I'm quite out of touch with BIAB's current capabilities. I know you could create custom styles for a very long time.
But can you create custom bass lines? Say in bars 1-8 you want a specific, note for note bass line including specific accents. Can you do this in BIAB?
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
BIAB's current capabilities include "Playable Real Tracks" a capability that allows users to edit the real tracks (bass Real Tracks in your case) in their song to make the instruments play something note for note. In my limited experience, doing this is very similar to using the piano roll to edit a midi track (editing midi is something that BIAB has offered to users for as long as I can remember).
With that said, if your bass track is not a RealTrack bass but a midi bass, then the answer is a YES, by using good old piano roll or notation editing.
Others may be able to embellish or add on to these suggestions.
and of course with midi you can record the bass line you want with a midi keyboard.......i normally do it in RB as I find RB nore transparent than BIAB. choose the bass track, delete the notes you don't want and play in the ones you do.
BIAB's current capabilities include "Playable Real Tracks" a capability that allows users to edit the real tracks (bass Real Tracks in your case) in their song to make the instruments play something note for note. In my limited experience, doing this is very similar to using the piano roll to edit a midi track (editing midi is something that BIAB has offered to users for as long as I can remember).
With that said, if your bass track is not a RealTrack bass but a midi bass, then the answer is a YES, by using good old piano roll or notation editing.
Others may be able to embellish or add on to these suggestions.
Thanks Bruce. I am a little confused with your reply.
First it seems you are saying you can edit the Bass Real Track (which is what I'd like to do) even going so far as to say it's similar to editing a midi track (which I'm quite familiar with).
But then in the very next paragraph you seem to counter what you just said! You say with Midi, then YES. It sounds like you are saying with midi Yes, Real Track/audio No. Could you please clarify what you were trying to say?
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
This video might give you some clues as to how Playable RealTracks work:
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
First it seems you are saying you can edit the Bass Real Track (which is what I'd like to do) even going so far as to say it's similar to editing a midi track (which I'm quite familiar with).
But then in the very next paragraph you seem to counter what you just said! You say with Midi, then YES. It sounds like you are saying with midi Yes, Real Track/audio No. Could you please clarify what you were trying to say?
The concept is a bit confusing, rather than Bruce's mention of it.
RealTracks are pre-recordings of a musician playing and are pitch/speed shifted to match your song.
MIDI is a stream of commands to drive whatever sound-engine you are using.
Playable RealTracks are a kind of hybrid.
When you make a section of a RealTrack into 'Playable', it changes the track's behaviour from "pre-recorded, shifted" to pure MIDI, and then uses sforzando to get samples from the RealTrack file to use as its MIDI sound samples. The result is that BIAB plays the RealTrack until it reaches the 'playable' bit, switches essentially seamlessly to the sforzando synth engine to generate the 'playable' bit, then switches back, again essentially seamlessly, to the RealTrack. Because the samples used all came from the RealTrack, tone, timbre, etc. all match nicely with the RealTrack.
It loses a little of the more natural sound of the pure RealTrack, but used in moderation that hardly notices.
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 .
"Playable RTs" are the best option within BIAB. The process isn't a clumsy as the nomenclature. Aside from playing & recording your own bass or synth it's what exists and isn't too bad. You could fool around with pitch, timing and such in something like Melodyne BUT that will REALLY screw with the sound.
Last edited by rayc; 09/17/2310:44 PM.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
... The result is that BIAB plays the RealTrack until it reaches the 'playable' bit, switches essentially seamlessly to the sforzando synth engine to generate the 'playable' bit, then switches back, again essentially seamlessly, to the RealTrack. Because the samples used all came from the RealTrack, tone, timbre, etc. all match nicely with the RealTrack.
It loses a little of the more natural sound of the pure RealTrack, but used in moderation that hardly notices.
Thanks Gordon. This is what happens when you take an hiatus from BIAB for a couple of years. You miss these new features and the terminology that goes along with them.
I was quite familiar already with RealTracks, and so when Bruce started talking about 'Playable RealTracks' I just blanked the 'Playable' part and assumed he was talking about just RealTracks.
What I don't get with your explanation above is why the end result loses a little of the pure RealTrack natural sound? Heck I don't even know what the 'sforzando synth engine' is. I assume it's yet another synth sound. Midi plays synth sounds and then you have real audio sounds. Those are the BIG TWO and there really isn't anything else right?
So it seems you are saying Playable RealTracks splice together real audio sounds with synth sounds (in my case my bass line)? But you say it's very subtle and most people wouldn't notice the difference in sound. I can hear the difference between the two and that's why I always prefer working with real audio.
So we haven't yet reached the stage with BIAB where you can have it play real audio lines (with accents) that you have input?
Last edited by BIABman; 09/18/2305:38 AM.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
"Playable RTs" are the best option within BIAB. The process isn't a clumsy as the nomenclature. Aside from playing & recording your own bass or synth it's what exists and isn't too bad. You could fool around with pitch, timing and such in something like Melodyne BUT that will REALLY screw with the sound.
Thanks Ray!
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
What I don't get with your explanation above is why the end result loses a little of the pure RealTrack natural sound? Heck I don't even know what the 'sforzando synth engine' is.
The RealTracks have the full playing style of the musician; the "playable" part is played from a MIDI segment, so any "live" expression can't easily be included. For that short part you get the slightly more robotic sound of a MIDI player, rather than the RealTrack.
Sforzando is a soundfont player rather than an, e.g., Moog-type synthesiser. It's perfectly capable of playing pretty good sounds of traditional instruments. It's the engine that PG use in the "Hi-Q" sounds. Much better than CoyoteWT.
The answer of course is to try it for yourself and see if it behaves as you want. It has its limitations, but pretty much everyone seems to think the "Playable" feature is a plus.
I presume in this case that "Hi-Q" refers to "high-quality" sounds. [For me as an engineer, the term implies a narrow-band filter.]
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 .
The RealTracks have the full playing style of the musician; the "playable" part is played from a MIDI segment, so any "live" expression can't easily be included. For that short part you get the slightly more robotic sound of a MIDI player, rather than the RealTrack.
OK so if I understand you correctly, when you add Playable Real Tracks you are adding the standard RealTracks plus a midi component (which is the 'playable part')?
The two are blended together?
I was hoping that the part that was played (midi) was then somehow turned into an audio track and merged with the RealTrack, so the net result would be all audio.
Perhaps this will happen in the next version or sometime in the future?
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
The RealTracks have the full playing style of the musician; the "playable" part is played from a MIDI segment, so any "live" expression can't easily be included. For that short part you get the slightly more robotic sound of a MIDI player, rather than the RealTrack.
OK so if I understand you correctly, when you add Playable Real Tracks you are adding the standard RealTracks plus a midi component (which is the 'playable part')?
The two are blended together?
I was hoping that the part that was played (midi) was then somehow turned into an audio track and merged with the RealTrack, so the net result would be all audio.
Perhaps this will happen in the next version or sometime in the future?
You do get continuous audio. The method by which it's generated is what changes.
BIAB switches essentially seamlessly from RealTrack sound to a section of audio generated using MIDI to control audio extracted from the same RealTrack source file, then switches back to RealTrack. What you get out of the end of that is continuous audio.
It's the sforzando synthesiser that interprets the MIDI data into the audio, pretty much like any MIDI would interpreted.
I'm starting to recognise here that the words I use are sometimes confusing for people, partly because of language differences (British/American) and partly because I ascribe a specific meaning to a word that is perhaps unclear, i.e., in this case, I think "segment". In a 40-bar song, we might have 18 bars of RealTrack, two bars of "playable RealTrack" (MIDI) and 20 further bars of RealTrack. There would then be three segments of respectively 18, 2 and 20 bars duration. The first and last would be normal RealTrack play and the two-bar segment between them would comprise audio generated by sforzando.
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 .
MIDISuperTrack is a performance by a session musician but the performance is recorded midi data instead of audio. Band-in-a-Box then pairs the midi data with a Hi-Q instrument.
MidiSuperTracks can be edited just like regular midi.
You do get continuous audio. The method by which it's generated is what changes.
BIAB switches essentially seamlessly from RealTrack sound to a section of audio generated using MIDI to control audio extracted from the same RealTrack source file, then switches back to RealTrack. What you get out of the end of that is continuous audio.
It's the sforzando synthesiser that interprets the MIDI data into the audio, pretty much like any MIDI would interpreted.
... In a 40-bar song, we might have 18 bars of RealTrack, two bars of "playable RealTrack" (MIDI) and 20 further bars of RealTrack. There would then be three segments of respectively 18, 2 and 20 bars duration. The first and last would be normal RealTrack play and the two-bar segment between them would comprise audio generated by sforzando.
OK thanks Gordon! It sounds like this Playable RealTrack might actually work for me. But it seems I'll need to upgrade before I can try it out. I have BIAB v. 2021.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
MIDISuperTrack is a performance by a session musician but the performance is recorded midi data instead of audio. Band-in-a-Box then pairs the midi data with a Hi-Q instrument.
MidiSuperTracks can be edited just like regular midi.
Thanks Jim for this additional option. I'll have to look into it too.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®
With your version 2026 for Windows Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
Android Band-in-a-Box® App (included)
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Join Tobin as he takes you on a tour of the new user interface in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®! This modern GUI redesign offers a sleek new look with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, and a smoother workflow. The brand-new side toolbar puts track selection, the MultiPicker Library, and other essential tools right at your fingertips. Plus, our upgraded Multi-View lets you layer multiple windows without overlap, giving you a highly flexible workspace. Many windows—including Tracks, Piano Roll, and more—have been redesigned for improved usability and a cleaner, more intuitive interface, and more!
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Windows Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Windows & Mac 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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Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Windows Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Windows & Mac Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
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All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
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.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
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