PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Starting a new song in BIAB.

Watch my workflow as I start a new song in BIAB 2024.
Can I get a consistent finger picking guitar to sound like my original vision?

I'm learning along with you guys. Let me know if you can shortcut my workflow.

Yep.... I didn't watch the entire video but you can add chords on the quarter notes in the same way you add chords to the bar.... Simply press the ENTER and it move to the second half of the measure.... just enter the two chords with a comma in between. >>>>> C,D <<<<< That's a lot faster than opening a window, doing the input, and closing the window.

Use copy and paste to replicate the repeated sections. However, since the tracks are real tracks you can't copy and paste it in BB like you wanted to do. I like to take my tracks and export them to Sonar..... or any DAW will actually be the same. Set your tempo and then you can easily edit the audio with copy and paste. I will often pull fills that I like from other sections of the song and copy/paste them into the part I want.

I often find it difficult or in many cases impossible to replicate a certain finger-picked part or the rhythm of an acoustic guitar for a song. In that case I have two options..... change the song to accept whatever BB is able to deliver, which is often not what I was looking for ....OR.... play the part myself and record it into the DAW as an audio track.

Unlike you, I always do all of my editing in my DAW. There's nothing wrong with how you are doing it. I just do it differently. It's interesting to see others doing it differently.

One good way to do this is to record your fingerpicking that you want and save it as a loop. Most DAW programs allow this you can save as a acidized loop so it has information included. Then in BiaB i would open a utility track and add the loop then set my chords so BiaB would play the loop over those chords.

Here is the directions for this in RB

Render - Export Acid Loop

Now you can render an audio track (a highlighted section or the whole track) as ACID Loop and save it to the Loops folder. Select a track or a section of the track and go to menu Render | Export ACID Loop - Highlighted section or entire track to WAV in Loops Folder. This will open the Export Section of Current Track to Wave File dialog.

Select a file name and press the [Save] button. When the track is successfully rendered to a .WAV file, a flash message will display and the Acidize this .WAV file dialog will open. When you press [OK], RealBand will write the Acid info into the .WAV file.


Once you do this you can then add the loop to the song in BiaB as follows

Select Loops

You can add your own or third-party loops to any track. Loops are audio files (WAV, wma, m4a, mp4, mp3) that reside in the Loops folder of the RealTracks folder. You can add your own files to this folder.

Loops support many types of ACIDized Loops (for WAV and MP3 files). And, if you add an Acid loop that is on a certain root (e.g., F), Band-in-a-Box will instantly allow you to use that as a complete style, by transposing that loop to the current chord of the song in Band-in-a-Box, so that the loop follows your chord progression.

Click on the [Loops] toolbar button to open the Pick a Loop dialog. You can also right-click on a track at the top of the screen and choose the menu item Select a Loop for this track. Pressing the R L Enter keys also opens the dialog.

[Tip: You can also use the MultiPicker Library floating window, which allows you to select any type of tracks, not just the Loops, to generate a whole or partial track. It has many useful functions for filters, audio demos, searching, and more. You can open it with the F7 or M Enter keys.]

Double-click on the list or use a transport control button at the top of the dialog to preview the loop. The instant preview sometimes plays demos from the internet. You can save any file that is being played from the internet by clicking the folder icon. You can control the volume of the demos with the speaker icon.

Double-click on the list or use a transport control button to preview the loop. The instant preview sometimes plays demos from the internet. You can save any file that is being played from the internet by clicking the folder icon.

You can control the volume of the demos with the speaker icon in the transport control.

Normally, the loop will retrigger when it ends, but it can be retriggered at certain points using the Also retrigger WAV every option.

For a nature sound, there is no tempo, and you don’t want to select Stretch Tempo. For a Drums loop, you want to stretch the tempo. Once you select Stretch Tempo enter the tempo of the WAV file (if known), and if not known, enter the # of beats in the wav file. For example, 2 bars would be 8 beats.

For a nature sound, you don’t want any transposition. For a melodic sound, you might want to transpose to the root of the chord in the Band-in-a-Box song. If so, enter the root of the WAV file, and set the Transpose type to chord root.

The Timebase option allows you to select a timebase (normal, half-time, double-time, or triple-time) for any Loop.

If you want a different sound for the “b” substyle, enter that WAV file name in the ‘b’ substyle loop setting.

The [Open Folder] button opens your Loops folder and allows you to add audio files (loops) to it. If you add files, you need to press the [Refresh] button, or exit the dialog and re-enter it to refresh the list.

There are many good sources for loops and sounds on the Internet. One is freesound.org, which has many sound effects. The [Get Sounds] button launches your internet browser to search for free loops.

(Technical Note: The settings that you make to the WAV files are stored in .bt6 files in the Loops folder. If you don’t make any settings, then default settings are used, which would be a "nature sound" type of loop, that wouldn’t be transposed or tempo stretched.)

Click on the [Rename] button to give a loop a new name.

Click on the [Clone] button to duplicate a loop. You can then use it with different parameters.

Hotkeys:

Alt+T for Settings for Track

Alt+F for Filter String

Alt+A for Show All

Alt+N for No Loop

Alt+I for Audition

Alt+M for Rename

Alt+E for Clone

Alt+R for Stretch Tempo

Alt+P for Transpose

Alt+Y for 'b' substyle Loop

Alt+ B for Choose 'b' Loop

Alt+' for Clear 'b' Loop

Alt+L for Open Folder

Alt+S for Refresh

Alt+G for Get Sounds

Alt+O for OK

Alt+C for Cancel

Alt+H for Help

Tutorial Demo Songs - Loops

To see the Loops feature in action, open this folder: C:\bb\Documentation\Tutorials\Tutorial - BB2012 and open one of these files:

_ELECTAM Demo ('Loop' feature with tambourine percussion added).SGU

=THUNDER Demo (New Age style with Thunder Loop).MGU

In the first example, a percussion loop has been added to a rock song, in the second example, a rain & thunder sound effects loop has been added to a new age style.

When you play these songs, press the [Memo] button on the toolbar to read about the feature and the demo song.

[Tip: Loops can be combined with RealDrums, drum/percussion instruments, UserTracks drums, and even RealTracks, on the Drums track. To do this, open the Crate Multi-Drums dialog by right-clicking on the Drums track button and selecting Multi-Drums | Edit Multi-Drums for this song.]

Thanks Rob Helms.

Such a detailed deep dive, It's going to take me some time to absorb it all.
Thank you for taking the time to share the information.
I will take the time to work through your tips and advice.

Regards
Brian

Thanks Guitarhacker.

I think I will be using my DAW more into the future.
I do love to have a completed arrangement in BIAB before I export it.
Like you say, different strokes and all that.

Thanks for watching, commenting and advising.

Regards
Brian.