paste 19 to 20.
5..right click over the highlighted section in track 20....looong menu appears.
6..select menu item save track or selection wav or wma or mp3 whatever...
there are a bunch of save options....job done....import into ableton.

note in rb settings there is a neat option not to gen all waveforms on import of sgu..
so you could gen just the track you want.

note in rb you can time stretch and pitch shift section of a track and do a ton of other things.
ive used rb to slice n dice genned tracks or sections a million ways to sunday.
all sorts of slice n dice options in rb...and options...acid etc etc.
all in the manual.

nothing to stop you creating samples of any length eg a vocal section down to
just a note or two for import into ableton.....eg...'my granny rules' or
''whassup'.

if one doesnt get down n dirty with rb...one will miss lots of usefull features for music production. rb does things i havent seen in another music app.


now time for my bfast.....lol.

i just thought of a crazy wild idea...smpte lock tween rb and another product.
see rb manual for info...cos rb has a smpte feature...
so its sorta like we used to do in studios.
one piece of gear is master...(no smpte doesnt mean 's n m'...lmao)...
and another piece of gear is ...the slave...is synced to the master.

get the drift ?...inside studio joke...lol....whether it might be usefull re two daws linked...dunno...would need to test. note rb has various smpte rates if i remember.

happiness.
om

OM,
Before I even start reading this...what you wrote....Are you talking about RB, as your first sentence suggested after lol accusation, or BIAB here?

I found that I am able to extract sections by shift-clicking them in chord view and then dragging and dropping from Master to Instrument selections up top.