Just restarting BIAB use after a 20+ year break. Well, a lot has has been added and there is a plenty to learn to use it to its fullest capabilities. … and it sure sounds a lot better too! That said, I seem to remember that there was a way to do partial 2-bar count-ins when a song starts with 1 or more pickup chords, but I haven’t found how to best go about doing this w/o loosing the built-in count-in features (e.g., producing or not producing MIDI for the count-in measures). I was able to change the first bar to have only as many beats as the pickup length, but there seems to be no way to shorten the count-in beats to match the pickup beats for a full measure. The default solution of just adding the count-in in front of the the full pickup bar creates 3 beats of silence for a 1-beat pickup chord, which is really not what a soloist would want to hear when he/she wants to come in on the pickup beat. Is there a simple solution or at least a better way to address this?
how finished will your song be? the reason i ask is that once you've done everything in BIAB - leaving the count in the same and with no need for further editing, if you open the BIAB file in Realband you can edit the file any way you choose.
I'm assuming you get the count in for two bars and then the pick up is on beat 4 of bar 3 with silence on beats 1,2 and 3.
delete bar 2 on all tracks so bar three become bar 2, and then copy and paste the first three count in beats from bar one to the new bar two before the pick up beat.
should work! but don't forget you can still regenerate and mix and edit in RB so its not a once and for all decision.
maybe its possible in BIAB but i'm so used to doing anything a little confusing in BIAB in RB because its obvious and much easier.
I must admit when i had this issue singing live i just sang over the fourth beat in bar 2!
If you go to Options | Preferences, on the left hand side of the window you'll see there are different settings for the lead-in. You can change the type of instrument, the pattern, and volume of the lead-in.
RealBand is a Windows only application. So the above suggestion by Bob for further editing in RealBand would alternatively work in other DAWs that are compatible for Mac, like Garageband.
Thanks for all the tips. If possible, I’d prefer a solution within BIAB and not be forced to patch things up in a DAW.
Originally Posted By: Chantelle - PG Music
If you go to Options | Preferences, on the left hand side of the window you'll see there are different settings for the lead-in. You can change the type of instrument, the pattern, and volume of the lead-in. ...
Chantelle, I explored your suggestions but did not find a solution to my stated goals. I do have a few follow-up questions though: 1. It seems the Options | Preference window defines global preferences, i.e., any song-specific adjustments would not necessarily work for other songs. 2. The song-specific preferences do not support specifying a count-in pattern; only a lead-in type is selectable per song (though it’s called ‘Drum Count-in’) 3. The purpose/function of the ‘Allow Lead In Bars’ is unclear. I hear lead in counts with it enabled or disabled and it does not produce any lead in bars as far as I can tell. Can you elaborate what enabling/ disabling actually does? 4. How do I add a Melody pickup that is muted to take advantage of the smart lead in option before my first measure with chords?
One more question: The Global Preferences Audible Lead-In Volume setting does not have any effect on the actual volume of my selected count-in pattern. Is there something else I need to enable or disable, or is this a bug?
Make Bar 2, the first bar of your song. This means that Bar 1 can then be used as a pick-up bar,
If you right click on Bar 1, select "Insert bar" to insert a single bar.
BEFORE DOING ANYTHING, though, save your song and then save it with a slightly new name. This will give you two versions of the song—the original version and the version you modify. It's always good to keep the original so that you can get back to it if you need to.
<< If possible, I’d prefer a solution within BIAB and not be forced to patch things up in a DAW. >>
Is this what you're trying to achieve?
An instrument starting early on beat 4 of Bar -0- and the remaining instruments starting normally at Bar 1 and also silencing the drum count-in for beat 4?
If so, I can post step by step instructions how to do this in BIAB.
Here's how to make a pick up riff start before Bar 1 in BIAB 2021:
* Generate the song normally. * Select a track and instrument. * Open the Audio Editor. The editor should open on the correct BIAB Mixer Channel you previously selected, if not, select that channel from the drop down menu and the WAV file should be visible. This is for RealTracks. If the instrument is MIDI, then it must be converted to a WAV file. * Select the Riff you want to use for the early pick up notes. Tip: Check the Snap Box if necessary to insure the very first of a measure is captured if this is necessary. Otherwise, just be sure to highlight all of the riff. * From the Edit Menu or use Alt-C or Command-C, Copy the highlighted riff. * Select the target Track to copy the audio to. (Audio Channel or a Utility Track) * Place the curser where you want the riff to begin and Paste. For instance, if you want the riff to begin at beat 4 of Bar zero, place the curser there.
To silence the fourth beat of the Count-in:
*Select the Drums Track, highlight and copy the full Drum Track. *Paste the count-in on a Utility Track. *Highlight the fourth beat and from the Edit Menu, select silence. Optionally, if you also want to increase the volume of the count-in, highlight the full count-in and Normalize to -3db.
The reason the full drum track needs to be copied is so the original drum track can be silenced and only one drum count-in will play. Otherwise, both tracks will count-in and the fourth beat on the original track will sound and the two tracks may also not be synced correctly. Mute the original Drums Track and place the volume level to -0- (Zero) otherwise it can still be heard.
One may have to vary the audio selected to come in early in order to maintain the cohesion and continuity of the track but that will be obvious. All of the other tracks will begin at Bar 1 normally. Of course, any audio from the channel can be selected to use for the Pickup riff. For example a guitar RT solo beginning at Bar 24 can be selected and copied and pasted at Beat 4, Bar 0 and be the pickup riff.
With the introduction of BIAB 2021, multiple instruments can easily be copied in this way, they can also be made to create a staggered intro. (This is also possible in earlier versions but is a bit more involved so I'll only explain if for version 2021)
This reads a lot busier than the process is and a single instrument pickup riff takes less than a minute to complete solely in BIAB.
Hope this helps and just ask for clarification if there are any issues.
Thanks a bunch, will probably be able to try this over the weekend and report back how it worked out or what problems I ran into. Seems like not too much trouble to adapt to slightly other needs.
Just started my first dive into the audio editing part of the exercise. After a few startup issues (BIAB crashed twice on me) I believe I managed to produce and capture a four track full band pickup and place it all in 4 utility tracks. Ran out of time to do more, but the rest of the instructions seem pretty straight forward to successfully finish what I was looking for. Big thanks again Charlie. Now I just need to develop a routine on how to do this quickly for songs with 1, 2, or 3 pickup beats. As an added benefit it will also be useful to polish up endings.
Just started my first dive into the audio editing part of the exercise. After a few startup issues (BIAB crashed twice on me) I believe I managed to produce and capture a four track full band pickup and place it all in 4 utility tracks. Ran out of time to do more, but the rest of the instructions seem pretty straight forward to successfully finish what I was looking for. Big thanks again Charlie. Now I just need to develop a routine on how to do this quickly for songs with 1, 2, or 3 pickup beats. As an added benefit it will also be useful to polish up endings.
That's wonderful. You'll get the hang of it and develop a workflow quickly because the BIAB Audio Editor's functionality is similar to other DAW basic editor functions. As eduardodsv noted, the BIAB Audio Editor is versatile and adaptable to many other uses like trimming the intros and endings, copying and pasting chords to replace wrong inversions or a riff that's repeating too often.
All finished now. Decided to not copy the whole drum track and just overlayed the count-in with a louder version and pasting in the the drum part for the pickup beat. My first regenerate did not produce synchronized count-ins, but subsequent regenerate requests produced very acceptable results. On the positive side of this work around I can still change the speed and regenerate tracks and make any other structural or chordal song changes. On the negative side I can no longer make style changes as those would introduce a non-matching pickup / song style change going into the first bar. A couple of BIAB behaviors I unexpectedly stumbled over are that 1. The count-in volume control does not seem to work for real track drums (based on the parameter value range it looks like a MIDI specific setting) 2. The count-in pattern is only a global preference and not song specific, which would be nice to have for songs with different number of pickup beats. But maybe the smart lead-in option combined with a muted pickup will produce a dynamic count-in adapting to the song pickup length. 3. There seems to be no option to move an audio track segment. The workaround seems to be using repeated cut and pasts to get it in the right spot when a fine lineup with other tracks maters. 4. The snap option is almost useless for real track segment identification as track segment entries relating to different instruments are pushed slightly different and the length of notes held goes slightly beyond bar beat times. That said, a bit of patience and trial and error got me close enough to grab what I needed and placed it in sync with the rest of the song. 5. The cut function does not seem to always remove every ‘sound’ from the selected region, even when repeatedly selected and cut. The left over ‘waveform’ does not have a lot of amplitude and is always short (at least what I saw) and may just be a waveform display artifact, but it’s hard to tell for sure.
Thanks again for all the feedback. It got me moving in the right direction and a good result.
<< 3. There seems to be no option to move an audio track segment. >>
There are actually two ways to edit audio in BIAB. The Audio Editor and Edit Audio under the Audio Tab at the top of the main screen. The Audio Editor works with both the Audio Channel and the 16 Utility Tracks in BIAB 2021 although some features are disabled on the Utility Tracks. The Edit Audio is specific to the Audio Channel in every yearly version since 2014 I think and it does have a command to timeshift audio in miliseconds. The default resolution is 120 but this can increased incrementally to 1920 if my memory is correct.
I recommend you continue to use and experiment editing audio in BIAB because over time you will find other behaviors of how Audio and BIAB interact that aren't duplicated in third party DAW's and some behaviors aren't to the extent in RealBand as they are in BIAB.
<< 4. The snap option is almost useless for real track segment identification >>
This may take some experimentation and additional use. I use the Snap to option a lot in selections and placing audio as well as copy/paste tasks. It's a very powerful tool for the interaction of BIAB with audio. It allows BIAB to make very professional automatic smooth transitions, intros, endings and cross fades.
I truly appreciated your support and the detailed process description. Saved me whole bunch of time trying to find the least effort work around. Just one final question: what is the most effective way to communicate with PG Music support to resolve undocumented details of BIAB options/settings or to report potential bugs (including experienced program crashes)?
I truly appreciated your support and the detailed process description. Saved me whole bunch of time trying to find the least effort work around. Just one final question: what is the most effective way to communicate with PG Music support to resolve undocumented details of BIAB options/settings or to report potential bugs (including experienced program crashes)?
There are two recommended methods: 1: Use the Chat option when this is available (see bottom RH corner) 2: email: support@pgmusic.com
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