PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Latest & greatest methods to get BIAB Midi Melody to sound real.

Updating the website is not in the slightest difficult.
I agree. I think that is what I said. I said I was not that great a website programmer but a person who does it day in and day out won't find making it a database a problem. For them easy.

BIAB does know what synth is loaded
Yes, I assume that because of the dare to compare page.


but no program is going to adapt to it
yes, my understanding is BIAB sends the midi instructions to the synth. Here is where I might be wrong. My understanding is BIAB can send no more than GM or GM2 midi instructions to the synth and these synth's need more in order to get that great realistic sound. But that begs the question "how did it feed proper melody instructions to those synths in the dare to compare web page". I think your Comment Matt that a few videos are needed is the solution to all this (videos tied together in proper prerequisite sequence by the course outline).

Well, no. SGU is the extension BIAB uses for a song without a melody or soloist track. MGU means the song does have something on the melody or soloist track.
I guess I need to explain a little better. I call BIAB from two programs I wrote. A program written in PHP and Javascript and also in Microsoft access VBA (visual basic for applications). It actually works out to 4 databases I have the BIAB file on (don't ask - there is a very logical reason for it that has to do with a long history). I am guessing one reason BIAB keeps changing the extension is so they can scan the tracks for categories or the styles for categories. Okays so this will not change so I decided to put at least 1 melody note on all my BIAB song files to force them to consistently be .MGU. However if trying to get the Melody Midi track to sound like real instruments is going to lead to the file extension constantly changing on me I have to develop code smart enough to deal with that automatically.

So I had the BIAB melody track set to Midi Instrument Patch "27 Jazz Electric Guitar". I set it to this midi supertrack.

I highlighted the part that might be the problem. That red sentence makes it sound like it is replacing my midi melody notes with a new set of midi melody notes but it took away the M in .MGU so I have no idea what it did. I am analysing the 3 midi options (Midi Instrument, Midi Super Track, Custom Midi Style). So these are different categories of midi instructions I take it. Changing the instrument does not clobber my notes. Maybe the other categories replace my notes (wiping out a lot of work and thus if this is true I should get a warming!). I am working with a BIAB song file copy. I will experiment. The experiment confirmed this. The organ track replaced my notes. I guess I don't use that one...lol. So I decided to save my working copy. It changed it to .SGU. Maybe this means "Solo". Okay so I tried the 3rd midi option "Custom Midi Style". This also clobbered my midi melody notes (no warning). However this time it did not change the file extension. It seems to have found a track from a midi style and dropped it in my melody track. Its a guitar rhythm. Clearly this is not what I want to do. They need a drop down for "Better Sounding Midi Melody Notes" and you get a list of soft synths to choose from just like the dare and compare web page. So then maybe it would be a good idea to tell the user the various ways you can go back to your notation and spice the notes up a bit with the edit note stuff that this synth can accept (that new button I was suggesting in the edit note dialog box).


Also I have a suspicion any BIAB track can be turned into a midi melody track.
Unless you freeze the track immediately, it will regenerate. And if the style thinks there is a RealTrack there, you must alter the style to use MIDI on that track.

I was trying to get the link to Jim Fogle's #603053 post on page two but I can't get it to work. I left the question below about his diagram.



So I think you (Matt) partly answered the question I asked Jim. To change a track to be midi I have to change the style.


I liked the PG-Music web page that said "midi instructions are like the sheet music instruction and the synth is like the human that plays the music". Simple concept but there are a boat load of numbers and number categories involved :-) My understanding is everything beyond GM and GM2 is the wild west of lack of standards across synths.

So here is my problem. I must discipline myself to let go of this. I have become very distracted (from playing music and from some Jazz Jam Clubs shared recording projects we have on the go and from house repair projects that need to get done) by this very interesting topic of trying to get the BIAB melody track being able to produce the proper midi instructions to drive various synths that produce great instrument sounds (Did I get the terminology correct). This distraction is taking a lot longer than I thought it would (more than I can afford). When PG-Music has a well thought out course of learning tied directly to their BIAB melody track (and making other tracks Midi melody tracks) I will try again (hopefully I will have time). For now I have to get my guitar finger clauses back :-) Its also not fair on the users (you guys). I am very good at learning a difficult topic like this if I have the proper videos and web pages to read in the proper sequence (a course). Don't get me wrong. Experiments work to :-) The problem is they take a lot longer and you have to make sure your BIAB file is backed up :-)