There is a setting to reduce the volume of Shots and Holds in Preferences for RealTracks and RealDrums. But I don't hear what you describe. Is it every instrument? Could you post a link to an audio snippet that demonstrates what you hear?
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
As an example type 16 choruses of bars 1-4 of Holds and Shots then solo the drums. _POPBRIT.STY. I also recently used a New Orleans Shuffle style which did the same thing.
Can happen on full bars or half bars. Often a song can end on a shot or a hold and it's a bit of a damp squib.
Should be easy to replicate, I think, but it would help to know what rules BIAB applies to shots and Holds i.e when would there be a cymbal hit or when should there be Bass Drum, Tom or Snare etc.
Matt, I believe what he's talking about is the same thing I mentioned in the Rio Blues file I sent you at least concerning a shot. Those punches in Rio Blues all work fine except for the drums. The full drum kit plays through that shot, all that happens is a bit of an accent on the kick drum. A damp squid hit if you will, (I called it a dead fish slap once) when you're expecting a solid full drum kit punch. You know, a cymbal, hi hat, snare and kick hit. BAM!
I just made a simple test file to listen for the shots and holds: couple bars of rhythm A, 2 bars of C., 2 bars C.., 2 bars C..., then repeat for B style. Mute all but the drums and generate/listen several times. Change style, repeat.
Some VERY different approaches to S&H and volumes. I almost always have to change drum volume for a bar, then reset. Would be nice to be able to do that for the second half individually make the first beat down 2, then back on beat 3... Oh well, 2018...
Murray, I'm a bit stumped by what I just saw. In your file, the first one BIAB Drums, I changed it to be E...,C. in the first half of the cell at bar #3. Then ALL the holds were obeyed by all the instruments, including drums that had previously continued to play through the holds in the rest of the song.
I have no answer to the other part of the question, about specifying the drums sound you want.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Ha, it was when the Forte Dxi first came out and the developer was posting on the forum. I had a SRV type of Texas shuffle song and the Forte had exactly that for the snare. A dead fish slap with no attack and rattling snares when what was needed was a solid tight snare hit. He did change it to what the Forte has now. It's not Jamstix but better than it was.
Matt, I believe what he's talking about is the same thing I mentioned in the Rio Blues file I sent you at least concerning a shot. Those punches in Rio Blues all work fine except for the drums. The full drum kit plays through that shot, all that happens is a bit of an accent on the kick drum. A damp squid hit if you will, (I called it a dead fish slap once) when you're expecting a solid full drum kit punch. You know, a cymbal, hi hat, snare and kick hit. BAM!
Bob
This is exactly it. Just came back to BIAB after a while and the drums are still the same in the 2018 version after all these years.
This time I was on a different song using _HANGTEN.STY Vintage Surf.
BIAB is great when everything is playing normally at full tilt but as soon as there is a Hold or a Shot the drums fall apart, sound amateurish and render the track pretty unusable.
Are PG listening? Can they get the drums to play a natural unison combination of BD, SD, Tom and Crash etc. as required on the first beat of a Hold or Shot?
Thanks! M
PS Google 'damp squib':
'Often misheard as "damp squid", the phrase "damp squib" has since come into general use to mean anything that fails to meet expectations. The word "squib" has come to take on a similar meaning even when used alone, as a diminutive comparison to a full explosive.'
I think I'm hearing what you're referring to. These RealDrums have more than one shot recorded, so you're not getting the same one on every bar, is that it?
I'm not getting the drums playing through shots or holds like they aren't there, just a variety of shots, some of which you might prefer to others. Is that what you're getting, and do you just want the ability to choose which shot gets generated?
Feel free to freeze the Drums track in a song where you don't think they're working correctly to support@pgmusic.com, we'll be happy to check it out.
In RealBand you can regenerate each shot to get what you want or copy and paste. With Biab 2018 you can use the audio editor to edit the drum track how you like but you would need a bit of enthusiasm. You can save the drum track to a Performance track then move it to the audio editor, copy a good shot from one section to another, OR open the original realdrum track in another instance of Biab and copy the shots you need from the end of the track to the other Biab with your drum track.
I think I'm hearing what you're referring to. These RealDrums have more than one shot recorded, so you're not getting the same one on every bar, is that it?
I'm not getting the drums playing through shots or holds like they aren't there, just a variety of shots, some of which you might prefer to others. Is that what you're getting, and do you just want the ability to choose which shot gets generated?
Feel free to freeze the Drums track in a song where you don't think they're working correctly to support@pgmusic.com, we'll be happy to check it out.
Thanks Kent PG Music
Thanks Kent, sounds like you can hear exactly what I mean but can send some examples if you wish. Actually, it's not that I prefer any of the single kit-piece shots/holds - none of them sound convincing or like what a real drummer would play at all.
Surely, they would play a combination of a closed HH, SD and BD for a shot or perhaps a Crash, SD and BD for a hold. I'm not a drummer but a single HH is not exactly effective where the rest of the music has paused dramatically for dynamic impact!
I'm not sure how you go about programming these automatically but it would be such an improvement in realism.
You could create your own RealDrum set to play just the shots/holds you need but you would need to use F5 to change drums then F5 again to return to normal drums.
Or you could edit the real drum text file (use ; in front to comment lines out) so it only has one shot to choose from, and even add that shot as a custom made one to the end of the wav/wma file, just backup the original text & wav file and experiment with it. 292 is the bar that the shot is on (with the track starting on -1 then 0 as the 2 bar countin) just drag the real drum track into RealBand set to the same tempo as the drums.
The six elements that come after the text "shot" are explained here in further detail:
Type of shot The type of shot needs to be either 0 or 1. If 0 is entered, the shot will be used when chords are entered with two periods (shot) or three periods (hold). If 1 is entered, the shot will be used when chords are entered with two or three carets before them (8th & 16th note pushes).
Bar number in style wave file Like with patterns, you need to remember that RealDrums styles use -1 based numbering, so you need to subtract 2 from the bar number as you see it in your audio editor. More than one shot can be played in a single bar, and you would use the tick adjust amount to distinguish between the two.
Tick Adjust The shots do not necessarily have to occur at the bar lines, and the tick adjust can be used to tell Band-in-a-Box® exactly where the shot starts. Simply measure the number of ticks from the downbeat of the bar number entered to the start of the shot, and that is the number that should be entered here. If the shot starts before the bar number that was entered, a negative number should be entered here.
For example, if a shot is recorded at bar 82, but on closer examination it appears that
Shot,1,82,-2,455,1,100
In another example (see example 10 below), a shot is played at the third beat of bar 171. In this case you need to use the tick adjust to indicate that it a full two beats after bar 171. Since one beat is 120 ticks, two beats would be 240 ticks, and it would therefore be entered as such:
Shot,1,171,240,200,1,80
RealDrums Style Example 10 Example 10: Here the shot begins at bar 171 (173-2), at the third beat, or 240 ticks into the bar.
Duration Unlike patterns, which use numbers of bars for durations, the shots use ticks for durations. So, for example, if a shot lasts for three beats, you would enter 360 (3 beats * 120 ticks per beat).
Here is an example of a shot that lasts for three beats:
Shot,0,83,5,360,1,90
For the best effect, the sound of the shots should decay naturally, and the entire length of the shot including the decay should be entered in the text file. This is especially important when all other instruments are silent, and all you hear is the decaying sound of the drum hit.
Weight The weight for shots works exactly the same as the weight for patterns, except that there is no need for the use of 0 or 9 weights. This number should be between 1 and 8, with higher numbers representing a greater chance that the shot will be selected each time.
Volume The volume of the shots is represented by a number between 1 and 127. If 90 is entered, the volume will not be adjusted at all. If a number between 1 and 89 is entered, the volume will be lowered accordingly, and if a number between 91 and 127 is entered, the volume will be raised accordingly. It is generally easiest to test the volume amounts once the style has been completed.
So, for example, can I edit the SurfRockDoubleTwo^01-Ride,Splsh_165_Style.txt file to have several shots play at once in BIAB or do I have to use RealBand?
Create a backup copy of SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.wav(wma) and SurfRockDoubleTwo^01-Ride,Splsh_165_Style.txt So set RB to 165bpm then drag SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.wav in onto the track name, go to the end of the track and highlight the first hit you want, zoom in to get it accurate making sure you get all the sustain in the selection, Ctrl+C check Events only, Select "Snap to Beat" Set cursor @ bar 251 Ctrl+V check Merge & Events DeSelect "Snap to Beat"
Copy the next hit you want and repeat the above, if you don't want the hit on a beat don't use Snap
Delete SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.bt1
Save to wav with original name (drag the new wav back into RB to check it saved correctly)
Remove all the shots in the text file and just add this and save :
Code:
Shot{ My Custom Hits },1,251,0,2244,8,90
Shot{ My Custom Hits },0,251,0,2244,8,90
Create a backup copy of SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.wav(wma) and SurfRockDoubleTwo^01-Ride,Splsh_165_Style.txt So set RB to 165bpm then drag SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.wav in onto the track name, go to the end of the track and highlight the first hit you want, zoom in to get it accurate making sure you get all the sustain in the selection, Ctrl+C check Events only, Select "Snap to Beat" Set cursor @ bar 251 Ctrl+V check Merge & Events DeSelect "Snap to Beat"
Copy the next hit you want and repeat the above, if you don't want the hit on a beat don't use Snap
Delete SurfRockDoubleTwo^_165_Style.bt1
Save to wav with original name (drag the new wav back into RB to check it saved correctly)
Remove all the shots in the text file and just add this and save :
Code:
Shot{ My Custom Hits },1,251,0,2244,8,90
Shot{ My Custom Hits },0,251,0,2244,8,90
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
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With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
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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)
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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)
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With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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