PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Songwriting How to add more instrument tracks to a song

Roger Brown: "5) Then I just import them into Logic and start mixing/etc."

mrgeeze: "Do you ever use multiple version of "core" instruments (drums, bass, keys)
and mix those together in the same song/style?
Kind of like a take folder in Logic and comping a final track."

RayL: "This method works if you're using a DAW for your production:
Create your basic BIAB full length song and then get your RealTracks into your DAW.
Need another part or a solo for 16 bars? Go back to BIAB (or use the VST plugin) and create just a short section that fits your needs.
Export as needed.
Rinse, repeat as needed."

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"This method works if you're using a DAW for your production:"

Yes, exactly. Exporting BIAB tracks to a DAW is the standard operating procedure and overwhelmingly the preferred method for most BIAB artists production procedures. It works. It's intuitive and effective. It's comfortable. It provides artists opportunity to recoup some of their investment in complex and what can be costly DAW's and third party plug-ins. It provides the most efficient and effective means of control possible over every recorded track. Using this method, the pros outweigh the cons to the point most artists find no reason to question their work flow. They reason don't fix what isn't broken. I'm not about to argue with success. The BIAB User Showcase has thousands of great recordings. Not just great songs and compositions, but outstanding recordings. Other users produce quality demos daily and some have composed commercial releases. There's a lot of success linked with using a DAW for production.

But what becomes with the artist that neither has the funds, experience, or time to invest in learning extremely complicated DAW's, VST's and plug-ins? The novice who's computer skills aren't to the IT level required to blend and troubleshoot the complexities of multiple software programs to work reliably together with their computer? The hobbyist that only desires to work within and learn a single software program to use for their enjoyment and to share with friends and family but at the same time, produce high quality recordings of sufficient complexity in arrangements to equal works of more advanced producers?

My desire is to help beginners, novices and musicians that want to record great music without having to become IT experts and college graduate grade audio engineers. BIAB has features and functionality that puts it on par with hardware stand alone digital multi track recorders. Nearly every request in the BIAB Wishlist Forum can already be done solely in BIAB today and for intermediate to advanced users, there's no interest, curiosity or appeal to do those techniques in BIAB but rather export tracks to DAW's to do them. For intermediate and advanced users that are already experienced, familiar with and efficient with their DAW, there's sufficient reason to do so. That's not necessarily true for beginners and novices. Daily novices that don't know what an audio interface is, can't connect a keyboard to their computer, don't own a DAW, have a subpar (or so they're told by the advanced) USB microphone they must have that equipment and software in order to produce anything beyond a simple chord chart, single style accompaniment song using BIAB. At this time, they're not being told by intermediate and advanced users nor PG Music that a single open project of BIAB can compile an arrangement of dozens of instruments over dozens of tracks rendered onto a single stereo master audio file comparable to most intermediate and advanced projects released.

In 1979 Tascam released the first PortaStudio at a retail price of $1,000. It was a 4 track cassette based combination of a compact mixer and tape deck. The intended market was to singer/songwriters, home recording studios and to make recordings suitable for demos. (Sound Familiar?) The portastudio was not designed nor conceived to compete with commercial studio recordings because there were serious limitations to the physical recording quality and audio capture capabilities of cassettes compared to reel to reel tape machines and tape formats with higher IPS speeds, High quality tape head construction, electronic circuit design, construction and quality and nearly every other design feature considered in the three year design and testing of portastudios prior to their release. The $1 thousand price tag in 1979 would be $3,555 today which is a lot until contrasted to the average cost of $5-$8 thousand tape decks sold for that were suitable to home studio use. Although never intended for commercial grade audio releases, by 1982 Bruce Springsteen used one to complete an entire album recorded on one. The Portastudio changed how music is made. Technology today has reached a level where many mainstream artists record tracks in their home studios on equipment and in environments similar to the average BIAB user's home studio. Entire movie scores can now be recorded in an artist's bedroom on a off the shelf laptop.

Using BIAB 'in the box' to create a project removes the ambient, live, non-treated home environment from the recording equation providing pristine studio quality audio recordings. No other DAW necessary if one prefers not to use one but the artist can still produce material from a single software program that equals the audio quality and track count of commercial studios from the 1970's and prior.

Rather than spending months learning computer setup, DAW settings, processes and techniques, watching hours of YouTube videos and building audio engineering production skills, it's my theory if a beginner spends 12-16 hours over a month learning the techniques, menu's, buttons and terminology focusing solely on the operation of BIAB, they will be far more proficient in producing complex and quality arrangements in BIAB beyond the elementary 1-2-3 song production of entering song chords, selecting a key, selecting a style to generate a generic song. I haven't seen that interest, curiosity or appeal develop yet but I see the questions posted daily steering the novices to complicated and expensive alternatives.