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#363953 09/05/16 01:04 AM
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Hi
I am a BIAB newbie so forgive me if this is a dumb question!
I am using an MGU file I found for the Jazz Standard 'Misty'.

I am using the Real Tracks style _SLOWBAL.STY which generally sounds great.
However, there is a track called Strings which plays the Melody AND String pads. Not sure how/why it has 2 things on the same track.
Anyway, the issue is that the melody part of this track is way too loud. I can reduce the volume of the track in the mixer but that pulls down the strings volume as well, which is fine without being reduced.
Is there some way of separating the Melody part (Played with a synth sound) from the Strings part so I can control them independently?
Hope that makes sense!
Cheers
Mark

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Misty.jpg (238.84 KB, 81 downloads)

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Mark,

The _SLOWBAL style only consists of Bass, Piano and Drums. What you have on the Melody track seems to be suggesting that you've either created a melody or you've loaded in a midi file. Is this correct?

Regards,
Noel


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Hi Noel
Thanks for the quick reply.
The MGU came off the Net. To be honest I have been trawling around all over the place looking for a set of Jazz standards to match up with what we are working on (Me Guitar, Wife singing). So it could have been from anywhere
But the arrangement seems quite good, just the problem with this track

So you may well be right that the person that uploaded the file had dropped in some other stuff for the melody line and strings

Is there any way to extract them separately or is it now like salt in the water smile

If not, any suggestion on alternative BIAB files for Misty with Melody?

Thanks very much
Mark


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Hi Mark,

If you can you email the MGU to me, I'll have a look at it. To try and solve the problem without knowing what I'm working with is a bit challenging.

If you click on my name (i.e. Noel96) on the left of this post and then select "View Profile", you'll find my email address.

Regards,
Noel


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Hi Noel

Many thanks for helping. PM sent with file

Cheers
Mark


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Hi Mark.

Thanks for the file. It made finding a solution much easier.

As it turns out, the harmony is easily removed in this instance. The person who created the file has used BIAB created harmony that's found under the "Harmony" menu item. Fortunately, they had not written it to the Melody track.

My solution...

The information that I give below is from BIAB (Windows). It will be similar for BIAB (Mac).

When I clicked on the "Harmony" menu and selected "Melody Harmony"...



... I could see that Harmony #151 had been selected.



All that I needed to do was to scroll to the top of the harmony selection window and select "<no harmony>".

After that, I simply changed the midi sound (patch) on the Melody track to piano and all was fine.

NOTE: I didn't pick it up from the image in your original post (I was slow!), but if you look at the mixer window, it's possible to see all this information on the Melody track. (20/20 hindsight, I guess!)



Regards,
Noel




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Thanks noel96, I too was having the same problem with one song for years and would mute the thru channel each time the song played.
Even BIAB support couldn't help me, or possibly I did not understand the help they gave me.

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Thanks so much for doing that Noel, sounds much better now.

Just wondered also if it is possible to somehow retain the strings as well (maybe on a separate track?) as they sound quite nice in the arrangement. Just need to be able to control the volume of them and the melody line piano individually.

If not, no worries, this is great now, Thank you!

Mark

Last edited by mark.ogier; 09/06/16 10:22 PM.

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Hi Mark,

Glad I could help. I don't have the answer for this at the moment because I haven't used BIAB harmony very often over the years. I need to play around with the program for a bit and see if I can accomplish what you're after.

Back in touch in a day or two,
Noel


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Mark,

The first thing that needs to be done is to copy the Melody track to the Soloist track.

This is done via the Melody menu as shown below using a blue rectangle.



Now set the MIDI patch on the Soloist track to Piano.

The MIDI patch on the Melody track should be set to Strings. If there are existing patch changes on the Melody track, go to 'Bar Settings' and select the "Reset all bars" option. Then reload the strings patch.



Regards,
Noel


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Hi Noel

Just followed your excellent instructions in my BIAB and perfect!

Thank you so much for all your help! You should write a book 'The BIAB Real Book' smile

Maybe you could point me in the direction for some help with another thing (not wanting to mix up the thread too much).

It is my hope that I can use my BK7M sound module to play general MIDI files. Is there a decent step-by-step guide to exporting a song (i.e. this Misty song) as General Midi so I can load it up in the BK7M and play using that. Bottom line is, I don't want to take a Laptop and all the gear it entails, to a gig, just a hardware sound box and a USB stick full of midi files.

Thanks again,
Mark


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Hi Mark,

To do this, click on the .MID button on the toolbar (or File - Save Special - Save Song as MIDI File), then in the window that appears, click on "File on Disk".

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

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