PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Off-Topic Assuming good songwriting, are BIAB recordings "good enough" for commercial distribution?

Joe my take on this is to use Biab like Harvey Gerst does. I'm not going to tell you who he is just Google his name. He's a heavyweight in the biz.

He's known PG since before the company was started and even though he's a forum member he doesn't post very much. The last time this subject came up was maybe 3-4 years ago and what he described is say he has a client in his (very large completely pro) studio who has a limited budget for a good demo. The client sings and plays guitar, they hired studio players for the drums and bass and backup vox. They need some "sweetning" like some pedal steel licks or short solo or maybe 8 bars of a different rhythm guitar part in the second verse that the guy can't play himself. Harvey will then use Biab and create some tracks to fit into the song that is still a 90% studio production with live players.

The idea that somebody is going to use the opposite like 80% Biab tracks to go with vocals and a guitar player? Imho, forget it. In that case the RT's are too exposed and the internet guys are correct. Anybody with any experience with the RT's can recognize the sound and phrases in seconds. I know I could.

However, if you need a short 4 bar killer guitar solo or licks to use for a short bridge to the C section you can take a Mason soloist RT, generate say 4 different versions of his soloing then start cutting and pasting elements of those different takes to make one unique 4 bar part. That works great but it takes skill. It's also exactly what the hip hop rappers have gotten slammed for over the years when they sampled elements of songs and done exactly the same thing. The only difference here is PG freely lets anybody use the RT's any way they like with no legal issues.

Talking on this forum is difficult in this case because we don't know just how professional you really are and how pro you need these recordings to be. The worship stuff I've heard have all been obvious studio productions and if there's any RT's in there it's like Harvey would do it, just a little here and there.

You know how it is, there's pro then there's PRO. Lots of folks and bands have their own following and using social media just market to them. That's a closed market and you can put out anything you want in that case but for full blown commercial marketing? Tread carefully with the RT's.

I'm going to add a bit to my already long post. I just listened to Carrie Underwoods song that Scott posted above. There's lots of little things that you can't do with Biab.

Just one example, one phrase she's singing an eighth note triplet rhythm sort of like DA da DA da Da/ / The drummer and bass are playing a slight punch to go along with that. Nothing heavy, no big snare hits or anything just some cymbal and a slightly heavier bass that ties that phrase together. This is one of those "give aways" I talked about earlier. The Biab Real Drums will just keep on playing the beat ignoring little things like that because the drummer is not in the studio with the cans on listening to her vocal track. True, a Real Drum part can cover the basic beat in this song great but it's all the little fills, and other things that are missing.

Any pro in the business would tell in short order that you're using some kind of canned drum track. Either that or he thinks your drummer is brain dead. Transfer this example to every instrument in your virtual band. The whole point of live playing is the interaction between the players. You sound like an experienced player and I'm sure you know this already. No way to get that live feeling with too many prerecorded RT's. Add some sweetning like Harvey does fine, but not the majority of the tracks.

Bob