I do not get any luck with adding third-party loops to BIAB.

I have a small library of loops bought from commercial vendors like Loopmasters, Big Fish Audio.

But when I try to use the loops in BIAB, the chords do not change.

Does anyone have any experience to solve this issue, or explain this?

My sincere thanks,

You can use loops, but for them to respond to chord changes, they need to be acidized loops. Not all loops are.

Both BIAB and RealBand allow you to acidize audio files when you render them, but you would need to know the appropriate information (tempo, key, time signature, etc) to do so.

There are also utilities to do so, as well. I don't know if there are free utilities; I know there are utilities you can buy. Google will be your friend here.

The recent updated version of the free ADSR Sample Manager just incorporated that exact feature! I've used it, and it does a remarkable job (although results vary based on a variety of sample-specific factors, ofc).

https://www.adsrsounds.com/product/software/adsr-sample-manager/

To DeaconBlues09 :

I understand that if we use ADSR Sample Manager or Loopcloud, we can ask the softwares to generate the tags for bpm, key, etc.

After the softwares finish doing this, do you mean I can just copy the loops to the Loops folder in BIAB?

My sincere thanks,

So you touch on a workflow issue that I've never encountered in BiaB for the simple (if not somewhat lamentable) fact that I would have ported over to Reaper at that point because the last thing I need is another headache at that point.

That said, you bring up a topic that is definitely something I've been meaning to explore when time frees up with work (I've got seasonal crunches in my particular field, and I'm smack in the middle of a biggie).

However, because yes, it would be very, very, awesome to try and generate RTs over various loops, and this is a potentially extremely rewarding thing to set up, here's how I would go about it.

I would load the sample manager VST/.dll within Minihost Modular into the track I want the loop(s) on and I would run a MIDI in (perhaps both a MIDI and audio in, because why not?) through ADSR on an empty track and see what happens.

Alternatively, I would tray exporting the loops through ADSR sample manager AFTER running the detect utility, and then export the whole shebang into a new folder which I would drag and drop (copy) into the C:bb/loops folder or whatever you have it set up as. I have a hunch (hope) that the "ACID/Metadata" will have adhered to the exported/processed copies of your loops.

In the event that any of that made sense (just reread what I wrote, and I'm still not sure it makes sense to me) and you feel like giving it a go, I'd love to get an update and hear how it went.

Incidentally, if you've not yet used Minihost Modular, you need to get on that stat.

The possibilities with this thing with BiaB are absolutely staggering (thanks again Pipeline, should you happen to see this!)

In fact I made a quick YT video about it which you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WexjietWWhc&t=29s




I

Well said... fact is folks try to do too much in BIAB when it is far easier to work out-side the box to get it done.

Thank you so much. I am not familiar with Minihost Modular, so need time to look at it.

To clarify, I actually use BIAB to generate the desired chord sequence for the whole song. Then I will drag the files to Reaper to record vocal and mix.

I'm interested in the loops fuctions. In my imagination, if BIAB can make a new chord progression out of a slick loop from Big Fish Audio (just an example), that would be great. As you know, for loops, often you cannot change the chord progression or you can only do that in a very difficult way.

fantasyvn,

You may find +++ THIS +++ PG Music video useful. PG Music created the video in 2014 to introduce loops to Band-in-a-Box users.

I seldom use loops in Band-in-a-Box but have played with them enough to realize certain things, the more simple the loop audio content is the better the loop works and you use percussion loops differently than instrument loops.

For example, one of the audio loops PG Music provides is an electric bass playing eighth notes. All the notes are "C" at a tempo of maybe 80 bpm. The unaltered loop is "C, C, C, C, C, C, C, C". The loop has embedded root key, tempo and length metadata that Band-in-a-Box reads so Band-in-a-Box can shrink or stretch the loop time and transpose the audio. Since the audio is one note repeated multiple times the changes sound natural. If the loop audio content was more complex, the opening guitar riff heard in The Beatles recording of "Daytripper" for example, the results would not be as pleasing to hear.

For percussion loops timing is important but you normally don't want pitch to change. Imagine the sound of a snare drum "following" a song chord progression! Weird, for sure!

Nature loops normally don't change pitch or time; they just repeat as needed.

Loops that have pitch, time or length embedded are called Acid or Acidized loops in honor of the software program where the idea was first used.

Free Acidizer.zip to run on Win10 set the Acidizer.exe > right click > Properties > Compatibility > Win7
This is the original installer but in only unpacks on XP, so the the above is unpacked standalone/portable http://www.xavierjefferson.com/acidizer/
It will add acid info to any loop/sample, these can be added to the BB Loops folder or use
http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/System/System-Enhancements/Portable-Symbolic-Link-Creator.shtml
to add any external loops folder to the Biab Loops folder.

ReaTrak will integrate Biab chords and tracks into Reaper.

The advice has been really great. Thank you so much.

Hi Pipeline,

This looks amazing, but when I ran it in compatibility for Windows 7 it froze on the splash screen (even tho I have 10, maybe I misunderstood your instructions?).

Try another compatibility mode and try running as administrator also.

Thanks, I'll try after work and post an update :-)

Hi DeaconBlues09 and all other experts,

I just experimented with the loops. The ones delivered with BIAB work fine, but of course I would be happy to use other WAVs, too. My target is to transform WAV samples into transposable loops, preferably automatically without setting the key, tempo etc. for every WAV manually.

To get them acidized somehow I tried all the alternatives listed in this thread, but to no avail:

- I´m able to run Acidicer, but I can´t drag´n´drop WAV files or folders onto the "name" area, the mouse pointer shows a "forbidden" symbol.

- I also tried ADSR Sample Manager and Loopcloud. They scan and tag everything nicely, but I didn´t find a button to write the neccessary metadata info files somehow, so BIAB could read it.

It feels like I oversee some critical point. I only use BIAB btw, but not RealBand.

Thanks in advance!

Armin

Prof P,

Acid loops have tempo, root key and (optionally) time signature information embedded in the audio file. Band-in-a-Box, RealBand and many DAWs read the data as the audio file is imported into the program.

Band-in-a-Box reads loop data when the loop is imported from inside the PG Music loop sub folder. Typically the loop sub folder is located at X:\bb\RealTracks\Loops where X = the drive letter where Band-in-a-Box is located. If the audio file is imported into Band-in-a-Box from OUTSIDE the loop sub folder, Band-in-a-Box WILL NOT read the embedded data.

When you use the DAW dropbox to render and export audio tracks you are given a checkbox option to add ACID information (tempo, key, and time signature) to the WAV file. There is no way I know of to add ACID information to a track segment.

Please note, RealBand can export complete ACID tracks or selected track segments. this is taken from page 123 of the 2019 RealBand user manual:

To get the Acidizer to run on Win 10 now I had to set the Compatibility mode to Vista.
I uploaded the Acidizer.zip to the PG server so it is still here down the track.
Just remove the .mp4 extension, you may have to set Explorer to Show File Extensions.

Acidizer.zip.mp4