Hello. I have iReal Pro which I find really unsatisfactory. The sounds are cheesy at best. Sorry: I'm new to the concept. I've seen it for $99 but also (presumably) upgraded versions for a lot more. I just want to create tracks with an acceptable tonality and to dictate the chord changes. Is BIAB what I need? I have Windows 10 currently.
Hello. I have iReal Pro which I find really unsatisfactory. The sounds are cheesy at best. Sorry: I'm new to the concept. I've seen it for $99 but also (presumably) upgraded versions for a lot more. I just want to create tracks with an acceptable tonality and to dictate the chord changes. Is BIAB what I need? I have Windows 10 currently.
Firstly, welcome to the neighborhood.
Definitely, BIAB is a product that will deliver high-quality backing tracks based on your selected chords, music style, and instruments. BIAB has two forms of backing music. MIDI and RealTracks. RealTracks generally provide a much more dynamic musical backing as they are actual music passages recorded on real music instruments by professional players. MIDI gives you flexibility in your arrangements also.
BIAB comes in several different packages starting of with the Pro version (which is entry level and has the least number of styles) right up to the Ultra-Pak and Audiophile versions which contain just about everything. The various packages are listed here.
This video shows some of the new features in BIAB 2024:
If you decide on BIAB, then my advice is to go for the highest package that your budget allows.
Hope this helps.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Hello. I have iReal Pro which I find really unsatisfactory. The sounds are cheesy at best. Sorry: I'm new to the concept. I've seen it for $99 but also (presumably) upgraded versions for a lot more. I just want to create tracks with an acceptable tonality and to dictate the chord changes. Is BIAB what I need? I have Windows 10 currently.
The "RealTracks" in BiaB are much better sounding that iRealPro. At AudioTrack says, they're real musicians playing real instruments. BiaB adjusts the pitch and time to match the key and tempo of the song and provided one doesn't try to stretch the tempo too far, it works superbly. Styles have optimum tempo information with them.
BiaB's learing curve is, of course, longer and steeper than iRealPro's, as BiaB is much more comnplex and powerful. For a simple hack-together for practicing a new song, I tend to use iRealPro because it's very straightforward to put in a set of chords and just repeat them. If I want to do something more, than I'll definitely use BiaB.
The entry-level version is the 'Pro' version. The difference between it and the larger copies is the number of styles and RealTracks in the bundle. Like many, I started with the Pro and later upgraded to the UltraPAK. There are a huge number of styles and RealTracks (thousands) to choose from in all sorts of genres.
There's a new release expected shortly ... in time for Christmas. As with most new software releases it will have new features and new bugs.
There are lots (and lots!) of songs in the User Showcase to give some idea what BiaB can do, though there will be some "me and BiaB" works and some quite produced and there are demos of styles and RealTracks in the product areas.
There's no try-before-you-buy option, though PGM are very good if you change your mind. Their support is usually excellent, too.
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 entry-level version is the 'Pro' version. The difference between it and the larger copies is the number of styles and RealTracks in the bundle. Like many, I started with the Pro and later upgraded to the UltraPAK. There are a huge number of styles and RealTracks (thousands) to choose from in all sorts of genres. .............................. [/quote]
I will add that the BiaB engine is identical in all versions of the software. The Pro version has the identical functionality as the most expensive version, i.e. it is NOT a cut down version. That is what Gordon was referring.
Checkout person "Did you find everything OK"? Me "Why do you ask? Are you guys hiding stuff"?
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
While I agree, the real tracks sound better, they are only about 1% as editable than the MIDI tracks are.
I find that with a good MIDI synth, I can get sounds 90% good as the Real Tracks, and I can edit them to the point where the actually work better. So if the RT isn't exactly what I want, I go back to MIDI.
I use a Ketron SD2 General MIDI synth to start with. Ketron has newer synths now, but I also have a dozen others, and they don't seem that much better in voice quality.
So it depends on how deep you want to go into the music.
A few simple edits:
If I make the song in MIDI, save it, and open it in a DAW, I can do simple edits like:
Change sounds * That guitar sound might be better as a clavinet, or distorted guitar, or piano, or whatever * That cymbal might be better as a cowbell * That acoustic bass might sound better as an electric or synth bass
Move drum rolls around with a copy and paste
Get the shots and holds to sound like you want them to sound
And so on. There are literally thousands of things you can do with MIDI that you cannot do with pre-recorded audio tracks.
Fortunately, BiaB has both, so I can use Real Tracks when they are better and MIDI tracks when editing is a benefit.
Agree 100% with 'Notes' ... I'd meant to say as much, but forgot whilst cooking and eating lunch, and he's also covered it better thanb I likely would have.
RealTracks are a great way to get something really good up and running quickly and they do sound good.
MIDI allows the things Notes mentions and allows the use of sophisticated sound engines like the SWAM stuff, Native Instruents, Spitfire, Indiginus and others. Most(?) people will do that in a DAW. MIDA also means one can use instruments that BiaB doesn't have ... I have things like Kora, Digeridoo, Rubab, Oud, Saz.
BiaB's 'default' built-in MIDI synth doesn't sound great, but can be substituted by others(*) or by an external synth.
(*) I use and BiaB ships with VSTSynthFont64 (oddly hidden away, see manual) and there are some excellent soundfonts around.
Mario ... thanks, yes, I was less that fully clear about "same engine".
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 .
Hello. I have iReal Pro which I find really unsatisfactory. The sounds are cheesy at best. Sorry: I'm new to the concept. I've seen it for $99 but also (presumably) upgraded versions for a lot more. I just want to create tracks with an acceptable tonality and to dictate the chord changes. Is BIAB what I need? I have Windows 10 currently.
I understood that the O/P wanted to determine if BIAB would provide more satisfactory results than iReal Pro (which he already has), and he had indicated that the results were less than desirable. So I didn't think he wanted to continue with iReal Pro, but instead was seeking to find out if BIAB might produce better sounds.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Not mentioned is iReal Pro is a smartphone app that uses the the default midi patches of the smartphone to create the sounds you hear. As others have mentioned, Band-in-a-Box has the flexibility to playback midi patches that sound more realistic than the default patches available in smartphones or operating systems. PG Music calls their custom midi patches Hi-Q patches. Band-in-a-Box can also use other, third party patches. So if you stick with midi, you'll hear more realistic sounds than you'll hear from a smartphone.
Band-in-a-Box also accepts audio loops, audio files and can use special audio files created by session musicians called RealTracks. You can't get more realistic than audio files.
All play whatever chord sheet you create.
I forgot to mention Band-in-a-Box only runs on Windows or MacOS computers.
Not mentioned is iReal Pro is a smartphone app that uses the the default midi patches of the smartphone to create the sounds you hear
I'm not sure that's correct. On iRealPro's website they say "We have done a lot of work to create a custom sound bank in iReal Pro to make the MIDI files to sound as good as possible ..." and in comparison with most built-in MIDI sound banks, I agree it's surprisingly good. The choice of styles is very limited, of course, so it gets very repetitive.
BiaB is much better in both respects.
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 .
Some simple edits if you export your MIDI to a sequencer. (examples are in 4/4 time)
Copy only the snare drum notes, only on the 2s and 4s, paste to another track, and move it to the high timbale. Then reduce the volume and move it a couple of tics ahead of the snare.
It will sound like a rock drummer who hits the rim and head on the backbeats to add more 'crack' sound
0r
Take the snare (and timbale) and everything else on the 2s and 4s and put them a few tics behind the beat. This makes the lister subsconsciouly wait for them, and it emphasizes the backbeat. Mostly done for rock, funk and blues. In a jazz swing, it's not unusual to push the 2s and 4s ahead a bit.
These two edits can add a lot of life to your song, and you can't do that with real tracks or real drums.
Just a couple of the thousands of edits you can do with MIDI.
Some simple edits if you export your MIDI to a sequencer. (examples are in 4/4 time)
Copy only the snare drum notes, only on the 2s and 4s, paste to another track, and move it to the high timbale. Then reduce the volume and move it a couple of tics ahead of the snare.
It will sound like a rock drummer who hits the rim and head on the backbeats to add more 'crack' sound
0r
Take the snare (and timbale) and everything else on the 2s and 4s and put them a few tics behind the beat. This makes the lister subsconsciouly wait for them, and it emphasizes the backbeat. Mostly done for rock, funk and blues. In a jazz swing, it's not unusual to push the 2s and 4s ahead a bit.
These two edits can add a lot of life to your song, and you can't do that with real tracks or real drums.
Just a couple of the thousands of edits you can do with MIDI.
Insights and incites by Notes ♫
<< "These two edits can add a lot of life to your song, and you can't do that with real tracks or real drums." >>
Sure you can edit RealTracks and RealDrums. In the before and after screen shots below of Bar 4 of a RealDrum - I edited a hit without issue. It's no different to also edit RealTracks.
Sure you can edit RealTracks and RealDrums. In the before and after screen shots below of Bar 4 of a RealDrum - I edited a hit without issue. It's no different to also edit RealTracks.
Yes, you can edit audio tracks. I do it all the time when I want to make the drums a bit less busy by removing beats, adjusting volume, or moving things slightly to shift the beat.
But MIDI is a lot easier to edit, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's easy to select all the drum kicks or some other element, because they're all on the same MIDI note number. MIDI makes it much easier to replace one instrument with another, like Notes was suggesting. And you can swap out one instrument for another - for example, use a crunchier drumkit, or different sort of piano.
Audio is also tricky when you remove notes, because the track volume falls to zero at that point, which can draw attention to the edit.
But for minor tweaks, it's certainly worth editing audio.
We're getting here into a lot of quite deep detail.
I suspect we may well be going far further than the OP wants or needs to know at this stage.
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 .
Sure you can edit RealTracks and RealDrums. In the before and after screen shots below of Bar 4 of a RealDrum - I edited a hit without issue. It's no different to also edit RealTracks.
Yes, you can edit audio tracks. I do it all the time when I want to make the drums a bit less busy by removing beats, adjusting volume, or moving things slightly to shift the beat.
But MIDI is a lot easier to edit, for a number of reasons. For one thing, it's easy to select all the drum kicks or some other element, because they're all on the same MIDI note number. MIDI makes it much easier to replace one instrument with another, like Notes was suggesting. And you can swap out one instrument for another - for example, use a crunchier drumkit, or different sort of piano.
Audio is also tricky when you remove notes, because the track volume falls to zero at that point, which can draw attention to the edit.
But for minor tweaks, it's certainly worth editing audio.
No question that editing midi is easy for a number of reasons. It is. Easy isn't the goalpost. Easy, easier, easiest or similar wasn't mentioned. Editing RealDrums beats and RealTracks can't do the editing was mentioned. I said RealTracks and RealDrums can be edited. You've validated the statement.
Midi is easier to edit, but using BIAB to edit audio is better for a number of reasons.
BIAB can edit midi or audio without exiting the program so the user retains 100% of all of BIAB's features, midi and audio including generating, partial regenerating, Thousands of styles are available for changing RealDrums and RealTracks. No sequencer or DAW can do all that.
Midi doesn't make it much easier to replace one instrument with another. For changing midi patches-(Instruments), that's a breeze using Bar Settings Menu.
It's also a breeze to not only change a single RealTrack, but the BIAB Mixer has a sub-menu that allows up to 10 additional RealTracks to be own that same track and play either simultaneously or sequentially; With Volume settings and panning per instrument. If all 24 Mixer Tracks fully utilize that feature, 264 RealTracks can be used in a single render of a song project.
With BIAB, you get that other 10% that midi lacks in your production. UserTracks, Artist Performance File, and Playable RealTracks aren't discussed much in the forum but they are valuable tools for getting exactly what I'm looking with audio rather than midi. I love midi and I start nearly every project with either a midi style or midi file. They are everything Notes says they are.
My only point is that RealTracks and RealDrums can be edited and are very useful for making complex arrangements and are not just useful tweaking.
We're getting here into a lot of quite deep detail.
I suspect we may well be going far further than the OP wants or needs to know at this stage.
I'm not sure that's correct. The OP question's "I just want to create tracks with an acceptable tonality and to dictate the chord changes. Is BIAB what I need?"
You've replied that <"The "RealTracks" in BiaB are much better sounding that iRealPro. At AudioTrack says, they're real musicians playing real instruments. BiaB adjusts the pitch and time to match the key and tempo of the song and provided one doesn't try to stretch the tempo too far, it works superbly. Styles have optimum tempo information with them.">
I don't see anything deep about correcting that RealTracks and RealDrums can also be edited even if editing midi is easy.
We're getting here into a lot of quite deep detail.
I suspect we may well be going far further than the OP wants or needs to know at this stage.
I'm not sure that's correct. ...
And you may well be right.
It does depend a huge amount of what Teramiss wants to achive. I'm not so sure that any kind MIDI or RealTrack editting is necessarily part of what's wanted. At this stage we don't know and we've yet to se any feedback on what we've said so far.
Last edited by Gordon Scott; 11/05/2402:05 PM.
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 .
It does depend a huge amount of what Teramiss wants to achieve. I'm not so sure that any kind MIDI or RealTrack editing is necessarily part of what's wanted. At this stage we don't know and we've yet to see any feedback on what we've said so far.
Agreed. At this stage we may have scared the O/P off with so much detail .
I understood they just wanted to know if BIAB could provide better music results than iReal Pro. I read it as a very high-level question, and certainly not a deep-dive under the hood to see "how to" and "how many" fine-tuning adjustments were possible.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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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
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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)
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