Quote:

Jazzmammal - I think I understand what you are saying. Why, though, if BIAB usually puts its melody track on channel 4, should I not be able to simply set my alto sax (or any other instrument) to channel 4 and hear the melody?



If the Biab melody is on channel 4, then yes you should hear whatever instrument you have on channel 4 in JABB. But in rereading this thread I'm not clear, are you talking now about a Biab generated song or playing a midi file?
The reason I believe JABB is better used in a sequencer rather than Biab is due to the time it takes JABB to load it's sounds. Biab creates it's own program changes throughout some songs due to the styles. A basic GM synth like the Forte or VSC loads all sounds into ram and they are instantly accessible while large sample libraries that are used by Garritan, Sampletank and many others take a second or two to load and that won't work in Biab. That's not a problem when playing midi files in a sequencer because the sequencer is not creating something new for you every time you hit play. You can look at each track in the sequencer and determine if there are patch changes there or not. If, for example a guitar track changes from an acoustic sound to an electric sound, the procedure is to split that out to a separate track so the acoustic sound is playing for the whole track for one part and the electric sound is only for the other part on it's own separate track and midi channel. That allows your synth to load up the sounds before you hit play because the synth can't handle the program change while the song is playing. You can't do that in Biab.
I agree with your comment that PG doesn't make this clear on their page. They imply that JABB should work great with Biab but don't actually say it. As was mentioned above, there have been threads about this and I can't remember now but I think JABB can be made to work with Biab but it's a real pia. Maybe your best bet is to contact support.
Again, almost everybody simply uses a GM synth in Biab but for your final polished sound, save the file as a midi, open it up in a sequencer and there you can reassign the tracks to whatever sound you want using whatever synth you want. This is the main reason for the creation of Real Band btw, but that's another whole discussion. RB is a hybrid of both Biab and Power Tracks Pro Audio and all this works great. Check it out.
Another thing, Biab only has one midi output port so one synth has to handle everything. A sequencer has 16 midi outs, one for each channel so you can use multiple synths in combination, both hardware and software.
Also, you're using the term soundcard and sound interchangeably. They're not. A modern sound card is the physical interface routing the sound from your synth out to your sound system. Except for some Creative ones soundcards do not have any on board sounds, your hardware or software synth handles that.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.