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.
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.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 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.
Steve, when trying to do a cover song and a specific lead or drum part is needed I try to find a MIDI song. Drums are something that MIDI excels in and with a good drum sound source they can be as good as RDs. Plus they are much easier to manipulate.
Here is a good MIDI file of 50 Ways to Leave your Lover:
Thanks Mario, got the file and it raises more questions. But before I get ahead of myself here:
Am I missing something from the 459 styles it returned? Could 1 of the 459 actually be a good match?
Notwithstanding the file you posted is this a valid wish request or is it too complicated/expensive to implement in BiaB? In other words, is nobody else interested in this capability being embedded in BiaB?
Can EZDrummer handle this?
Regarding the file you uploaded, where did it come from? If you created it, please take no offense but it doesn't have the drum roll on the snare that is signature to the pattern. I'm certain that the pro drummers PGMusic has used could lay this groove down easy peezy.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 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.
Bass Thumper, While BIAB has some great drum grooves, its not a silver bullet for all your drumming needs. Sometimes I would use "in-house" drums, sometimes I would mix BIAB drums with drums from other plugins. Sometimes I would replace them altogether. Maybe one day PGmusic will make their robo "Drummer", but I don't think that should be a priority because...
Out of most instruments, drums are fairly easy to program these days. And they will sound very realistic (because they are sampled) And there are quite a few programs that can handle it very well (including EZdrummer). Two of my favorites are Studio Drummer by NI (included with Komplete) and Steinberg Groove Agent. They are very different plugins (included content, workflow) but that difference is also their strength. It is super easy to add new 3rd party MIDI grooves to Studio Drummer (and grooves are fairly cheap). You can run your project and just audition drum parts on the fly, without stopping, until you find what you are looking for.
For PGmusic drums, I wish they would focus on grooves that are hard to program or very specific genres that just sound better when played live.
First of all, love your well thought out and researched question. It helps us a lot when trying to provide you with good answers.
Mario's find a midi file, download and use the file drum track is the immediate answer I thought of for a song with a drum track that is as distinctive as 50 Ways To "Leave A Lover". It is likely the quickest and easiest way to get that drum part since it is so unique.
Using PG Music BiaB provided drums I would use a combination of midi drum march styles for the snare only parts of the song and other midi drum styles for the chorus parts of the song. By using midi drums throughout the song you don't have to worry about matching drum tones.
Now for your other questions.
Quote:
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?
New styles sometimes include new RealDrums so they are included in new releases.
Quote:
Question 3: Would a 16 or 32 step drum sequencer built-in to BiaB and be compatible with the existing styles make sense?
I think a 16 or 32 beat drum sequencer would be a great addition to Band-in-a-Box. The drum sequencer could use the program's midi synth selections since they have drum kits. What would REALLY be nice would be if the drum sequencer output could be sent to the Stylemaker. I hope you will make the wishlist request so I can support it.
Quote:
Question 4: If BiaB cannot support this would something like EZDrummer fill this gap?
Several forum members use apps like EZDrummer to create custom drum tracks.
I doubt very much that any of those 459 will be a good match without a lot of manipulation. The drum track you are seeking is specific to that song and not a generic beat that could be used in other songs, i.e. much like a guitar lead such as Sunshine of Your Love.
IMHO I don't think this is a valid request. IF PGM writes a track for one specific song they would get bombarded with requests for other songs. Plus they might be on thin ice with the copyright cops. There is an old MIDI file that is the piano for Ray Charles' What I Say and when I tried to use it it always sounded like What I Say. I forget the name of the style and that was a long time ago.
EZ Drums and other drum software could handle it IF you either write the drum part via MIDI or load the drum track from a MIDI song. This is the best MIDI file you can find but you have to purchase it.
I did not create it I just found it on the Internet.
I'm sure the PGM Pro drummers could but again it would be for only one song. Plus the way music lawsuits are flying around PGM might get sued for copyright infringement IF the drum part is exactly like the original. Now I am not a lawyer nor have I played one on TV so that may or may not be true.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Question 3: Would a 16 or 32 step drum sequencer built-in to BiaB and be compatible with the existing styles make sense?
I think a 16 or 32 beat drum sequencer would be a great addition to Band-in-a-Box. The drum sequencer could use the program's midi synth selections since they have drum kits. What would REALLY be nice would be if the drum sequencer output could be sent to the Stylemaker. I hope you will make the wishlist request so I can support it.
Thanks Jim (and Rusty), I think I'm slowly but incompletely understanding this. I guess what I'm still baffled by is that IMHO, BiaB meets all of my major instrument classes hands down. Piano, organ, flute, guitar, bass, strings and more. If I need these instruments, they're meeting my needs. But there are certain drum patterns I (and presumably others) simply can't find in BiaB despite the fact that it reports 459 of them!
So is 2 things happening here? 1. The algorithm used to count matches is very, let's say liberal? 2. Based on the sheer number of possible drum patterns it would take terrabytes and decades to capture them all in RealDrum format?
And regarding the 16 or 32 step sequencer, of course the idea is for the sequencer output be sent directly to the Stylemaker. The whole point is to have seamless connectivity between the drum pattern and everything else in BiaB.
I don't want to beat a dead horse here, I'm just trying to understand if it's worth pursuing this wish or just accept this limitation and buy EZDrummer or similar program and hope it will live nicely with BiaB. I'm assuming here that EZDrummer could be used to create a good representation of the "50 Ways" drum pattern and other patterns not in BiaB.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 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.
I did not create it I just found it on the Internet.
I'm sure the PGM Pro drummers could but again it would be for only one song. Plus the way music lawsuits are flying around PGM might get sued for copyright infringement IF the drum part is exactly like the original. Now I am not a lawyer nor have I played one on TV so that may or may not be true.
Hmmm, OK. I not a lawyer either. I thought drum patterns like chord progressions can't be copywrited but what do I know.
I think this is boiling down to the vast number of possible drum patterns and the cost of keeping up to have them all recorded by the pro drummers.
PS> I'm glad you didn't create that MIDI file and that it's not your personal pride and joy But thanks for sharing it. It's helping me understand this subject.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 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.
Bass Thumper. You overthinking this. Really. Drum plugins are very good these days. EzDrummer has a 10 day trial, so as Groove Agent (30 days). That should be enough time to get a taste of it There are tons of drum "grooves" available of all kinds of genres and feels at very fair prices, the ones you don't have to worry about lawyers. You might find something even better than what you are looking for.
I can only speak of drums plugins I have tried, but I am sure EZdrummer has options for swing / humanize and other tools to get very close to where you need to be in composition.
EzDrummer supposedly is "EZ"
Groove Agent's workflow, I believe is a bit more complex (to me), but it has most of things that you can possibly want (hand percussion and electronic drums for example aside from several acoustic kits)
Free is a good price to pay to try either or both of these
Just for the record, it is not the latest and greatest, but BIAB has had a 16 step drum grid sequencer included as part of the MIDI stylemaker since its inception. However, a better choice would be to use the stylemaker wizard to make a MIDI style including the drums from the midi file provided by Mario.
cxp brought up some good points. To check out Band-in-a-Box's StyleMaker feature navigate to File > StyleMaker. This brings up a sub menu of multiple choices. I would make sure a midi style is loaded and select "Edit Current Style". That way you can look at the existing style to get a better idea how the StyleMaker works.
The "Help" button on the StyleMaker windows is very useful. +++ HERE +++ is a making a style video tutorial.
As far as I understand it - the algorithm that count matches does not really identify any uniqueness of the drums of the song for the search.
As far as I have found it only categorizes the the search parameters "category", "time signature", "feel" and "tempo" for the song.
So if one enters the same parameters in the search fields manually without the title search at all, you get the same result ie the same list of styles.
It does not try to rank the styles in the order of best matching drum pattern for the song.
At least that is my conclusion but I might be wrong.
BIAB 2026, Studio Pro 8, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
I think this issue is what many users expect from the title search ie some mechanism to drop the “groove” of a song into BIAB (as audio, or midi) and BIAB to analyse the song and trying to extract the underlaying drum pattern and/or bass and from that refining and ranking the current styles search list (category, time signature, feel and tempo) with styles in order containing the best matching RD and bass.
BIAB 2026, Studio Pro 8, Song Master Pro, Win11 Home. i7-9700K CPU, 32GB, ESI MAYA44eX, ZOOM UAC-2, Guitar Pro 8, Transcribe, (EZKeys2, EZD3, SD3, EZBass, EZMix3) Amateur: fiddle, guitar, vocal, beginner on bass.
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
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