Originally Posted By: Kworth
Hello to all

I´m barely a two-month user of BiaB, and have a lot of doubts, and this fórum is very instructive.
From time to time,and until recently, most of my compositions and songwriting activity developed starting out as a simple riff or chord progression on my guitar, and later on further additions of some drums, vocals and synths in my DAW.

With BiaB I want to make an extra step forward and use the resources available in the program. I´m still learning, but progressing.
I know the theory about deciding which style and chords progression to use and let BiaB give you some ideas to choose from. That´s good, and I´m starting to use it, but I wonder whether it is posible to go the other way around, and back to my initial roots: I develop an idea on my guitar with a certain groove, be it strumming or picking and a chords progression. Record the ideas in my DAW and then?.

The question is: how to integrate those ideas developed initially on my guitar in BiaB? . And particularly how to match my Groove with any of the existing styles in BiaB, avoiding to have to go through all of the potentially candidate styles, listen to them and select the one which most closely simulate the Groove and "style" I developed?. Is there a known workflow to make that process less painfull and laborious?.
I´m learning now something related with building your own style through the melody track in a MIDI file, but´not sure if this is the only (and practical) way to do it. But what if my recordings are only audio and not MIDI yet?

Maybe this issue has been already posted in this or other fórum, then, forgive me for bring it over, but as of today I do not see (yet) a practical way to work it out.

Many thanks
Kworth



This has happened to me as well.

In my case, I'll lose the originality of my project idea to the tsunami of available BIAB material. It is easy and acceptable to have a short list dozens of suitable styles that match the genre, time signature, feel, tempo and instruments- both Real Tracks, midi or a combination of both from the thousands of choices.

<< Is there a known workflow to make that process less painful and laborious?. >>

Yes. There are several techniques you can try.

1. Develop your song idea without using BIAB and then bring what you have developed into BIAB and produce your idea in BIAB as if you had hired a studio and session musicians.

2. Include your live playing with the BIAB production project (or move the project over to RB or another DAW) to set the groove of the song.

Here's one way I match a groove of a project to quickly narrow dozens of choices to ones that will work with my groove.

I use a recorded track, either one I or someone else have recorded or a commercial recording if I am working on a cover. I process that recorded track through the Audio Chord Wizard and import the audio, time signature and tempo with chords into BIAB. I make any necessary corrections to chords and lower the volume from 90 to around 70 or lower so that any style I audition will be louder than the recorded audio. Note the time signature, feel (even or swing) and tempo

Open the Style Picker and enter the above as well as choose a genre and type.

When you find a style you want to audition, use the "PLay with Current Chordsheet of Song" feature. Set the tempo to the first bar of your song on the Chord Sheet. The Style will play your chord progression and adjust to the variations in tempo of your chord chart. The value doing your search this way is interestingly, the 'groove' of the style will not necessarily be the same playing over your chord chart as the groove you hear just listening to the demo of the style. It can sound very different. Your search then becomes a groove search rather than a style search.

What I mean by that is with some styles, certain instruments may play quite acceptable parts to the groove you are seeking while other instruments may not be playing a suitable groove. While the style is playing over your audio and chord chart, hit the cancel button to minimize the Style Picker window and from the Chord Chart page, you can mute and even replace instruments on tracks to mix and match instruments you have located during your style auditions thus creating a unique blend of midi and real track instruments that do fit the groove of your project.

You can have drums from one style, bass and two guitars from another style, keyboards and a specific instrument such as a fiddle, pedal steel, solo guitar, sax or trombone from another style to complete your combo and this combo gathered from several styles works together to play in a style that matches your personal groove.

At this point, I normally erase (kill) the audio track, erase the tempo map and set a steady tempo for my song and build my project from there. I don't always erase the tempo map because in some cases it is an important element to retain the groove and live playing feel of my project.

Hope this helps you out a bit.

Charlie

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.