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I've used Band-in-a-Box for a long time, but sometimes the drum section makes me feel like a beginner, so....
I create a song using SIRUS.STY, which says that the drum kit is "41 Brushes Kit". However, when I play the song, it uses "Country Even 8". If I look at the drum track in the lead sheet view, it shows what appears to be correct notation for the real track. But, if I load the song into the Band-in-a-Box plugin and generate MIDI, it goes back to using the brushes kit.
When using the brushes kit, it sounds reasonable. On output, though, the Hi Hat is emitted as note 38 (Snare) and the snare as note 39 (Clap). I haven't dug into the rest of the mapping, however it's set to match GM. I see that the lead sheet window also displays snare/clap notation rather than matching the actual sound.
For the first problem: Since the lead sheet window can show me the real drums pattern, is there a way to export that as MIDI?
For the second problem: Can I get actual GM notes emitted with stock resources or should I try to create a custom map?
Edit: I should note that I do have RealCharts enabled for MIDI export.
Last edited by pmills; 11/09/22 03:07 PM.
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There are two ways to count midi patches. Some manufacturers use 0-127 where 0 is a number so it counts as one of the 128 patches while others skip 0 and start with 1 to use 1-128. Both are acceptable but it means that the instrument patch count can be off by 1 when changing synths.
What MIDI synth is Band-in-a-Box using as it's default synth?
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Some manufacturers use 0-127 where 0 is a number so it counts as one of the 128 patches while others skip 0 and start with 1 to use 1-128. FWIW, MIDI itself always uses the values 0...127 in the protocol, so all the manufacturers must do the same under the surface. What changes is how the manufacturers choose to present the numbers to the user, as raw MIDI values or raw-MIDI-value+1, which is how the 1...128 comes about. As Jim indicates, it often causes confusion. I guess this comes about at least partly because some people think 0 is not a proper number or think 0 should be silence.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
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I'm not sure the 0-base vs. 1-base matters in this case since a GM Hi Hat is 42, which is not +/-1 from the emitted note number.
As for synthesizer, factory setting: QuickTime Music Synthesizer. To be clear, playback in Band-in-a-Box sounds okay. It's only when the MIDI it produces is viewed or exported that the unexpected values come into play.
(Also, it is only a subset of the notes that are wrong. Things like Side Stick and Crash are generated as expected.)
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When you play the song you are hearing the RealDrums even though notation says it is GM 41 Brush Kit. When you save the song as MIDI you will get the Brush Kit, as expected. Try changing the GM brush kit to a GM standard drum kit as that may correct the problem.
FYI - I have run into this before when trying to use the MIDI version of a RealDrum kit. Some are spot on and some are not. In fact I have given up using the MIDI versions of RDs and only use either MIDI style drums or using other non-PGM MIDI drup loops like GrooveMonkee.
I hope this helps.
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I think I now understand one of my problems: The brush kit doesn't always make the sounds that are described by the GM key map. (a.k.a. When is a clap not a clap?) I found a post from a few years ago that includes the following....
I figured out that the Brush Kit is usually the same as the Standard Drum Kit with the following three exceptions:
Note #38 is a Brush Tap instead of a Snare Drum.
Note #39 is a Brush Slap instead of a Hand Clap.
Note #40 is a Brush Swirl instead of a Snare Drum.
That would explain why the sounds I'm hearing inside Band-in-a-Box don't match other GM drum libraries or my expectations when I read "39 Eb1 Hand Clap". Apparently, there's a "remap brushes" check-box among the preferences; I'll have to try that out. I'm sure someone had a reason for changing the definition of standard sounds instead of using note numbers outside the core range, but it wasn't anyone I'd call a friend. 
Last edited by pmills; 11/10/22 04:49 AM.
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Try changing the GM brush kit to a GM standard drum kit From what I've been reading, that would also be a valid approach. I don't know who first said it, but, "The nice thing about standards is that we have so many to choose from."
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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