PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Just need to ask so I know....

I read post after post about changing 'this' instrument in 'that' style, tweak this, edit that.....

How are the majority of you folks using this product that you spend that kind of time editing these various components? I have only had this for a bit under a month and I use it to do rough demos to send to the players who will eventually record the songs in a real studio. Whether it is Brent Mason's amazing guitar work in the packaged style or not, Brent won't be playing on my CD and my guitar player isn't going to play the solo like BIAB can create it with the Brent Mason samples anyway, so it doesn't really matter what BIAB produces. Playing with friends of 30 years or more, hearing songs morph and evolve as each guy suggests things (my songs, my final approval) is the fun part of the creative process.

This is indeed a great WRITING TOOL, but LIVE music is just that - LIVE, with real live, breathing PEOPLE playing. I understand and agree that everybody is different and this is just my opinion, but spending hours fooling with one little guitar hit being 1/16 of a beat anticipated or not.... my songs go to my guys with an audio track explaining "Okay, Russ, your solo is after the 2nd chorus, and you pick up right into it after the vocals and play 32 bars into the key change that leads into the bridge.", or "Tim, I need big organ pads here under the chorus. Think 'Pink Floyd'.", but I don't spend hours on the demo trying all 74 million styles in varying combinations of instrument substitutions when 15 seconds of conversation will do the same job. I mean, at some point, musicians need to actually play instruments, right?

And again, this is just me, and there is no "right way", but I am really curious about this.

I once had a poster of DaVinci painting The Mona Lisa while sitting at a computer using a CAD drawing program. Made me think a lot.

The short answer: For midi-use the Hybrid Style Maker/For Real Tracks-the r-click on a Biab part and selecting a suitable Real Instrument Track.

Some of us are strictly resigned to Biab and its options, so we have to use the available options in it. One part added here or there can make the song more recognizable (cover) or add that little extra something for us home hobbyists.

Trax

I find trhe real tracks so good that I spend my studio time playing piano live. I so rarely change things - expcept if there is a MIDI track which gats real track treatment.
I often cobble together a set of changes to practice with maybe a 12 bar, or going around a cycle.
To the great credit of the app I find myself knowing very little about the capability of the program because I always divert to actually playing.

Zero

Eddie,

There are at least three takes on your statement.

The first and most obvious is that you are a complete professional and live by the dictum that time is money. You use BIAB for what I originally got it for--a demo tool. I mean that in an entirely complimentary way.

What you are describing is likely either a hobbyist or an artiste, someone who will spend endless time tweaking the thing to get the perfect take. It's just another approach to BIAB suited to those who, unlike you, don't have access to talented studio cats to wring out the changes.

Then there are the weirdos like me who use sometimes BIAB as an instrument in its own right.* Its output is the product, not intended for adds or embellishments. Well, maybe except for washing the resultant MIDI file through Reason and fleshing it out a wee bit. In the meantime, let's fiddle with it until it's . . . just . . . right . . .

Anyway, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Richard

*(I suspect that some of the artistes/hobbyists fit into this category but either haven't realized it or admitted it yet.)

Well I think most people don't have an endless supply of buddies or session musicians or the money to pay them to do each demo "in the studio"

So we are making do with the next best thing, top quality samples recorded by session musicians who are available 24/7.

I don't like to spend too long either finding the right style so I see your point there, but I don't have the contacts either to get these musicians to play for what little money I'd be prepared to offer them to do a demo for me.

Even if I had lots of musician buddies I would guess they would soon get fed up doing all the little demo favours I would ask them, So to be honest I wouldn't. I do like to be a little self-sufficient in this regard.

musiclover

Eddie,

I would suggest listening to John's (Silvertones) demos (wherever they are) as well as Danny Campo's on his website, just to name a few. These gentlemen can sing and play. BB is what it is- just backup.

Percy

I use BIAB on recordings for guitars, bass, drums, pianos, fiddles, banjos, mandolins, ... and midi stuff -- then I add my vocals/guitar/etc to the mix.

So I can be a "fiddler" of trying to get the best output I can from BIAB. I have just started playing live (open mics only) and I do that in a guitar/vocal arrangement. I don't think I would ever use BIAB as a live accompaniment, but if other folks want to do that as fun or for a living, it is OK by me. It would be nice to get a small band together at some point in time, though.

Kevin

If you're using the product for rough demos for the band to hear, that's fine. I would do the same with my band if I were using the software for that. However, I use it for polished demos. Also fine, and also doable with varying amounts of editing. You can do as much or as little as you need, and use the product in many different ways depending on your needs. The mark of great software is that it DOES accomodate many different user scenarios and needs.

Dan

Me personally i know a few guys that can play, but none are available when i am, they all have lives, wives, and kids, so i have to to do this thing on my own.

also there is the whole deal with others thing. I have played with a few guys over the years, and it always comes down to what they want that is different than what i want, when they can play, what they like and don't like, will they practice it or not, will we get together for a jam practice and they announce that they have not looked at the disk i sent them.

Really BiaB allows guys the option to play solo, and be in control of the product. No drama, no fuss, and have virtual studio musicians in the house.

If you want to play with friends and others great, but be careful to knock what others do. After all bands are really struggling to find work these days, solo acts are everywhere. I know guys that play in bands, but can only get two nights a week, but they grab a solo gig a couple other nights and that helps them survive. there was a guy down at the harbor coffee shop last night with a laptop and a PA system sitting there cranking out one great song after another, he was virtually nothing but a karaoke artist, but hey he had twenty people sitting and listening. The guy could flat out sing anything. Over at the other side of the harbor at a restaurant there was a 5 piece band doing a plethora of old rock tunes, nice and far more "live" but all they had was about 25 people listening.

I imagine the solo guy was far less expensive for the coffee place than the band was. Some people ride a motorcycle to work each day, others ride in the dirt on the weekend, still others ride in road races, is the road racer the only one who is a "real" biker?

Eddie doesn't hide from anything. Ever.

I asked how YOU use this program to compare it to how I use this program. Some of you chose to add the insinuated attitude. I am sure that many of you use this program as your backup band. That's fine if that is what you choose to do. I prefer to use it as a tool to write songs for live recording (note, WRITE and RECORDING) with real people later because of the time involved with the writing phase of things. I only have to teach players my songs AFTER they have morphed into completed songs rather than during the compositional period. The BIAB tracks are used as reference tracks from which live players can learn the chord progressions and arrangements, and start thinking of what their improvisational touches will be.

As far as the "gig and money" discussion, that is another soap box for me and I will spend 100 or so words on it here. I don't spell it mu$ic. I make enough money on my 40 hour job as a network technician to not care about scuffling and hustling to find gigs to play for 20 people in a coffee house or a corner bar full of drunks. (As a recovering alcoholic for now 15 years I prefer to distance myself from the bar thing unless absolutely necessary.) I play music for me, not empty and shallow acceptance from a room full of people who likely don't know good from bad anyway. Impressing a crowd is the easy part. Just turn your amp up to 27 and put your right hand on the neck and hammer-on your little heart out. (Like the kid at the Guitar Center was doing until I asked him to show me how to finger a B flat maj 7th, a question which was answered by an extended middle finger when he couldn't do it.) All the "dollar" talk kind of proves the point that fewer and fewer people care about the art any more. (I am working on a CD right now that is for ME. If anybody buys them, so be it, and any proceeds will go to the county animal shelter where I got my last 3 dogs, the same shelter that is the beneficiary named in my life insurance policy and the only heir named in my will. My goal is not to be the richest corpse in the graveyard.) This is why here in my city we see all these scab bands with a non-singing guitar, bass and drums behind a marginally talented girl singer who will play for a musical prostitution level $200 a night and a bar tab, and they sound completely limp because when the guitar player solos the music just drops out. But god forbid they bring in a keyboard player to fill the sound palette and sing harmony and make $20 less per guy. Places won't hire you if you dare to play original music rather than the cliche 40 song set list that every band plays... I went to the web pages of 7 popular local bands here in town. When I compared the set lists, fully 75% of the songs were on the list of all 7 bands. How many different bands can you hear play lame oldies like "Mustang Sally" before you finally say "enough"? You need to give people a reason to drive 60 miles across town to see you, and the same old stuff isn't going to do it. Live play is fun and all, but if people leave your gig and forget about you by the time they get home you haven't really touched them. You make the same $100 either way, but having them go home thinking "Man, that ballad that was the second to last song was a beautiful piece of writing" will always mean more to me than the 100 bucks. "Vanilla" bands are like sheets on a motel bed. Someone puts them on the bed, the guest sleeps on them, soils them, and the next day they put new ones on and nobody thinks twice about them. Then the next guest sleeps on them. Again and again. I see a few bands a month but rarely do I leave the venue thinking "I want to see them again".

This thread was in no way intended to be negative toward anybody. Many of you assigned that posture to it. I asked about the relative merits of working on creating canned music as live backup versus using the same tools to make demos for musicians to learn songs for recording a CD and performing that CD live. I can do a song in 4 hours and have it written, multi-tracked, dumped to an MP3 and off via email to the band members because I don't have to record and re-record and re-re-record over and over in Sonar or Pro Tools to clean up the clams. That is what makes BIAB a great writing tool. It plays it right the first time. If I still had the luxury of being a full time musician as I was for 22 years I would not use BIAB because I would have 8-10 hours per day in a rehearsal hall with the rest of the band. Age and life situations make that kind of decision for us. I didn't have a mortgage in those days, or drive a new car (complete with accompanying new car payment), so I now have to work the straight job thing. I am also now too old for the road. 12 weeks on the road at a time like we used to do would pretty much kill me now. It was fun THEN, but now, at this age.....not so much.

Peace all. Everybody keep doing what you like most and do best. I am out of this one now. Continue to flog me if you choose.

Eddie, I'm doing exactly what you describe. I compose using BIAB and send an MP3 to the musicians before we do a concert or hit the studio. I've done concerts this way, playing BIAB demos with no rehearsal, for over fifteen years, and two major studio CDs. Works like a champ.

I was only kidding about hiding. You did not say that playing live for you requires real players you said playing live requires real players period. Big difference.This music thing can go full circle you know. You reach a point in your career were you need a band full of players. I didn't open for Reba & about 50 other top names using RealBand or BIAB back in the 1980's. Right now I just prefer to be in the twilight years of my career making backing tracks to my own liking and playing when & where I want the way I want. I'm not a writer so I do covers. Oh well. You know Eddie if you gave it half a chance and tried making your CD with RB using RTs, RDs & a good module for some MIDI parts you may be surprised. If you're still balls to the wall playing concerts as a REAL Pro like Matt then you have to have a band. No question.

BTW Eddie that's a great thing you're doing for the animals. My wife & I don't have kids and are doing the same. I wouldn't have ever guessed someone else would do it also. Just don't tell our brothers & sisters!