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As a Singer/Songwriter I have constructed complete songs prior to arranging them in BIAB.
I would like to know how other people match their songs to styles in BIAB. I can easily enter the correct chords and song form, but, when I chose a style it usually changes the song significantly.
I am using a hit and miss method which is not giving me songs that are constrained to my original song. Any guidance would be helpful.
Last edited by dga; 05/12/16 04:54 PM.
"When you help somebody else you are really helping yourself"
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David,
I often write song lyrics first against a drum beat in BIAB. At the same time, I also tend to draft a basic vocal melody as I form the lyrics by singing the words as I write them. The imagined instrumental sounds that I get in my head writing this way rarely make it to the end product.
As soon as I get a semi-cohesive song draft together, I move to BIAB and play around with the groove. I vary tempos and styles and find those that sit comfortably. Each style and tempo I try brings something different to the lyrics. By trial and error, I eventually settle on a style and a speed that frames the lyrics best for me. I can't see myself changing this approach because it's proved to be productive.
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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>>> "I can easily enter the correct chords and song form, but, when I chose a style it usually changes the song significantly. I am using a hit and miss method which is not giving me songs that are constrained to my original song." <<< I often find myself in a similar situation of losing the song in my head to a song influenced by BIAB styles or combos. Depending on where my original idea comes from, usually I play guitar to create my song structure, chord progression and address the mood I'm feeling for the song, and the purpose of the song, if I write toward my own use or develop the song in the style of a particular artist I would pitch the song to, BIAB can either be an invaluable aid or a weapon. First, regardless how your song originates, you can't go wrong following Noel's advice. He's one of the best there is. Check out this video posted in another thread by Floyd Jane again. I've seen that you've watched and previously commented on it. Video There’s a ton of good information in the video but pay particular attention to where the song started. It was written over a quite simple acoustic guitar strum. Mr. West isolates the guitar early in the video. I start most of my writes over guitar. When I do use BIAB, I use a very simple midi style for several reasons. One, regeneration is fast and second, I’m not overly influenced by the style. I refrain from changing styles, loading RealTracks, until my song is structured; I’ve completed my chord progression, decided on key signature and tempo. Then I search the style picker specifically for the sound of my song in my head.
Last edited by Charlie Fogle; 05/13/16 02:14 AM.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Charles I'm doing most of the same things as you except using Midi Styles. But, recently while trying to figure out what was wrong with my MIDI drums I lost my SampleTank sounds. So I'm stuck using RealTracks exclusively right now. I want to try your method. Create the song using all MIDI tracks, but, I'm going to have to figure out what I did to loose SampleTank MIDI sounds first.
I start all of my writes with the lyrics, then after singing a melody, I add a simple rhythm guitar cord structure. And then stick the cords into BIAB. Everything changes when I apply a style as my melody drifts significantly from style to style. Is that normal?
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dga,
What do you mean by "lost my Sampletank sounds"? Are you saying that the sounds themselves have disappeared or that BIAB only loads Realdrum sounds now and not midi drums?
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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dga,
What do you mean by "lost my Sampletank sounds"? Are you saying that the sounds themselves have disappeared or that BIAB only loads Realdrum sounds now and not midi drums?
Noel DGA, I don't normally use ST sounds but remain in default Coyote WT unless a sound is particularly distractive. >>>I start all of my writes with the lyrics, then after singing a melody, I add a simple rhythm guitar chord structure. And then stick the cords into BIAB. Everything changes when I apply a style as my melody drifts significantly from style to style. Is that normal?<<< The guitar strumming pattern used can affect everything and cause changes when you apply a style over the guitar. A tip that helped me develop an ear for matching styles to songs that I use and practice is to download audio clips from Facebook and YouTube that are simple singer accompaniment songs. Just a singer playing a solo accompaniment guitar or piano. On YouTube, song tutorials are a good place to look. Many times, the instructor plays through the song prior to giving the tutorial lesson. I run that through the Audio Chord Wizard and then mix the audio with a BIAB style to create a complete, fully instrumented song. Alan Robinson and Joe Var Veri are two YouTube posters that have a lot of tunes to work with. This method provides a lot of opportunity to gain experience learning the styles and honing your Stylepicker skills.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Long over due, Thanks Charlie
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I'm working with a song writer who writes with acoustic guitar. I have him record his vocal and acoustic guitar along with a metronome (or .dp file) at his intended tempo. This gets merged to a mono .wav file for temporary use on the Audio track in BIAB. He provides a basic chord chart with lyrics (which I edit or completely recreate in Microsoft Word.)
I normally only reference his audio file for the first section of the song. Say, intro-verse-chorus. I punch in the chords so they closely match up to the audio file. (they drift apart but that's okay) Then, since he or I will record the guitar parts ourselves I mute most guitar parts and solo track of any style I fish through. I am mostly looking for suitable drums, keys, strings, etc... since I can record bass, acoustic, electric. With a guitar knocking against the edge of my desk I go style fishing. I begin by filtering by tempo first. I save the potential styles and style favorites. BTW, style fishing can take several hours which is not bad all things considered.
Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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Continued; I often make a 4 bar verse "A" style section followed by a 4 bar Chorus "B" style section. This keeps it short for faster generation of realtracks for style sampling. Also helps to freeze the tracks I intend to ignore such as the solo track. Once I've narrowed it down to a 3 - 10 potential styles saved as favorites I begin working with the closest potential. I will try the other favorites for comparison and might borrow some parts from them to mix with my main style over in RealBand.
Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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You might be surprised to find out that NONE of the songs I have written ended up sounding like what I was originally hearing in my head at the very beginning.
I often start working on a song by picking the style first. I will sit and simply audition some of the styles. I apply them to my chord progression and see what works and what sounds good and what fits the feeling, and do any of them inspire the "magic?" I like to work in the rock and country genre for the songs I write. Simply varying the tempo will change the feel of the song. Normally, I have my Taylor acoustic and I'm playing along searching for the groove.
I call it the evolution of my song. What I hear in my head is the seed. As I play with the various styles and genre's , keys, and tempos, eventually something starts to take root. I settle on a style and go from there. I also make use of my DAW and the ability I have in it to do creative editing to add the little unique things that set that song apart from the ordinary.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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You might be surprised to find out that NONE of the songs I have written ended up sounding like what I was originally hearing in my head at the very beginning.
I often start working on a song by picking the style first. I will sit and simply audition some of the styles. I apply them to my chord progression and see what works and what sounds good and what fits the feeling, and do any of them inspire the "magic?" I like to work in the rock and country genre for the songs I write. Simply varying the tempo will change the feel of the song. Normally, I have my Taylor acoustic and I'm playing along searching for the groove.
I call it the evolution of my song. What I hear in my head is the seed. As I play with the various styles and genre's , keys, and tempos, eventually something starts to take root. I settle on a style and go from there. I also make use of my DAW and the ability I have in it to do creative editing to add the little unique things that set that song apart from the ordinary. I do that too. I call it developing a song and think it to be similar to what a professional songwriter who writes daily would do for inspiration. Unfortunately, I think that is the exact opposite of the original poster dga's problem. Like him, I sometimes get an inspiration for a song from another source other than BIAB/RB/DAW. In fact, over the years as I wrote songs, my songs were written either on guitar or simply in my head. I've hummed dozens of songs into cassette and voice recorders. I use to carry one with me at all times. I wrote the song first and then made a demo of that written song. That changed in 2013 with my purchase of BIAB. All of the benefits of BIAB reversed that and BIAB began to steer the direction of songs created in my head. It became harder with all the BIAB styles and instruments to keep that original melody, chord progression and lyrics in my head. Many times my original idea was lost and morphed into something completely different. It was my understanding of dga's problem that he to loses his original thoughts to BIAB suite of tools.
Last edited by Charlie Fogle; 06/10/16 06:09 AM.
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@ charlie yes you got it exactly, BIAB style picker takes me on a wild ride. Way away from my original intent. IF there is a process to dial in and create the song that I have already written I have not found it yet.
However, I am getting much closer. I have started to create a bunch of my own bands with the StyleMaker. Simple 3 piece bands Bass,Drums, and Acoustic Guitar. Or just Drums and acoustic guitar. My rhythm guitar playing along with and a fancy metronome. I'm getting real close to having a procedure that does not color my writing. Leaves the melody wide open so I can sing that the way I wrote it. Albeit a very simple style. But, my thinking is if I composed the song this way this would be the best way to re-create the true song in BIAB.
Then I can record the vocals in RB add the strings, piano etc. by generating more tracks.
Last edited by dga; 06/10/16 06:26 AM.
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Tobias and dga. (dga, you posted as I was writing this it should help you stay on track)
Since you know the key, chord progression and tempo, you may find it easy to run that scratch track from your friend through the Audio Chord Wizard. Knowing the above parameters, editing and correcting the chord chart would be simple and easy.
The ACW works with either BIAB or RB but I will concentrate on BB here.
Once a song has been taken through the ACW process and exported into BB, the key, number of bars, tempo and chord chart are set and ready to work with. The song has been named and also has a BB generated ending in place. I usually do a 'Save As' at this point.
The real benefit here is the BB generated syle will follow the ACW tempo map and the RealTracks follow the small variances the ACW picked up from the performance. This automatically gives a more live feel to the BB generated tracks. They speed up and down, start a fraction early or end a fraction late just like the live performance your friend sent you.
But, before I ever generate a BB style. I play the audio through to check the bar alignment and edit any incorrect chords. I also do shots, rests and holds before generating a style. I place my markers and do A Marker- B Marker settings. In other words, structure my song. I decide whether to use the BB ending, create a custom ending or fade and set the ending in Bar Settings.
This is easily done at this time because BB does not play any audio except for the imported audio track. There is an 'X' before the style in the style window indicating that Styles are 'Disabled"
Once my song is structured, I'm ready to generate BB tracks. It is my personal preference to use 'all midi' first. I've found several benefits to do it this way. I choose midi style that fit the time signature, tempo and less critically, the feel of the style. In other words I choose a Country, not funk if it's appropriate to the project. Midi generates almost instantly and the purpose is still song structure at this time. I'm ensuring that BB and the audio are closely synced.
With the scratch audio and BB chord chart correctly edited and synced. You are ready to audition and select RealStyles and RealTracks The BB tracks and audio should track together in correct tempo, key and chord progression.
The song is ready to erase the scratch track and overdub it and add other RealTracks and live instruments.
I enjoy finding and downloading vocal/acoustic songs from YouTube and Facebook and produce complete performances from them. I follow this process I outlined above fairly closely.
Last edited by Charlie Fogle; 06/10/16 07:05 AM.
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Good tips CF. I'll try my hand at it on the next song. I'm think I'll have the song writer save individual .wav files of his song.
1. His metronome (or .dp file) For sync'ing up and tempo reference.
2. His acoustic guitar. For basic feel and to get a style idea and Audio Chord Wizard interpretation and maybe put part of it in a track in RealBand if it's usable.
3. His vocal melody. To use as a dummy vocal and melody line until he is ready to take a good vocal recording at my doghouse.
This might save time, improve workflow and help make better music.
Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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Thank you very much for the insights presented here.
I have a vocal/guitar stereo track that I have used ACW on - and when I take it into BB and generate accomp. parts, the tempo/chord changes are way off. This is not a complicated song... three chords, 4/4. So, what I did was go back into ACW and use the tap (+ key) to try to align the bars to the first beat - and that got it WAY closer, but not exact enough. I'm used to playing in a band (keys) so staying in the pocket isn't usually a problem but this is tough.
I must be missing something here. I'm not a beginner to music or recording, but I am to BB - so much to learn.
Please, if you could step-by-step this (aka, ACW for dummies) because what you describe doing is exactly what I need to do (but I also need to retain the original audio.)
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Jeff, I'll to provide you a bit more information in using the ACW.
Don't be offended if I state some things that are obvious but I'm trying to touch all the bases.
First - I see you are using 2016: If you have upgraded to build 436, there is a minor bug that affects timing and skipping of audio imported into your sgu project from the ACW that must be addressed. This only applies to build 436.
The work around:
Open the Audio Editor and select: Permanently apply Bar 1 offset to track by deleting or inserting silence
If this selection is greyed out; Select: Mark this point as Bar 1...
Again, this only applies to build 436.
----
Onto using the ACW.
I use the following procedure -
File: Open Special: Open Audio W/ chords
From the open file window, navigate and select the audio file you want to work with
Your song opens in the Audio Chord Wizard
Use the <Spacebar> to start the ACW. Listen and find the first downbeat of the song. Stop the ACW.
Place the cursor at the first downbeat and hit the F6 Key. This sets the first downbeat for the ACW to reference. Note if there are any various colored bars at the top of the wave file. If you notice the first chord is incorrect, try placing the cursor directly under each of these bars near the first downbeat and that may change the ACW analysis to the correct chord and indicate you are closer to the actual correct downbeat.
Hit the <W> button on your keyboard to return to the beginning of the song. W is a shortcut; you can also use your mouse.
Start the ACW Analysis of the song and using the F8 key, tap the key at each bar. I normally stop the process after the first 8 measures or introduction of the song to review and make note of the tempo map numbers just above the wave file.
Often I note, that I have not accurately counted the initial beats so the map reads out something like the following.
ACW has guessed the average tempo at 90.8654 but:
the first measure reads 54.356 second measure 122.345 third measure is 105.678 and fourth 92.345 fifth sixth 91.7909 and so on as I begin to actually count the measures correctly.
In the above example, I have obviously started off with poor timing. Correct this first if it happens to you.
Music recorded to a click track or metronome, the ACW should track very close after only a few measures.
User Showcase songs are very good practice songs for learning the ACW. Most User Showcase songs provide the tempo, key signature and the ACW accurately tracks them. Not only are they fun songs to listen to, you can see how the ACW analysis works.
If you know the correct tempo of your project song and the average tempo initially determined by the ACW is pretty far off. Right Click on the Average Tempo window and choose the most appropriate selection to lower or raise the tempo to what you know is correct.
You can repeat this process until you have the tempo set as close to the known correct tempo as possible.
Be sure you have the correct time signature selected. If you have a song with more than one time signature, run the ACW in stages where you just do selected areas.
When you import the processed audio from the ACW into BIAB, always be sure to select the correct key if necessary and always select to use the tempo map. Using the tempo map aligns the audio with the midi and Realtracks with the audio. This can be beneficial even when working with a commercial recorded audio file that is spot on tempo because it humanizes the BIAB generated tracks (they are effectively not quantized) and gives the performance more of a 'live' feel. If you do not like the feel of the song, you can kill the tempo map by opening File: Open Special: Audio Chord Wizard Utilities...: Kill Tempo Map and set the tempo that you want to use.
Hopefully, this will help you get started. The ACW is a valuable tool for me that I use daily. It's one of my favorite features.
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Thanks a bunch Charlie - I will now attempt this again using your process. Did you mean Version 2016 (434) or Version 2016 (436) has the bug? Mine BB says 434 is the latest version and what I currently have installed. I'll let you know how it goes - undoubtedly, I'll have more questions  is PM ok? In the particular song I am trying to use, I cannot lose the original audio - I need to build around it - extend it to add solos which should be a trick. I need to make it all as seamless as possible. I thought between BB and ACW if I couldn't get everything right in the pocket, I could do a bit of fine stretching to the audio track, if I can figure out how to do it (I know it can be done.) Thanks again!
Last edited by Seattle_Jeff; 07/10/16 04:51 PM.
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Version 2016 (436) has the bug. 436 is the latest build and you can find the link at the top of the BIAB for Windows thread elsewhere here in the forum.
PM is fine.
Hopefully you are using a copy of your original audio. If not, at least make a backup copy...
If I'm understanding this sentence correctly, "I need to build around it - extend it to add solos which should be a trick. I need to make it all as seamless as possible." I suggest the following:
Cutting and splicing audio is best done in a DAW and Realband is ideal for doing because you split the track, add the necessary measures and generate the BIAB tracks to fill the gap.
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Thank you for being part of the Band-in-a-Box® community.
Wishing you and yours a very happy 2026—Happy New Year from all of us at PG Music!
Season's Greetings!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday season—thanks for being part of our community!
The office will be closed for Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) at 6:00am PST.
Team PG
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
In this video, we explore the updated Piano Roll, complete with a modernized look and exciting new features. You’ll see new filtering options that make it easy to focus on specific note groups, smoother and more intuitive note entry and editing, and enhanced options for zooming, looping, and more.
Watch the video.
You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
Watch the video.
You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®
With your version 2026 for Windows Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
- The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
- Playable RealTracks Set 5
- RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
- SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
- Android Band-in-a-Box® App (included)
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
- 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
- FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
- MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
- RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
- SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Learn more about the Bonus PAKs for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®!
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