So, I've picked a style that I love the drum track on, and I love the fills that are generated. However, I have this one song that I want a particular fill in a particular spot. I can generate that with the MIDI drums in my DAW, but they don't sound anything like the RealDrums tracks in BiaB. Is there a way to create my own fills in BiaB (either in the standalone program or vst plug-in) to go in a particular spot in my song?
BiaB Pro with RealBand 2020. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. 16GB RAM. Intel Core i5-5200U processor.
"Is there a way to create my own fills in BiaB (either in the standalone program or vst plug-in) to go in a particular spot in my song?"
____
Yes.
Once you've completed your chord chart with the chords of your song, in the unused bars beyond the end of your song, continue to place chords at place markers, chords with shots, holds and rests - in other words, continue to have the BIAB style create drum fills.
Then, open the BIAB SGU file in RealBand and copy,paste these fills where ever you wish throughout your song. If you use another DAW, the process will be the same.
You can do this using the Audio Track of BIAB but it's much easier to do so in a DAW such as RealBand.
I recently wanted to put a number of drum fills in a track. As Charlie says create a heap at the end of the song. What I did was generate the drum tracks from the same style and tempo into another short song. 16 bars. All I did was go from A part (blue) to B part (green), the A to A, B to B, B to A and so on. Once I had a number I exported the Drums only then pulled them into Reaper (the DAW I prefer to use for slicing and dicing audio). Once in Reaper I cut say one or two bar slices and placed them in the song in various verses. By doing it this way it does not sound the same each time the fill is played. I then mixed and matched what I needed.
It takes longer to write this reply than to do the slice and dice. But it is satisfying coming up with a good end result.
Tony
Last edited by Teunis; 02/04/2012:41 AM.
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
So, I've picked a style that I love the drum track on, and I love the fills that are generated. However, I have this one song that I want a particular fill in a particular spot. I can generate that with the MIDI drums in my DAW, but they don't sound anything like the RealDrums tracks in BiaB. Is there a way to create my own fills in BiaB (either in the standalone program or vst plug-in) to go in a particular spot in my song?
I encounter this ALL the time. If you work in BB it might not be as easy to fix as if you are working in a DAW. I love using a DAW for my mixing and live recording. So, in the DAW, you can easily find a part that you like and would love to move to a different place. Easy to do. COPY the part you want using the measure settings and simply drop it into the hole. I tend to delete the measure I don't want, copy the part I do and drop it into the hole I created. It is seamless. A good DAW lets you set the resolution you want. If I only need a kick and cymbal crash, I set the resolution to quarter notes, make my hole, copy the hit from another place and paste it in.
A DAW lets you do lots of nice easy edits that are harder to do in BB.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Another useful tip: If you're copying bars of percussive stuff and inserting it into the middle of a track you can sometimes get ticks and pops at the in/out transition points when your edit is at the beginning/end of a measure. Your ears are also expecting strong accents here and clean audio, so any clicks/pops are more obvious.
Making edits on other beats can allow the transition to go by unnoticed. So if, in 4/4 for example, if you need to drop in a new bar #33, copy from bar XX.4 to YY.4 and make the edit at 32.4. Depends on the audio, etc. Your mileage may vary.
It can also help to use two DAW tracks for the drums, putting all the new splices on a second track. You can sneak in edits that have long, more believable crossfades.
The example shows one of these edits across two tracks. Red lines were added to show the actual measures
Last edited by RayL; 02/04/2004:49 AM.
RayL
Mac Studio M2 mid 2024 64 GB RAM MacOS Sonoma 14.5
Logic Pro 11.2 Studio One 7.2 PreSonus USB AudioBox 1818VSL
And another tip that works on Win Mac and Linux, is you can generate up the RealDrum tracks directly in Reaper then adjust, copy, select another hold/shot and adjust the volume.
The trick is to ensure when you do the cross fade is to do it slightly before the beat. As was said if you do it on the beat you could get clicks. Most DAWs will allow you to expand the view and adjust the “slice point”. In Reaper and Cakewalk it is far easier to adjust this after the part is inserted. Simply insert the part then drag back the splice point to a flat part before the beat. Note do not drag back the beat but the point of the cross fade.
Tony
Adding a file to demonstrate what I mean. Blue Original and Green is the replaced part, Brown the fill.
Last edited by Teunis; 02/04/2012:48 PM.
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
Another 'secret'. At the end of the RealDrum actual recordings (the WMA files, or WAV if using Audiophile version) there are often single hit samples of each drum in the kit.
Using these in a Sample Player type synth, you can actually control each drum with MIDI. You have to create the drum set though.
It takes a bit of effort, but to construct one or two fills, you could take advantage of these available 'samples' to either create a synth that sounds just like the realdrums, OR just cut/paste each drum on a number of tracks to create your desired fill. Of course this is best done in a DAW or Realband. IMHO BiaB is not well suited for this task, but PGMusic made those hits available and has said it's OK to use as such.
Last edited by rharv; 02/04/2001:00 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Further..rharv reminded me of another tutorial, there are so many I lose track Custom RealDrum Solos\Hits Mac\Win and this should work easy now in Biab with the new drag n drop audio clips into the Audio Track.
Wow! So many things to think about! I like the idea of creating different fills after the end of the song. Good to know. I have been cutting and pasting fills created in BiaB and placing them where I feel they best fit, but this limits me in the number of fills I have to work with and I sometimes end up reusing some of them. This will definitely be of great help to me in current and future projects.
The ability to build my own fills with single hits is exactly what I am looking for for this one particular project I am currently working on. I will watch the tutorial. As I mentioned in my original post, I can do that with MIDI drums in Cakewalk, but they don't sound like they belong to the same drum kit as the rest of the drums.
I can't thank everyone enough for all the great feedback.
BiaB Pro with RealBand 2020. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. 16GB RAM. Intel Core i5-5200U processor.
The trick is to ensure when you do the cross fade is to do it slightly before the beat. As was said if you do it on the beat you could get clicks. Most DAWs will allow you to expand the view and adjust the “slice point”. In Reaper and Cakewalk it is far easier to adjust this after the part is inserted. Simply insert the part then drag back the splice point to a flat part before the beat. Note do not drag back the beat but the point of the cross fade.
I use this only if I need to fade a part in or out when another one comes in or out. This is to keep the levels constant and make it sound seamless.
HOWEVER.....
I have found that in Sonar, if I an using the note resolution tool and selecting the part or point to cut into or out of, the software makes the perfect cut and splice with zero clicks. I have used this for punching in as well as simple editing. The proof in the pudding, as they say, is when I need to do a punch in to correct a lead guitar missed note. I set my punch points.... in and out... delete the offending part between those points and then play/record the new guitar part. I have done this where the guitar had a held note going in. Where the punch in point occurred DURING that held note. The punch in was flawless as was the punch out.
Where I DO get very noticeable clicks is when I attempt to do a manual punch on a note. This happens only when the note resolution is not engaged.
This has been my experience with punches. I don't use cross fading very often. With drum edits, I never use cross fades. The thing is that once the edit is done.... I listen to it soloed to be sure the resonance fade of the drum is natural or will be buried by something else.
But like everything..... use what works for you.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 02/06/2003:33 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Yes Sonar does have a Slice at Zero Crossing option that usually works fine. Also ensuring crossfades helps but one needs to ensure how they affect the joint. If the crossfade is too long tt can be noticed.
The method I used above is very simple and works nicely for drums. The point I was making is to ensure the joint is made before the next hit. That is the place where it is least likely to be noticed.
Tony
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
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