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Hello, folks. I've had the product for about three weeks and will use it mostly for developing backing tracks for 50's and 60's rock 'n roll. Can anyone tell me how to insert a drum loop into a song? Mostly want to put particular fills in particular places.

I don't see a way. Thanks in advance for your tutelage.

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Nick@Night, Welcome to the forum!

In Band-in-a-Box (BiaB) you create a drum fill by adding a part marker. If you want a drum fill in bar 4 then add a part marker by clicking on the number 5 in bar 5. Click on the number 5 in bar 5 multiple times to rotate through the part marker choices; typically the rotation starts with none, blue, green and none once again. Part marker colors visually indicate the feel of the song. None means the feel is the same as the last part marker, blue is with "normal" energy (such as what you have in the verse of a song) and green has "higher" energy (such as what you have in the chorus of a song). Adding a part marker of the same color as the previous part marker does not change the energy level, just tells the drum track to add a feel.

Hope this helps.


Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
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Hi, Jim. On the same subject, I occasionally get blue, green, and other, so four RD settings, (I don't have a song up right now, so guessing say yellow and violet).

Can you tell me what triggers them to be available?

I'll take my answer on the line. smile


Andy

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The part markers trigger a drum fill based on the color of the part marker.

You can insert part markers anywhere you want a drum fill.

The fills, like I said are in the style you selected and will work for most applications.

If you need a specific fill, or some kind of custom fill, you will need to be slightly more creative.

In that case, you want to work in a DAW where you can edit the drum track directly. Dong that in BB is difficult if not impossible. (I have actually never tried to edit a track in that manner in BB) In a DAW, you can edit by cutting and pasting in a new part.... or even using a drum synth with a similar sounding kit to play exactly what you need played by MIDI.

I have done that very thing with piano in the song FOOLS ERRAND. (on my music site) Biab uses a Real Track piano part for most of the song. However, there's a part closer to the end immediately following the bridge, where the piano is playing simple quarter note chords.... that part is midi with a piano sample chosen to be a sound alike to the BB/RB piano part. It's not even noticeable that it's not the real track doing that.

You just have to think outside of the box every now and then to get things done like you want them done.

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 03/09/17 03:12 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Andy A - USA
Hi, Jim. On the same subject, I occasionally get blue, green, and other, so four RD settings, (I don't have a song up right now, so guessing say yellow and violet).

Can you tell me what triggers them to be available?

I'll take my answer on the line. smile


Andy,

Many of the RealDrum tracks include variations for both "A" & "B" part marker parts of a song. PG Music calls them Groove Variations. Some styles have variation calls built-in. You can take any existing style and do the same thing.

Hover your mouse over any bar number and right click and the window you see in the photo below pops up. Notice RealDrum groove variations is not active in the menu. If I was using a RealDrums track with variations the command would be active.

Also notice another menu command "define C/D ..." has a red box around it. Select define C/D ... and you can call up another style with it's A & B part markers redefined as C & D for this song. Save the current style with a new name and you've created a multi-style.

Also of note is the long, vertical alphabet menu. You can use the alphabet menu to divide a song into user defined sections like A = intro, B = verse, C = chorus, d = ending then build a song using song sections.

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Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home
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Thank you all for the suggestions. But this is not exactly what I need. I want to know hot to insert a drum loop into an individual bar and have it temporarily replace the real drums for the one bar only. I will probably need to do this with the bass as well, but for now I am concentrating on the drums.

Thank you again!

Nick

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Nick, I really think this is undertaken most effectively in a DAW, e.g. RealBand, where you could edit any bar and introduce the audio drum loop wherever you want.

As an example, you could place the Drum Loop(s) on a separate track, and cut the audio of the main drums, or even just lower the volume of the main drums at that point where the loop audio takes precedence.


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Originally Posted By: Nick@Night
Thank you all for the suggestions. But this is not exactly what I need. I want to know hot to insert a drum loop into an individual bar and have it temporarily replace the real drums for the one bar only. I will probably need to do this with the bass as well, but for now I am concentrating on the drums.

Thank you again!

Nick


Hello Again Nick,

As VideoTrack indicated, what you are wanting to do is much easier to do using RealBand than it will to try in Band-in-a-Box.

With that said, I remember Band-in-a-Box 2017 allows use of multiple drum tracks but I have not used that new feature so you may have to view the new feature video or check the user manual.

A second way is to record the audio of the existing drum track (without drum fills), name the recorded drum track audio file the same name as your song file (song.sgu and song.wav for instance) then import the audio file into the audio, soloist or melody track.

Now use midi and a midi instrument to create your drum fills on the drum track.

Use F5 bar settings to switch between the sound of the drum audio and drum track as needed.


Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home
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Thank you for the thoughtful reply! I'll give it a try!

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Thank you! I have another month of BIAB under my belt since I made this post. I have found that I usually don't do an entire backing track in BIAB. I do some of it, then save as .wav, put it up in Audacity and add more tracks. I see that it's possible to render the song as all separate audio tracks. I need to get that figured out too! That would make for a more flexible final mix.

I haven't had time to really try Real Band as yet. It sounds like that is where I should be spending my time. I'll give it a go as time permits.

Thanks again!

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Thank you!

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Nick, thanks for the reply. Do try RealBand. I think you will find it easier to mix tracks there than in Audacity.


BIAB & RB2025 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
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Band-in-a-Box® 2025 pour Windows est disponible en Français.
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