Hello - - I'd like to ask the members of the BIAB forum to check my following work flow for inaccuracies when it comes to adding Real Track Soloist parts to my BIAB songs.

My issue is that these Real Track solos often come out sounding - well, not so good. (I still love BIAB however!!!)

I use 100% Real Tracks in building my songs in BIAB - and I use 100% Real Track soloist tracks when it comes time to add a solo part. (Nothing against our MIDI friends out there! It's just the way I roll!)

When finished in BIAB I move all my Real Tracks into my Reaper DAW to add vocals, other instruments, etc. to finish them off. (I have done some limited experimenting with RealBand's re-generation process, but didn't have enough success to justify walking away from Reaper - not yet anyway!)

I start my process with picking a BIAB style and usually add or delete a few different Real Track rhythm tracks to that style until I am content with it. That process generally goes well and fairly quickly. Once all the rhythm tracks and drums are working together to suit me, I'll go hunting for a Real Tracks soloist part to add to the mix at certain points in the song.

Here's where the issue appears. After the rhythm tracks are 100% where I want them to be, I typically pick a Real Tracks Soloist track to add to my song. Today it was "Guitar, Acoustic, Soloist Bluegrass Doc Even 100 #597." (I don't want to pick on that individual track here, it's great!) However very often when I add a Real Track soloist track (typically piano, acoustic/electric guitar, mandolin, fiddle, dobro...) to my BIAB concoctions and generate it, the resulting solo will often sound "off" tone-wise in many places. I take care to stay within tempo guidelines when picking my Real Track solos - and I also experiment with double and half time generations as well...

Sometimes it's just a little bit off, almost workable - and sometimes it is just horribly off, as if the song were in the key of C and the soloist is playing in every key but C! [I make it a point to be sure the song's key, tempo, etc. are all set correctly right at the beginning of my song building process.]

I use the F5 key to set up where I want the solo parts to come in and go out of the song before I generate the Real Tracks solos. (I tried generating the solo for the entire length of the song too - just to see if that had any effect on my problem - but it did not.)

This "adding a Real Track solo" issue happens to me a lot. I'd say about 1/3rd of the time I am OK, even thrilled, with the outcome of adding a Real Track soloist to my BIAB songs... But the rest of the time I'm not so thrilled - - and after many attempts trying to re-generate it into something I can live with, I'll give up and try to edit a workable solo together from several re-generations of the Real Track solo I picked. [I do know enough not to try to make waltz tempos work with 4/4 stuff or mixing differing genres with one another...]

Does anything I'm doing (or not doing) here stand out to anyone as what might be causing causing this problem? I spend about 25% of my BIAB time generating great rhythm/backing tracks - and the rest of my BIAB time attempting to generate lead/solo parts that often cause me a lot of heartburn. [I typically work in the Country, Country Rock or Rock genres. I am NOT a literate musician, but with a phone call or two - or forum help such as this - I can generally get to where I need to be with most of my musical conundrums!]

This problem happens whether I insert my Real Soloist tracks in the BIAB Soloist track using the Soloist function, or whether I just add the Real Track Soloist track to one of the top 5 "general" track areas above the Melody and Soloist tracks.

Am I expecting too much of BIAB here? I know a lot of folks have mentioned they heavily edit their BIAB solo parts later on in their DAW's...

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated regarding this issue!

just an old analog dog tryin' to learn new tricks...