I realize and appreciate that the RealTracks contain actual single-bar or multi-bar performances and are not mere samples which follow MIDI events. But, sometimes songs contain specific rhythms and accents, and, while pushes, shots, and holds address this need somewhat, the current method of special chord notation to achive this kind of rhythmic flexibility is cumbersome at best, and limiting. There have been many times when I've wished for a way to input complex specific rhythms that the entire rhythm section would follow, in an "idiomatic" manner, i.e. drums doing the appropriate kicks & fills for the style, based on the rhythms input.

Also, some songs, for them to be recognizable, depend on certain licks being played by the rhythm section at various points in the song. A couple of examples which come to mind at the moment are "Some Skunk Funk" by the Brecker Brothers, and "Chameleon" (Herbie Hancock). You can have BIAB play the changes to these songs, but unless you have the rhythmic accents and the whole rhythm section soli melodic licks, they don't sound like those tunes. There are many other songs which would benefit from including specific rhythmic/melodic licks in them.

The way I'm envisioning it working is, you would put BIAB into a "Rhythm Only from MIDI input" mode, (for just rhythms) or "Rhythm & Melodic from MIDI input" mode (to record both rhythmic and melodic elements). You would play the song, and at the points you want specific rhythms and/or melodic licks to be played by the rhythm section, (in real time) you play them on your MIDI controller (recording them into the BIAB song), optionally quantizing the MIDI input in realtime or after-the-fact. When you then play the song again, the rhythm section would follow these user-input rhythms and/or melodic licks. This "accent track" would be saved with the song.

I'm not sure if this could be accomplished with the current implementation of RealTracks, but if not, perhaps PG Music could do this through a hybrid "RealTracks/Sampled" mode whereby the non-user-accented portions of the song would be regular RealTracks segments, and the accented parts would switch to MIDI-controlled sampled instruments. It would obviously be important to match the sampled sounds to the RealTracks audio, to make the transitions seamless.

I know this is a tall order, but it could be the next step beyond RealTracks in the evolution of BIAB. "RealAccents". :-)

Thanks,
--Doug

Visit the Elegance Music page on MySpace for samples of my current work.