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Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
Originally Posted By: QuipRosen
Does CROONR1 successfully hold a chord? I'm getting a rest instead.

I just tried it and it holds a chord for me, using an ellipsis (Dm11...)
How did you specify the hold?

Also, what Chord(s) did you select that showed the issue?


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Yes, there was another post about this in which it was discovered that a chord type had not been recorded. But Bm7? Can’t be.


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Bm7 hold works. I'll try a few others and report back...


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OK, mixed results but all the ones I tried held a chord (sort of)

I created a song with 24 bars and placed one different chord and hold in beat one of each bar.

Many chords held for 2 beats and then followed a 2 beat rest, others held for 4 beats.

These (of the ones I tried) held for 2 beats only:
Cm
Fm
Em6
Cm11
F9sus
Gm

Of course if I generated again I could get different responses.

None of the chords I tried played a rest for the entire bar.






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I've always had questions about some of the things that BIAB does, whether it be Midi or RT. Pushes in odd places, notes that don't work, etc. I made a wise crack about it once and offended someone on the forum, which I didn't mean to do.

It would help me if I understood the concept that BIAB uses to make choices in Midi. Is there some programming by a human or does an algorithm do everything? If a human is involved, that person should be (and probably is) a musician.

It would also be helpful to know if RT's are edited before release so problems like this can be avoided. I'm not asking for any secrets, just a general idea.

Finally, it seems the easiest fix has been mentioned. Let the horns play the entire song, go to Real Band (or another DAW) and cut/paste to get an arrangement. That way you can set up themes and figures that appear more than once and tie the piece together.

2b


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Good questions, 2b. I don’t know why these reasonable questions in this form would have offended anyone (hope I wasn’t the one!).

I don’t think it matters about man versus machine because we do know that several of the programmers are also fine musicians, Dr. Gannon included.

I can’t reveal what goes on in beta testing but I think it may be ok to say that we do not review all the new RealTracks before public release. Perhaps that’s something to reconsider. However, it boils down to distribution: there are HUGE files involved, with many releases to test over a short time, and RealTracks are large files to download.

Many of the beta testers do not relax upon the public release, though. We get the full new versions when you do, but we keep testing. We report the occasional problem with a RealTrack to the developers, and PG Music issues a reasonably timely patch.

I hope that gives you your general idea.


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For MIDI styles, there are settings as to how "jazzy" the arrangement should be. You can specify whether to jazz-up or jazz-down the chords. I suspect that's where some of the "off" notes come from. That being said, for standard MIDI tracks (not SuperMIDI), the arrangement you get is based on rhythmic phrase that have been normalized to a C7 chord. The other chord extensions are based on the basic C7 chord. The engine then picks on of the available rhythmic phrases based on its weighting, or in some cases whether it is flagged as a special case (every fourth bar, a jump to a fifth, whatever), is transposed accordingly with the additional notes added to complete the chord, and that's what you get. Yes, sometimes you get some bad notes, but again, the engine picks them based on how "jazzy" your setting is.

For RealTracks-based styles, you can set the song use simpler arrangements and now natural arrangements.

All these things go into determining what gets played, and sometimes it gets it right and other times it gets it wrong. But hey, so does a live band, too. Just regenerate until it's too your liking, then lock it down if it is of great concern.

I'm sure there's a lot more that goes on behind the scenes, but that's my rudimentary understanding. The best person to answer about MIDI styles, however, is probably Bob "Notes" Norton, since he has created so many of his own styles for sale that he is intimately knowledgeable about the output produced by BIAB (whether by any inside knowledge or observational intuition).


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Thanks, Matt and Jford. This helps.

I don't think it was you that I offended, Matt. Also, I was being a bit too much of a wise-a. My point was right but I presented it poorly.

Thanks again. This forum is great and you guys are very generous with your time and knowledge.


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Sounds good.

John correctly mentioned some of the controls a user does have, and there is always Regenerate. In RealBand, you can even regenerate part of a track.

I’m not sure any of us, even Notes, could tell you much more because the algorithms are proprietary information for PG Music. We can only make educated guesses.


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That's where SFZ RealTrack Instruments would help, as you can make any hold you like and you are not restricted to just those that have been recorded in Holds_350 \bb\RealTracks\Library\Holds & \bb\RealTracks\Direct Input\Library\Holds

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