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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Im playing around with midi, especially the drums and I was wondering if there was a way to edit the patterns or fills?
I know in Sonar there is the drum manager and paino roll (or something like that) to edit midi drum patterns.
I was wondering if BB or RB had some sort of midi editing done easy?
6 strings. 24 frets. An infinite amount of possibilities.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2007
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Expert
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Expert
Joined: May 2007
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In BIAB, you can edit the drums in a particular style by using the Stylemaker in the Styles menu.
R
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If you're familiar with other sequencers, you could also drag'n' drop or export the BIAB song as a midi file and do your rearranging there. A nice feature is the ability to export the drums to separate midi files, so it's easy to know exactly which drum you are working on. When you've got it all tweaked you can then export the midi file from the other sequencer and reopen it in BIAB. The whole multichannel midi file will now be on the melody track.
You can then use the 'automatic style wizard' to make a new style from the tweaked midi, transporting your new drum arrangement into a new style for handy use at any time.
If you just want to improve the drums for a specific song ... If you've learned your GM drum notes, i.e., 35 = acoustic kick = B0, 36 = regular kick = C1, etc., you can rearrange on either the piano roll or the Notation Window using the Editable Notation window. You can activate the little speaker icon in the latter to left click and scrub the note with the mouse pointer to identify which drum sound it is. I haven't gotten into it very deeply yet, but I am sure you can add, rearrange and do all the normal editing stuff. Just look for help in the help files or tutorials.
Prado
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Biab and RB are two different programs when it comes to this. Biab is an autoarranger that creates a new drum part every time you hit play and that drum part is controlled by the style. RB does two things, if you're using the Biab style to create a drum part in RB, then it's the same as if you were using Biab in the first place but RB is also a full sequencer just like Sonar or any other. Using a sequencer track in RB, nothing is changed if you hit play so that means yes, you can go into the drum grid or piano roll and edit that drum part as much as you want and it will stick. This is one of the very cool things about RB, you can start with a Biab drum track, change it to a non-Biab sequence track and then edit it and repeat that as many times as you want using different Biab styles until you create something you like.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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@Jazzmammal ... or anyone who knows.
Once you save a BIAB song, does it still keep changing when you hit play? I thought once it was saved, the autoregeneration stopped. Seems to me the songs I've saved sound the same each time.
Also, if you freeze a track when you haven't yet saved a song, does this only prevent regeration, or does it also prevent editing of the track in the Notation or Piano Roll window?
Prado
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
@Jazzmammal ... or anyone who knows.
Once you save a BIAB song, does it still keep changing when you hit play? I thought once it was saved, the autoregeneration stopped. Seems to me the songs I've saved sound the same each time.
Also, if you freeze a track when you haven't yet saved a song, does this only prevent regeration, or does it also prevent editing of the track in the Notation or Piano Roll window?
Prado
First part, yes Biab will regenerate every time you hit play even if you've saved the song. This is by design because a real band won't play the same tune exactly the same every time either. Even though each regeneration is a little bit different, some styles you can't really tell but others it's more obvious. Freezing a track stops this from happening.
Second part, I'm not sure about trying to edit the midi drums to get what you want and then freezing. It might do that, I just don't know for sure. I use Real Band almost exclusively now because of the flexibility and the fact you have 48 tracks to play with and can create multiple drum tracks so I've never tried that in Biab.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks, Bob!  Prado
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Yes thanks!
But is there no way to get the piano roll capabilities in rb in biab?
Ive been fooling with midi drums and bass and Im finding it really easy to get the fills and runs that i need, even though they dont sound as good as RT's.
I guess its a matter of content control and with midi ,I can get exactly what I want in my songs. With RTs, I can only use and adapt to whats given. I cant manipulate RTs to get 100% control.
Does biab have full midi editing like RB?
6 strings. 24 frets. An infinite amount of possibilities.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Yes thanks!
But is there no way to get the piano roll capabilities in rb in biab?
Ive been fooling with midi drums and bass and Im finding it really easy to get the fills and runs that i need, even though they dont sound as good as RT's.
I guess its a matter of content control and with midi ,I can get exactly what I want in my songs. With RTs, I can only use and adapt to whats given. I cant manipulate RTs to get 100% control.
Does biab have full midi editing like RB?
Short answer, no. Over the years people have asked for this or that capability in Biab like multiple midi out ports so you can use more than one midi synth, more editing and stuff like that. PG decided to answer all those questions by creating Real Band rather than expanding Biab. It combines a full DAW with most of the Biab song generating functions. This is why I'm constantly saying RB is the way to go in a lot of cases if you're into more advanced midi/audio recording and editing. Biab is primarily for entering chords and voila!, here's your arrangement. That's it. Yes, it can do more, they did add an editible melody and soloist track but that's nothing like a full blown DAW with tons of tracks and capabilities including 16 midi output ports. I would not call Biab a DAW, it's it's own thing, unique in the world of computer music.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2009
Posts: 92
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OP
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Thanks again Bob!
As a beginner here, Im just trying to establish a workflow. At the present, biab for me is starting to be used in the idea or concept stage only.
Im relying more and more on rb to finalize or expand my ideas.
I just dont like that there is no style pickerin RB like in biab. RB just opens up the file directory but biab has an advance selection window with certain options that makes it easier to choose or try out your selection.
Question:
In piano roll, lets say drums pane, how do you add notes to the existing midi track? Ive been just copy paste all the notes but is there an easier method?
6 strings. 24 frets. An infinite amount of possibilities.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
I just dont like that there is no style pickerin RB like in biab. RB just opens up the file directory but biab has an advance selection window with certain options that makes it easier to choose or try out your selection.
Question:
In piano roll, lets say drums pane, how do you add notes to the existing midi track? Ive been just copy paste all the notes but is there an easier method?
There is a style box in RB right above the first track on the left hand side. Click on that and it opens up the same Stylepicker window.
In the piano roll window hit the help button, that will explain how to do anything you want in there including adding notes. You can click on a piano key on the left and highlight all the notes and change say the kick drum to a different kick or change cymbals, etc. Click on "velocity" in the little "controllers" box and look at the bottom half of the window, you will see a bunch of vertical lines. You may have to grab horizontal bar and move it up so you can see more of the bottom half. After you've highlighted all the notes for one part of the drum kit like the snare, you can grab one of the velocity lines with your mouse and change the velocity for the whole track just for the snare. That's one way to balance a drum kit. Velocity can change the character of the sound not just the volume so that may or may not be best but usually it works pretty good for drums. Another way is to split out the drum kit to individual tracks but in order to change individual volume's for each part of the kit you also have to map each part to it's own channel otherwise changing one track will change the whole kit because they default to the same midi channel. This should get you started in the piano roll but read the help file for that, there's a lot of stuff in there.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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In my copy, Doubleclicking in the rectangle area where the stylename resides will open the Stylepicker window.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If you click in the Style Name Box in RB then this accesses the same Style Window display as available from BIAB.
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