Hello Dan,

To make a RealDrums style that simply loops the four bars, you might think you could just do this:

pattern,Normal,A,5,0,4,1

However, a bit more is required for this style to be fully functional. First, this style wouldn't be able to play anything during the B section of the song or middle chorus, so you would need to add:

pattern,Normal,B,5,0,4,1

But this style still wouldn't have anything to play in a fill bar (the bar before a part marker) or in a postfill bar (the bar that has the part marker). In addition, it wouldn't be able to play anything during the count-in or in the ending bars, and wouldn't be able to play shots or pushes. You may not need to hear a drum fill, but you don't want your drums to become silent at a fill bar so there has to be something designated as a fill - it can be regular playing.

Adding 2 bars at the beginning of your wave file for the count-in, followed by your 4 bars of playing, followed by an ending, and then a bar for a shot might give us something this:

pattern,Count-in,0,5,0,2,-1
pattern,Normal,A,5,0,4,1
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,4,1
pattern,PostFill,A,5,0,4,1
pattern,PostFill,B,5,0,4,1
pattern,Fill,A,5,0,1,4
pattern,Fill,B,5,0,1,4
pattern,ending,Aending,5,0,2,5
pattern,ending,Bending,5,0,2,5
Shot,1,7,0,480,1,90
Shot,0,7,0,480,1,90

However there is a problem with this, which is that your 4 bars of playing can now only play if there is a partmarker every 4 bars. This is because we have designated the last bar of playing as a fill bar. We need to add another bar to your wave file after the 4 bars of regular playing for the fill (you can just copy and paste from one of your existing bars).

The next problem is that BB won't be able to find any patterns to play if it needs a 1, 2, or 3 bar gap to fill. (i.e. if the number of bars between partmarkers can't be divided by 4). So at mininmum we need to add a 1 bar pattern (don't need to add any more bars to your wave file for this).

You may want BB to play the one bar pattern ONLY if it is not possible for it to play the full 4 bar pattern. In this case, set the relative weight of the 4 bar patterns to 9 (always play). So you would end up with a wave file that has a total of 10 bars, and the text file like this. Note that the count-in is considered to be bars -1 and 0.

wavename=FourBarDrumLoop_110_Style.wav
TimeSig=4
Offset=-8
dBAdjust=-4
Pushamount8=62
Pushamount16=30

pattern,Count-in,0,5,0,2,-1

pattern,ending,Aending,5,0,2,6
pattern,ending,Bending,5,0,2,6

pattern,Normal,A,9,0,4,1
pattern,Normal,B,9,0,4,1
pattern,Normal,A,5,0,1,2
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,1,2

pattern,PostFill,A,9,0,4,1
pattern,PostFill,B,9,0,4,1
pattern,PostFill,A,5,0,1,1
pattern,PostFill,B,5,0,1,1

pattern,Fill,A,5,0,1,5
pattern,Fill,B,5,0,1,5

Shot,1,8,0,480,1,90
Shot,0,8,0,480,1,90


You can download the final style from the link below (Tempo 110 bpm only). Unzip the folder, copy it to your Drums folder, replace the wave file with your own, and rebuild your RealDrums list.
http://nn.pgmusic.com/pgfiles/support/patches/FourBarDrumLoop.zip

Andrew
PG Music Inc.