I'm one of those mostly MIDI users.

While the RealTracks are quite good, and PG had done a great job with them, I find them lacking. Not lacking in substance, they are excellent. Lacking in the ability to edit them. MIDI is thousands of times more editable than audio.

Furthermore, I think the output of BiaB is the best auto-accompaniment output on the market. I write styles for BiaB, and I've written for others and some auto accompaniment keyboards as well.

However, it's only about as good as a decent band, you can turn that not-quite-ready-for-prime-time output of BiaB into something that sounds like a top-notch band with some editing.

Edits can be simple or complex after exporting the BiaB MIDI and importing it into a sequencer or DAW. I believe they would also work in Real Band, but I don't use RB that much.

Instrument changes:

  • Say you like that clean electric guitar part, but you would really like it on a distorted guitar or an acoustic? Click - click - it's done.
  • Or an acoustic piano to a Rhodes, or a clav, or a jazz guitar? Click -click
  • Or that brass part on a sax section? Click click
  • Or the ride cymbal on the drum kit to be the cymbal bell, or a cowbell, or a shaker? "Exploded" the drum kit and transpose the cymbal to whatever you want.
  • Or you might not like the chord inversion BiaB chose, and you want a particular note on top? Easily done.
  • You can rearrange the drum rolls, or completely eliminate one when you change from A to B substyle or whenever you like. It's copy and paste time.
  • There are thousands of real simple edits like this you can do with MIDI that are impossible or near-impossible in Audio. I could write an entire book.


For slightly more advanced:
  • So many songs have 'song specific licks' in them, they can be inserted into the parts using MIDI, and you can use the same instrument voices - exactly
  • The intros and endings in BiaB run from decent to sloppy, are too short, and very generic. You can insert your own intros and endings using the very same voices as the rest of the song.
  • Some songs have rhythmic kicks, much more complex than the simple shots in BiaB, and you can insert these also with exactly the same instruments.
  • You can hold a note as long as you like, for 12 bars if you want
  • You can exaggerate the groove
  • You can increase or decrease individual drum notes like the 2 and 4 of the snare only
  • Instead of doing changes in tempo/volume/etc on a measure by measure basis, you can do real crescendos, diminuendos, accelerandos, ritardandos, etc.
  • sometimes harmonies are too perfect, you can put the highest part in a horn section a tiny bit sharp, the lows note a tiny bit flat adjust others to the curve, and it ends up like stretch tuning a piano, and sounds more realistic.
  • Again I could go on and on and on and on


A good MIDI synthesizer can sound more than 90% as real as a good player on a real instrument. But tone is actually less than half the story. After all, a lot of singers and instrument players with less than stellar tone have made zillions of dollars. Plus, people have and still enjoy music on everything from the historic 45RPM records to cassette tapes to mp3s and a lot in between.

What people really listen to is expression. You can amp up the expression of a MIDI file in zillions of ways that are unavailable to audio files.

I like to take the very good output of BiaB and turn it into something more personalized and, if I do my job right, better sounding. As I do this more and more, I actually learn a lot about music by making discoveries on what I did wrong and what I did right.

But then I like to play music and play with my music.

Don't get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with the Real Tracks. If you like the output and don't want to play with the music after BiaB generates it, enjoy.

There is more than one right way to make music. My way isn't for everybody and isn't necessarily the best way. It's just my way.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks