I think that’s ok Gordon. The second link has Simon’s answer.
So is "intensity" the same thing as "group"?
I think not. Intensity of an individual style is compared to the intensity of the collective average of all styles (all three groups, as the term is used here).
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.
that's actually a pretty cool and useful feature when browsing for suitable styles.
the "Group" column heading is quite misleading though. should perhaps be called "Intensity".
And I'm still not understanding the sort order of this column. Is it sorted just based on the intensity score, or genre/score? The latter would make more sense but I don't think this is the case. Will check when I am back at the PC.
I think the column sort order does an overall sort, but there are subtle nuances in the ordered items that don't always make immediate sense. I also presume that this is a deliberate part of the way the program sorting works in the way the presented items are ordered.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
the "Group" column heading is quite misleading though. should perhaps be called "Intensity".
Indeed, that Genre Intensity Score is the primary value being sorted on, 0 to 100, not Group (Pop/Jazz/Country) which is why the order looks off. Within a given number, the secondary sort order for grouping appears to be Jazz, Country, Pop.
They should rename the column and flip the terms so you have “75 Pop” etc.
Here is a somewhat more complete description of the feature.
Q. I'm sometimes looking for a style, but unsure if you've called it country, folk or something else, because those can be similar. Is there another way to find them?
A. We've introduced a new variable for this – called "Genre Score". That describes a style by a simple number from 1 to 100. This "genre score" works as follows: "quiet, classical, acoustic, jazz, folk" would have low genre scores (1 to 30) "loud, aggressive, heavy rock" have high genre scores (80-100), and light-medium pop would have mid-range genre scores. So, if you're looking for a quiet "living room" type style, use the StylePicker filter to only show styles with a genre score less than 40 – that might show jazz, classical, folk or other quiet-acoustic styles.
I can see the thinking, but still struggle with the execution.
Having just search for a 6/8 timed bossa/bolero style I see the following, which appears to me rather confused about genre or group. I imagine there's some history behind it.
I can't help thinking that 'intensity' should be separated from 'group' in the column, even if the genre is relevant to the decision on what is actually meant by intensity.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2026 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Ideally we could decide what column to sort on, then within that sorted order, sort on another column, then within that, sort on a third etc. Intensity would not need to be accompanied by any Group info; it could just be a number. In this way I could rank only the styles I want to choose from by intensity. I’m also assuming ‘intensity’ could be defined then determined objectively.
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.
I won’t be quoting it, but I’ve been chatting with ChatSonic, and it has ideas about this similar to those of ChatGPT. Both AIs, I assume, encountered an earlier incarnation of this “genre score” / “intensity score” while training on an old release note or something, where it is indeed some kind of index of genre influence as opposed to simple musical intensity.
Which still doesn’t explain where the idea of a “group” — not the same as “genre” — comes in, and why it’s glued to these scores in this way and sitting up there in the heading. Was “intensity” at one point supposed to be an index of influence of one of the “big three” supercategories, Jazz, Pop, and Country?
Perhaps there is a menu hack that will rename the column “intensity” and simply delete everything but the number in those scores.
My guess is that Group concept arose from the early BIAB days of providing extra paks in those three overarching categories.
I guess before the mysterious genre/intensity score was invented, the “group” column simply grouped styles into those three buckets, back in the day when it made more sense to do this, when they weren’t so many.
How someone got the idea to hijack that column the way it’s been hijacked is an interesting question in technical anthropology.
indeed, i quickly discovered this was not working as one might expect. for example, primary sort on Genre, and then secondary sort on Set within each genre.
Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Ideally we could decide what column to sort on, then within that sorted order, sort on another column, then within that, sort on a third etc. Intensity would not need to be accompanied by any Group info; it could just be a number. In this way I could rank only the styles I want to choose from by intensity. I’m also assuming ‘intensity’ could be defined then determined objectively.
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