New to the forums. I purchased BIAB back in 2015 and didn't use it all that much, but I've planned some new content that BIAB would be great for, so I upgraded to 2022.
I had a few problems with the program back in the day, but they didn't really matter. Now it's for professional stuff, it's a big deal.
So, help a brother out.
I made a test file, just 2 bars of C followed by 2 bars of F repeated several times. Using the Soda Morning Pop Real Tracks (if that matters).
For whatever reason, the track plays great for the first 12 bars, lots of C - Csus4 embellishments. Then suddenly it starts treating that I chord as Lydian, giving me F#s all over the C chord. I can't work out why it's doing that, or how I stop it.
I also noticed that randomly on one of the C chord... it plays a huge Db in the bass. It sounds awful (obviously) and I can't use it.
I've gone through your list and nothing helps. All those things would make sense if I were doing a jazz arrangement, and I'd do things like that back in the day, but this is the most simple I - IV pop backing.
Check the video I just made of it.
0:09 - plays the C with a #11 despite the key being C, it's playing as though it were G
0:15 - TECHNICALLY if the key is set to C you'd expect the F to not have Bbs, but that's stylistically correct, so all good
0:21 - perfection. Plays the C as a C... but then I have to wonder... why is the program inconsistent with itself?! Every other C is fine, so why is JUST THE FIRST one lydian?!
0:57 - There's absolutely no explaining why BIAB is putting a Db in the bass there. I certainly haven't told it to!
The bad bass note definitely seems to be a bug with RT3957 For RT4013, I tend to agree about the #11. It seems to have been intentional in this style, but especially if you enable 'simple' it should not do that. We'll look into this.
awesome! I'm glad I'm not crazy, though it's still worrying that it was literally the first random track I picked.
As for it being intentional in the style, I'm sure that's correct. It's not like it's playing the #11 EVERY time. It's clear it was recorded with both approaches in mind because the sus4 version is there and plays most of the time. It just seems like there's an oversight in BIAB design where when creating chords it would be useful to be able to either set modality, or specify which extensions can be played in embellishments.
The example I gave yesterday was a minor chord. The 6th on a minor chord is a dangerous one, if you play the wrong one, you'll know it.
So how does BIAB deal with that?
If my minor chord is in a dorian context then the 6 is fine as an embellishment, but the b6 will be awful. It's suggested that the way around this is to write a minor6 chord and that way the program won't play a b6... but then the program actually plays a m6 chord, and that's probably not what you want.
Chords have the notes in the chord, and then the notes that are used in the tracks to embellish that chord. It seems like allowing users to control that is super important.
It’s hard to say based on your first experience, but I think it could just be bad luck. However, I write Brazilian jazz that uses all sorts of complex chords so I have never attempted a song in BIAB that didn’t have them.
When in the very rare case we find a provably wrong RealTrack, we send an email to support@pgmusic.com and they do some programming fix and issue a patch.
So my suggestion is work with BIAB a little more and see. You clearly understand music theory far better than most, so you may notice things that others let pass.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
The good thing here is that it has been acknowledged by one of the top experts at PG Music, so a fix will be forthcoming for sure.
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