Hi Guys, I am a 2018 user. Since I started my journey with BIAB, I have been putting off, brushing aside, and generally avoiding all things midi, however, because it seems the only way to get a melody without painstakingly editing the notes on the notation thing-a-ma-bob,(I don't read music) I took the plunge and got myself an Akai LPK25 midi controller. It fired up and I was able to record a short piece of Jamaica Farewell in BAIB, no problem. Now I have to learn quickly whatever is necessary (and nothing more) . to make descent sounding interludes for my backing tracks. Where do I start?
When starting out don't try to use or learn all of the MIDI CC CC means Continuous Controller) as it will be very confusing. Start with the following:
CC7, CC2, CC11 = are all volume controls. If you use a wind controller you use CC2. For keyboard, bass, and guitar MIDI controllers use CC7 or CC11. Start with CC7 and once you get that down look up CC11: CC11 works in conjunction with CC7, but you don't need it to start.
CC1 - Mod wheel - its use is determined by whatever MIDI sound source you are using. Some MIDI sound sources use it as a volume controller. Others use it as a vibrato controller while some have specific parameters it controls.
CC10 - Pan will place and or move your sound from one side of the stereo spectrum to the other.
Pitch Bend - Pitch Bend will raise and lower the pitch of a given sound: the amount of change is determined by the sound source. Think of a horn player starting on a slightly lower pitch then rapidly moving to the correct pitch.
CC7, CC10, CC1 (Mod Wheel) and pitch bend are the ones to learn first.
Another thing to be aware of is Program Change, labeled PC. This will change the sound source to another sound, i.e. for instance a trumpet to a sax. If you are using a DAW you would probably put each instrument on a different track.
I will be glad to help you if you need further help.
PS - if this is redundant just let me know: I don't know exactly what you have already learned.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I'll go a bit further and say that for a beginner in midi... just learn how to get the notes in. Whether you "mouse" them in or preferably, learn how to play a midi keyboard well enough to get them in. The midi keyboard is much easier once you get the hang of it, and you can always easily edit any mistakes of simply try again, and again.
Once you have the parts.... you can convert it into audio and work with it like any other file. I have never, not even once, used any of the midi CC controllers in any of my songs. Never.
And a side note.... if you read the keyboard's manual, there;s generally a way to change the key that the midi is output as. What that means is if you can play in the key of C.... as in...all the white keys, you simply raise or lower the midi keyboards key and you can play in any key you want and use the white notes rather than the process of learning to play in all the musical keys with the black notes. For example... From the key of C, one whole step up is D with 2 sharps..... change the midi keyboard up two half steps ( one musical whole step) and you can play the white keys and it sounds like you are in D. I can't recall the times I have used this shortcut.
With BB that midi shortcut is not needed. You simply change the key of BB to C and play the parts..... Then, once you're satisfied, you simply change the key of the song in BB to whatever key and everything including your part changes.
Work smarter.... not harder.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
Thank you Mario, not redundant ay all, I know nothing. I have a keyboard controller that plugs into the USB of my PC and I have Band in a box, and that is how much I know of Midi
When you say convert to audio, does that mean you can put real tracks to it? But that will screw up the melody. won't it?
No, it means that whatever you have in your MIDI file will be turned into an audio track, i.e. no realtracks. Realtracks are audio recordings of professional players, thus they can not follow MIDI.
I respectfully disagree with my friend Herb. If you have a say BiaB piano track that sounds great as is then yes Herb's method is OK. But a dull BiaB track converted to an audio track it will be a dull audio track. For example you have a sax track that is dull, that is no pitch bend, volume changes, or vibrato your sax audio track will be dull, regardless of the price of the MIDI sound source. But you can bring that MIDI track to life with the addition of subtle pitch bends, volume changes and vibrato. Then you convert that live sax track to a live audio track.
The quality of the MIDI sound source reflects mostly on the cost of the MIDI sound source. The expection is that there are some very good free MIDI sounds available BUT I would not encourage you go start getting better MIDI at this point in time.
I will warn you that the BiaB GM MIDI sounds are some of the poorest sounds are when compared to more expensive sounds. PGMusic suggest the free Cakewalk TTS-1 MIDI GM sounds and they are much better. Also some GM sounds may not accept some CCs so don't get frustrated. If you have problems feel free to contact me.
I hope this helps.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I respectfully disagree with my friend Herb. If you have a say BiaB piano track that sounds great as is then yes Herb's method is OK. But a dull BiaB track converted to an audio track it will be a dull audio track. For example you have a sax track that is dull, that is no pitch bend, volume changes, or vibrato your sax audio track will be dull, regardless of the price of the MIDI sound source. But you can bring that MIDI track to life with the addition of subtle pitch bends, volume changes and vibrato. Then you convert that live sax track to a live audio track.
About what? I'm missing the point or something. What do you disagree about?
All I mentioned was: 1. Get the notes in by any means possible 2. You can convert the midi to audio by freezing and it works like any other audio file. 3. You can change the key of the keyboard to make things easier.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
once you have a midi track it peoduces a sound. you can convert that to an audio once you've got it but the midi and the audio you produce still remain two different kinds ways of making sounds
I respectfully disagree with my friend Herb. If you have a say BiaB piano track that sounds great as is then yes Herb's method is OK. But a dull BiaB track converted to an audio track it will be a dull audio track. For example you have a sax track that is dull, that is no pitch bend, volume changes, or vibrato your sax audio track will be dull, regardless of the price of the MIDI sound source. But you can bring that MIDI track to life with the addition of subtle pitch bends, volume changes and vibrato. Then you convert that live sax track to a live audio track.
About what? I'm missing the point or something. What do you disagree about?
All I mentioned was: 1. Get the notes in by any means possible 2. You can convert the midi to audio by freezing and it works like any other audio file. 3. You can change the key of the keyboard to make things easier.
This is the line that I was talking about "Once you have the parts.... you can convert it into audio and work with it like any other file. I have never, not even once, used any of the midi CC controllers in any of my songs. Never." A static BiaB MIDI track when convert will be a static audio track. Adding various CCs will add realism to said static track, this is especially true with guitar, bass, and horn tracks.
In my mind your statement gave the idea that you do not need CCs, which of course I disagree. If I am wrong then I apologize.
Last edited by MarioD; 07/23/2302:01 AM.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
As Mario mentions, BIAB's 'built-in' MIDI player is not great and it's well worth getting another. Curiously IMHO, PGM have quite a good engine 'hidden away' in a subfolder. It's VSTSynthFont and you'll find it in the PGM manual.
It comes with a passable soundfont, but there are other, better, soundfonts available free. I personally use mostly Compifont and "Timbres of Heaven". YMMV. Searching for "free sound fonts" may help.
There are also the bigger engines like Native Instruments' Kontakt.
With a user-played melody track, these can often sound quite good just as one recorded them, but as Mario points out, judicious use of MIDI CC command (continuous controller) can make a big difference, especially with some of the smarted sound engines. Those like the SWAM engines are amazing if costly, as are the Spitfire Audio tools for some things. There are lots of options. Small steps.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
Uhh, uhhhm, thanx guys, I guess. So I managed, quite easily, to play and record an interlude/intro. It's the trumpet section of ring of f by JC, and it sounds like a piano, not a good piano. Then knowing everything I do about midi, I went and applied some patch, of a brass section, and I played it and it sounds, well, like a piano. And I tried a few other patches, including some of the Hi Q thingys and got it to sound like, well, a piano. It did change sounds when I tried flute and some Japanese sounding thingys, but they are so horrible that I prefer the not so good piano sound. I suppose part of my frustrations have been dealt with in your comments, i.e. get a better engine. Here I was thinking it could be a flat learning curve...sigh!
Uhh, uhhhm, thanx guys, I guess. So I managed, quite easily, to play and record an interlude/intro. It's the trumpet section of ring of f by JC, and it sounds like a piano, not a good piano. Then knowing everything I do about midi, I went and applied some patch, of a brass section, and I played it and it sounds, well, like a piano. And I tried a few other patches, including some of the Hi Q thingys and got it to sound like, well, a piano. It did change sounds when I tried flute and some Japanese sounding thingys, but they are so horrible that I prefer the not so good piano sound. I suppose part of my frustrations have been dealt with in your comments, i.e. get a better engine. Here I was thinking it could be a flat learning curve...sigh!
Funny... yeah, no learning curve is ever flat. It's simply a matter of exactly how steep is the curve?
It sounds like you are not assigning the trumpet sample properly. Piano is the default so that you have sound in a lot of the midi synths. You need to assign the proper sound sample to that midi channel or synth to get the correct sound. Each synth works essentially the same however, the method or process of assigning a different sound to that synth varies depending on the particular synth you are using.
I didn't see, but maybe I just missed it... what synth are you using for your sounds with midi?
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 07/24/2308:30 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
I suspected this. You guys are overloading this guy with the information dump about MIDI CCs and expensive, high-end orchestral libraries when he doesn't even know how to change patches yet.
BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.
It would be really helpful if you told us exactly what synth you are using. That way we can tell you exactly what you need to do to switch the sound from piano to horns
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
I suspected this. You guys are overloading this guy with the information dump about MIDI CCs and expensive, high-end orchestral libraries when he doesn't even know how to change patches yet.
I meant both to be pointer to future, not immediate.
I meant VSTSynthFont64 and some good free soundfonts to be the key, now, to getting a decent sound. It's surprising how good they can be just from the plain old MIDI note data.
Get the notes in, played with what expression you can; play them back through a decent sound engine; decide if that's good enough, or rerecord, or maybe dive deeper into MIDI CCs.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
I suspected this. You guys are overloading this guy with the information dump about MIDI CCs and expensive, high-end orchestral libraries when he doesn't even know how to change patches yet.
I meant both to be pointer to future, not immediate.
I meant VSTSynthFont64 and some good free soundfonts to be the key, now, to getting a decent sound. It's surprising how good they can be just from the plain old MIDI note data.
Get the notes in, played with what expression you can; play them back through a decent sound engine; decide if that's good enough, or rerecord, or maybe dive deeper into MIDI CCs.
Same here.
But here is his initial post:
Originally Posted By: Oom Karel
Hi Guys, I am a 2018 user. Since I started my journey with BIAB, I have been putting off, brushing aside, and generally avoiding all things midi, however, because it seems the only way to get a melody without painstakingly editing the notes on the notation thing-a-ma-bob,(I don't read music) I took the plunge and got myself an Akai LPK25 midi controller. It fired up and I was able to record a short piece of Jamaica Farewell in BAIB, no problem. Now I have to learn quickly whatever is necessary (and nothing more) . to make descent sounding interludes for my backing tracks. Where do I start?
One would have assumed by this he already had at least some basics down.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Thank you guys, I have a good grip on BAIB and am comfortable with assigning real styles and real instruments. But I know nothing about midi in Band In A box.Nada...One of you suggested I go and study exactly what midi is and how it works. Synths, patches, plug-ins, VST, Dxi....I love it when you talk forren, but I don't know what yar sayin. So where do I go to for Midi 101? Oh, and did I mention that I am using BAIB 2018?
I suspected this. You guys are overloading this guy with the information dump about MIDI CCs and expensive, high-end orchestral libraries when he doesn't even know how to change patches yet.
I meant both to be pointer to future, not immediate.
I meant VSTSynthFont64 and some good free soundfonts to be the key, now, to getting a decent sound. It's surprising how good they can be just from the plain old MIDI note data.
Get the notes in, played with what expression you can; play them back through a decent sound engine; decide if that's good enough, or rerecord, or maybe dive deeper into MIDI CCs.
Same here.
But here is his initial post:
Originally Posted By: Oom Karel
Hi Guys, I am a 2018 user. Since I started my journey with BIAB, I have been putting off, brushing aside, and generally avoiding all things midi, however, because it seems the only way to get a melody without painstakingly editing the notes on the notation thing-a-ma-bob,(I don't read music) I took the plunge and got myself an Akai LPK25 midi controller. It fired up and I was able to record a short piece of Jamaica Farewell in BAIB, no problem. Now I have to learn quickly whatever is necessary (and nothing more) . to make descent sounding interludes for my backing tracks. Where do I start?
One would have assumed by this he already had at least some basics down.
Yeah. You would think.
Apparently not, judging from his posts.
Byron Dickens
BIAB. CbB. Mixbus 32C 8 HP Envy. Intel core i7. 16GB RAM W10. Focusrite Scarlett 18i 20. Various instruments played with varying degrees of proficiency.
Thank you guys, I have a good grip on BAIB and am comfortable with assigning real styles and real instruments. But I know nothing about midi in Band In A box.Nada...One of you suggested I go and study exactly what midi is and how it works. Synths, patches, plug-ins, VST, Dxi....I love it when you talk forren, but I don't know what yar sayin. So where do I go to for Midi 101? Oh, and did I mention that I am using BAIB 2018?
One of the first things that I would suggest is to load a few BiaB MIDI styles and via the mixer look at the patches, that is sounds, that are being used. Just use the GM MIDI Coyote DXI sounds that comes with BiaB: set it up like I have pictured in pic 1: left click in order 1,2, and 3 then set yours like 4,5, and 6. note you MIDI input may be slightly different looking as mine.
Look at BiaB's MIDI channel table, pic 2, again left click 1,2, and 3. Note that the bass will always be on channel 2, the drums channel 10, piano 3, etc. Now look at the patch numbers. They will be the GM sound number from the GM MIDI standard list, see
BiaB's MIDI channel will not change, the piano is always channel 3, but the patch number/sounds will change but they will always be GM MIDI. That is the patch may be patch 2 bright piano, or 4 honky tonk piano. Note that the GM MIDI list always stays the same, that is patch 2 is always a bright piano, patch 41 a violin, etc.
Sometimes there will be different instruments listed. Don't panic just look at the mixer under patches to see what instrument is listed, i.e. pic 3. The patches are listed in the identical order as BiaB's MIDI channel, thus the organ in pic 3 is channel 7, i.e. the organ replaced the strings.
Let me know if this helps any.
See next post for better pics.
Last edited by MarioD; 07/25/2312:36 PM.
I'm in a fitness protection program. I'm been hiding from exercise.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
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