Hi Muso,

Your thread-starting post is great! I'm on that merry-go-round with you.

When I've written a song in BIAB and my main backing tracks are in place, I then start looking for those gold nuggets (sweeteners) you mention.

Often I do this in Realband but sometimes I do it in BIAB.

My BIAB approach is this...

1) Choose and empty track.

Not the Melody track because that's where I notate my melody and adding RTs causes the melody to be overwritten with RT notation.

2) Go into RT picker.

3) Make sure the filter is cleared and all the RTs are showing.

4) Sort RTs by Tempo.

5) I then look through the "Soloist" and "Background" instruments and using the "Solo" button, I demo the instrument and listen to snippets of music to see if the feel is what I'm after.

6) It's possible to filter the RTs so that only Soloist or Background (or both) show. To do this, type SOLOIST BACKGROUND (the two words) into the RT filter and then click on "Update." When you do this, all tracks that are not SOLOIST or BACKGROUND will not be seen. (Now sort by tempo...)

7) When I'm looking for gold nuggets, I start from tempos around 10 bpm slower than my song's tempo and go through them one at a time until I'm around 10 bpm above my song's tempo. (This is why I sort by tempo. It makes it much easier.)

8) I never pay attention to genre nor instrument when I do this. I've learnt from experience that, just like you say, sometimes the best surprises come from genres unrelated to the song's genre.

9) When I find something I like, I generate the whole track. Because I assemble my songs in Reaper, often the nugget I find are located in different sections of the song. Copy and paste does the job to move them to where I want.

10) Sometimes it's difficult finding a gold nugget for a specific section—for example, an 8-bar bridge where the chord progression is...

Cm7 F7sus Fm7 Bb7 Eb Ab6 Gsus7 C9sus F (F begins the new section. I need this so I can fade my sweetener back into the mix.)

What I do in this instance is create a worksheet that replicates that chord progression, including the home-base chord "F" a half-a-dozen times. For three of those repetitions, I use A part markers and for the other three I use B part markers.

I then generate the song and listen. When I find bits I like, I note which bars they're in and I then save the RT, take it to Reaper and copy and paste to create a comped track of my sweetener sections.

I hope these thoughts help.
Noel

MY SONGS...
Audiophile BIAB 2025