Hopefully this is not too dumb of a request or set of questions. And I apologize for not having the precise musical vocabulary to articulate this as well as I'd like; I'm not a music pro.

While in the process of creating songs quite often I have a drum pattern or drum groove in my head that I would like to build a song around. I will either have a popular song that uses the desired pattern or I won't. In the case where I have a popular song as a reference I will type the song title into the Style Picker and hope it finds a style that I'm looking for. If I don't have a popular song I normally hunt and peck for one using the song's genre as a starting point. Both scenarios have failed me in the past and so I'm hoping that someone can give tips on how better to do this and/or add a stronger capability to a future version of BiaB.

Don't get me wrong, the "failing me" could easily be me not knowing how to do this. And even if that's not the case, BiaB is still a wonderful tool.

As an example of the first case I want to build a song around the drum pattern of 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover by Paul Simon. In particular I'm after the pattern in the first 15 seconds of the song.

50 Ways


See below a snipet of the 459 styles that BiaB thinks is a match. I don't have the time to audition 459 styles and the few that I have auditioned do not match.
Question 1: Am I missing something here?

To broaden this issue, there must be hundreds of existing "base" grooves and perhaps thousands of sub-variants. With a little research here are 25 base grooves.

1. 4 On The Floor
2. The Dance Beat
3. Classic Rock Beats
4. I’m Gonna Change This Up
5. The Bieber Beat
6. Pop Country Beat
7. Pop Country Chorus Beat
8. Jungle Beat
9. Cross Stick Beat
10. Ghost Note Beat
11. Anthem Tom
12. 3 Over 2 Polyrhythm
13. 4 Over 3 Polythythm
14. 4 Over 5 Polyrhythm
15. The Shuffle Groove
16. One Drop Reggae
17. Disco Groove
18. Ostinato Jazz Groove
19. Dub Step
20. Funk Pattern
21. SKA Pattern
22. New Wave Pattern
23. Samba Pattern
24. Military Patterns
25. Paradiddles

I wouldn't even know how to categorize the groove I'm after in 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover.

Question 2: I realize that BiaB is not a comprehensive drum machine but if the current version cannot provide accurate styles for these and other grooves, is this something that can be included in future versions?

Question 3: Would a 16 or 32 step drum sequencer built-in to BiaB and be compatible with the existing styles make sense?

Question 4: If BiaB cannot support this would something like EZDrummer fill this gap?

Thanks for any useful inputs.



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BiaB 2025 Windows
For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.