I do find the fact that most of the realtracks jazz styles have soloists attached to them a bit annoying. Most of the time I only want piano, bass and drums. I'm not even fussed about a guitar in the rhythm section and certainly not as the only comping instrument. I think that the real problem is there are only a few basic jazz rhythm sections - the added soloist is what makes the Styles different. Having said that, I still find the realstyles so much more satisfying to play with than the old midi styles. We just want many more basic jazz rhythm sections and tempos! Please!

Nonetheless, you can set up a whole tune with the soloist playing exactly where you want him. My tune files usually consist of an Intro followed by four Choruses of the tune. I will have the soloist play the intro, and then mute him for the first chorus while I play the melody live. On the second chorus, I might have the soloist playing fours with me just to give me ideas - especially when as a trombonist I have access to Ian McDougall. On the third chorus I will have the solo completely muted, for me to play an improvised chorus on my own. Then on the last chorus I will continue the muting of the soloist whilst I play the melody, until maybe the last four bars, when I will have Ian join me for the ending.

I set this all up using the 'Chord Sheet window'. Simply place the cursor on the bar where you want some change to the standard soloist playing and go to the 'Edit' drop down menu and select "Settings for current bar" (or you can right click and go to 'bar settings'). At the very top of the resulting window is "Settings apply to chorus #". Place the correct chorus number in this box. Then go down to the 'Strings' box, where most (I think all) of the jazz soloists are located. You can change it if you don’t like them located on that track. Choose the setting you want - mainly 'Mute' or 'Back to normal'. Then work through the chord sheet window, marking the appropriate bars and making the necessary entries in "Edit settings for bar #' window. Once you get used to it, it does not take that long to set up. I will say that it is a bit more time consuming removing the entries if you want to change things, because you have to check all the chorus numbers to find a change, if you can't remember where you put them.

I do a lot of basic arranging using BB. I use this system to set up where various instruments are playing and what harmonies are used over the different sections of the tune. Then I drop a midi version of the resulting midi file into Sibelius, or whatever. One day maybe the BB notation will be so good that I will not have to do this. Please, oh please, a function to “Create and print all parts”. Oh, and accents that change the way the note is played. Plops and doits would be nice but I would accept the ones PG has already.

Perhaps there are some better methods but I find this the best way. It certainly would be more helpful if there were more rhythm sections without soloists.

Grah Jive Talk
"Don't worry baby, they'll swing their arses off."