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#163810 06/25/12 12:13 PM
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Hi guys and gals: I just know I'm doing something wrong so please, thank you for your help, previous and recently! I'm trying to put strings into a piano instrument; one style to the next: Mondor needs strings and Bosaslo has them. For the life of me, I can't seem to get the strings from Bosaslo to go into the Mondor style. I'm using Stylemaker; edit current style. I try to get them to go onto the piano part and nothing happens. I'll bet i'm making a "small" mistake! Thanks, JZ


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I have to assume you are using the styles that use RealTracks.

I just checked and best I can tell, BosaSlo (actually it's shown as _Bosaslo) only has three instruments, none of which is strings, and the strings and piano tracks are actually not used.

_Mondor uses the the strings and piano tracks, but none of the instruments (used as you pointed out) are strings, either.

So, I'm not sure where you are getting your strings track from.


John

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Hi Johnny, I'm not sure about those styles but, have you tried the new feature to right click on the empty piano or whatever track and choose the "custom midi style for this track", then picking from a style that has the instrument you need or you can select from a set of presets that contains the strings? That should work, I have used it before, as a matter of fact on strings on a style that originally do not have it and worked fine.


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This is yet another reason to use Real Band. I've been doing that kind of thing in RB since about the first week of the original beta test four years ago. Most of the new features in RB came from Biab but this one went the other way, from RB to Biab.

Here's the concept. You want some strings. Those strings can come from any style in your library that has strings, it doesn't matter what your original style is. Now, lets say there's 50 midi styles that have strings. Which one is best for your song? Who knows, you have to just try them. In RB all you do is first pick the style, right click on an empty track, select midi instrument>strings in the little window and generate. Remember RB is a sequencer, it doesn't regenerate anything else, just that track. But, you don't like that track. Rather than delete it and hope you remember it later as you would do in Biab, RB gives you 48 tracks to play with so leaving the first attempt alone, go to the next empty track and do a different one and so on until you find what you want. You don't have to generate a whole track either. You can highlight say 8 bars, generate one style, highlight the next 8, generate another one etc. You might fit 10 different string styles on the same track. Oth, you might want to hear what one string style sounds like through the whole song so then just use different tracks per my first suggestion. That's what I usually do. Want 20 examples to play with use 20 tracks. I'm saying 20 as an extreme because it's certainly doable, in reality all you'll use is maybe 4 or 5. Now all you do is play the song and move around listening to all those different string parts using the mute/solo button. You might like 3 of them for different parts of your song. In RB it's very simple to cut and paste those parts onto one track, delete the leftovers and you're done.

One of the new things in Biab is you can do basically the same thing but it's a bit clunkier than it is in RB. In Biab you have to first highlight the bar, hit F5 to get to the bar edit screen, then pick the chorus number, then select the style, then pick the instrument then close the window, go to the chord grid, find your next bar, hit F5 and do it again. Same result but RB is faster and easier because you're looking at the track right in front of you and no choruses, just the whole song. Different people work different ways, for me at least it's much easier to visualize the whole thing in RB than it is in Biab.

Bob


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Isn't Johnny sell the trumpet kid from the Lawrence welk show? Gee I think I'm an old dawg.

An a Von


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That he is!


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Here is another thing you can do in BiaB.

1) Input your song into BiaB and work it until you are happy with it (with the exception of no strings)

2) Record the highest note of the string part in the melody track. You can use the step-enter method for this or record it live, depending on your equipment and skill level.

3) Use one of the BiaB harmonies to complete the job. I like harmonies from number 40 through 47 as they do not change the instruments.

I've done this for string lines, horn lines, and other parts. It is a under-utilized, work-saving, time saving, feature of BiaB (worthy of greater recognition). I could do the harmony parts myself in a sequencer, I know the theory "rules", but why go through the "mule work" when BiaB will do it for me, instantly.

Advanced tricks.

Export to a DAW (like Real Band) with each harmony part on a separate channel. Slightly de-tune the highest part a tiny bit sharp and the lowest part a tiny bit flat (use your ears). This is a little like "stretch tuning" a piano. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't and if it doesn't it's easy to undo. You can also use the humanize function or manually advance/retard one or two of the parts a couple of tics so they don't all articulate exactly at the same moment (for all practical purposes, in reality, MIDI never does play two notes exactly at the same time, it just sounds that way).

You bought BiaB to play with, so play with it and have fun!!!

Coming very soon from Norton Music
  • 2 new style disks for Band-in-a-Box
  • 2 new free (with a purchase) fancy intro/ending disks for Real Band and other DAW's
  • The Ultimate Gospel Fake Disk
  • The Real Rock Fake Disk (plenty of classic rock in this one)
  • The Beatles Fake Disk
  • and if time permits, an updated Christmas Fake Disk

http://www.nortonmusic.com

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