I like using the melodist to change up my practice routine. But there are things that I want to edit in the random selection process of the software that I currently have to do each time I load a new style. I always want to keep my chord progression settings everytime I load a new style in the melodist, I always want the tempo to be set at a certain rate, and I want to expand the range of keys that the "any key" function decides to choose. How do I do these things?
The Melodist is a very powerful tool. I often use it to give me ideas for melodies and styles/genres when I'm writing a song.
Before attempting to answer some of your questions, please have a look through the tutorials for the Melodist found under the Help menu (Image 1 below).
Also...
....if you look in the \bb folder, you'll find five Melodists folders (4 - 8) that contain demos of many different Melodist ST2 files (Image 2).
Lastly (I'm assuming you have BIAB for Windows)...
...if you go to the following link, in the "Archive" section you can find a 15 minute video on the Melodist and the Soloist (Image 3).
Even though the video was created with an earlier version of BIAB, the principles behind using the feature remain unchanged (hence why the video remains available).
If any questions remain unanswered after investigating the above, please ask and I (and others) will do our best to answer.
Because the Melodist is midi-based, it was originally designed to be used with midi styles. For this reason, it might be worthwhile disabling the automatic substitution of midi styles with Realstyles. (The option is found under Realtrack preferences.)
What happens if you click on Save As and then use that item for future editing?
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Thank you for the video. It adds heaps of clarity to understanding your problem. The time you took to put it together was well worth it.
1. The reason the settings reverted at 1:36 is because #236 was first loaded and then it was changed to 'Pop 16ths Pad-Bell' and so loaded a whole new set of settings.
2. I noticed on the video that when you were talking about generating chords, you mentioned that they are always pretty much in the area of Db. While you were talking about this, I noticed that the key was set to Db rather than All (#1 on the Image 1 below).
3. As far as I'm aware, styles #218 onwards are user styles. If you have a look at the "Database" (#2 on Image 1) when these styles are clicked, they all default to MEL1.ST2.
Also as far as I'm aware, and I could be wrong because you've ventured into areas of the Melodist about which I know little, there is no way of over-riding the settings from style to style.
What it is possible to do, though, is to use #218 onwards and...
Copy settings from those Melodists that you regularly use, paste them into these user Melodists, and then save and create a new Melodist file (Image 2). It would also be possible to use 'import and export' to do this.
This way you would be able to have the Melodists you want with the settings you want.
What I meant about "same kinds of chords" I didn't say anything about them being in Db, I meant that they were usually diatonic with sometimes a modulation thrown in there.
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