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Good afternoon, folks...
I just experimented with the new "natural arrangements" feature in Band-in-a-Box 2018. It seemed to unleash an even more exciting electric guitar solo in the song I'm working on using the Guitar, Resophonic, Rhythm Blues Delta Sw 065 style.
Has anyone else noticed this very welcome improvement in chord interpretation/performance rendering while using the natural arrangement option in your song?
Thrilled,
LOREN
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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Absolutely. This is an excellent feature. You haven’t read about it because it was new for last year’s release, 2017 BIAB.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Hi, Mr. Finley... Yes, I passed on the 2017 version because I thought I had all I needed from Band-in-a-Box -- WRONG  !!! Won't do that again! Anyway, the effect the "natural arrangement" option had on that electric guitar solo was stunning. If you'd been in my presence at that moment you probably would've seen my jaw drop to the floor. It was as though the "natural arrangement" option had located a hidden layer of improvisational sophistication in that particular Realtrack and turned it on, up, and out-of-the-park. It was exhilarating! I set the natural arrangement option to "Always for all genres (unless disable for the song)". I want to see if what it did for the current song I'm working on could be duplicated in other songs, and especially for jazz styles. Thanks for commenting on my post, Mr. Finley! Sincerely, LOREN
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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Loren, you raise an interesting point. If I’m reading your post correctly, you say a soloist RealTrack was improved. It is my understanding that Natural Arrangement does not do that directly. Its purpose is to change chord progressions.
Your experiment suggests that changing the chord progression makes the soloist play better. I’m guessing that’s because perhaps more patterns were recorded over the ‘naturalized’ chords than were possible over the unaltered progression. This makes sense. To my knowledge this has never been discussed. It’s the same for live musicians of course: you’re going to get a better solo out of someone if they understand the chord progression better.
I would never have noticed this as I never use soloist tracks in BIAB - that’s my job. But I’m interested if others have observed what you did.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Your experiment suggests that changing the chord progression makes the soloist play better. I’m guessing that’s because perhaps more patterns were recorded over the ‘naturalized’ chords than were possible over the unaltered progression. This makes sense. Mr. Finley... Yes, I'm guessing (and hoping!) that is what happened. When I work on songs in BIAB, I tend to click on the "Generate and Play" button over, and over, and over again until I hear an arrangement that I want to keep, or "freeze". But even when I do that, it's usually only the soloists that I "freeze", and not the drums, bass, or any rhythm pianos and guitars. Now, the original version of the song in question was composed/created last June. I did not change the Real Style, the song form or any of the chords once I had finished composing it, which only took a single evening. From June to the present, I re-generated that song more times than I kept track of, and I never, ever heard anything that sounded even close to what I heard this week after applying the "natural arrangement" option to a copy of the original song, which has the exact same chord structure, song form (AABAA), and Real Style as the original. Ohhh-h-h, no-o-o-o, Igor! I...I think that I have a created...a m-m-monster!!! Aiiieeee, somebody save me-e-e-e! Excited, LOREN
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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Are you kidding me, it is a godsend! I'm listening to an arrangement that I did with RT, and I was thinking to myself, who in the world hired that piano player.
I haven't got use to the Piano Roll yet, so I've been relying on that feature to get me through. I can definitely tell the difference when I don't heed the yellow pop-up suggesting it.
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Hey, there, "CoolBreeze"...
Right on! So, you believe you heard a significant improvement in the musicality of a Realtrack performance rendered through the "natural arrangement" feature?
Spreadin' the word,
LOREN
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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Fellow Friends of the Forum (and, laydies, but, of course!)... Here's something else about the "natural arrangement" option that I want blather on about! And mind you, I'm only reporting on what I believe I'm hearing, meaning that PG Music music hasn't confirmed that what I'm relating to you was actually programmed into BIAB. Regardless, after you apply this marvelous feature to your song, listen...listen closely. You'll hear the most deliciously subtle "slips in pitch" that, to my ears, near perfectly emulate the micro-imperfections in the instrumental performances of human beings: that slightly "wrong" note, the minutely de-tuned riffs caused by the speed with which the instrumentalist is picking, plucking, blowing, bowing, or striking her instrument. The "natural arrangements" option is an exciting, thrilling, wonderful, humanizing addition to the list of Band-in-a-Box music rendering tools dreamed up by the seemingly inexhaustible genius of the developers at PG Music. Yeah, yeah, I know: according to dear Matt Finley, I'm a year late discovering this tool !!! But I haven't seen anything written about it in the forums, so I'm ringin' the bell, knockin' on doors, blowin' the whistle and beatin' the drums to call out to everyone to use this thing! Calming down, now, LOREN
Last edited by bluage; 12/20/17 12:37 PM.
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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I was curious about this myself from this post and dug this up from the 2018 .PDF Manual:
Natural Arrangements (re-interpret complex chords)
If you give a pro musician a complicated chord progression with fancy extensions like C7b9b13 or Gm11, the musician may reinterpret these rather than playing them exactly as written. This can achieve a much better sounding arrangement because the musician has freedom to choose from similar chord extensions. You can get Band-in-a-Box to do the same thing with this option for all tracks in all songs. (Note: To set this feature for all tracks in the current song, use the option in the Song Settings dialog. To set this feature for all tracks in all songs, use the option in the Arrangement Options dialog. To set this for specific track(s) in the current song, right-click on the track radio button, go to Track Settings | Set Natural Arrangement, and select an option.).
 Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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Hello, "sslechta"... Thanks for your detective work ! Have you used the "natural arrangement" option and, if you have, did you notice any of the results that I reported hearing in my composition? Thanks for contributing to this thread, sir! Sincerely LOREN
"Music is what feelings sound like."-- borrowed from a Cakewalk Music Creator forum member, "Mamabear".
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Loren,
I have not had a chance to play with it yet. I've just got 2018 upgraded from last year's version and haven't dabbled much yet.
Steve
Steve BIAB/RB 2022, Pro Tools 2020, Korg N5, JBL LSR 4328 Powered Monitors, AKG/Shure Mics.
PC: Win11 PRO, 4 TB M2 SSD, 2 TB HD, 128 GB Memory
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I have not been able to find the "Arrangement Options" dialog box in the Mac version. Does anyone know the path to access it?
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Harmony,
Welcome to the forum and to Band-in-a-Box.
One way to find the arrangement option in 2020 Band-in-a-Box (BiaB) for Mac is to:
1) Right click on a track button
2) Select "Track Settings"
3) Select "Set natural arrangement - [reinterpreted chords]"
There maybe other ways I'm not aware of. Band-in-a-Box typically has multiple ways to do something.
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Thanks Jim. Your solution works well for a single track; but I was looking for a global solution. Apparently, there is no "Arrangement Options" dialog box in the Mac version, even though the manual shows a picture of it. I did, however, find something similar near the lower left corner of the Preferences 1 panel.
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Tagging on to Jim's post...
With the Windows version of the software, if I right-click on the chord sheet and then select "Song Setting" from the pop-up menu, "Natural Arrangement" options are found there. This is for adjusting on a song-by-song basis and it applies to all tracks. This is also found under "Edit | Song Form" menu.
If I choose "Options | Preferences | Arrange", there are options for setting Natural Arrangements. These settings are the default settings that open when a new chordsheet is created.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Noel, are all those options available on the 2020 Mac edition? I must have missed them while scanning through the Mac pdf manual.
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