PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Styles and RealTracks Wishlist Time to make Styles that sell on Today's Radio

I am probably one of the original BIAB owners. I still have the early versions that came with complete printed Manuals! And, I always buy your yearly updates. But you folks need a revolution in Styles. I have listened to all the Demo's of your 2019 new styles and I can characterize the batch as "cornball" even by 1880's musical standards. I have enough Campfire, Waltzes, Jigs, covered-wagon Folk, tired Blues, ancient Country, etc. - the dead old styles you have been recycling for years. What I need is Styles that are selling on today's radio - it should be simple to do - monitor the Top Pop stuff on iTunes for the past couple years - (and I am not talking about Rap or Hip Hop). You need music styles that are current and hot.
I am guessing that your User/Buyer base is most people 55 and above. You are not going to grow your market share with what you have been rehashing for the past 20 years. You need a total refresh if you are going to attract younger people to your product.
On the positive side, I did get the Mac 2019 Ultra Pal and the technical improvements are outstanding. The 64-bit loads (if that is what is causing it) more than twice as fast and the ability to imbed VST's in Logic or ProTool is a serious time saver. All your technical updates the past 8 years have been amazing. But now it's time to join the music world that is happening today. Seriously, listen to what is selling now and give us that. I really never want to buy another Rockabilly (et. al) Style again. You beat these things to death. Now that I have a 64-bit platform to work with I can absolutely say that unless you change directions this will be the last Styles update I buy.

Plus 1

By.......

Interesting take on Styles Kevin. Interesting but not unique nor original. Joe, another forum member, posts over in another thread, that the same as you, he isn't going to update again until PGMusic cave's to his demands. Joe wants PGMusic staff to create a custom Style list with only the Styles he uses or likes. How can they possibly pull that off? I doubt they've ever heard Joe perform his music or the subset community of 'straight jazz' aficionados he assures PGMusic are out there in BIAB land that don't use the program for the single reason they don't have a custom Style list. There's another thread about BIAB not being worthy for some to upgrade because BIAB/RB isn't convenient to their particular workflow.

There seems to be a constant stream of threads for another button to automatically perform a favorite workflow function or for BIAB to be more like this or that favorite DAW someone uses. This includes a member starting a petition for PGMusic to sell their company to Yamaha Corporation. Nothing wrong with this and usually over time, much wanted features are added and deficiencies are corrected. But that doesn't directly address your issue. In the case of your issue, I think it's more that it hasn't happened than it is a question of can it happen with BIAB and it's current database of audio recordings and Styles.

The first of several flaws I see in your recommendation to PGMusic is when you say, "What I need is Styles that are selling on today's radio - it should be simple to do - monitor the Top Pop stuff on iTunes for the past couple years - (and I am not talking about Rap or Hip Hop). You need music styles that are current and hot."

1. "What I need... " This is similar to Joe's remarks above. It's a useless and unnecessary comment that will get you nowhere.
2. "I am not talking about Rap or Hip Hop" Why in the world would one skip a portion of the music industry that generates more than 10 billion dollars each year per NBC news?

Before you even get to the capability to include midi into projects for "today's current and hot hits", PGMusic' BIAB software has more than 6,900 Styles available with their program. BIAB has more than 2,700 instruments and approximately 3,000 hours of recorded audio. Each and every one of those styles is completely modifiable, one can add, detract or exchange instruments. In addition, to modify any of these styles, it's easy to create their own from scratch. It's also possible to audition all these styles and very likely to find useable components for "Today's Hits".

Using midi, live playing and/or pre-recorded audio and mixed with appropriate BIAB styles, loops and instruments, the instrumentation of any of today's style of current songs can be replicated. Today's instrumentation is comprised mostly from samples, loops, VSTi's and layer after layer of "in the box" instruments. BIAB accepts third party synths, has 808 loops, can play samples. In short, all the elements to create a contemporary, current, hot 'today's hit' is there. That means that it is also possible to create an original song that meets the criteria and elements of today's music instrumentation. The key is learning how to access, select and manipulate the data contained in BIAB software. Specific riffs and other unique elements not contained in the BIAB database, can easily be supplied by either live playing or inserting specific pre-recorded audio or midi. That an older, retired guy that doesn't listen to this type of music hasn't produced a song doesn't mean it can't be done. It only means someone hasn't done it yet.

Current radio hits. Who listens to that stuff? Give us more oldies. I could use a few more rhumbas.

It's truly unfortunate that I can't edit or delete my earlier post. For clarification, I plus 1'ed the idea of radio-ready styles, not the issue of never buying another upgrade.

I hear you BUT if adding more current MIDI and RTs attracts more customers for PGMusic then I'm all for it. Plus remember that you can cross genres. In other words a country style may work in a jazz song and visa-vera, a style is not in concrete.

So +1 from me.

totally agree J Larry

But the 1880's was such a creative musical decade, that new revolutionary parlor pump organ was a real game changer...

Seriously, just my opinion, that market is completely locked up by Ableton Live. Everybody and I mean every pro and wannabe modern music producer uses Ableton and barely knows Biab exists. Biab has it's niche and I completely agree that old classic jazz, blues, country, folk etc niche will start dying out but the overall music scene is vast. That niche could still be viable 20 or 30 years from now.

To try to have Biab compete with Ableton with EDM, modern pop and hip hop with the completely computer generated looped and chopped up samples sounds like a losing proposition to me.

There are YT vids that show exactly how some big name producers create their stuff. I like to watch some of that because of questions like this. How can Biab become a part of that and right now I don't see how that can happen. Charlie makes good points but I don't think he's really checked out that scene either. Ableton is literally the king, queen and Caesar of modern top 40 music. Hard to compete with that.

Bob

I always buy the updates, so, because I have everything, Im mostly looking forward to get
the most modern sounding styles and instruments.
The loops and synth pads of The Great OZ, and backing vocal, and Kummers orchestra sounds, gives something to add, and have fun with.
But I think it could be so nice to see BB´s take on "Styles that are selling on today's radio".
Its not to compete with Ableton, but why shouldn´t BB give us a taste of that ?
Stratos

At the risk of offending, I'm gonna jump in here with my $.02 because I've been mulling this point over for a quite a while now.

Up to about a year ago or so, I would have 110 percent agreed with OP, as well as many others who have expressed similar sentiments over the past handful of years I've owned BiaB and have often lurked, and at times participated in these forums.

As someone who had originally purchased BiaB for learning and practicing guitar and bass, I was perfectly content with the RTs and styles on tap. Yes, I felt like a lot of them were very dated and "vanilla," but that did not bother me much, as they were perfectly sufficient for my needs.

Then, about a couple of years ago I started developing much more of an interest in music production techniques, software and plugins. I started experimenting with all sorts of effects and MIDI VSTs and realized that every single thing you need to make 100 percent modern music and top hits with can be fully accomplished with RTs, RDs, MIDI tracks, and MIDI supertracks once you drag the raw materials into a full fledged DAW and apply FX, compression, and the myriad of techniques used nowadays in music production.

I cannot stress enough how much effects are already added to modern loops that are sold in the latest sample packs that give them that shiny sheen and movement which is entirely lacking from almost all BiaB tracks.

And this is a GOOD thing. Because you yourself can decide what, when, and how you apply your effects to various tracks.

I remember the first time I loaded W.A. Production's "The King" onto the Realdrums and bass realtrack in BiaB. I was absolutely FLOORED how much those tracks suddenly leapt to life with just a wee bit of tweaking! Then you have re-amping, gates, but-crushers, slicers, glitch FX and a million other things.

As an example, I'll just post a link to a track of mine that, IMO, sounds as modern as you like. Every single sound and note was derived from RTs and RDs with not a MIDI note in sight.

Now I'm not saying that I think the song is particularly good. As I said, I don't really user BiaB to produce songs, but I recorded this for one of the Xtra-style Pak contests way before I started delving into music production in general. Furthermore, I totally screwed up the gain staging, as well as a bunch of other mixing and mastering elements, but I'm fairly confident it sounds pretty damn contemporary nonetheless (and I'd be happy to hear what y'all think!).

The song: https://soundcloud.com/user-423212678/labor-day-pt-ii-1

Damn Deacon you done good with this one. A really nice mix, modern percussion/beats and smart catchy lyrics.

Thanks Dan! Much appreciated :-)

DeaconBlues09,

Very good example of what can be done when you apply some imagination. You did good!

Thanks for posting this. One of the things I like about RealTracks is many are available with processing to match styles and unprocessed as direct inputs. That gives us the capability to process them as we want to.

A wider variety of musical styles can really only assist to enhance the product.

The underlying suggestion for broader style coverage is supported.
+1

This, x1,000,000,000,000

Seriously.

Artist suggestions:

Bruno Mars
Harry Styles
Phoebe Bridgers
boygenius
Justin Bieber
Lizzy McAlpine
Kacey Musgraves
girl in red
Cavetown
Ed Sheeran
Hozier
Billie Eilish & Finneas
SYML

Just to name a very small few!