PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist Live Arranger Mode

It would be nice, when Band in a Box could be used as live arranger, without typing in first all chords. Only this will allow to make spontaneous live music.
Es wäre toll, wenn man Band in a Box auch als Live-Arranger benützen könnte, ohne dass man vorgängig alle Akkorde eingeben muss. Nur dies erlaubt ein spontanes Musizieren.

Würden Sie den Live-Arranger-Modus auch verwenden? multiple choice, up to 2 choices
	Ja
	Nein
Votes accepted starting: 12/31/10 01:00 PM
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This has been asked of PGMusic many times; however, the answer has been that it's not in the works, mainly because of how BIAB works. It's a look ahead system that picks parts based on what's coming up in the chord progression.

I will agree that this would be nice to have (you would think they could turn of the look ahead features and just choose a pattern for the currently selected chord; however, you would still need a way to handle fills and A/B style variations. And then what happens when someone picks a style with RealTracks? Etc, etc. I suspect that it is probably conceptually easy to do, but once you start digging, it's easier said than actually done.

80% well that's a no brainer then.
There's another reason for direct play, if Biab just loads the RT data from the selected style then plays back the inputted chord direct from the RT's on the hard drive.
Else as mention you could generate up up tracks in the key/chords you want to play in and Biab on chord change will go to those bars with smooth seek like Reaper. The smooth seek will also allow the Conductor to work.

So in Arranger mode it could read all the RT RD track data in the chosen style:

so when a chord is played on the user's keyboard it will play that chord directly from the location in the source file.
If a new chord is not entered it will loop that same chord section again or another one with the same chord.

I just tried this in Reaper and it all just works playing the files direct from hard drive without a glitch, as I change the input chord it will play that section in the files on the USB drive.
It can change on the next beat or at the end of a bar.

Using Direct Access, isn't it bypassing the "look ahead" capability provided By BIAB?

Rather than choosing chord sections from the source files to join together in RAM then play,
it will choose a section for the currently inputted chord, go straight to it and play.
This is what it is doing in the video, they are 24bit 48khz files on a USB drive.
Biab could do that and be a live Arranger, I think Yamaha have audio drums but I don't know if they have audio instruments yet.
Biab could be then used with a laptop and the user's keyboard.

That would be awesome. I have a Yamaha workstation that can be the sound engine for a BIAB chord sheet except for RealTracks. It can play audio from a flash drive in sync triggered by multipads pressed manually. I do it from the keyboard and never tried it connected to the PC and BIAB.

This is using 2 BBPlugins to get a verse ending and chorus ending in the other.
It is playing the files back direct from the SavedTracks folders.
So Biab should be able to play the RTs direct and live.

I don't have an arranger keyboard so I'm not sure exactly how they are set up, but I thought something like this below, if you think that will work ?
If you hit a keyswitch that will be the next section played on a new chord or the same chord is played, the change will occur on next beat or bar. If no section keyswitch is hit it will continue with the current.

Random arranger keyboard video for reference:
https://youtu.be/sIWjlYMf49M

You can see right hand obviously plays a melody with a pre-selected instrument patch. A style is pre-selected on the keyboard for the accompaniment (similar to how we audition and select styles in BB). The keyboard has a row of buttons to start/stop the accompaniment, to switch between A/B/C/D variations, to increase/decrease tempo, and there may also be special Intro/Outro variations (with predefined chords based on a key) and drum fills that can be triggered and well as rests.


To recreate a similar set of features, it could either be built somewhere into BB or perhaps as a standalone app.

Before live playing, the following settings could be adjusted:
* Tempo
* Select style (existing BB popup window)
* Mixer (solo/mute/select track/erase track - reuse from BB)
* Choose instrument (MIDI patch or an external plugin such as Komplete or Arturia V-Collection or Spitfire)
* Choose split point (which is the lowest note that will play a note instead of being recognized as a chord)


Prominent buttons in the interface which can be clicked and linked to computer keyboard shortcuts and also MIDI controller buttons (CC mapping)

Buttons and possible keyboard shortcuts:
* Tempo Up (A) / Down (Z) / Default Recommended Tempo for style (Q or A+Z together)
* Play/Pause (SPACE)
* Drum Fill (X)
* Variation A (1) / B (2) / C (3) / D (4), etc where applicable for multi-styles
* Bass vol increment (D) / decrement (C)
* Piano vol increment (F) / decrement (V)
* Drums vol increment (G) / decrement (B)
* Strings vol increment (H) / decrement (N)
* Guitar vol increment (J) / decrement (M)

Don't read into the keyboard shortcut letters too much, it's more about their relative positions next to each other (i.e. A + Z, D + C are like Up/Down buttons).


Perhaps before playing live, users must click a Generate button after selecting a new style. This could generate various temporary WAV files for each real track with every possible chord and variation. Percussive tracks would of course be easier/different. When playing live and you press G+C+E keys on the left side of your MIDI (musical) keyboard, the program would intelligently find the pre-generated section for each real track for the current variation where a C/G and play that instantly (at the next 16th of a bar, now possible with BB 2022).

Inspiration for other features/settings could come from analyzing Yamaha/Roland keyboards further. If this were a separate feature I'd honestly pay a one-time extra $40 or $50 for it.

If PG-Music wishes, I could mock up a simple UI design for it.

The very helpful guys over at Reaper implemented the Windows Media Foundation codec to play the Biab compressed files on old or new hardware.
Here's your Biab Live Arranger playing wma direct
https://www.dropbox.com/s/g28fd8zss4me8h8/Biab-Live-Arranger-WMA.mp4?dl=0
so what Reaper is doing there Biab can do the same,
it would be good to put it in an easy programmed crossplatform language so you don't spend half the year on Win and the other half on Mac.
It just needs to be basic without all the Biab features.
When the user loads a style it just loads all the track data for those RTs and plays the user's chord input back direct from the wma/wav source file sections that are referenced in the data.
Or you can just wait till Yamaha do it

Yes, I think because of the way Biab works (generating all stuff at first), it will cause performance issues when Biab needs to react in milliseconds to ad hoc chord changes - no pre-generation of anything.

But I aggree, it would be wonderful. I enjoy playing random stuff on my Tyros in various styles on the keyboard.

Cheers
Stefan

Reaper does that, it will smooth seek on the next beat or bar to the next chord anywhere within the wma source files instantly.
Most styles just have 4-5-6 tracks, the soloist is just playing in key/scale so it keeps playing the current riff without seeking chords, drums only change when part changes from A<>B. So the only chord seeking will be with the rhythm tracks.
All the data for each track in the style is loaded so on every chord change it knows where to go and how much if at all to transpose/stretch.
Biab was made how it is because of the old days, the old days have gone though there are still old users thinking the old way.
Pretty well all DAWs work this way by playing from any start position within the source files direct with non destructive editing.

Here's Live Arranger playing Biab tracks direct from the wma source files.
So as the midi chord is inputted each track will go to that chord in each source file. That tracks were injected into reaper with Biab Track Injector

Watch https://www.dropbox.com/s/ap6d0ttuidsperv/C-Chords-Reaper-BB-Tracks-Arranger.mp4?dl=0

Download C-Chords-Reaper-BB-Tracks-Arranger.mp4

What is the chance that PG will release this at the end of the year 2022 (for Win first at least, if it's not multi platform like the Plugin Standalone Lite version without all the million and 1 features of the main app, it just loads the Style RT/RD track data and plays that direct to the chosen chord inputted. ) ?

0....100% ???

if = 0 then

1....10 years from now ?

if > 10 then

11....20 years from now ?

For me, part of the point of an arranger is to have physical control buttons available to select intros, sub-styles, fills, outros and so on, i.e., preferably not a touch-screen.

That can be done after a fashion using function keys on a PC keyboard, or on a MIDI controller pad-field, but the ergonomics are less than ideal.

I've occasionally considered putting backupband (Linux only) on something like a Raspberry Pi with a matrix MIDI controller or Novation Launchkey or similar.

I have vArranger, which is quite good, but it uses a USB key and they really don't mix with gigging unless the key is located inside the PC. I managed to break mine within about three weeks and it's now held together with insulating tape.

Kontakt is designed to be used like that.
It just needs the option to set the keyswitches of any octave on your keyboard.



You can try it in Reaper (even in Linux) this was made just to test the theory out it uses some support scripts, I will see what PG do else I will put some more work into it to be a self contained script. It works great with the BB Plugin as you can have lots of Plugins for more material than 255 bars (if the Plugin is made self contained it will work with Linux).
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=226865
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=561237

VIDEO: BB-Tracks-Live-Chord-Playing.mp4

Ah, that's interesting and also Ah, that's interesting.

That looks like it may be a useful tool. I'll try it out.

Installation looks suspect on Linux, though.

There's an additional .lua script in the forum thread with instructions to install it in "Scripts\ReaTrak". When I tried to do that, initially I could not find that directory. After a short while I tried a find . -name "*.lua"
which gave lots of hits, including numerous "Scrpits\ReaTrack\xxxxx", but when I look in Scripts I can't see them.

After a while I realised the problem ... those backslashes in the filenames are real, where on Linux I would expect forward slashes, so all those files are in the directory "REAPER", whilst I suspect they should be in the subdirectories up to the backslash.

Are you able to confirm that?
If you are, I can probably fairly quickly script a mass move. That also suggests that the .zip file is not as one would normally expect.


Edit: Oh, I realise now this is not an ordinary zip file, it ends .ReaperConfigZip
I must RTFM.

Yes, when you install .ReaperConfigZip it will install the scripts to Scripts/ReaTrak.
The Script: ReaTrak midi chord input to region chord player.lua just calls on other scripts.
It should give all the ReaTrak functions in a small, medium or large toolbar also:

I've been following the instructions in the thread to which you.
I'm unsure quite what to do with the following item:

6. Reaper > View > Toolbar Docker add or change toolbar from REAPER\MenuSets\