Hi, Beth. Your vocals and harmonies sound great! Well, actually it all sounds good. The guitars are fighting the vocal for attention, and (IMNSHO) the vocals should always be out front. Elliot's suggestions are good. Dropping the guitar at 3:00 for the final verse works nicely. Changing up the instruments on the chorus would add some additional variety.
Hi, Mike. A snappy tune! I enjoyed it. As the song was playing, I read through some information on Bob, and found this tidbit on Wikipedia explaining how a cowboy band picked up horn players:
Quote
Wills added a trumpet to the band inadvertently when he hired Everet Stover as an announcer, not knowing that he had played with the New Orleans symphony and had directed the governor's band in Austin. Stover, thinking he had been hired as a trumpeter, began playing with the band, and Wills never stopped him. Although Wills initially disapproved of it, young saxophonist Zeb McNally was eventually hired. Wills hired the young, "modern-style musician" Smoky Dacus as a drummer to balance out the horns.
Hello! This is a cowboy swing type of tune inspired by a musical documentary about a band leader called Bob Wills from the 40's era that I watched the other day and I say "why not?" so I created this tune. Riding through the prairie Style is _HAYRIDE.STY (Fast Country Swing w/ Resonator ) RealTracks in style: ~541:Bass, Electric, Pop Sw 190 RealTracks in style: ~374:Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Hank Sw 190 RealTracks in style: ~608:Guitar, Resonator, Background Hayride Sw 190 RealTracks in style: ~611:Mandolin, Rhythm Fast Chop Sw 190 RealTracks in song: 1872:Fiddle, Soloist WesternSwingAndy Sw 165 (Bluesy) RealTracks in song: 1713:Guitar, Electric, Soloist WesternSwingBrent Sw 165 (jazz/laid-back timing) RealDrums in style:NashvilleSwing8^1-a:Snare, HiHat , b:Snare, Rid Cheers Mike B.
Hi Jim, I've already discovered that Cakewalk does not support Multi-Part styles or songs that have more than one style in them. So, for this particular situation, it was only in Band in A Box. One of the nice things about having two monitors is I can put BIAB on one, and then Cakewalk on the other, and just drag and drop the files from BIAB to Cakewalk, and that way, I do get all the styles, since I'm dragging audio files. Thanks for the input! Gary
Gary, if you are using the Band-in-a-Box plugin with Cakewalk I have some thoughts to share with you. 1. The plugin does not recognize MultiStyles. It will respond to the first A/B part marker pair but not C/D, E/F or higher pairs. 2. The plugin track audio outputs do not always default to outputs 1-2. Sometimes the audio outputs default to sequential pairs. When that happens you will only hear the audio output of the first track. Click on each track's output box, highlighted in red in the screen shot below, and you can manually set each track's audio output to 1-2. 3. Cakewalk "likes" 24 bit files. Band-in-a-Box creates 16 bit files.
Hey Bob, how are you doing? Life has been weird, there's no doubt about that. Things have changed significantly for me in the past few years, I lost most everything in a foreclosure, then eviction, homeless for almost three years. Thankfully my sister saved my keyboard and some other stuff, but I lost a lot. I was working for a bit, but got laid off a year ago, and haven't been able to find work. So, I'm semi-retired, looking for work, but have a Social Security income. I have a few dollars from retirement accounts, but really not much. I've been living in a room in a house. I don't have enough money or income to even get a small one bedroom apartment, and the low income housing I just applied for denied me because of some court issues from my previous eviction. Thankfully, I have a friend who just bought a house and is looking for people to move in with him. So, I know the other three people who are going to be there, all close friends, so that's good. I still have my ancient PA800 keyboard, but have been wanting to replace it with a new Korg PA5X-76. Saw a 'mint' used one for only $3,600, and I have that money from my retirement account, so if after the move I have enough, I'll be getting that. Maybe put the PA800 on sale. On Reverb, even though it's like 18 years old, they're still getting $1,200-1,500! But, I haven't been playing much, and I need to get back into it. The guy that I moving in with and one other person both are guitarists, Christian music, so I hope to be able to utilize Band In A Box to flesh out some new music for them. It would be nice. They know of the program, but not really all that it's capable of, so we might be putting together some music for a new album sometime in the future. Maybe, depending on if they like the concept or not. But, it's a desire on my part. In the meantime, I'm still alive, still doing the things I need to be doing, and God provides for the rest. Oh yeah, one of the biggest things is I've returned to my Christian heritage, and for that, I am very thankful! Gary
Hi, Mario. Heh... the thought occurred to me at the start of the song... Nicely done! And now I know how to pronounce your name - I've been reading it wrong all these years!
Simon, Thanks for the information. I couldn't believe that I couldn't do specific bars for the soloist, but I guess I had forgotten about the Custom, even though I was looking right at it. Earlier, I had selected the Utility #1 track to record the MIDI to, it kept defaulting to a Real Track for some reason and wouldn't record. Of course, there was stuff on there already, but this time, I tried again and was able to record a MIDI track to the Utility #1. I'll be trying to record a second MIDI track to Utility #2 later on. As I said, I don't want to reinstall, but I do thank you for the suggestion about going ahead and picking up the hard drive. I think I'll do that. I probably will go ahead and delete the install and reinstall it. I know how easy it is to get corrupted files and maybe that's what happened. I've also talked to Ember via chat and she's going to be looking into a couple of things. I'll keep you informed on what's happening and as I told Ember, we have the best tech support at PGMusic and I'm thankful for all of you and your help. Gary
Hi Gary, sorry to hear you're having trouble! A couple questions - where is BIAB installed, on your internal storage or external? Do you have any other audio software running at the same time as BIAB? Which build version of BIAB are you using? (You can find that from Help > About Band-in-a-Box, next to where it says Version 2024). As Matt mentioned, try out the different options for audio driver type. MME is usually the most stable and reliable so that's usually the one to try first. Otherwise, let us know what audio driver type you're using - this is found under Options > Preferences > Audio. With certain tracks not generating, the first thing to try is a different song (or preferably a new empty song file) with the same style that wasn't working. If the tracks still don't generate there, rebuilding the Stylepicker often helps. Check if any of the tracks say "N/A", as that indicates that the particular Realtrack is not found - you can see what content BIAB has found or not found by going to Help > What Add-ons Do I Have (but do a rebuild first). For the MIDI not recording, make sure the record dialog is set up to record MIDI and not audio - there are two black drop-down menus to select which track you're recording onto, try setting Record Audio to None and Record MIDI to an empty Utility track. Also, ensure that no other audio apps are running, as they may try to lock onto the MIDI device and prevent it from working in other apps. Rather than using the Soloist dialog, in your case it's likely better to build a soloist manually using the MultiRiff feature - in short, you can use it to choose exactly where a soloist (or any RealTrack) plays, as well as regenerating parts of the track instead of the entire track. There's a tutorial on it here: If you continue to have trouble, a complete reinstall might help. Also, since you have the 2024 version, you can still order a hard drive - send an email to sales@pgmusic.com and we can send an order link for it, as it's not possible to order the drive on its own without one of us creating a custom order for it. BIAB should not stop recording or playing when you play your MIDI controller. It sounds like a setting may be corrupt. Try this - close BIAB, then go to a File Explorer window and navigate to your BB folder (usually c:\bb), then in the Preferences folder highlight the "intrface.bbw" and "MySetup.DK" files and delete them. Then run BIAB again and try recording. Deleting these files is a hard-reset for your preferences, so you'll have to set up your audio and MIDI drivers again. Please let us know how it goes!
Gary, When the audio is not playing in BIAB, it's usually a driver-related issue. Try setting your audio driver to MME and see if that helps. When you are recording, which track are you recording to? Regarding the soloist. The soloist dialogue does allow you to choose what bars you want to have the solo across. That option is available via the "Custom" button (see the image below). Alternatively, if you select the bars in which you want a solo by dragging the mouse across them, you can then right-click and select "Multiriff" from the menu that pops up (or press F8). Multiriff allows partial regeneration across a selected range of bars. It is also possible to access partial regeneration in Audio Edit by selecting (within Audio Edit) the range of bars or parts of bars where you would like to place the solo. I hope this information helps. --Noel P.S. I see Matt answered while I was putting my post together. It seems that he and I both agree about MME
Thanks Marty. I'm glad that I kept my ESQ1. I don't use it that often these days, but it does have some really nice tones that I haven't been able to find on more modern synths. The forest flute is one that I'll definitely use again on future songs.
Hi Gary. Sorry you're having trouble. Let me comment on the first of the three issues. A few years ago BIAB started defaulting to the WAS driver for audio, and I know in my case, my Focusrite sound card that I had at the time choked on it (my current Presonus card does work). I could select the Focusrite ASIO driver, but I normally saved that for my DAW and just chose MME as the audio driver in BIAB. So, try that - either ASIO or MME in Options, Preferences, Audio, but since it's possibly a Sound Blaster I would try MME first. Write back and see if that helps.
David and Noel, thanks for the thorough and patient answers. Might this all make a good Tips and Tricks article: how to choose and use synth voices in BIAB? Then when these questions keep surfacing, you can point to the article. (There may already be something there; I didn't look yet).
Some here seem to welcome our new overlords .. <grin> Simon kind of made my earlier point clearer, though unintentionally - " It's probably less likely to do with AI and more because investors want a reliable return on their dollars, making the studios go for more generic copypasta than actually creating something interesting and worthwhile." For AI to 'know' something it learns from existing stuff (and some people are upset their 'stuff' is being used), which is likely why the human originality aspect is getting lost in some aspects. I think the arts will (in the long run) overcome AI due to human originality.
Okay, I recently upgraded to 2024 from the special that PGMusic offered. Now, I haven't been really using Band In A Box a lot in recent years, so a lot has changed since the time when I was the one offering solutions. How time flies and things change! I've been having some serious issues with BIAB 2024 and I want to put them out there for people. First, I'm having problems with Audio. The audio in my computer is working fine. I have a Creative Labs sound card and am using the digital ins and outs to go to external A/D and D/A converters. That is working perfectly. Cakewalk is working perfectly. Band In A Box is not. If I open the program and open up a song, no audio out. I have to restart Windows, sometimes multiple times to get the audio driver to work. Then, today, when I finally did get the audio to work, I went to record into a song, and only the bass track played back. Clicked on the individual parts, muting and unmuting, and I finally had to select a different style to get all the parts to play. Let me say that I installed over Band In A Box 2023, but reinstalled everything, including all of the Real Tracks (which took me over a day to download). Then, in recording, it didn't record the keyboard part. It did earlier, however, but then didn't next attempt, and of course, 153 bar song, I didn't notice until after I went to play it back. Second: I'm using Bomdia+ as the style, a six-part MultiStyle. I don't have 'Choruses' in the song, it's all one chorus. So, to create a soloist for the middle part of the song, I either need to somehow convert it all back to three choruses, each chorus having the appropriate style parts, A/B, C/D, and E/F. I don't remember if that's possible or not. What I would really prefer to see in the Soloist Dialog is the ability to say 'Solo from Bar # to Bar #. This way, I can create the soloist and then export the song parts to Cakewalk on work on the melody and other stuff there. The song I'm working on, I want a piano for the first part, the soloist for the second part and then a brass instrument, trumpet, coronet, etc (not sure which yet) for the last part. I can generate a soloist for the whole song, and then delete what I don't want in Cakewalk, but that's not really how I want to work this. It shouldn't be too hard to add that capability. I don't know if I need to do a complete uninstall and reinstall, something I do not really want to do since I didn't save the RealTracks when I downloaded them. I'd have to redownload all of them. (Should have bought the hard drive! LOL) Anyone have similar issues, or know of anyone who did and offered solutions to get it working again? I'm a long time user, and it just seems to me a lot of these issues should have been worked out by now. No offense, Peter, I understand that programming for a Windows system can be difficult, but it always seems to be 'something' that prevents me from working until I go in and do something to fix it, and it works until the next time I want to use it and it's broken again. GRRRR!!! Okay. Now it won't record MIDI. I can see the MIDI data indicator on the Thru track, but it's not recording. When I go into to the Record MIDI dialog and it says 'Record MIDI to' it giving me the option of two Real Tracks or Utility tracks. I selected one of the Utility tracks, and now when I touch the keyboard, it stops recording. If it's just playing back and I press any key, the playback immediately stops! So, now, I can't even play along with the song, let alone record on this. This is immensely frustrating. Gary
Herb, you reflected Jesus' love in your support of Chris and his music...which is very well written to be sure! It was a great team effort with Isabel's vox, Chris' song, and your audio engineering skills. Great job and sorry to hear about the loss of your friend!
Thanks, Dan, for your prayers...and continuing to share your gift of music! My dad passed away eight days ago now but all is good. He's not suffering anymore. Dewey
The classic rabbit and their ability to exponentially reproduce. Someone had to write it and I'm glad it was you, Mario! Thanks for the laugh, my friend! Hope you had a great getaway! Dewey
The melody in the lead parts is really strong, really worth pursuing as a separate entity. The lead & sitarish thing get caught up with each other during the intro...neither winning or setting the vibe. Are you still amping in the digital realm? Either way the tone suits the playing very well.
We love the arrangement with the intensity building and then reducing. And the tempo slowing in the last verse is very effective. This is a well crafted melancholic personal narrative indeed. Your son’s vocal is great and reminds us of Rod Stewart The entire band and mix sound good on our monitors. And we enjoyed it! J&B
Rick Beato - amen! I actually shed a tear, because he just nailed it, and exposed the flip side of any art in our society today. I'm guilty of being an active Apple Music Subscriber, I used to subscribe to Netflix/Amazon/Disney/HBO, I subscribe to Storytell and on my TV I subscribe to put art on my Samsung The Frame TV. I can have everything at my fingertips, easy and convenient - but I value it less, than what I used to do. I have so many choices on how to spent my spare time with art. You can add social media, gaming etc to that equation.' The interesting thing is, what I actually value is music I listened to in the past - with very few exceptions. I value watching and learning about historical things - especially understanding the 60's, 70 and the 80's better with the historians perspectives. I value real acting, comedy performed live and listening to books (in the car while I drive) and last but not least - listening to radio...not music radio - old fashion radio where real people share experiences, exchange views and perspectives. Especially with streaming and social media, it is very difficult to balance these things in a meaningful way - since algorithms and AI just feed me the same things over and over again. As an extensive user of BIAB for more than a decade, using other composer aid tools as well - I also somehow add to the Rick Beato's drain is his kitchen sink. But without some of these wonderful tools, I wouldn't be spending hours trying to improve my singing, song writing, guitar playing ....the list goes on. I think the main difference is, that I want to control the full process, and try to replace even Real Tracks to see if I can do it more like my own work. With the AI tools on trial, I feel that I'm no longer in the driving seat of the process. I guess that's a matter of taste and experience with the various tools I would have loved to be part of a band, but the chance and option never came my way. I never started making music to become rich and famous (I dreamt of that in a younger age), but especially BIAB became my band. For others their AI became their band. The funny thing is - that since I have 50+ songs out there, the AIs might even feed on my music (probably to learn what not to do ... ) So maybe the safest bet is for the AIs to learn from the masters and generate artistic questionable or even poor music, that the Air will learn from again - maybe a downward spiral, might change music business again, and make room for the talented, the creative, the geniuses ....maybe we have to go fully through this era, for music to develop. Meanwhile I will spend a lot of my time and attention to keep on watching guys like Rick, to remind me of what used to be, what used to make me both happy and sad at the same time, but what used to make me feel alive. If you read so far - thank you - I'll end my ramble
New! XPro Styles PAK 7 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Mac!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 7 with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 50 RealTracks and RealDrums that are sure to delight!
With XPro Styles PAK 7 you can expect 25 rock & pop, 25 jazz, and 25 country styles, as well as 25 of this year's wildcard genre: Celtic!
Here's a small sampling of what XPro Styles PAK 7 has to offer: energetic rock jigs, New Orleans funk, lilting jazz waltzes, fast Celtic punk, uptempo train beats, gritty grunge, intense jazz rock, groovy EDM, soulful R&B, soft singer-songwriter pop, country blues rock, and many more!
Special Pricing! Until September 30, 2024, all the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 7 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea)! Supercharge your Band-in-a-Box 2024® with XPro Styles PAK 7! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2024 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
New! Xtra Styles PAK 18 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Mac!
Xtra Styles PAK 18 for Band-in-a-Box version 2024 is here with 200 brand new styles to take for a spin!
Along with 50 new styles each for the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, we’ve put together a collection of styles using sounds from the SynthMaster plugin!
In this PAK you'll find: dubby reggae grooves, rootsy Americana, LA jazz pop, driving pop rock, mellow electronica, modern jazz fusion, spacey country ballads, Motown shuffles, energetic EDM, and plenty of synth heavy grooves! Xtra Style PAK 18 features these styles and many, many more!
Special Pricing! Until September 30, 2024, all the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 18 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea)! Expand your Band-in-a-Box 2024® library with Xtra Styles PAK 18! Order now!
Learn more and listen to demos of the Xtra Styles PAK 18 here.
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 18 requires the 2024 UltraPAK/UltraPAK+/Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
New! Xtra Styles PAK 18 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Windows!
Xtra Styles PAK 18 for Band-in-a-Box version 2024 is here with 200 brand new styles to take for a spin!
Along with 50 new styles each for the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, we’ve put together a collection of styles using sounds from the SynthMaster plugin!
In this PAK you'll find: dubby reggae grooves, rootsy Americana, LA jazz pop, driving pop rock, mellow electronica, modern jazz fusion, spacey country ballads, Motown shuffles, energetic EDM, and plenty of synth heavy grooves! Xtra Style PAK 18 features these styles and many, many more!
Special Pricing! Until September 30, 2024, all the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 18 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea)! Expand your Band-in-a-Box 2024® library with Xtra Styles PAK 18! Order now!
Learn more and listen to demos of the Xtra Styles PAK 18 here.
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 18 requires the 2024 UltraPAK/UltraPAK+/Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
New! XPro Styles PAK 7 for Band-in-a-Box 2024 for Windows!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 7 with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 50 RealTracks and RealDrums that are sure to delight!
With XPro Styles PAK 7 you can expect 25 rock & pop, 25 jazz, and 25 country styles, as well as 25 of this year's wildcard genre: Celtic!
Here's a small sampling of what XPro Styles PAK 7 has to offer: energetic rock jigs, New Orleans funk, lilting jazz waltzes, fast Celtic punk, uptempo train beats, gritty grunge, intense jazz rock, groovy EDM, soulful R&B, soft singer-songwriter pop, country blues rock, and many more!
Special Pricing! Until September 30, 2024, all the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 7 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea)! Supercharge your Band-in-a-Box 2024® with XPro Styles PAK 7! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2024 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Video - Band-in-a-Box® DAW Plugin Version 6 for Mac®: New Features for Reaper
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 includes built-in specific support for the Reaper® DAW API, allowing direct transfer of Band-in-a-Box® files to/from Reaper tracks, including tiny lossless files of instructions which play audio instantly from disk.
Already grabbed your copy of Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Mac®? Head to our Support Page to download build 803 and update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 installation with the latest version developed by our team!
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The guitars are fighting the vocal for attention, and (IMNSHO) the vocals should 
As the song was playing, I read through some information on Bob, and found this tidbit on Wikipedia explaining how a cowboy band picked up horn players: ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=28703&filename=Clipboard02.jpg)
![[Linked Image]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=28701&filename=soloist dialogue 2024.jpg)
Alternatively, if you select the bars in which you want a solo by dragging the mouse across them, you can then right-click and select "Multiriff" from the menu that pops up (or press F8). Multiriff allows partial regeneration across a selected range of bars. ![[Linked Image]](https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=download&Number=28702&filename=solo - using multiriff with a range of bars to generate a solo.jpg)
It is also possible to access partial regeneration in Audio Edit by selecting (within Audio Edit) the range of bars or parts of bars where you would like to place the solo. I hope this information helps. --Noel P.S. I see Matt answered while I was putting my post together. It seems that he and I both agree about MME 
... ) So maybe the safest bet is for the AIs to learn from the masters and generate artistic questionable or even poor music, that the Air will learn from again - maybe a downward spiral, might change music business again, and make room for the talented, the creative, the geniuses ....maybe we have to go fully through this era, for music to develop. Meanwhile I will spend a lot of my time and attention to keep on watching guys like Rick, to remind me of what used to be, what used to make me both happy and sad at the same time, but what used to make me feel alive. If you read so far - thank you - I'll end my ramble
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