Hi Marlin,

Glad that we're getting somewhere. Now for your next round of questions...

Originally Posted By: Marlin
4. I laid down a simple melody with individual sings notes, 4 to the bar. I then decided I wanted to change instruments so I used the mixer desk and right clicked on the instrument name, picked a RealTracks piano that sounded great on audition. I pressed 'play' and it was still the original instrument, so i figured I had to re-generate the song to get the instrument change to take effect... Except that it over-wrote the simple notes of my melody with a virtuoso elaborate piano part. So again I'm missing something here - how to change instruments without getting my original melody over-written?

Realtracks are studio-recorded instrumental accompaniment riffs. BIAB slices, dices and splices these audio recordings together to fit a chord progression entered by a user.

Because of their design, Realtracks cannot play a melody. If you loaded a Realtrack on the Melody track and then generated, it will overwrite your work.

Any notation you enter can only be played by MIDI.

For this reason, it's always a good idea to save a backup copy of your song once you get notation completed. That way, it's always easy to get back to where things were before they got disturbed. I use the system "Song title 1.mgu", "song title 2.mgu", etc. Because BIAB files take up very little disk space, having multiple files is inconsequential (I'm presently up to 47 for the current composition I'm working on).


Originally Posted By: Marlin
5. If I use the same method to change to a Midi patch instrument instead. BIAB doggedly hangs onto the original RealTrack instrument. Even if I switch to the Patches tab from the Mixer and use the dropdown, I can change between RealTracks instruments but I can't select a midi patch instead. (Same happens if I right click on the 'Melody' radio button at the top (as per the Help page)).

A MIDI patch will not overwrite a Realtrack. It's necessary to right-click on the Realtrack in the mixer and then select "Track Actions" followed by "Erase track". This will clear the Realtrack. Unfortunately your melody will also be gone because the (re)generate has overwritten it.

As mentioned above, it's worthwhile saving multiple copies of a file when you first get it to a workable stage. This makes getting things back as they were much easier.


Originally Posted By: Marlin
6. Exporting Midi: If I export a Midi file, playback from Windows is silent, apart from the lead-in count. I'm guessing this is because my song consists of Realtracks and these cannot be 'mapped' to Midi equivalents. If so I'm back to Q5. How do I set Midi intruments to allow a Midi export (MS GS Wavtable and GM2).

Realtracks are audio, not MIDI. This is why you are not getting any sound. That said, if a Realtrack has notation associated with it, it's possible to export a MIDI interpretation.

Go to the link below for a thorough explanation on how to do this.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=451355#Post451355


Originally Posted By: Marlin
7. Exporting MP3: File > Save Special >.mp3> "MySong" > Save... 'Rendering File...' > Select output format [?] > Name = untitled [but I just gave it a name and the dropdown contains nothing... > Save As* > [Format name - "blah"] > OK > MPEG3/56 kb > OK... "Driver cannot do the requested conversion" [very helpful!]. It actually creates an MP3 file called "MySong" (not "Blah"), but it's 0 bytes. *(Same happens if I don't create a 'Format name' and Save As, but just hit OK). The Help topic seems to just cover .wav, which is too big. I can sucessfully export .wma, but this is then OS-dependent, somp3 is what I want.

I have the LAME codec installed and this works fine in Audacity creating MP3 files OK. Does BIAB need a different codec/driver for MP3 creation, or is there something else I'm missing?

Again any help gratefully received. Thanks for your patience.

You've answered your question well.

Because of propriety software issues, BIAB doesn't come with its own MP3 codec. Rather, it uses what codec Windows has installed.

K-Lite codecs will install a suitable one for BIAB to use.

https://www.codecguide.com/download_kl.htm

I used to have that installed but when I changed computers I did not bother. I prefer to use "FreAc" a freeware audio convertor because it gives me much more control over the end product.

https://www.freac.org/

Hope this helps,
Noel

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2025