PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Vocal oos and ahas

I have been fooling around with this and have found a couple of things

1. The files show in the real tracks window and most play a demo when double clicked, however some do not play even when the solo button is depressed and it gives a yellow error that says the file cannot be found. This only happens to a few.

2. If a real track says in the description it is oos only I still get a mixture of oos and ahas when bringing into the song and vice versa when the file say ahas only . This very confusing to say the least. Am I doing something wrong??

3. When I am successful in bringing in the track to the song the oos and ahas just pop up wherever they want. Maybe I'm not understanding something here??

I think a tutorial in how to use these real tracks is warranted as I have seen none so far

Any help would be appreciated

Thanks Nelson

Hi. Little flaws in finding the right files or demo sounds are being fixed. Make sure you are on build 505 and keep updating; many patches have already been released and no doubt more will fix stuff like this. If you want to help, try to list the RealTrack numbers, the style names, etc.

Thanks Matt I am on 505 which is the latest, thanks, I still feel a tutorial is in order

Nelson

I have worked in the past incorporating these vocal sounds in my arrangements, but always via MIDI. Doing this with Real Tracks may be a bit of a challenge. But this was a big Wish List request.

You got it right, since these real tracks are vocal recordings, they will pipe-in where ever and when ever. That is the downside to RTs but the upside is they will sound very musical and realistic.

You do have some control over the RTs such as using F5 for when and where you want them to come through and you can always re-generate and you will get a different placement.

I hope to look into these as time permits.

Probably a job for Captain RealBand.

If the BIAB programmers want, or need, to hear some appropriate choral sounds, take a listen to all of the choral voices on the new Yamaha Genos arranger keyboard. To my hearing, that’s what they should sound like, or something comparative.

An arranger keyboard is not a fair comparison because all those sounds are controlled live by the player. Things like velocity switching for example. Velocity switching is based on your touch on the keys. My older Kurzweil has a three layer piano for example but the newer boards have more than that. Hit the keys soft you get layer 1, harder you get 1 and 2 and the hardest gets all three. Each layer is a separate recording so different players will get a different sound out of the Genos while playing the exact same notes. And that's just the beginning, the Genos has articulations that are controllable too.

Bob

I think the comparison to the arranger keyboard was only to describe its vocal sounds compared to the new vocal sounds in the latest RealTracks, and that possibly the vocal RealTracks could always be improved. No doubt they will be expanded in time.

I took the vocal oohs and ahhs for a run in Realband yesterday. Very nice when used with multi-riffs. I layered about 15 voices and tried limiting them to ends or verses / choruses etc. Much more interesting than in BIAB.

This is one thing I thought would be a real bonus and was glad to see it. So far have been very disappointed with my results. Maybe a tutorial (hint , hint)

Nelson

I agree that I haven't had the results I expected also.

Thanks Video Track, ok PG music whats up????

Nelson

Hi Nelson,

With regards to your initial report of "oohs" and "aahs" getting mixed up, and not playing as expected, you were absolutely right, that was a bug, and will be fixed in the next patch update (likely in a "pre-release" patch today, and then an official patch tomorrow).

As far as a tutorial goes, we will be putting together a video tutorial on the vocal RealTracks shortly, but in the meantime I'll give you a run-down on what these vocal RealTracks consist of, and the various options available with these RealTracks.

These RealTracks are a 3-part vocal arrangement (1 female part, 2 male parts), but with 6 total voices. Each of the three parts is doubled, so you get a nice full

The main RealTrack is <2975: Vocal Oohs-Aahs, Rhythm Pop3-part Ev 085>. This has a full mix of the 6 voices, and should sing "oohs" for the A section and "aahs" for the B section. It should closely follow the chords of the song (which is, within Band-in-a-Box what a "rhythm" style does). That's not to say that it will ONLY ever play chord tones, it will certainly play passing tones, etc., but for the most part it sticks to what you enter into Band-in-a-Box.

The main RealStyle that uses that RealTrack is _OOHLALA.STY. Here's a demo of this RealTrack generated over a pop progression: http://demos.pgmusic.com/audio/allstyledemos2/_oohlala.m4a

So, if you enter a simple pop progression and use that style, you should be getting a very similar result to what's in that demo. Of course, as with ANY Band-in-a-Box RealTracks/RealStyles, you can enter ANY progression you like, and it will play over that progression, but the best results are generally acheived when entering progressions that are generally suitable to the style at hand.

A variation of the main RealTrack is <2976: Vocal Oohs-Aahs, Background Pop3-part Ev 085>. This is the same mix as the first one, but Band-in-a-Box treats it differently. Rather than strictly adhering to the chords as entered, this allows for more leeway as far as 7ths and other "color" tones, which can make for a cool alternative. This one also should play Oohs during the A substyles and Aahs during the B substyles.

A RealStyle that uses this is _LALAOOH.STY, and here's a demo of that RealTrack, where you can hear that it's playing more "color" tones, and you can hear the 7ths and other passing tones in this one: http://demos.pgmusic.com/audio/allstyledemos2/_lalaooh.m4a.

So with both of those, if you use them currently they should work the same way as they do in those demos.

We then have some other variations of these that you can pick where it's oohs-only or aahs-only for the entire song. These are the ones that were affected by the bugs you spoke of, and as I mentioned, they should be fixed in a patch within the next couple of days. Here though is a sample of an "aahs-only" version of the "background" variation, being used with a harder-rocking rhythm section: http://demos.pgmusic.com/audio/allstyledemos2/_rockaah.m4a

And, then finally there are the "single singer" variations of these background vocals, allowing you to make, for example custom combinations of say, 1 male + 1 female voice, or only 2 male voices, etc. These ALSO can be picked as oohs-only for the entire song, or aahs-only for the entire song, but that is broken right now as well, and will be fixed in the afore-mentioned patches.

I hope this helps

Tobin

Tobin, thanks for that. I thought I was going " Bonkers" You guys are listening and I appreciate that very much, thanks. I look forward to the patch.

Thanks

Nelson

Also for you information when I am in the real track picker and double click on some of the vocal tracks to demo them I get an access error. and it won't play. Are you aware of this??

I'm wondering why there are no swing style vocals? I tried even vocals on a swing track in Realband and they seemed to work ok, but it just seems strange. Am I missing something?

You can't expect too much from something like this other than a nice background pad. I use various vocal patches on my keyboards all the time and it's a real skill to control them with a pianists touch. An example is the ooh's are one layer and the ahh's a second layer that could be mixed with something else for effect. I would be playing a chord lightly triggering the ooh layer only but while holding that chord I use one finger for example to trigger the second layer loudly making it stand out. Hard to describe but that's how you make vocal patches sound real.

This isn't a bug in Biab or anything, it's just the way it works. Biab has no way to adjust the volume (velocity) of one note in a chord to trigger a variation of the sound so pad sounds like this will sound sterile. All you can do is be careful how you mix them.

Bob

Bob: This information re: use of vocal patches is very helpful and I will implement it in my efforts. Thank you.

Thanks PG music for the latest update. The vocals sound much better and all the demos play. Great work on getting on top of this as well as the other fixes

Thank you

Nelson