PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Flaw when extending/reducing choruses

Hi,

Pardon the dissertation, but I’d like to explain what I believe is a major flaw in trying to either extend or reduce the # of choruses in a song. I’d like to be able to do that right on the gig. There’s no way, at present. I have hundreds of jazz standards, w/ something important in the soloist track, which I put there by hand, and which is intimately tied to the rhythm section, which is type A for the 1st and last chorus, and type B (faster) for the middle choruses. Almost all jazz standards follow that format, and yes, I know how to tell BIAB to just use the same rhythm (type A or B) for every chorus, but that would destroy a majority of the tunes I play. I happen to put bass lines in the soloist track (and mute BIAB’s bass track), but the case I am about to make exists if one puts clarinet or trombone solos or any other instrument in the soloist track. The same case I’ll make applies to the melody track also, especially when that track is used for something OTHER than straight melody.

First you have to buy into the fact that that bass lines or soloist lines, when played by a real musician, are tied to the rhythm. Imagine the last chorus being played, where the rhythm slows down to type A, and the bass lines (or clarinet soloist) are still playing double time. It sounds ridiculous, and that is exactly what you get if you extend the # of choruses by simply clicking on the current #, and typing in a bigger #, and allowing BIAB to extend the soloist and melody tracks.

Here’s an example of the problem. Suppose I have 5 choruses of a jazz standard. Let me represent that as: 1A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5A where the A and B are the rhythm types.

BAD -- Here’s what BIAB does if I extend it to 9 choruses: 1A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5A, 5A, 5A, 5A, 5A

Now, the 1st 4 5As have slower soloist and melody tracks, since they came from the last track. Since BIAB regenerates the drums track, the 1st 4 5As will have the normal B-type rhythm, as they should. So for the 1st 4 5As, BIAB is matching a fast rhythm w/ slow soloist and melody tracks. Not good. Here’s what BIAB should do –

GOOD – 1A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 2B, 3B, 4B, 2B, 5A

You don’t want to simply repeat 4B multiple times (1A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 4B, 4B, 4B, 4B, 5A ) until you get the desired # of choruses, because you’d be hearing the same old soloist licks (4B) over and over again. Just use the middle choruses, in the same order as the original, over and over, if necessary, until you get the desired # of choruses. I.e., use 2B, 3B, 4B, 2B, 3B, 4B, etc., as your extension material, and add as many as you need, to the middle choruses, leaving the last chorus untouched.

To summarize – to extend a tune,
1. Shift the old last chorus to the new last chorus, leaving a hole to be filled in.
2. Fill in the hole by repeating the old middle choruses, starting from chorus #2.
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What about reducing the # of choruses, like when I need to play solo instead of my normal gig, which is with a duo?

Take the same tune to start with: 1A, 2B, 3B, 4B, 5A

To cut it down to 4 choruses, here’s what BIAB does:

BAD -- 1A, 2B, 3B, 4B

So even though BIAB will regenerate the rhythm so the last chorus is type A (slow), it pairs that with the fast soloist and melody tracks (4B). Not good.

Here’s what it SHOULD do:

GOOD – 1A, 2B, 3B, 5A

Now the slow rhythm of the last chorus is matched w/ a slow soloist and melody track.

To summarize – to reduce a tune, leave the last chorus alone and delete the 2nd chorus from the last, repeatedly until you get the desired # of choruses.

If you follow this procedure, I believe you will greatly enhance your product, and this will still work for tunes that only use one type (A or B) of rhythm.

PLEASE, consider doing this.

The CONDUCTOR feature was designed so that you can extend the choruses on the fly without all those problems.

The difference is that you seem to be trying to set up things *before* hitting Play.

That would fall under the issue of song design and setup and does indeed create problems when using Soloists or een parts on the Soloist or Melody tracks, as well as problems with the subnstyles, as you have described.

But using the Conductor feature after the song starts to Play, you can extend the number of choruses on the fly, even indefinitely if you desire, without going thru all that, just a keystroke or two. I've used it on live gigs for that purpose, say someone wants to sit in, well I just open the Conductor window and type in the keystrokes or hit the desired button with the mouse. There are a lot of things that can be done to enhance or change a performance order using the Conductor. For example, if the sit-in is really cookin', I might revisit the Cnductor setting while the other cat is makin' speech and *extend* the number of middle choruses yet again. Or decide to cut it off early and tell it to "go to the last choruse" and out...


HTH,


--Mac

Thanks, HTH, I'll look into that.

You're right about my setting things up ahead of time. I really only use BIAB to generate drums, and it's great. I setup the bass lines ahead of time in the soloist track because I don't like the bass lines that BIAB generates.

Claude