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I only bought BiaB a few days ago, but I cannot begin to tell you how IDEAL this software is for my intended use. I am an old hand at songwriting, having written a LOT of tracks for both band-oriented music as well as various videogame and indie film soundtracks. Oddly enough, NONE of the material I've written over the decades is in the "jazz" territory, even though I've been STEEPED in the jazz standards, having absorbed and performed a LOT of songs from the usual suspects (Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, etc.) over the years. So, loving this classic material so much, I recently got it into my head to write and record some NEW songs that have that "timeless" vibe. I've been playing around with melodies and chord progressions in my head for a while, but hadn't really committed anything to paper or recording. Having not looked at BiaB for a while, I stumbled across it again by accident, and thought, "Hey, if this let's me play with arrangements the way I think it will, it could shave a lot of time off of my songwriting process, and let me experiment with song ideas in semi-finished form without having to re-record on a traditional DAW every time I want to go back and tweak a song. The idea for me was, I'll get the songs tuned and "perfect" in BiaB before I ever open up my DAW to start "real" tracking. Well, as I have discovered very quickly, this BiaB thing is a godsend. Having already spent a few days coming up to speed with the software, last night I FINALLY got some uninterrupted time with BiaB, and I was stunned to find that at the end of the evening, I had managed to write and arrange THREE ENTIRE SONGS. I've got full arrangements, lyrics, melodies, everything I need to start laying down tracks. Wow. As an incredible bonus, BiaB let me discover that I really DO have a flair for writing this swingin' jazz stuff. Yeah, having lived and breathed the classics for so long probably has a lot to do with how easy it feels for me to do this "new" thing, but having BiaB around to instantly play back my arrangements as I build them, with the proper feel, goes a LONG way toward inspiring me as I write. I also love the way I can record scratch tracks of vocals, so I don't have to write charts or other notation to remind me of some cool lyrical phrasing or melody for my songs. This combined with the lyric sheet capability gives me all I need to do some SERIOUS songwriting without opening up any other apps or using pen-and-paper. Let me also mention that I'm probably going to have to buy that Coyote Forte sampler plugin before the 30day trial runs out. It makes the MIDI parts much more pleasant and listenable than the normal GM instruments. I'm surprised in particular that the brushed drums and upright bass patches are so usable. This keeps my RealDrums/RealTracks usage to a minimum, so re-generation times are reduced and I have the option of exporting some of the midi as a foundation to drive even better virtual instruments when it comes time to put together finished tracks. Is it PERFECT? No, no software is perfect. Is it ideal for what I'm doing? Yes, yes it is. It's like the developers read my mind and said, "Let's make an app so that EightString can write his jazz album with minimal fuss and maximum creative flow." SWEET! Oh, and all this songwriting is being done on my little Acer Aspire netbook and some earbuds. 
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ONE OF US! ONE OF US!  R.
"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."
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And don't forget the lurking on the new are most of the Jazz Standards and other stuff already done.
Mantooth did 4 books of Jazz Standards, and although Notes Norton does not sell them with the melodies, he's put in the chord progressions both the standard and the Manooth one. You can get the books thru him or Amazon, and he sells you the files.
You will also find many of the by using Google and looking for peoples collections. I have about 13,000 files, and only about 50 of them I did myself from scratch.
And if you think the Dxi synths are good find the Ketron samples here...I have one and it's outstanding.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Yeah, I saw some other posts about that. That all looks like some good source material, but I figure I'll avoid THAT particular rabbit hole for a while, or I'll never get any of my originals done. :lol:
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TIP: An arranger can make quick work of section parts by using the BiaB Harmonizer.
I often enter a single line by recording it from my MIDI controller keyboard, then invoke a harmony and export that as separate staves in a .MID file, open that up in my notation software suite (Sibelius here now, formally was Finale) and keep on working up the arrangement. Bigband, orchestral, etc. this makes fast work of the SATB voicing game. Or, the "BATS" as I like to call 'em.
--Mac
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Thanks for that. I'll look into that at some point.
So far, the way I've been working is to "hear" the chord progression in my head, including transitions and chord substitutions, and then simply enter this bar by bar. The base melody either comes to me in parallel to this, or is something I've been kicking around in my head, like a chorus "hook", and is then shaped to best fit with the lyrics I've written.
Once I've tweaked and tuned a few times on arrangement, progressions, lyrics, and melody, I'm done.
This workflow feels very natural to me.
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I'll also add something else. The QUALITY of the sound you're listening to goes a long way towards hearing what's in your head. Instead of the Coyote Forte, I would recommend spending the extra money and getting the Ketron SD2 synth module. Very small, easily portable, and a KILLER sound. It's not cheap at $400, but then again, it costs a LOT less than what it would cost me to replace my Korg PA800 at $2,800. I would call the sounds, from what I've heard, equal.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Ah, well I could always run BiaB through a rack of Reason instruments if I wanted to go that route. But I'm basically loving the "take it to a coffee shop" portability of doing this with just my netbook and earbuds, so an external synth module, no matter if it's tiny, would kill that vibe for me.
But it sounds like an interesting module, and I'll take a peek anyway.
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Oh, never mind --- that's very tiny. That wouldn't kill my portable "vibe" after all. But $40 vs. $400 ... I'll think do the Forte thing for a while. 
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8, Just to give you an idea of what the Ketron can really do, our local resident expert Mac did some recordings with the SD2 a while ago. Here is one of his posts to another forum member. Make sure you check out the link of 'Peg', it'll astonish you. Quote:
...you can also purchase the Ketron SD2 Orchestral Wizard right here on this website from PGMusic. Their standard 30-day no questions asked policy applies, too.
http://www.pgmusic.com/ketronsd2.htm
Works a treat together with the Audiophile 2496 card. Automatic Rendering is out, as it would be with any nonDXi hardware MIDI synth, including soundfonts on a Creative card. You simply record the MIDI output from start to finish to "render" to a digital audio file if you need to do so.
Here are some BIAB demo songs done on the SD2. NO changes made to any settings other than selecting the hardware MIDI output inside BIAB rather than a software synth. This is what it sounds like at playback (YOu can search and locate the same demo songs on your BIAB setup and listen to those and compare the differences if you like):
HipHopRockSwDemo_REALDRUMS.WMA
HipHopRockSwDemo_MIDIDRUMS.WMA
Peg_Mac_KetronSD2.mp3 (NOT BIAB. Powertracks Sequence)
TruckinDemoRealDrumsSD2.mp3
TruckinDemoMIDIDrumsSD2.mp3
BigSurDemoRealDrumsSD2.mp3
BigSurDemoMIDIDrumsSD2.mp3
Straightahead_SD2_upperbanks_136BPM.mp3 (NOT BIAB. Powertracks Sequence)
--Mac
Gary
Last edited by Gary Curran; 01/16/10 10:20 PM.
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Thanks for the links. It's a cool product.
It's probably overkill for me at the moment, since all I really need to do, at least for now, is to write and arrange songs as a pre-production phase before recording.
Plus, I've managed to make my own hybrid styles (mixed RealBand and MIDI) that capture all the vibes I need (at least so far) in a realistic enough way for me to get that "toe-tapping" inspiration as I write.
However, I might pick one up in the future if I start using BiaB for "live" applications.
Side note, I "discovered" that I could use 4/4 RealTracks (so far just tried it with Piano) in 3/4 songs, with only a RARE hickup in the transition between measures. I'm sure this is something many of you already know, what with me being a n00b and all, but I thought it was cool that my supposedly "limited" number of RealTracks that came with the MegaPAK are turning out to be more and more versatile.
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Welcome EightString! Quote:
So far, the way I've been working is to "hear" the chord progression in my head, including transitions and chord substitutions, and then simply enter this bar by bar. The base melody either comes to me in parallel to this, or is something I've been kicking around in my head, like a chorus "hook",
That's exactly what I do.
Mick
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Welcome aboard EightString!
The fun has just begun,
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This is crazy. I'm up to five new songs now. At this rate, I'll have the 10 to 12 songs I need for a CD in less than a week.
Of course, then I actually have to record the stuff. lol
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Welcome Eightstring! Wow, you have a lot of time on your hands! 
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lol I wish! No, I only get time to work on this stuff during the evenings or the weekend, and even then, it's "catch as catch can". However, BiaB's flow works so well for me that the material just "comes to me" very naturally. That said, I was going to wait until I was done with about 12 songs before recording, but I couldn't wait. So last night, I did get started on recording and sequencing the "real" versions of a couple of the songs, and I am VERY excited by how this is starting to sound.
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BTW, if anyone is curious about how I'm going about getting my BiaB songs recorded in a more finished way, I do the following:
First, I simply export the BiaB song/arrangement as MIDI, containing only drums, bass, and piano comping.
I then import this MIDI into my DAW and route the channels to soft-synth rack (Reason in this case) of instruments that I have put together for "jazz".
The idea is that the BiaB MIDI serves as a placeholder framework around which I hang all my custom sequencing, real recorded instrumentation, and vocals for the song.
I expect most or all of the original BiaB generated midi will "go away" as I finish up my tracks.
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Please post some of your music when you are ready.
Later,
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