Just wanted to ask if any folks are currently using BIAB 2016 live? If so, what are your experiences with it and any thoughts postive and negative?

Thanks

Yes, I use it live in a contemporary praise & worship setting, lots of different styles. The songs are selected in advance and saved as Favorites and played using the Jukebox. Works great! I use RealTracks as much as possible, pretty much for everything but strings.

Joden, I'm slowly moving toward that direction. I use a Tyros 5 keyboard at the moment, which is a superb arranger. For some songs, I will use BIAB backing tracks. The only drawback is the BIAB scores will be etched in stone. That is, if we have a full dance floor, my music partner can't all of a sudden send us back to a new chorus the way we can with the Tyros 5...unless someone has a way of changing that .

Yes! It's funny about those strings. The midi strings are still far superior to anything available in RealTracks. The nearest I can get with RT is with Strings Rhythm Pop Country but they just don't sound right somehow.

Not that I have a use for BIAB in a live setting. But for recordings of myself playing; like you I prefer the Midi strings.

thanks guys...yeah I'm sorta getting tired of the whole create the song in BIAB then transfer to Sonar, then create MP3 tracks than transfer those to the stage laptop...and then is there is some level of effect that wasn't quite right live as opposed to in the studio, you have to "rinse and repeat" hahaha!...so yeah I'm thinking maybe just take BIAB out ther instead.

I tried the laptop routine, but, I don't lug it around anymore.

I have a pedal I can load the backing tracks into and start them in sequence. Or scroll through the songs and play them in any order I need. All of my songs are praise and worship originals. Usually just playing with another guitarist, and occasionally a drummer. Tracks have drums, piano/keys, bass, steel, sometimes harmonica, or cello. Usually mixed in RB with a short version and a longer version.

The sound guy likes the signal he gets from the pedal, it mixes the track, vocal and guitar levels and sends one signal to the board. I can change the guitar and vocal effects while the song is playing.

As Mac would say others mileage may vary . . . I love using my laptop on gigs. Especially since they are some great laptop stands that fit on Mic Stands these days, not to mention the smaller laptops themselves.

Maybe I am a control freak but I love having my entire rep just a click away, not to mention the the ability to make small changes even while the tune is in progress.

Later,

I use BIAB for Praise & Worship leading, as well as Southern Gospel performance tracks. I use BIAB to generate the individual instrument parts, and then drop those into Studio One (DAW) for editing, creating intros and endings and doing the final mix. Once it's in Studio One, I rarely go back to BIAB unless it's to generate a fill part. After mixing, I save the finished track as a WAV file and play it from my laptop on stage. I've tried other workflows, but this is definitely the best I've found for my needs.

Rich if you are just playing .wav files why do you need the laptop? Couldn't you just as well use a smartphone? or a tablet?

Danny what kind of small changes can you make while the song is playing?

LEE BATCHELOR:

"my music partner can't all of a sudden send us back to a new chorus the way we can with the Tyros 5...unless someone has a way of changing that smile."

FF: Try the Condutor window...

Ummmm, no. I did quite a lot of that several years ago when I worked with a sax player and occasionally him and a singer. The saxman also fronted us and likes to talk and extend parts of tunes. The problem with the Conductor is you still need some warning that the vocalist or leader has decided to extend a verse or stops singing to talk to someone and I was expected to vamp. It was a near disaster several times. In the heat of battle neither one of them could give me any warning. They're used to bands and they just signal a vamp or take the bridge or whatever.

I finally had to get the guys to swear they would follow the song rather than try to lead it like they normally would. They kinda sorta did it but were not happy about it. They couldn't be themselves any more and it is a legitimate part of performing. It wasn't the sound quality, they loved that, it was the lack of control.

After a few gigs like that I broke out my Korg Pa1XPro arranger keyboard for the reasons mentioned earlier. I have total control that way even if the Korg's styles are not as good as Biab's. It does sound great though and if I had more time I could have created better song specific styles for it.

Playing Biab live on stage is fine as long as you're the leader, singer, whatever and if you have a partner they follow you. Then the Conductor can work.

Bob

Yeah, I could do a smartphone or tablet, but the .wavs are already on my laptop and transferring tracks to a smartphone or tablet would be another step. My setup is to go from my laptop out to a USB Audio Interface and then to the Mixer. I also use a web-based app for playing the tracks. It stops at the end of each song and I just hit the enter key when I'm ready for the next song.

See if using Ableton can change things for you.

This and other Abelton vids I've seen are simply playing back static full songs, no different than rendering a Biab song to a wave file.

This thread is about how to rearrange a tune while it's playing like suddenly deciding to skip a verse, extend a solo or you decide to cut it short and jump to the ending.

I think Abelton can do that but I've never found a vid showing exactly how that could work plus Abelton is an expensive program, around $600.

Bob

" This thread is about how to rearrange a tune while it's playing like suddenly deciding to skip a verse, extend a solo or you decide to cut it short and jump to the ending. I think Abelton can do that..."


Yep. It does all that BB Conductor does and much more. Not only does it allow verse, chorus, bridge, intro, outro, etc live control, it will sync video and lights to your show. It brings the miracle of the click track to life....

Click Track Workshop


This video gives a complete walk thru and demonstration of a live stage show using live vocals mixed with pre-recorded vocals, live instruments mixed with live instruments and how to flow into and out of the click track, how to use the click track in conjunction with a cue track.

At around the 52:45 mark, the speaker gets into how to re-arrange a tune while playing live. Everything you question in your quote above is addressed in this video.

Regarding the cost of the software package, you are investing in yourself and a professional career. It is a tool that is necessary if you want to compete at the level as the band in this workshop. That means to me me the same as if you play electric guitar, you also have to invest in an amplifier. So, a satisfactory compromise to me would be to purchase a $600 Epiphone knockoff rather than a $1800 Gibson and purchase Ableton with the money I saved..

In your case, as a keyboardist, if you have 4 keyboards, you may choose to sell one to cover the cost.

Thing I found with AL - is it is really tough to get audio parts to jump nicely without obvious artefacts. Although tbh I never used it with BIAB tracks. It (AL) worked well with MIDI files though.

I am using 100% realtracks and getting the segments perfectly aligned (without using bespoke audio loops, or painstakingly creating loops from BIAB RT's) in AL would be tricky and in some cases nigh on impossible I'd reckon.

Wow, great input guys!

I was thinking along the same lines. That is, I would not bring BIAB to the stage, just the exported wave files. I believe there are programs you can get where you can place markers at certain song points, and then skip to them at will. The Tyros 5 may already have that feature. Perhaps this is what Al does? And I quite agree, the skips would need to be seamless. Don't know if that's possible.

Thanks.

Just wondering, if you can control start and stop, choruses etc using midi in BIAB. If so, you could run it with a midi controller. I bought a neat software based midi controller, but I haven't had time to try it out yet.

Luckily I work on my own with BIAB box so I sort of follow my own plans. Certainly, I love having my effects units changing automatically using midi. Even then I get caught out by jukebox from time to time. Even when I write down the lengths of intros, where the solos are etc, in the heat of the moment it goes belly up as anyone who's seen me playing on streetjelly will know! :-)

There is a tutorial video (that I can't find quickly this morning) where the instructor builds a song specifically to be able to seamlessly jump from section to section.

He uses an original song (which he obviously knows the tempo and could just input that tempo) but -- to avoid glitches that you mention, he processes the song creating a tempo map that syncs the song with AL. The recorded song BPM is 130 but after the song is synced with AL, he changes the tempo to 132 for live use and the tempo map adjusts as well. He places markers to organize the song in AL and the markers are synced with the tempo map. Jumping from section to section is seamless.


Once a song has been processed, sections can be moved, deleted, copied and pasted, lengthened and shortened as desired.

I will search some more for that YT video and post here for those who may be interested.

An off topic piece - The syncing process to create a tempo map is similar to using the Audio Chord Wizard in BIAB to create an accurate tempo map.

That may be a tip to try that will help tighten up a song for those who may use the BIAB Conductor feature. The ACW creates a unique and accurate tempo map for any song and sync the tempo map to the BIAB chord chart. My thinking is that process should work the same within BIAB as it does in the AL instructional video.

That's excellent info Charlie, thanks.

The only reason I mentioned the price of AL is most here are not doing big, "get your career going" gigs. In that context of course another $600 is nothing. When someone asks can Biab do this or that, that's what they're focused on, not spending another chunk of dough. I hate to assume but many here balk at spending $50 after buying the UltraPak.

As for the Conductor and glitches, I never had a problem with that. The Conductor works extremely well, I had it set up to trigger one of several possible jumps at the next part marker so the song still flowed nicely. Never a glitch. The only problem is what I described earlier which isn't Biab's fault. If you're running your own show then it's great.

Bob

lambada - "Just wondering, if you can control start and stop, choruses etc using midi in BIAB. If so, you could run it with a midi controller. I bought a neat software based midi controller, but I haven't had time to try it out yet. "

BIAB's Conductor feature can control all of those using a midi controllor.

Jazzmammal: I mentioned price because it is not unusual to go to a show here at the beach and see an artist constantly apologizing for the poor performance of the $150 underpowered used PA system because he can't afford to invest in quality to advance his hobby or career whichever the case may be. Yet, he's playing a $2,600 Gibson acoustic.

Glitches were included because lambada, joden and Lee Batchelor referenced the difficulty or occurrence encountered in BIAB in earlier posts.

I mentioned the AL tempo map tweak because that same technique can cross over to the BIAB Conductor by using the ACW on your tracks and chord chart to tighten and make small tempo adjustments that can focus in on areas of a track that are not having smooth transitions when jumping from segment to segment in a song performance or bringing instruments in and out.

Charlie, so the conductor can be synced up to a midi controller? In that case, I need to spend a bit of time on the conductor. BIAB is such a huge product!

From what I have seen, the only thing you can use to control it from the controller is keys. There does nto seem to be any capacity to assign, say, buttons knobs or switches (mapped with CC #'s) to any of the controls within Conductor.

IE, only keys themselves or the qwerty keyboard seem to be the options.

You are correct. I may have misspoke - 3 ways to control conductor is with the menu, qwerty and keyboard. I was thinking a controller such as I have, it has keys would work the same as a regular keyboard.

That's correct. I picked up a used Frontier Tranzport at the same time I was using the Conductor and it only did a couple of things concerning the Conductor. It's been in the box for years now so I can't remember the details. Whatever it was it didn't do much for me. The laptop number keys worked much better.

Bottom line, Biab does not work with midi controllers. That's been in the Wishlist for years also.

Bob

Surprising this is so - being controller capable is a small change when considering BIAB has some level of control using MIDI already...maybe the code (existing) is still there from the days when these sorts of devices were almost non-existent and PG have simply missed upgrading it? Preferring to maintain the status quo of forcing users to rely on a qwerty setup for complete control.

I wonder if Realband has the same restrictions?

A Wishlist post of mine every so often is for BIAB to support the ubiquitous Mackie Control Unit protocol. Then we could use hardware that emulates it (such as the new Behringer X-Touch) or software that runs on an iPad (such as V-Control).

Charlie I watched the video. I didn't see anything that addressed controlling parts of the song, repeats, shortening a song by dropping a verse etc in Ableton. I've seen DJs use a controller to do this a lot. I wonder what they are using.

@matt yes everyone wish for this control protocol inside BIAB/RB. Create enough BUZZ to send a strong message.

Maybe we better resurrect this in the Wishlist, in case it's slipped a bit. I definitely support this feature for a Surface Controller.

Yes that sounds like a good idea, but I think having ANY controller surface (for eg controller keyboards with knobs and buttons and sliders) being able to be used does widen the market, rather than locking it down to one or two specific devices or platforms.

After all it is only basic MIDI we are talking about, MIDI CC's 0-127. It is not rocket science!

+1 VideoTrack

Anything and everything, from tweaking volumes on any track, to bringing up songs from a playlist of 1500 at the click of a mouse to changing keys if I have a guest vocalist etc. etc. Of course some of these changes can't be made when the song is playing.

Question: Other than volume on rare occasions what changes do you feel you have to make when the song is playing?

Later,

Danny people want to add a repeat to the song while playing. Go back and add an additional Chorus, verse or bridge and chorus. Skip the ending and return to the beginning of the song. Or stop before playing the last verse or chorus.

In other words rearrange the parts of the song while it is playing, like the leader of a band would do so a soloist could continue their solo until they decide to bring the band back in. (Loop the solo part and take a cue from the soloist or band leader to go back to the rigid framework of the song.)

This has been requested forever and ever. Whatever the problem is it's not as simple as it looks or it would have been done by now. Or, it's not a priority.

PGM is a business and businesses run on sales. Whatever they think will generate the most sales, bring in new customers is what they will focus their limited resources on. So far, it's always been new Real Tracks and styles and if they have time to improve basic functionality they will.

I know that internally Biab runs on midi. Everything that concerns a style is controlled by midi but that's internal, "inside the box" so to speak. None of that is accessible externally other than the few little things being talked about here.

Keep pounding the Wishlist, something may happen.

Here's something else I didn't mention earlier. If you're willing to accept a momentary skip in the song, the Conductor can be set to jump instantly or at the next 1 from wherever you're at to the part the jump key is set to. I really don't like that which is why I set it to jump at the next part marker. I set the markers to make sense with the song. But if your singer or leader wants to go to the bridge or extend a chorus you can hit a key and that can happen right now even if you're on beat 2 1/2 in the middle of a bar or it can wait the 1 1/2 beats and then jump. The singer hears that and can pick it up pretty easily. That probably wouldn't sound as bad as I make it out to be, records used to skip all the time.

Bob

I just looked at some more Abelton vids and found this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zHMkZtHfoQ

This caught my attention because this past New Years Eve I needed to work up the chart for Call Me by Blondie.

Notice the keys guy is using an Oxygen 61 controller just for punching in parts of each song in their show. He has 61 keys plus all the knobs and buttons. That controller isn't very expensive and I like how he has each key labeled with tape. Good idea.

Bob

dga: "Charlie I watched the video. I didn't see anything that addressed controlling parts of the song, repeats, shortening a song by dropping a verse etc in Ableton. I've seen DJs use a controller to do this a lot. I wonder what they are using."

Ableton can be operated by computer keyboard, midi keyboard, footswitch, midi controller. Remote switching can be programmed onto a channel within a project.

Ableton can process each of the control options you list above.

Nahh I can't do any of those things using my laptop but I would guess I would be able to do even less if the file were converted to mp3.

Later,