PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Anybody know of Albums...

released using BIAB? professional or otherwise.

...

I think there are actually quite a few. Most that are done by posters here are announced in the Off-Topic forum, although those are primarily songs and not full albums.

What was wrong with the old way to get your album out?

Thanks

Cost, accesibility, lack of skills on other instruments, besides guitar.

Having to deal with other musicians who want to make the project there's, and take credit for it, when you did all the writing and singing.

Not having a ton of experience producing or recording.

Being a solo artist, and having to explain the other musicians who played on it, when they are just hired musicians.

other than that...

For a while there I though real band might be a viable option, I just dont know how it would sound for rock and pop music.

Playin, personally, I don't see why not. Maybe some work on your part to get the arrangements, effects, and mix you want. MIght take some time to pull it off but why wouldn't it be viable?

If that's your goal why not try and see what you can do. Rock and Pop covers a lot of ground. But whatever sub genre you do, I'm assuming you are a guitar player who sings which in my view gives you an advantage with all the editable backing tracks styles using both real instruments and midi in RB/BIAB.

I've heard stuff where people are still learning that is good and I've heard highly skilled stuff that will blow your socks off using these products.

Thanks Josie and The Pussycats.

That's what I need is somebody saying "yes, you can"

You're right im gonna get the whole set, and see what I can do with it, I think at very least
some of the lighter stuff would work, the heavier stuff maybe not as much.

or at very very least I end up with an excellent sketch.

Thanks again.

Have you ever done an album with a bunch of musicians? I have and it's a lot of work. And a lot of fun as well but it can be costly. In 1983 it cost $10K to get 1000 LPs on the street. If you put as much effort into your album using RB as you would with a bunch of musicians you'll get just as good a product. If you have the talent to be all things especially producer.The producer is key to a good project.

I know it used to cost a fortune, still would i'm sure.

I've done several studio projects and brought in band members, not for whole albums but 3-4 songs, and i've spent over 2 grand, just recording, and then ther'es alway stuff that bothers you that you wished you could fix.

Then the cost of mastering and printing CD's, and at that point you haven't even put it up for sale yet.

Nowadays, it's all DIY types of musicians making computer recordings and selling them on CDbaby etc.

It makes a whole lot more sense to DIY, and/or use BIAB, but at the same time the music suffers. Music today isn't as good partly because one guy is playing writer, band, engineer and producer, and
most music produced today is all done to a click track, which weakens it considerably.

Yet, nobody seems to notice except old school musician/artists.

So what to do....

"most music produced today is all done to a click track, which weakens it considerably"

not sure if serious ..

Using a click is not what ruins music.
Using computer generated/sequenced parts that are too perfect can be a give-away and turnoff though.
Nobody 'in the pocket' and everything right on the beat perfectly (yuck).
That is where realtracks go WAY above other methods of computer generation. They are much more real!
Some of us 'old school musicians' are quite bothered by recordings that obviously lacked (and needed) a click.
Pop/rock genre is one that requires rock solid tempo.

I cant picture a beatles or stones song played to a click track, it wouldnt be the same. human beings
slow down and speed up as a natural tendency, when it doesnt it's not human any more.

I suggest you read some articles.

SXSW: Little Steven(big time rock veteran) says music stinks and here's why
AUSTIN, Texas --Nevermind the digital revolution, the Internet, even the economic holocaust. Steven Van Zandt addressed another major problem he sees in the music industry, the music itself.

"No one's talking aboutg that," he told a roomful of music industry professionals Friday morning at the SXSW music conference. "Why? Because it sucks. It blows. Sure nobody's buying records. No shit. They suck. Over the past 30 years I've been witness to a crisis of craft."

Van Zandt, who runs two labels (Wicked Cool and Lost Cathedral) and plays guitar in the E Street Band, listed an array of trends and changes that he said changed the direction of rock and the records being produced:

The era of 1951-1971 was the Renaissance of rock music, he said. "When we started, rock was dance music. Then we started 'listening' to music and it has been going down hill ever since. We had a mandate. You make people dance or you got fired. It requires a different energy to get people out of their chairs and dance. ... Eventually people got too stoned to dance."

Another "dangerous trend": "Bands are starting to skip the bar-band stage, the club stage, where you get the chance to play other people's songs, analyze them, understand them. ... You learn greatness from greatness. The Beatles were a club band for five years and they played covers for five more years."

He dubbed the trend of bands writing and playing only their own material the "auteur theory: "You must be a writer or you're irrelevant." A record has four components, he said: composition, arrangement, performance and sound. "It took an army of talented people to make good records. Now you do it all yourself? No wonder everything sucks.

Labels abandoned development,' he said, and DIY was born, which works well with the auteur theory. And no one is there to advise them or tell them they suck.

Here is one on pro tools dooming music.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/how-pro-tools-is-destroying-music

Lots of artists in the 60's and 70's did their thing and the other musicians were background and not really thought about. I was a huge Gordon Lightfoot fan in the 60's and 70's and he often played solo. Same for lots of duos. Neil Young appears alone a lot. Bruce Cockburn just did a gig here with just him and an acoustic guitar.

I use(d) Audacity and my sound system to record live a lot before the cancer took my voice. Remains to be seen if it comes back. I was recording a 'cd' for my 83 year old Mom who's been bugging me for it. Too bad this happened so fast, one day I'm fine a week later I'm not. Oh well, I'm still sort of kicking although I can't get over being angry about when it happened.

The use of the software can provide you with nice backing tracks. I just did a few songs for repetoire, like Foolish Things, render to .wav, convert to mp3 using Band in a Box and then take them up to the accoustic piano and stick them in the little bose radio/cd/ mp3 player. Works great. I get about 12 songs average 5 mins each and use that to play piano bar. At the moment I can stick to the real keys too, cause I don't have to transpose them for my voice, which might be a silver lining. I was having a lot of fun using Tiger w. and changing the words to Makin Woopie to that's what you get for putting around. He doesn't make much money, only 60 million per...give 80 to her..LOL.

If you can't make decent backing tracks with this software I'll eat my hat, wait ....I'm getting a chocolate one.

The most recent 4 of my 5 LawTunes (http://www.LawTunes.com) albums were created with the assistance to varying degrees and in varying ways, of BIAB as well as other computer software and hardware. My first CD ("The Lawyer's Holiday Humor Album" (1998)) was just me and my acoustic and electric guitar, non-midi keyboard, tambourine, maybe a kazoo, etc. The next 4 incorporated use of BIAB ("Legal Holidaze" (2004); "Merry Lexmas From The LawTunes" (2006); "The LawTunes: Live At Blackacre" (2007); "Season's Briefings From The LawTunes" (2009)), and in my opinion as the program has progressed along with my understanding of it each release has sounded more professional in no small part because of that. Indeed, as a result I tend to think of myself more as a producer than as a performer. I have expressed my appreciation to BIAB in media interviews, such as in The New York Times (http://www.lawrencesavell.com/pdf/20031221nytx.pdf) and on a holiday installment of the award-winning legal podcast, Lawyer2Lawyer (http://websrvr82il.audiovideoweb.com/ny60web16519/LTN/C2C/C2C_121609_Holiday.mp3). I am indebted to PG Music for creating this wonderful and educational and FUN tool, and to the contributors to this forum for their kind and knowledgeable assistance, in helping me exceed the considerable limitations of my abilities.

Im sure the Beatles used clicks on somethings, makes sense blackbird is all acoustic, a ballad... no drummer, how else would you be able to stay in time, if he did it all live than it certainly would make sense.

But if Ringo was goign to be playing on it, there would have been no click track.

So you found an example, but MOST beatle songs were done live band, no click.

i've tried to add a metronome to dozens of their songs, and it never works. certain passages work but it starts to drop off as the song progresses.

Show me a led zepplin song played to a click track...bet it takes u a long time lol j/k

Well be positive and say it wont come back!

Ive been spending time trying to find good albums/songs recorded by biab and to be honest im having a hard time. It all sounds like midi to me. The main thing I notice is that the instruments seem to have a dull sustain at the end of their passages, I guess thats cause when it changes chords something alters it.

People choose guitar picking styles, and those are the worst sounding in my opinion. Drums and bass sound good enough but the stringed instruments dont in my opinion.

Piano sounds kind of lifeless as well.

As you said "if I cant get decent backing tracks ill eat my hat. Decent works for gigs, but for recording original music?

paint me "on the fence"

Lol, interesting niche you got there. I think your stuff is good, it doesnt sound like a band however.

Also, if it's not too late, your vocals are way too high in the mix, cant hear anythng else when the singing is happening.

Cool site!

I used BIAB MIDI tracks on my second album in 1996--mostly bass and drums. The bass was fine but the sound modules available at the time did not produce convincing drum tracks, especially brush drums. My 2007 album used the first sets of Real Drums, midi bass, midi banjo, and midi keyboard in a few places. I overdubbed guitar and mandolin and brought in guest musicians to handle background vocals, electric lead guitar, harmonica, and, on the last song, piano. This hybrid form of arranging and recording works well for me. You can hear clips at CD Baby--see my signature link. (A banjo player friend of mine asked me who played banjo on one song--a BIAB midi file coupled with a great sampled banjo fooled him.)

The introduction and explosion of RealTracks has been a game-changer for BIAB and for the way I work. I rarely seek out Midi styles these days. My current project features RealTracks on piano, organ, bass, fiddle, pedal steel, and all types of electric guitars. I have added electric and acoustic guitar. The blend is to my ears incredible once I put the tracks into my DAW and add eq, compression, and reverb. The next album will be out this fall and it will be interesting to get feedback.

I spent a ton of money on my first album back in 1994--studio, musicians, blank reel tape, engineer, etc. It was fun and if I won the lottery I probably would want to try it again. But when I listen to the fine musicianship of RT players I realize that I have found more than an acceptable compromise.


Fred