I have just upgraded from BiaB 2011.5 to BiaB 2013, having skipped (purchased but never used) 2012 and 2012.5. My wife and I work regularly as a jazz duo (she is a vocalist and I am a sax/clarinet player now playing a Yamaha WX5 wind synth exclusively) using BiaB backup tracks (we run BiaB “live” with frozen tracks). My wife sings quite a few slow tunes from the Great American Songbook, and one of the things I have always wished BiaB could do is really simple acoustic bass (mostly half notes) at various tempos. I’ve never found the “simple” and “very simple” versions of the acoustic bass jazz tracks to capable of doing the job. They aren’t really any simpler than the “normal” versions. Therefore, since I skipped BiaB 2012 and 2012.5, the new “Simple” option on the Song Settings and/or Assign Realtracks dialogs is the first thing I dove into with 2013, and I gotta say I’m very pleased. These options really provide simplified jazz acoustic bass.

However, I did notice that, with 2013, the “Simple” tracks for 60 and 85bpm (Bass, Acoustic, Jazz Ballad SW 085 (Simple) and Bass, Acoustic, Jazz Ballad SW 060 (Simple)) don’t work anymore. They generate absolutely gibberish bass lines. I guess those tracks are not really needed anymore with the “Simple” option available, but they should either be fixed or removed. The “Very Simple” versions work fine. Both the “Simple” and “Very Simple” acoustic bass jazz swing tracks for 110, 140 and 190bpm also work fine.

I also noticed when I looked at the track list on the Assign RealTracks dialog, there are some new acoustic bass RealTracks with names containing the words “Half,Half” and “Half,Quarter” for tempos of 110, 140 and 190bpm. These aren’t even mentioned in the 2013 Features Guide! Trying them out, they seem to provide even simpler bass lines than the “Simple” option provides, and could be very useful for some ballads where you want very simple acoustic bass consisting almost entirely of half notes, with the ability to either stay half-notes or change to quarter-note walking bass for the b-section. I tried using the 110bpm one at slower tempos, but, as expected, it does not stretch real well down much below 95-100bpm. It would be great if these tracks were also made available for 85 and 60bpm.

Andy