PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Still Working on my New Backing Tracks

When I saw that bb had the Audio Chord Wizard, I thought that might be the key to knocking out four sets of backing tracks from MP3s. It has not materialized like I thought it would and once I gave up on using audio tracks and tried to move over to midi it just got worse. I know I can do it all manually with keystrokes, but I thought this might be the little miracle program to get me on the road ASAP.

I need 50 backing tracks. I would rather have them in audio than midi, but I can live with either one. Am I totally barking up the wrong tree trying to make ACW do all the heavy lifting for me? So far I have had zero luck in producing even one finished track.

BTW, I do have a stack of fake books if I do have to put them all in by hand.

Thank you so much for your time.

Carl

Carl,

ACW will only interpret a song's chords from an audio file.

Depending on the file and user input with bars, its accuracy is around 90% (my estimate). ACW does not reproduce the sound of an audio file in a BIAB setting. It's purpose is to give a user the chordal skeleton so that they can add flesh to the bare bones. After getting the chord interpretation, it's necessary to send that information back to BIAB (with a tempo map if need be) and then load in BIAB styles to find one that suits the song.

Personally, I'd be using the fake books to enter songs' chords rather than analyzing them with ACW as manual entry would be quicker.

Regards,
Noel

Hi, I'm interested in your process. I also started working on a song, pretty much the same results. I too felt there had to be something I was missing. I had to mess around a LOT to get the bars where they should be, first of all. I thought that was a bit weird!! Why can't BiaB place the bars on the beats, instead they were off by a tiny bit and as the song progressed, it just got worse. My progress kind of stalled at that point. I'm in Edmonton, AB and I was hoping to find a BiaB guru here somewhere that I could network with. LOL

Brd43, welcome to the forum. In the ACW, press F8 as the song is playing to set each bar line.

Carl, depending on the fakebook, there may already be BIAB versions available. I found a bunch on the Internet over the years. What fakebooks are you talking about? And I agree with Noel that it is easier to key in the info from the fakebook than use ACW and edit the results, but that's because I'm working with jazz tunes that the ACW has more trouble with.

Hi brd43,

Welcome to the forums!

In addition to what Matt has said, if you go to the link below and scroll down a bit when the web page loads in, you'll find a 10 minute tutorial on using the Audio Chord Wizard. This will be well worth watching.

http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.other.htm

Regards,
Noel

Name 5 or 6 songs you are working on. See what we can help with. Many many songs are already done, some have all, some just chords.

Carl, The name Steve Tunstall of Oxford England offers lots of songs for free. You can download the complete set {several hundred,zipped} in a few seconds. Most contain melody. Unzip,select a RealTracks style,set panning,volumes,e.t.c. and push play. You can have your 50 songs without entering everything bar by bar. ----------Leon

Thank you all for your input. It is really great to see the community surrounding bb.

After I posted this thread, out of frustration I went nuts and downloaded about 150 free midi song files from the web. (That is only the tip of that iceberg.) Of course using the Windows sounds really sucked, but I found the GM Coyote sounds to be pretty good and I know I haven't even touched the other GM sounds and styles that came with bb. So I have midi song files with the hooks ready to be split up by channels and edited. (Remember to never say never because I am back to doing what I swore I would never do again, midi editing.) I know that will give me what I need, but not what I really wanted. Once the sounds are right and the editing done, then I will take reformat them to .wav files on CDs for portability and convenience.

What I was trying to do was to take MP3s, download them into bb, keep them in audio and add only the hooks with my guitar using midi. My goal was to keep everything as recorded on the record as close as possible and to do as little to it as I could. If someone asked to sit in, there would be no surprises. Same thing if I sat in, throw in my CD of .wav songs, listen for the count and take off. It wouldn't sound like the record sounds because of different sample sounds and styles, but it would have been easy to work with. I think I have enough to work with for now, but if I know me, I can never leave good enough alone, so that is when the real tweaking will begin. What I am trying to do is a blues single, which might be a bomb anyway. I can always fall back on Plan B. If it turns out I can't find all the tunes I want, I am more than willing to ask for help.

About those fake books, I bought three huge ones from this shady looking guy that used to come around the clubs every year or so 40 years ago. That was long before they published legal ones, but a lot of musicians still had them hidden away back then. He always drove a new Caddy and his trunk was always full of them.

Thanks again for your input and help. I will let you know how all this plays out.

c

I just get the midi file, open it in RealBand it puts all the instruments to separate tracks you can see
and gives the chords, then I substitute what midi tracks I can with RealTracks, the ones I can't
I just use a sampler like NI Kontakt to get a descent sound on the instrument and if I can't find the right RealDrums to fit I use NI Battery on the midi drums.

Thank you all for your help. I think I am on a roll now.

The RealBand sounds great and it seems to read my mind. It appears to give me everything I need for this project without me even having to ask. Can't beat that. This will always be a work in progress with mix changes and tweaks along the way. RealBand sure beats the way I had to do things in my old Hybrid Arts programs.

Thank you all again. I will give you a progress report in the near future.

Thank you. You have me moving in the right direction.

I am using midi files that I have found on the web, but of course, a good 25% of the songs I wanted are not available. Its still a struggle, but everyday I learn something about BiaB.

About those fake books...Well, these are real fake books, the kind that you had to buy out of the trunk of someone's car. (Funny, I haven't seen that guy in a few decades. Maybe he got caught?)

I am not even as good as a terrible keyboard player, so what I am using now is the midi files I got off the web. I can put the hooks in with my guitar, but not chords. I never tried to look for BiaB songs already done on the web. That is a great idea.

Thanks.

I am doing 90% blues standards. Some that I have not been able to find are:

Messin' with the Kid
Turn on Your Love Light
Good Morning Little School Girl
Drivin' Wheel
Just a Little Bit
Help the Poor

I think they are most 12 bar blues songs, so I thought they would be a snap. I have done midi since my Atari ST days, but I am still in the BiaB leaning curve.

Any input is appreciated and thank you in advance for your help.

Check here: http://www.freemidifiles.biz/

I found the first two on your list but that is all I looked for.

Good luck!