PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist Please post MIDI specific ideas here...

Peter,

Thank you very much for bringing up the subject. I thought MIDI was a lost cause here. I am extremely grateful to know that you are willing to purse further development.

I am interested in 1980s and forward electronic music Styles. I may not be able to afford the latest version of BIAB, but put out a disk of styles taken from the below and I'm on it.

Fertile grounds here. Artist examples include:

- Peter Gabriel (Us, Up) does some really interesting ambient stuff as intros and interludes that could be developed into complete styles. (This is more R&B, but "Sledgehammer" and "Steam" Styles would be great!)
- Mike Oldfield (Ommadawn, Hergest Ridge, Tubular Bells 1, 2, and 3, Tres Lunas, The Songs of Distant Earth) has some tracks going that would translate well into MIDI. (I am NOT asking you to attempt his guitar work, unless you want to try it as Real Tracks.)
- Jean Michel Jarre (Oxygene [plus sequels], Equinoxe, Les Chants Magnetiques, Zoolook, etc.)
- Vangelis (Blade Runner)
- Tangerine Dream (all, but especially their Hollywood period)
- Klaus Schulze (take your pick--he has a 50-CD set out. I'll have to do some more research to narrow it down.)
- Kraftwerk (Autobahn)
- Mannheim Steamroller (all)
- Yello (Get On)
- Air (La Femme D'Argent)
- William Orbit
- Robert Miles
- Kitaro

There is more, but that's it off the top of my head. I've been thinking about this for a very long time.

If you want to hear exactly what I am drawing from, go to Shoutcast/Winamp and search on "Klasyka Muzyki Elektronycznej." (Polish for "Classic Electronic Music.") Winamp gives you song titles and group names. I listen to this station almost constantly. I draw heavily on this music as inspiration for my sound.

I would like to have the ability for the user to be able to use all 16 midi channels as they see fit. For example if I’m not using harmonies I would like to assign something else to those channels, perhaps another midi generated string part. In other words have the user be able to put whatever they want, be it midi generated or midi recorded parts, on any of the 16 channels.

+1

Increase BIAB's PPQ resolution, perhaps user-adjustable, from 120PPQ to 960PPQ so as to make it comparable to most DAW's/sequencers including PG's PowerTracks.

This would allow:

MIDI files of this resolution can be imported and exported. Currently to import MIDITracks you have to down resolution them to 120PPQ.

Styles with higher resolutions.

This is a long standing request. There are even threads on this topic dating from 2001 on the Yahoo BIAB User group. e.g. http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Band-in-a-Box/message/449

We need the ability to import a midi file to any BIAB track (for ex. import a MIDI file on the bass track).
Very useful when the bass track is very typical of the song and/or when no standard bass from BIAB styles don't fit with the song.

We need the ability to adjust the velocity for each of the 16 channels. Present normalize feature, very useful in some situations is too wide because it applies to all the MIDI tracks.
Adjustment would be also modular, that means 'adjust velocity on a given track from...to...' (for ex. adjust velocity on the bass track from bar 33 to bar 64).

Make 'apply from...to...' feature for following MIDI adjustements (and no longer for the whole song): for example, apply Humanize melody from bar 32 to bar 64 or for chorus#3.
Quantize melody,
Humanize melody,
Humanize with Swing Feel
Humanize with Straighht Feel
Timeshift.
Very useful feature, because a MIDI track need to be tweaked in detail to sound well.
Other advantage : we can make all the the MIDI adjustements inside BIAB, we would not have to export the MIDI track in a DAW to make the MIDI adjustements. So, BIAB would really become a AIO arranger with advanced edition features.

Loosen up start times.
We need to get the ability to select the track or the tracks or all the tracks to be affected.
For example, apply to Bass track, Drums track and the melody track.

We need the ability to make combo sounds. Very great feature for nice arrangements. Combinations are endless.

For example Combo sound#1: Stage1.Made with following patches and settings:
- Electric Piano#1 patch:
Level : 110
Pan : L20
Reverb : 20
Chorus : 0
Transposition : 0
- Electric Piano#2 patch:
Level : 90
Pan : R10
Reverb : 20
Chorus : 20
Transposition : +1 Oct.

It could be done using the Harmony files.
In this case, raise the quantity of 255 to 1024 harmonies. Range 512 - 1024 could be reserved for the user sound combos. The use of several *.har files is not handy at all, and I gave up using them.

Selective Melody/Solist Legato
We need the ability to adjust the legato of a MIDI track :
- selection of the track (bass track, piano track, melody track)
- amount : +N ticks, or -N ticks, or +/- N ticks (randomize duration of notes)
- selection of the zone : the whole track or 'from...to...'.

Selective eliminate Note Overlap.
We need the ability to eliminate notes overlap on a selected zone of a track (from...to...) and not only on the whole track.
For example, you have a song with the piano playing the melody from bar# 1 to bar#16. You need to hold the notes overlap. Then you have a flute playing the melody from bar#17 to bar#32. You need to eliminate notes overlap from bar#17 to bar#32.

Selective Vocal Wizard.
We need the ability to run the vocal wizard on a selective zone of melody (from...to...)and not for only the whole melody. Used with acoustic instruments ranges for example, you could check if a transposition is still realistic for the different instruments used inside a melody track.

What MIDI enhancements would I like? Since you asked:

1) Resolution of at least 240ppq

2) Support for multiple synths, at least 16

3) More than 5 instruments, 7 would be nice, more would be better

4) Variable length endings up to 8 or 12 bars

5) Chord entry dialog box that would include check boxes (not radio buttons) for all the scale tones from root through 13 with another trio of radio buttons to the right of each scale tone to natural, flat or sharp that tone (natural being the default). That way you could do diminished triads, major 9 omit 3, minor 3 add 4, and any chord the user wants. We often run into chords in fake books than cannot be entered in BiaB.

6) Long and short rolls in the StyleMaker and a way to assign either to the playback grid

7) An option to switch sub-styles without adding a roll

8) A way to assign patterns in the style maker so that if one is chosen, complementary patterns would also be chosen. For example, if a drum roll with quarter note triplets was selected, a bass line with quarter note triplets could automatically also be chosen. Another example, if a drum roll with a rest on the 4th beat was chosen, patterns written to complement this drum roll with either a rest or held note on that same beat would be chosen.

9) Have the details that go into the Style Picker Window built into the style itself instead of an ls3 file and include a dialog box to enter the information

10) Long file names for the styles

11) Have the default volumes on all parts return after each song - so if a style changes the volume, it will return to the default when the song is done

12) Have the pitch bend, and continuous controllers return to a user set default after each song so if the previous style left them altered, the next song would return to the default

13) Add riff based patterns to the bass style

14) Fix the 2 and 1 beat styles so that a relative weight of 9 works on them. Right now if I do 4 different beats on the 1 beat row with a "fill" bar mask and a different note pattern for each beat, BiaB will mix them up when playing back (pattern for beat 1 might end up on beat 2, 3 or 4, etc.)

15) Increase the number of columns in the StyleMaker from 30 to 32, after all it is a multiple of 4 and 8 measures of single beat patterns would fit in there perfectly

16) Support for accelerando and ritardando with a resolution of at least one beat per tempo change (preferably more)

17) Native support for uncommon time signatures like 6/8, 5/4, 7/8, etc. without having to kludge a work-around in BiaB's grid.

18) A button that directs the user to Norton Music's Style Demo Page (hey! a guy can dream, can't he? <wink/grin>)

Most of these have already been posted in the wish list.

When you push a chord please have that position reflected in the chord track when you export a MIDI file, at the moment the chords are always on 1/4 notes. (I use the chord track a lot in my songs)

When adding MIDI tracks from other styles it would be nice to audition the selected track in the song before selection/addition.

Peter says

Quote:

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We have made 2,000 MIDI styles, but are happy to make more if people can suggest styles for us to make (We don't want to make a Jazz37.sty that sounds like Jazz36.sty)

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We have enough duplicated already and it would be nice to be able to easily delete or "hide" the duplicates. My music computer is not on but I will make a "small" list of the duplicates I already have, if necessary.

Not MIDI related but please can we have at least 8 cells across the screen, I have a 24 inch monitor, each cell is almost 6" across at the moment.

I will think of more over the weekend.

Alyn

Peter:

Rather than list midi features that I'd like to see, let me state that it's clear that there are (at least) two different audiences for BIAB: those that want to create backing tracks for accompaniment and those that use the product to explore the inner workings of music. For me, at least, I use it for the latter purpose, and RealBand has been of no use. The so-called "new midi features" that have come with the new releases have been disappointing to say the least and I think that it's safe to say that the underlying algorithms that were used to generate entirely new melodies and solos with midi do not seem to have budged since 2008. When BIAB was a midi-only product, I could use it to learn music theory in a way that no textbook could teach.

With the introduction of RealBand, BIAB became a totally new product and its utility diminished for me. Though it probably doesn't make sense financially, I'd like to see a return to the original midi-based algorithmic compositional focus of the product, and further refinement to that model. Let's be honest - as it existed when a true focus on midi was left in the dust, BIAB was a hard product to beat.

Peace,
MD

Midi is related to notation.

It would be a major step forward, if BB would support compound time signatures in notation ... not just the fudged stuff that's offered now (+1 on Bob Norton's #17 here and indeed showing up zillions of times on the wishlist).

The next best thing would be support of MusicXML. I would instantly buy a full fledged notation program, if I could be sure, the BB chord structure could get transferred to a program like Sibelius.

Speaking of Sibelius - you chaps at PG Music would do the community a favor, if you won't keep sticking with Finale -> do check out business arrangements with those Sibelius honchos ... and, please, support MusicXML.

Thank you for providing the opportunity to indicate the midi-related improvements that we would find most useful.

First of all, I would echo many of Bob Norton's requests but six of them in particular are important to me. They are #4, #7, #8, #12, #14, #15. Taken together they would provide a significant increase in usefulness.

In as much as future style development will be RealTrack styles and since styles with RealCharts (with the capability of saving the midi notes) essentially have an invisible underlying midi style - the capability of pulling the midi style out from the RealTracks style would be very useful (and could decrease the feeling of abandonment among some midi users - they would still be getting new midi styles to play with).

--- And now for something dear to my heart. The use of BiaB as a melody composition tool.

Ideally, in the melodist, I would like to be both able to specify my own patterns (for ex. ABBACA) instead of being stuck with the AABA pattern AND to have support for creating my own Melodist Databases with my own phrases to construct Melodists around.

Failing this, I would like to be able to remap my musical phrases across different chord patterns. It would be adequate if I had two buttons where I could map the melody track to C7 chord over a range of bars with one button AND with the other button treat the melody over a range of bars as mapped to a C7 chord and remap to the chords currently in those bars.

BiaB is annoying close to having this capability already. Currently I am embedding my musical phrases into a succession of dummy styles and substyles to get the remapping and believe me the process is a real pain in the ass.