Originally Posted By: jazzmammal
Got busy and lost track of this thread. Very happy you got it fixed. I never try to do any kind of editing in Biab, it's all in RB. I've written extensively about how Biab is great for putting a song together quickly just to get an idea about how it can sound but after that it's all RB for me. RB is a full DAW, Biab isn't they're two different programs and lots of folks think that RB is just another version of Biab, not true.


I've gotten pretty comfortable with editing in BiaB. I like to use the Notation function where it just displays the note head and a blue line extending out from it. You can control volume (velocity), position, and length using that interface. Most of the time, that's all I need.

Quote:
The fact the offending tracks were generated by the Melodist is interesting. I saw a couple of other posts complaining about something the Melodist did. I never use that so can't comment on it.


Yeah, weird. In playing around with the Melodist, I've gotten it to produce several songs that I consider to be keepers, and they all behave normally, except this one song, and as I outlined above, it has been full of problems. I wonder if I were to bring it into RB, open it and then save it in RB as an mgu, that would take care of the problems, the way it did for getting songs unstuck from voices I didn't want.

Quote:
All I can say is midi can be totally baffling at times.


Yeah, it's surprising how something so simple can become something so complicated.


Quote:
Like you I've downloaded gazillions of midi files and I've put some into a Test folder because in spite of what I know, I simply cannot get them to play correctly. I've copied them, tried stripping out everything I can find yet the instruments are still wrong. There's something hiding in those files that I cannot find.


The ones that I find that are the biggest problems are the ones that were originally saved as MIDI type 0 files, where all instrumentation gets crammed into a single track. When I open a file like that in BiaB and then use the notation window, the screen can be almost black with the density of all the notes that were crammed onto a single set of staves. What were they thinking? Go to all that trouble writing, arranging, orchestrating, then save the work as a type 0 file. I'm just dumbfounded at the stupidity. But as you mentioned, who knows how many edits a piece of music might have been through by the time one plucks it from the 'net. The original creator may have had everything dialed in perfectly. But all it takes is one clueless individual to totally screw up a nice piece of music.

Quote:
Like you said some of those files are really excellent as far as the performance is concerned yet will not play correctly. If you really want to use one of those you can do a cut/paste of just the note and performance data into a new blank RB project and get it to work that way. Very tedious though if you've got say 23 tracks to copy.

When you do that RB calls it a scrap clipboard. Weird I know but it allows you to copy/paste data from one project to another. When you go to copy something a window opens that allows you to make choices of exactly what you want to copy. Check that out.


Okay, well that's good to know. RB's clipboard works like regular Windows clipboard does -- that is, a temporary holding place for general "copy/paste" data. BiaB has something very similar to what you describe. I use the Ctl-C and Ctl-V routines a lot in BiaB, and when I do I get the little popup window that allows you to do things like fine tune exactly where the data will appear.

You know, I've gotten so frustrated with RB that I'm now working on voice selection and mixdowns in Studio One 3, the latest update of the Free version. I really like that software -- just wish it had staff capabilities. The full blown version that costs a lot of money has the capability to use Notion 6 as a rewire device, so it is possible to get it to work with notation. I just have to buy SO3 and upgrade my old copy of Notion. More than I have available in my meager budget at the moment. So I'm learning how to use the piano roll in SO3. It's awkward, but doable at least. Another thing I like about SO3 is it comes with several hundred built-in instruments, many of which sound excellent. I've found that to be very handy when I'm doing my final arrangements and mixdowns.

I haven't given up on RB. Just call it a "cooling off" period until I get over my annoyance with it. I dunno, there's something about that software that puts me on edge, whereas with BiaB it feels more like an old friend when I boot it up. I guess once I know and understand RB better, my comfort level with it will improve.

Last edited by cooltouch; 12/06/17 06:25 AM.
Best,
Michael

My Music:
https://soundcloud.com/michaelmcbroom/albums