PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows How to Add More Audio & Midi Tracks to Biab

Here's an easy way to add more Midi and Audio/RealTracks without leaving Biab and going to RealBand or your DAW.
This also allows you to generate up a track just how you like, like MuliRiffs, by custom generating any section you like:
http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=394393

Now that's a great find ! Thnx ....F

Very impressive, Pipeline. I missed the original post for this.

It's like having a DAW within Biab, have as many RealTracks & Midi as you like.

Midi tracks:

Edit midi:

Playing, you can Edit > SongForm > Unfold, it has a 2 bar offset as BB starts on -1 for the 2 bar count off:

This goes back to what I have been asking for in the wish list for the last few years. That is open up all 16 channels for MIDI and Audio. Problem solved with no work-around.

This is an excellent work-around but it might be easier with all channels open. YMMV.

I'm not proficient with midi nor can I play Piano/keyboard. But, I once owned a Yamaha PSR-950 workstation. It had a composer section that resembled a 16 track recorder. I used that recorder to build tracks one finger or chord at a time. Sometimes the completed work actually sounded as if a competent musician had played everything at once.

Is that what you are referencing saying to open all 16 channels for midi and audio in BIAB? I'm not clearly understanding how a similar workflow would progress in BIAB.

I know two variations of old school mixing that easily free tracks in BIAB that can sum to a total of 16 tracks for recording additional audio or midi but I'm not clearly understanding the channel assignments. Could you explain a bit the benefit of having the 16 channels if BIAB had 16 tracks and how you would build a song? My work around may be something you could use.

Charlie

Charlie, by channels I mean tracks. Right now you have 5 tracks open to either MIDI or RTs while the rest of the tracks are dedicated to melodist, harmony, MIDI guitar etc. I wish is to open all tracks to the user.

That's the way I was interpreting your post but my knowledge base of midi is not that deep but that's how the Yamaha workstation multitrack recorder worked. Normally, track 10 was used for drums, track 1 for piano, track 2 for bass, track 4 for melody and track 7,8 for guitars

The multitrack operation of BIAB is similar to the Tascam DP series of multitrack recorders. I have used Tascam Portastudios for many years and for most of those years, tracks were limited to 4 or 8 tracks and bouncing was essential. With digital recording and hard disks, the track count increased to 24/32 actual tracks but the total number of tracks using virtual tracks and bouncing is practically limitless.

The Tascam DP008 pocketstudio can record mono or stereo tracks and is marketed as a six track model, (2 mono tracks and 2 stereo tracks), it is simply an upgrade of an earlier model DP004 which had 4 mono tracks. Pocketstudios and Portastudios can record two tracks simultaneously. But by bouncing tracks (digitally) to a virtual track, you can record all 4 tracks, using all of the available inputs, then bounce these four onto a single or if stereo, to two tracks into a virtual track that replaces one or two (stereo) recorded physical tracks. Continuing to follow those steps, you can record an unlimited number of total tracks bouncing the four available tracks in various combinations. Being digital, there is no loss of quality in the rendered recording. I have posted Tascam Dp multitrack examples in another thread here on the forum and you can hear how well they record for yourself.

Biab Features of the audio track and Performance Tracks allow Biab to record and save tracks in a very similar manner to the Tascam DP series recorder. In other words, nearly an unlimited number of tracks can be generated, mixed and bounced....

The feature of being able to record multiple instruments on a single track add to the recording versatility of Biab. (Punch in/out)

I will give an example of multitrack recording beyond the eight visible Biab tracks but make note, there are many variations of this technique and this is only limited by the requirements of the song and your imagination. You may already be aware of this technique but I don't recall ever seeing it discussed in depth here on the forum.

EXAMPLE:

After you've completed a chord chart - by inputting yourself, import a midi or a chart generated via the ACW, or just open any existing sgu file.

Select a style. I chose OUTRAGE.STY a five track Realstyle for this example.

Pan and mix the tracks. You can add additional tracks to the audio, Melody and Soloist tracks if desired.

Render all the tracks to a WAV audio file to your desktop. According to your needs, you may decide to render just a few tracks; for instance, drums and bass and a loop track...

Import the rendered audio file to the Audio Track. It should default to 1.1.0 and sync with the existing tracks. Use the Audio Editor to sync the tracks if necessary. I haven't had to do this so far.

Select Audio/Move Audio to Performance Track

A window will open to allow you to select any track other than the audio track. You will be prompted to save the file if it hasn't been saved at this point.

Since my song normally will only have one bass or drum track, I select one of these tracks to move the Performance track to. It will be a stereo track.

At this point, all of the remaining tracks including the audio track are available to select styles, Realtracks, midi tracks, Supermidi or audio and free to add additional tracks to be rendered to your song.

Continue rendering the new generated tracks over the existing chord chart. MUTE the performance track(s) unless it's desired to be included in the bounce to a new audio file to be exported and reimported back into the audio file and converted and moved to another track as a performance track.


This process can be repeated many times without loss of audio quality. You can use F5 to have newly generated tracks to contain multiple instruments. A very complex arrangement can quickly be generated in this manner and never leave the Biab program. This technique works with both PC and Mac versions. Effects and VST's can be applied. Performance group tracks can be rendered together to form larger group performance tracks. Although only a single audio track can be recorded at once, using this method allows for multiple audio tracks such as vocals and additional backing tracks to be recorded into Biab mixed, rendered, exported and reimported back to the audio track, made into a performance track and moved to another track.

A very powerful benefit of doing this in Biab rather than moving to RealBand is the Stylepicker for Biab is different than the Stylepicker in RB. The RB Stylepicker does not contain the feature to audition styles over your chord progression but that feature is available in Biab Stylepicker. A style can sound dramatically different played over your chord progression from how it sounds playing the demo. Some RealStyles contain up to five tracks of RealTracks so you can also audition hundreds of Rt's in just minutes versus the time required to do the same in RB.

You may already be aware of this technique but as I've noted, I've not seen it discussed in depth here on the forum before. Hopefully I've described the process with enough clarity you can experiment with the techniques and find some use from it.

Charlie

Yes Charlie I understand your bouncing process. It is a very creative use of BiaB and it is different than my 16 track suggestion.

I have a different workflow. When I want more tracks from BiaB I will transfer the tracks into Sonar, go back to BiaB then transfer this into Sonar. In Sonar I cut, paste, blend, control volume, pan, etc.

Your workflow is perfect for someone who knows exactly what they want and they can stay in BiaB. Being the scatter brain that I am most of the time I have a general idea of what I want but I will not get to my goal until I use the trail and error method.

I understand Mario. I also use a similar workflow as you and incorporate either RealBand or Studio One DAW or both on occasion. While you can export as many Biab tracks as needed now, I can see where having 16 available at once would be quite useful.

You are correct that for the user making backing tracks and is more concerned with generating a song 'in the style of' tracks and who won't be doing a lot of cutting and pasting and letting Biab do all the heavy lifting, then bouncing can quickly allow them to spice up the finished product with some additional instruments without transferring tracks over to a DAW.

The biggest benefit for me is how quickly styles and realtracks can be auditioned in the Biab using the Biab stylepicker and the play using my chord progression feature rather than the RB stylepicker which takes quite a bit more time.

Your workflow is more traditional and better known as well as used by most users by a large percentage over the bouncing method I believe.

Charlie

Biab was designed as that, a Band that will start play instantly, so it plays in Ram.
Now it has evolved for other purposes it could easily have something like energyXT within it so everything can be done within the confines of Biab. Maybe the new 64bit version will have this.

Charlie, like myself I am sure that many others had not heard of your bouncing workflow until now. I'm sure there will be more users investigating your methodology.

Also midiLooper is another one if you just need more midi tracks only.

Thanx pipeline. I know about MIDILooper but I have never used it. If I ever again need/want more BiaB tracks I will give it a try.