PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Limited bass tracks in BIAB??

Debb, I see you just posted in the other thread where I describe a lot of the jazz RT's and how to use them. With the Everything Pak you have all those RT/RD's I talked about.

In that thread I was only talking about RT's because that was the question but Biab has some great midi funk bass parts too. The only thing there is you need a good synth to play them. If you don't have one and you're just using the Coyote WT, that won't cut it. Spend the $40 and get either the Forte DXi or the Roland TTS-1 with Music Creator. PG sells them both. For jazz I prefer the Forte but the TTS-1 is not bad either. Those are not the best but trust me, they're way better than the basic WT synth.

Why would you want to use midi parts for some things? Because RT's can't be used for specific note for note parts. They're more like groove tracks. If you want to get specific you have to use midi and the Stylemaker can be used to create song specific parts. The best example of that is the Herbie midi style. PG calls it Herbie for copyright reasons but it's really Canteloupe Island. The piano and bass parts are there. The midi drums don't sound all that great to me so I use the Jazz Funk Real Drums. That style is a good one to show what can be done with the Stylemaker. The bad news about that is the Herbie style can really only be used for one song otherwise everything sounds like Canteloupe Island even with different changes. Some years ago Mac talked about how he used the Stylemaker to create Chameleon. That would be tricky in Biab but he said he pulled it off. I remember asking him to post that style but alas he never coughed it up.

The big advantage of a midi style over RT's is you can pick as many different basses for that part as your synthesizer has available and the same for the piano part. Plus you can go into the style or midi track and edit it. Can't do either of those with RT's. If you're really going to get into this thing you need both the RT's and a good midi synth. Combining a few RT's with good sounding midi parts is really the bomb.

Believe me I know how confusing it is at first because your comment about being a pro player and getting hung up in the software when all you want to is play is exactly what everybody on this forum has gone through. All you can do is spend a bit more time than you think you need and to have faith it will work out because eventually it will.

I've got two gigs coming up, plus I just had dental surgery yesterday and my mouth hurts but when I get a chance I'll look up those two tunes, see what I can do with them and get back to you.

Bob