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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129 |
Wanted to add more 'pizazz' to slightly robotic midi drum track by adding more fills, and thought 'Stylemaker' would be the answer. Because it is a 'live' drum track, couldn't use grid editor, but instead had to employ editable notation view.
It is very difficult for me to try to make sense of what this view shows and how to relate it to the song. Each pattern or fill consists of a large number of notes in bar 1a, usually a single note in bar 2 and then a long string of empty bars.
Can anyone please explain how I can reconcile these patterns to the song structure and how I might go about adding extra fills?
Thanks.
Allan
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 393
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Dec 2006
Posts: 393 |
Allan,
By "live drum" do you mean a Real drums track? If so, these cannot be edited. I know it's confusing, but BIAB can play either midi or audio (Real tracks & Real drums). The Stylemaker is for making or altering midi styles. You can turn off Real drums if you want to use midi drums (the default is to substitute Real drums).
Bruce
Macbook Pro 2018
2.6 GHz 6-core Intel Core i7, 16 GB RAM
OS Monterey
BIAB for Mac 2022
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 6,511
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
This is the big drawback to Audio vs. MIDI. Audio has limited editing functions, while MIDI has almost unlimited editing.
You could export to Real Band and add a separate track where you inject drum hits of your own (either MIDI or record them with a mic and drum kit).
If you find a better solution, please let us all know.
Insights and incites by Notes
Last edited by Notes Norton; 05/29/15 03:36 AM.
Bob "Notes" Norton  Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129 |
Thanks for the fast response. These are MIDI drum tracks, although PG refer to them as 'live'. According to them most MIDI tracks now fall into this category and show themselves in Stylemaker with a red border around each pattern rectangle. Quite how they are different to 'normal' MIDI tracks I have no idea, but Stylemaker does treat them differently.
Allan
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 12,848
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 12,848 |
These are MIDI drum tracks, although PG refer to them as 'live'. A long time ago in a galaxy far away, PGMusic styles had MIDI drum tracks that had to be created by entering values in a drum grid. The best resolution you could hope for was 16th note drums (4 cells in the grid per beat). This resulted in fairly stiff sounding drums. They later introduced the ability to create the drum track by either entering notation, importing a MIDI track, or by recording the drums "live" (using a MIDI drum set, of course). This resulted in drums that could use the entire 120 ticks (sound slots) per beat (or effectively 256th note resolution), rather than just 4 slots per beat. Both are MIDI, but the "live" drums can sound much less stiff than the drum tracks created by using the drum grid.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2014
Posts: 129 |
Thanks for clarifying - started to think I'd misread original detail. Would it be possible, please, to give some clues as to how to change a style using notation editor given the strange way it presents notes - as mentioned in my original post?
Allan
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 6,511
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
I use "Live Drums" exclusively in my MIDI styles and have done so ever since they were introduced.
Unlike the drum grid, they have a resolution of 120ppq and an entire General MIDI drum kit available.
The drum grid has 4ppq resolution and a very limited drum kit.
If you have a snare you want louder, you can manually up the volume of each one, but it's a time consuming process. Same for any other drum.
Save a copy of the style first in case you have a 'mouse click accident' so you can get back to where you were.
You could also record each pattern into a MIDI sequencer, modify and then re-import writing over the original pattern. Again, time consuming and make that safety copy first.
When I write styles I record my drum parts live into a sequencer using a drum controller and then import the snippets into BiaB as "Live Drums". I find this gives the style the proper groove or feel that you don't get with the drum grid. To my ears the drum grid sounds robotic and lifeless. But then, I played in bands with real drummers for decades.
I've got an early gig today, so I don't have time to experiment to come up with a better idea, but if the thread goes long enough I'll give it a shot.
Insights and incites by Notes
Bob "Notes" Norton Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com
100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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