Hi, Lately I have gotten interested in getting the BIAB midi melody to sound like a real instrument. I did a search and found this 10 year old thread.. Someone suggested some things in one of my very old posts as well. Rather than use this very old info I thought I would ask what is the latest and greatest on this topic. Specific questions include, quality (can it trick those who are not told it is midi), cost, software or hardware, what does PG music recommend and sell and does everyone agree this is the best. It makes sense that PG Music would get behind the better methods. I read that PG Music use to sell the Ketron SD2 synth. Lastly is there any way to get this realistic sound out to the BIAB export to a wav file. That is my biggest interest as I want to better inspire members of my Jazz Jams Club to get involved and even buy BIAB which makes getting involved easier. It kind of started when I recently got a very anti BIAB drummer friend using .wav exports of BIAB backing tracks. I now have hope...lol. He may even buy BIAB some day :-) Another use is to have BIAB do melody during a live jam when the melody person does not show and I (and no one else attending) is capable of doing the melody.

Thanks,
John

Hi John,

Here are my thoughts:

1-Forget about General MIDI (GM) sound sources. The best sounds come from non-GM synths. I use Kontakt as there are a number of good third party sounds for it as well as NI's Kontakt sounds. I use the full version of Kontakt but you may get buy with the free Player version. There are many sounds available for the free version but you must read the requirements carefully as some will only run on the full version.

2-Your options are not limited to soft synths like Kontakt. Many hard synths (keyboards) have excellent sounds also.

3-You will need to learn about the instrument you are emulating and how to get those nuances by using MIDI controllers (CCs). Don't let that scare you. One it is not that hard to learn and two many soft synths already have the nuances programmed in and ready to use via key switches, knobs, or sliders. Most are assignable to hardware controls, which leads me to:

4-Buy a MIDI keyboard controller, especially if you are using soft synths. It doesn't have to be an expensive one but I would strongly suggest you get one with pitch bend, a mod wheel, 8 sliders, and 8 knobs. The sliders, knobs, and mod wheel are assignable so you can match soft synth controls to the hardware MIDI keyboard controller controls. It's super easy to do now-a-days.

5-You are not limited if you don't have a MIDI keyboard controller. You can manually input everything but that is tedious, time consuming, and I find not as realistic if done while playing with sliders and knobs.

6-I would strongly suggest you do this in a DAW and not in BiaB. A DAW has many options including sound on sound recording. Many times I will record the notes of a song then using sound on sound recording adding the nuances via sliders and knobs. DAWs have their own terminology for sound on sound but all of the good ones have it.

I hope this helps and if I can help feel free to ask.

Good luck.

I dig Mario’s post, I am heavily into Kontakt linraries.

Nevertheless, for the price, Ketron’s SD2 was pretty damn good. now Thomann sells those V3sound triangle shaped Sonority XXL-types. I just had to get one. Not Kontakt quality, maybe, but more than a step up from the Ketron SD2 or SD1000.

@Mario, BIAB should do more to provide quality sounds or accomodate good GM sound libraries. The workarounds you and I are used to are not really user friendly, certainly not for who starts out with BIAB.

@John: Jazz Jam Clubs? Sounds really cool, I looked it up, what a nice concept.

Thanks Guys, you have me on an exciting new learning curve :-) After I read MarioD's comment about midi controllers I found myself watching this "BEFORE YOU BUY A MIDI CONTROLLER..." video.. Also using plugins with BIAB. I think realistically it will be a while before I can get myself up to speed on this stuff like you guys are. I have two shared recordings I am working on for the Jazz Jams Club I run (need two brush up on playing those songs). This is the direct link to the Jazz Jams Club. It explains why we are doing shared recordings and I think it will be a permanent added part of our activities. I also have a bunch of old house repairs going on (currently replacing two sink/faucets).

So once I have the midi melody tricking people into thinking it is my guitar playing :-) will that sound get exported to .wav from BIAB (or from a DAW)?

In addition to the last post question here is a unique one.

My understanding is high quality midi is programmed to sound like a specific instrument so is there software that can take the .wav recording of a specific guitar or any instrument and map that into a midi sample (if that is the correct term) that can be used to closely recreate that sound in midi later?

A high quality midi instrument sound module typically has special controls that help a keyboard player emulate the playing of a skilled musician.

For example a violin instrument might select from multiple samples based on the note velocity entered. A violin instrument may use a round robin method to select a sample from a pool of eligible samples so the same sample does not get repeated too often. In general the larger the sample pool is for the sound module the more likely it will be that the sound module can emulate the sound you desire. Some sound modules automatically make these choices while others give the keyboard player absolute control over everything.

A sound module might use modeling to create sound. This can be in addition to or instead of using samples.

Many sound libraries highlight articulations. I consider articulations as modifiers or enhancements. For example a violin is normally bowed but can also be plucked or muted. In this example plucked and muted are considered articulations that are selected by the keyboard player entering a note outside the normal range of the instrument.

All this control comes at a cost though. A keyboard player may not be able to access all the articulation keys while playing live. Some sound modules work better in DAWs while others excel in live settings but sound bland in a DAW.

Thanks Jim, Very interesting. It sounds like the BIAB edit note menu needs a method to modify the midi sounds (pluck the note, bow it, muffle it). I guess there are realistic limits that one must accept.

Another forum I visit has a discussion where a very accomplished guitar player wanted to use a guitar inspired midi controller to input midi data. The thought was since he is such a good musician on the guitar and is a rank beginner at using a keyboard, that using the guitar midi controller would be more productive than using a keyboard and aid in developing expressive midi guitar tracks.

It hasn't worked out as the guitar player expected. Chord and melody fingering on a guitar fingerboard differs significantly from the keyboard focused input fingering design of the VST. Midi data and keyboards have discrete elements while guitars have extra elements like hammer ons, hammer offs, slides, slaps and other forms of torture overlapping playing methods that are not specifically addressed in midi. Long story short he found it easier and quicker to peck at a midi keyboard than begin with a midi guitar controller and then edit.

I've downloaded +++ Amplesound's Martin Lite II +++ which is a free acoustic guitar sound library. I'm using it to learn how to work with a guitar sound module. If I let a Band-in-a-Box midi style with guitar strum it sounds amazingly realistic. If I use the strum patterns included in the guitar sound module, it sounds amazingly realistic. If I create strum patterns from scratch it sounds bad, bad, bad! I've got a lot to learn.

For thoroughly authentic piano and organ sounds you might want to check out physical instrument simulations such as -> Pianoteq

In my case fancy techniques on the instrument such as slides, hammer on, pull off, bowing, etc are of no importance. That is for the people coming out to jam to have fun doing. My use is simple melodies or complex melodies entered in BIAB and having them sound like a real instrument than a midi. It is to get us by when a real person is not there to do the part. The jam must always go on so in live jams it is when the melody player does not show. In shared recordings it is for when the melody player does not have his track done yet. That is about it. It sounds like the free plug ins for BIAB are all I really need since a DAW can't be used to enter notes.

Mario: "Forget about General MIDI (GM) sound sources. The best sounds come from non-GM synths."

I do not fully agree. I find Halion and Sonic are quite capable GM synths at 20+GB of sounds, especially as "all in one solution" for the price point. All drumsets are adjustable-per-drum and many many other features. Both items come in one package and are usually 1/2 off at least once a year.

Handpicking, there are always SF2 items which are either free or "cheap enough" some of them might not be as tweakable as Kontakt instruments but there are some very decent and realistic ones.

Do not get me wrong, I like Kontakt and it's amazing instruments, but I feel that some titles are way overpriced and unfortunately no GM.

Bottom line,

Kontakt by itself comes with pretty weak "factory" library. To get it right to "realistic specs", you have to hunt for sales/upgrades and by the end of the day, it will cost quite a lot, but you can achieve the "better" sound quality.

Halion / Sonic on the other hand "As Is" But the included library is very solid. Nice selection of traditional instruments. Plus GM. Very reasonable when on sale.

And of course #3
Compile VST's / SF2s etc. from various companies to make something more personal.

Jim and John, you are highlighting very interesting points.

Since recording this song 11 years ago as a Band in a Box demo, I have been asked about how to achieve that cleanliness and precision in the accordion notes on the MIDI keyboard controlled by my Godin xtSA. One of the most important aspects when using a synth guitar is the adjustment of the different sensitivity values both in the instrument and in the MIDI interface, but clean and clear notes also rely on the technique and personal playing way.

A good synth guitar system with good tracking and parameters tuning is capable of tracing even the smallest performance subtleties, but as John mentions there are certain common techniques for "normal" guitar that may not be recommended for transcribing MIDI data from a guitar synth, such as tapping and fast legatos, since this implies minimal contact with the string that does not transmit the necessary force so that the hexaphonic microphone can track the notes accurately.

For this reason, when I record with a synth guitar, I emphasize playing the notes as cleanly as possible, especially in quick phrases. This reduces cleanup and subsequent editing of MIDI data to very little.

For my song I used a Godin xtSA connected to a Roland GI-20 (synth guitar MIDI interface) to a Roland RS-5 with the french accordion sound. I've used that rig ever since, with the later addition of Roland GR-55 and Boss GP-10. A few years later I used the GI-20 for the MIDI transcription of my samba / fusion RealTracks for Biab, it was a very satisfying musical experience. As a keyboard player, I use the MIDI guitar very little to transcribe melodies but to achieve other sonic textures with sounds from VSTi and sampler stuff.

Pianoteq ... I am really not impressed, the piano's sound canned, a little distorted. Too much cheap sounding reverb.
OK when solo maybe but for mixing (MIDI or not) instrument stuff i used the Toontrack EZkeys Vintage piano quite often in the past.

@Rustyspoon is right, some GM stuff sounds quite good, in the past i used Hypersonic, and now HalionSonic which is 64 bit even.
The free SE version is also quite good. Plus that the pianos sound quite better than Pianoteq.

BIAB method to collaborate on projects

I was unaware how powerful Halion and Sonic are. With over 20 gigs of sound it probably is the best GM on the market. So I will retract my "Forget about General MIDI (GM) sound sources" and say "forget about most GM sound sources".

......................


I agree that the Kontakt factory library is very week and very dated. I also agree that the NI's sounds for Kontakt are over priced and that you have to wait for a sale to purchase them. But there are a plethora of excellent third party sounds ranging from free to very expensive. I have a large library of them that I have collected over the years. Kontakt is my go to sound source for most of my sounds.

Peace and stay safe.

Here are a few at the top of my list which have all found a place in my music. I generally wait for a sale. So Mario, what are a couple at the top of your list?

Thanks Carlos and nice playing.

Regarding your comment "This reduces cleanup and subsequent editing of MIDI data to very little." above, this is the issue. The notation I put in the melody track is either an original song melody or simple record lift melodies. I use AnthemScore to assist with record lifting. I figure out the timing of the notes and enter them directly in BIAB. This is faster and cheaper than trying to play it, run it through extra expensive equipment, adjust it. This is all front end stuff (getting the notes in). My question has nothing to do with front end. It has to do with making the melody track such that it does not turn people new to BIAB off. I think PG-Music needs to have an over view course web page for absolute beginners on this topic "making the melody track such that it does not turn people new to BIAB off". The beginner steps through the course topics in prerequisite sequence after they get the overview. If they think they know a topic they (don't drill down into the details but instead skip to the next topic). So as an example entering melodies could be a topic with two sub topics (manual notation entry and midi instrument playing entry). When I first got BIAB in 2012 I would process that topic but now I would skip that topic.

The answer to your question is two fold 1) how you create the midi (This I assume is what you are calling "front end") and 2) what you use to turn the midi into audio.

Therefore you can not ignore the front end as it is a huge contributing factor to the realism of the sound output. It appears you are creating you midi directly from staff notation entry. One of the first responses advised that this was not optimum,



Midi creation (front end) has to be "played" to reach the level of realism we are expecting when we chose the high end synths for playback. That is what Carlos and others are telling you. Also why the MidiSupertracks of BIAB are the choice and why BIAB is not the only tool you need. Took me a long time to appreciate this fact.

And finally, regarding the "latest and greatest methods", I can tell you that none of this has changed in the past 20 years. There is little to nothing new in BIAB or industry technology to change this fundamental premise regarding midi.

This is a perfect example of the fact that music is subjective, as we each hear what we hear. Pianoteq is my go to piano sounds! Lots of good to say about EZKeys grands but for me, Pianoteq is the cheery on the top of the cake.

So I don't skip that part of the course :-) That's fine :-) We do what we got to do.

Got ya. Reminds me of the lyrics, "... moma always told me not to look into the eye of the sun, but mama, that's where the fun is"

Maestro, was that only 11 years ago? I remember being blown away when first watching this. A truly top notch classic performance in the BIAB archives.

Part of the output section of the course should be "select Midi Super Track" rather than "Select Midi Instrument". I just tried this and to my ear some of the piano super tracks sound like real pianos a student would play. If I was forced to bet I would bet real instrument.

The course could have a sort criteria such as "low budget" "high budget" or "little time" or "endless learning time". I would chose "low budget" "Little Time" at present but that could change.

https://indiginus.com/blue_street.html

Plus the Resonator, the Mandolin, and Renaxxance from the same place:

https://indiginus.com/store.html

I'm waiting for a sale!

The blue_street horns sound fantastic. Love it! I just testing all my horns and no hit me where these hit me. Be sure to holler when you see a sale or I will keep my eye on it and do the same. So you know of one on the horizon?? I definitely would like to get this into some of my music. Thanks for sharing, and glad I asked!

Yes and no. Yes, MST's are real musicians playing real keys, so you get all the timing and pressure nuances (i.e., articulations) of the artist. So this is the best of the front end. But the back end audio output is still the same (I assume GM) synth that plays all you BIAB midi. So you are hearing 50% optimized sound.

So no, you are not hearing a real instrument and would lose your bet. Rather you are still hearing the GM Sound Synth in BIAB (pianos can be very good in GM). This is a critical point to understand.

I will leave it up to others to further clarify or correct as needed. Hope I don't sound preachy. You appear to be traveling on a road upon which I have spent a lot of self discovery. So my intentions are good.

Dan

I get playing guitar or piano and sending midi signals out and recording it in the computer in midi (guitar triple play for example). So here (with the proper software) you can see your playing in notation. This is something I have considered doing but it has not been that high a priority so I never went down that path.

Regarding doing this yes more so in my 20s I could play most music that comes my way and I could record lift and probably learn to play it on a midi feed guitar and if I knew how might be able to get it in the BIAB melody track. However (for reasons I won't get into) this is not what I am after. I want to enter notation in BIAB and have it sound better than the current BIAB regular midi tracks which I gather are GM (general midi). Another way to put it. I want to avoid playing midi guitar or keyboard with all the timing problems it creates, having to fix this notation (having to simplify it or rewrite it which is a heck of a lot of work). Instead it is just a lot faster to know that timing and notes I want and enter the notation correctly the first time and as I said above if possible have it sound like a real instrument.

So here is the question. Are these virtual instrument products one can purchase ( https://indiginus.com/blue_street.html ) single note midi samplings that are picked up when notation is entered in BIAB? I ask this because I gather each note such as A 440 has a midi number and along with this there are other midi components that give it the real instrument quality.

The suggestions everyone are giving are great and I say thanks. However so many questions remain. In other words that course is missing.

Maybe this is the way to get that course I am talking about. I googled these two search strings
....#1 "how to make the band in a box midi melody tracks sound better"
....#2 "how to make the notation I enter into the band in a box midi melody track sound better".

These videos show up.
....#1 Band-in-a-Box - importing MIDI using advanced settings
....#2 Band-in-a-Box: Using the Melody Sequencer
....#3 Recording MIDI in Band-in-a-Box

These videos appear as though they should be part of this course (I THINK). If I knew for sure this would get me where I want to go I might trek down this path faster.

Here is another way to put it. Lets say I want the notation I enter to sound like a real sax playing simple notes (nothing fancy) rather than a fake sax. I would rather spend x amount of money, plug it in and its done rather than go out and try to create this sound myself not knowing if I can ever pull it off. Maybe I might want the notes to sound like bowed violin on one song and on another song sound like plucked violin and on another song sound like muted string plucked violin. Or maybe BIAB has a way using the bar settings to switch these real instrument midi sounds within the same song. Again, all part of this course I am suggesting (well I just tried that with the melody track and it worked). So here I might want part of the song violin bowed, another part violin plucked, another violin muted plucking. That at times may make it seem more real.

John, I think one of the points that others are making in their way is that MIDI has no sound at all. It is completely dependent upon the MIDI synth (hardware or software) you use. Choices are almost endless, as is budget.

So I'm not picking on you when I select this quote from your previous post: I want to enter notation in BIAB and have it sound better than the current BIAB regular midi tracks which I gather are GM (general midi)".

Any MIDI track - current, regular or whatever you call it - or PG Music's MIDI Super Tracks, makes a sound through the MIDI synth YOU use on YOUR system. Remember, MIDI has no sound. In addition to GM (General MIDI) sounds, there is GM2 supported by BIAB. Most MIDI synths will play those GM2 sounds, and they are almost always better, but the sound is only ever going to be as good as your choice MIDI synth. Then there are the dozens or great sound libraries that are not General MIDI compatible or GM2 compatible (or Yamaha's standard, either) and they can sound even better. All of those are indeed "single note samplings" as you call it and are likely to sound much better, and cost you.

I used to use a Roland Integra-7 MIDI hardware synth. It's the best they make. I've continued to use that for day-to-day work, but I recently found an easy way to use my music notation software, Presonus Notion 6, and their built-in London Symphony Orchestra sounds. I often export the BIAB MIDI to Notion, render the sounds to audio, and then load that audio track in BIAB after muting the melody and soloist tracks. Since I most often use jazz and classical sounds, this meets my needs. Almost anyone else is going to have different needs. To use your example, I specify in Notion notation that my violin tones will be bowed or plucked, or that my trumpet uses a cup mute, straight mute, or is played open. But keep in mind what I'm doing is NOT the normal way most do it. Explore the advice you've been getting about Kontakt library sounds, for example.

Thanks Matt,

another component of the course :-)

What categories of midi synths are there. Are they categorized into hardware and software. If so how to install them such BIAB can use them? So I assume if you buy a box that is a hardware synth you plug it in the USB and load the software and BIAB picks it up. If it is software you use the BIAB plug in process (never done this so it is new to me). I am thinking GM and GM2 must be software synth and installed with BIAB (a guess).

But these all drill down to that same google search. The fastest easiest way to throw some money at the problem and get those notes one enters to sound better.

I am in effect making this thread the course (not terribly well organized but maybe it will get PG Music thinking). I have to take a break for a while. Other priority commitments. Will get back to this.

Some software libraries use GM or GM2 but many do not, and if you pay for a good library, you probably won't use GM or GM2 sounds because you'll have better available.

Most hardware synths will support GM and GM2. Some, like my Roland, add better sounds too. You get them in BIAB by using a Patch Map. I can explain more about that (I've written some).

But first -

Have you ever seen PG Music's page on this topic? It really old but it's still a great way to begin. Go here: https://www.pgmusic.com/dare-to-compare.htm Just keep in mind that sounds can be much better now than in these demos.

Again, thanks Matt. That's a great comparison. I understand how the real tracks work. I found myself focusing on the midi melody track sound while comparing.

What PG-Music might consider is upgrading this page to make the samples a database that can easily be kept up to date with the latest competing midi synth options available. The question becomes "What might go in each database record and how might this information be presented to the BIAB user?". Here are ideas.

Synth Products database which has an associated list.
.....Name
.....Company
.....Software or hardware synth
.....Comments maybe. How it works, etc.
.....Link to the company product web page
.....a link to help on installing it

Samples Database within each song.
.....pointer to the Synth Products database record to get the Synth name and company
.....The sample.
.....A link to pull up the above product information for the specific product.


The products list could be before or after the song samples (something the database designer and PG Music management would work out). Either way as a new synth comes out and is entered in the PG Music database it gets applied automatically to both the products list and the song samples.

This clearly would be a great aspect to the course. I think it would be the graduation stage of the course. Picture it. One hears the improvements, chooses one, goes directly to knowing how to install it and use it and earlier in the course they learned all the prerequisite knowledge needed to understand what they were doing at a deeper level. When one starts the course one is made aware of the final graduation benefit of this page. More food for PG Music's thoughts.

John,

The user interface of the indiginus.com VST instruments Mario mentioned is rather unique as note velocities are used to select instrument articulations. I've attached a screen shot of an Indiginus acoustic guitar interface. I've also attached a copy of the user manual for you to take a look at. Keyboard keyswitches seem to be a more common method to select articulations.

You have to look close to find them but if you find a VST instrument you're interested in the user manuals are worth downloading and can be a goldmine for figuring out how some of these things work. You can learn a lot just by browsing through a manual.

The video below uses the acoustic guitar VST to provide some tips for getting realistic sounding performances from guitar VST instruments.

+++ THIS +++ video uses the sound library

What a great idea. I'd support the idea if you put it in the wishlist.

Thanks Jim, wow the Renegade synth sure sounds exactly like an acoustic guitar.

So here is the question that maybe should be part of that database idea. How does this get on the BIAB melody track? Does it create notes? In other words a link to a page such as the one you supplied but an associated page on how it appears or interfaces with BIAB. This is important to keep in mind. I can not use a DAW at a jam. I can not use mp3 at a jam. I can only use BIAB period. Why? Because I have no idea who is going to show up for sure and I have no choice but use the BIAB to adjust the chorus very last minute to the number of choruses we need for the solos. In fact people try to get others to change their mind last minute. Totally unpredictable. So all these wonderful products need to be linked to BIAB. The jam always goes on. The melody player does not show. I turn on the melody track and BIAB does it. We still get to play our solos that we practiced.

I did create a wish list entry for a BIAB midi course to tie all this stuff together for BIAB use. I put it in the videos wish list (Seems appropriate since new videos may emerge from such a course). It has a pointer to this thread.

John, I'm glad that gave you some needed background. This topic is complex!

Over the last 15 years we've dropped more than a few hints to PG Music to update that Dare to Compare page. As they used to sell some of the products there (like the SD-20 I have, and Coyote Forte) but to my knowledge do not anymore, they may have less incentive to update the info. But I agree with you that it would be a superb way to allow new users to realize and choose good sound, and then take it the next step to install. We users could probably write this by combining our knowledge. At the least, we can proof anything PG Music makes, and perhaps contribute a recording of the same sample file if PG Music doesn't have a particular synth. I'll head to the Wishlist and give you a +1.

John,

The demonstration is showing the VST instrument at its best when played by a talented musician that is very familiar with the instrument and using VSTs. But, it does sound good, doesn't it!

The Melody channel uses midi channel 4 by default. You can change that by going to Ctrl + E and selecting the Channels button.

You add a VST instrument. One way is to click on the "Plugins" tab of the mixer and click on the 2nd plugin slot on the Melody channel to open the "VST/DXi Plugins" window. Navigate all the way to the bottom of the list and select "Add VST Plugin ...". This opens a file explorer window so you can navigate and select the VST file.

Then you'll need to open the VST instrument settings and set it up to respond to midi channel 4.

Thanks Jim, your info below could be a start on how to install or interface the VST with BIAB :-) A video waiting :-)



I noticed that the Melody track and the Thru track are the only two that have the top plugin set to "Coyote WT" and "SampleTank 2.x". I am making a guess that these are synthesizer software and also guessing that another track could be set for midi if it has these two in its top plugin. Is that correct? Also if they are synthesizer software how can two be allowed? This area is so full of questions. Clearly PG Music needs a well thought out course for people to get up and running quickly.

I am glad you like this idea Matt.



Regarding this I learned to use OBS studio along with Microsoft Movie maker to create videos for my Jazz jams Club. OBS studio to create them in chunks and MS Movie Maker to edit them (append them together and strip out unwanted stuff). They seem to both work flawlessly and are free. If PG music ever set up a database as I suggested maybe it could be set up for allowing an unlimited number of videos to be linked for setting up a Synth or VST for BIAB.

I use Synthogy Ivory II for my VST MIDI controlled Piano. I find it quite impressive. The full install library requires 77Gb of disk space. Certainly not the cheapest product available, but the sound and performance is staggering.

+1

Many attendants in my face-to-face clinics (pre covid19 isolation) tell stories of their sophisticated sample libraries being amazing in studio but disappointing on stage. I think the top of the ice cream is obtained by customization those particular sounds that we are going to use live, editing layers, combining patches, minimizing articulations or replacing them with more 'colored' sounds on stage even though they sound exaggerated in the studio. This can be achieved both with external modules and with virtual instrument plugins.

So this is just amazing and I am sure some of the other Synths are too! As I get time I will check into them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5-ksmyh5H4&feature=youtu.be
However where is the help video for getting the midi output of this into the BIAB melody track? I have 3 uses for this in my Jazz jams Club. If all this can do is play guitar on a keyboard that would be a major disappointment.

Also I am thinking I might create a working start of this "making BIAB Midi Notation sound real course" on my Jazz Jams Club website once I get this video. I will do it as I get my act together :-) I won't create the sample comparison database however. I am far too overloaded to pull that off.

Right, I think that since Dare to Compare was made over a decade ago, the number (and quality) of softsynths has exploded. The number of hardware synths is more, too, but by a far less degree. With so many available, it would be overwhelming for PG Music to demo them all. So that’s why I think a practical way to do it is as follows:

PG Music creates three or so BIAB song files, one each in a couple of genres like country, pop, and jazz. The styles used should be available to all, from the Pro version of BIAB.

PG Music creates a new version of the Dare to Compare Web page with MP3 audio of whatever synths they offer or sell, playing these song files.

PG Music makes the MGU song files available to us.

We prepare audio files using our choice of synth. We follow their guidelines about maximum volume and sample rate etc.

We send these audio files to PG Music with info about what created them, a link to the vendor, and any out-of-the ordinary instructions needed to use it.

PG Music adds this info to their web page.

A separate but linked web page to follow would be a video showing installation in BIAB of a few of the more common synths. This would include coverage of VST3, Kontakt Player, DXi, patch maps. Etc.

Sounds like a good plan Matt. Part of the reason I could not do the database I mentioned is I am not much of a web programmer. I put together a VPS site once. Much of that is forgotten. My database is at home. I ship the page up to the web server. A full time pro data based web programmer would probably find my idea easy and not only that make it real slick as the existing one is. But your ideas merge well such that the best of both could most likely be done.

Also I have a suspicion any BIAB track can be turned into a midi melody track. So the course should include how to do this. If could be an appendix. I have use for this. One track for melody and 1 or 2 tracks for fills but a different midi instrument. The first 4 tracks are for a standard drums, bass, piano & guitar backing real tracks. Our objective of a jam is to replace the first 4 out with live players and the melody track as well. However the fill midi tracks often will be kept and if this is done the guitar real track would be kept as a click. Anyway, I can't see myself going out and spending money until I have this full course complete and this is the stinger for PG Music. A product is not of much value if you do not know how to use it.

Oh, I want those horns! I'm not a keyboard player, though. At least not in real time. Is there a way to get those controllers and articulations in with BIAB? Do the MIDI sounds come preprogrammed with, say, vibrato on the end of the longer notes, etc.? How can one get this stuff using step entry methods? Like select a note and choose a crescendo for that one note, etc.? Can I step enter edit the notes of the MIDI file in the Inignus software, and then import the MIDI file into BIAB or Real Band?

The (BIAB, Notation, editable notation mode, right click on a note, Edit Note, velocity of the note) adjustment is the general area where a lot of the BIAB midi melody descriptions would likely be entered (vibrato, slide up to the note from the prior note, slide down to the note from the prior note, bend up/down rather than slide, pick angle, slap, etc). Maybe BIAB would know what Synth is installed and somehow allow one to tweak the notes here (maybe a button to take you to a whole new way to update the midi sounds the synth can handle).

Personally I am not a big fan of loosing the old tried and true methods of representing notes. I barely use Guitar tabs (just a tiny bit in MuseScore and just for exercises). I have spent most of my musical hours (like 99.9%) with sheet music in front of me and 85% of the time I do not look at my guitar fingers.

I just discovered two problems.

#1: I had standardized all BIAB files to MGU extension on the file. I changed one file to a midi super track 2653 to give a much better organ sounding melody and it forces it to SGU. This has forced me to change the file name on my system so I can call it.

#2: But later an even bigger killer problem occurred. It later changed it to not play the written melody at all.

So I have had to return an old BIAB file copy which has extension MGU and the tiny sounding guitar. For now our Jazz Jams Club members will continue to play melody. It was a few years ago I learned of all this. Maybe in a few years I can revisit this.

Well, at the beginning I was with you. The questions you were asking made sense to me and we were on the same page. But this thread has taken a turn and lost me.... Not sure what is being talked about?

And by the way, A MST will not play your melody! Nor will BIAB midi drive that VSTi Guitar to play your melody. That's not how this works!

Updating the website is not in the slightest difficult. I've been writing websites since 1994 when there were very few.

But you're making mistakes in terminology that makes me (and perhaps others) worry that you aren't quite there yet.

The (BIAB, Notation, editable notation mode, right click on a note, Edit Note, velocity of the note) adjustment is the general area where a lot of the BIAB midi melody descriptions would likely be entered (vibrato, slide up to the note from the prior note, slide down to the note from the prior note, bend up/down rather than slide, pick angle, slap, etc).

That's correct.

Maybe BIAB would know what Synth is installed and somehow allow one to tweak the notes here (maybe a button to take you to a whole new way to update the midi sounds the synth can handle).

BIAB does know what synth is loaded but no program is going to adapt to it; it's quite the other way - the software libraries or hardware synths need to play what's given them (and they don't sometimes, depends on what you buy). MIDI has no sound. MIDI is just instructions to a synth.

#1: I had standardized all BIAB files to MGU extension on the file. I changed one file to a midi super track 2653 to give a much better organ sounding melody and it forces it to SGU. This has forced me to change the file name on my system so I can call it.

Well, no. SGU is the extension BIAB uses for a song without a melody or soloist track. MGU means the song does have something on the melody or soloist track.

#2: But later an even bigger killer problem occurred. It later changed it to not play the written melody at all.

That sounds like you put your melody on a track other than the melody or soloist track, and the song regenerated it as it should. Start a separate thread on that problem and we'll figure it out. The problem might be from this statement:

Also I have a suspicion any BIAB track can be turned into a midi melody track.

Unless you freeze the track immediately, it will regenerate. And if the style thinks there is a RealTrack there, you must alter the style to use MIDI on that track.

Updating the website is not in the slightest difficult.
I agree. I think that is what I said. I said I was not that great a website programmer but a person who does it day in and day out won't find making it a database a problem. For them easy.

BIAB does know what synth is loaded
Yes, I assume that because of the dare to compare page.


but no program is going to adapt to it
yes, my understanding is BIAB sends the midi instructions to the synth. Here is where I might be wrong. My understanding is BIAB can send no more than GM or GM2 midi instructions to the synth and these synth's need more in order to get that great realistic sound. But that begs the question "how did it feed proper melody instructions to those synths in the dare to compare web page". I think your Comment Matt that a few videos are needed is the solution to all this (videos tied together in proper prerequisite sequence by the course outline).

Well, no. SGU is the extension BIAB uses for a song without a melody or soloist track. MGU means the song does have something on the melody or soloist track.
I guess I need to explain a little better. I call BIAB from two programs I wrote. A program written in PHP and Javascript and also in Microsoft access VBA (visual basic for applications). It actually works out to 4 databases I have the BIAB file on (don't ask - there is a very logical reason for it that has to do with a long history). I am guessing one reason BIAB keeps changing the extension is so they can scan the tracks for categories or the styles for categories. Okays so this will not change so I decided to put at least 1 melody note on all my BIAB song files to force them to consistently be .MGU. However if trying to get the Melody Midi track to sound like real instruments is going to lead to the file extension constantly changing on me I have to develop code smart enough to deal with that automatically.

So I had the BIAB melody track set to Midi Instrument Patch "27 Jazz Electric Guitar". I set it to this midi supertrack.

I highlighted the part that might be the problem. That red sentence makes it sound like it is replacing my midi melody notes with a new set of midi melody notes but it took away the M in .MGU so I have no idea what it did. I am analysing the 3 midi options (Midi Instrument, Midi Super Track, Custom Midi Style). So these are different categories of midi instructions I take it. Changing the instrument does not clobber my notes. Maybe the other categories replace my notes (wiping out a lot of work and thus if this is true I should get a warming!). I am working with a BIAB song file copy. I will experiment. The experiment confirmed this. The organ track replaced my notes. I guess I don't use that one...lol. So I decided to save my working copy. It changed it to .SGU. Maybe this means "Solo". Okay so I tried the 3rd midi option "Custom Midi Style". This also clobbered my midi melody notes (no warning). However this time it did not change the file extension. It seems to have found a track from a midi style and dropped it in my melody track. Its a guitar rhythm. Clearly this is not what I want to do. They need a drop down for "Better Sounding Midi Melody Notes" and you get a list of soft synths to choose from just like the dare and compare web page. So then maybe it would be a good idea to tell the user the various ways you can go back to your notation and spice the notes up a bit with the edit note stuff that this synth can accept (that new button I was suggesting in the edit note dialog box).


Also I have a suspicion any BIAB track can be turned into a midi melody track.
Unless you freeze the track immediately, it will regenerate. And if the style thinks there is a RealTrack there, you must alter the style to use MIDI on that track.

I was trying to get the link to Jim Fogle's #603053 post on page two but I can't get it to work. I left the question below about his diagram.



So I think you (Matt) partly answered the question I asked Jim. To change a track to be midi I have to change the style.


I liked the PG-Music web page that said "midi instructions are like the sheet music instruction and the synth is like the human that plays the music". Simple concept but there are a boat load of numbers and number categories involved :-) My understanding is everything beyond GM and GM2 is the wild west of lack of standards across synths.

So here is my problem. I must discipline myself to let go of this. I have become very distracted (from playing music and from some Jazz Jam Clubs shared recording projects we have on the go and from house repair projects that need to get done) by this very interesting topic of trying to get the BIAB melody track being able to produce the proper midi instructions to drive various synths that produce great instrument sounds (Did I get the terminology correct). This distraction is taking a lot longer than I thought it would (more than I can afford). When PG-Music has a well thought out course of learning tied directly to their BIAB melody track (and making other tracks Midi melody tracks) I will try again (hopefully I will have time). For now I have to get my guitar finger clauses back :-) Its also not fair on the users (you guys). I am very good at learning a difficult topic like this if I have the proper videos and web pages to read in the proper sequence (a course). Don't get me wrong. Experiments work to :-) The problem is they take a lot longer and you have to make sure your BIAB file is backed up :-)

Related directly to this thread's topic I woke this morning with a time and money saving idea. I entered it in my MS-Access reminder database. It is a habit I have that I find very useful. I normally write these to myself in the 2nd (You) person but I copied it here in the 1st (I) person so it does not sound like I am telling people what to do. It gives PG-Music an Idea how the BIAB melody can be used. Also some may not have heard of AnthemScore.
========
Subject:
Here is the cheapest fastest way I can capture my playing at a jam and get it into midi melody in BIAB so I can use it for future solos or even writing a song.

Cheapest (No need for a midi guitar and expensive midi equipment).
Fastest (No need to go through the very slow process of fixing bad timing in the BIAB notation).

Method:

• Remember, after the jam I have my solo on a separate track in .wav format.
• Use AnthemScore to both analyse the full mix of the song and also your track's .wav file.
• With either or both of these files use (AnthemScore's default spectrogram with notes) to figure our the notes of your solo and punch them directly into BIAB.
• You can punch this into the melody track (if to be used for a song) or the solo track (if to be used for future solos as a lick-riff-motif idea).
  
• Maybe you punch it into both and even use it at a live jam. In this case maybe a different instrument is used and you select a great soft/hard synth to play it. Maybe the soft synth can be changed in the Bar Settings dialog box????

Other uses for AnthemScore and punching notation directly into BIAB.

• Capture other riffs from great artist records to be used at the jam. In this case at the jam use a BIAB click track along with the riff on the BIAB solo track.
• A very difficult melody no one can play. Maybe the guy who initiated the jam could play it but he did not show up. BIAB plays the melody with a good synth for mimicking his instrument.
• Sending members the shared recording backing tracks with melody before you have a chance to learn to play the melody. This could be from a BIAB file you picked up on the web which already has the melody.

========
One last comment about this. There might be faster ways to get the notation updated in BIAB using a keyboard but I am still pretty ambitions as a guitar player and this takes a lot of time. I don't really want to get too distracted from this goal of playing as well as I can. I know how to punch notes into BIAB pretty fast. The great majority of what I punch in is very simple. Having said that if the method of getting the notes into the BIAB melody track does not take a lot of (money, time to learn and BIAB bad timing correction time) I am all ears :-)

Okay here is my course outline page for making the BIAB Midi Melody and Solo tracks sound real. It started very rough. It is improving on the fly. It provides a central condensed location for the material such that I can quickly get back to material I need to review without trying to find it scattered about randomly in a giant forum thread on the topic. The objective is to eventually get it slick enough that I can use it and also later I can present it to the members of my Jazz Jams Club such that just maybe it will get some of them to buy BIAB which in turn will hopefully get them to be more likely to come out and participate in our jams. Maybe by that time the PG Music people will be thinking to themselves "We can easily out do John so lets make it happen". I am all for the very very best taking over :-) There is a saying that some great players can't teach worth a dam. In this case I suspect PG Music would be great teachers. In the mean time I will off and on look at it and improve it. I am open to any improvements in wording, sort order, prerequisite insertions, new videos, etc. Please remember our jam group has to use BIAB because the number of choruses often changes a few seconds before a song starts and I am already in a rush to get the next song going. BIAB works well.

Each time something comes in to improve it, I will make the changes and I will add a post to this thread with the link to the course outline.

Thanks,
John

Just creating an entry in the Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real..

Using the process shown by the arrows in the attached picture I first tried putting CoyoteWT in.
That aborted and locked up the sound file.
Luckily I had followed my habit of creating a temp version of my song file for that experiment.
I used windows to close that abort down and brought in another working copy of the song file.
This time I tried something I figured would not cause a problem as shown in the attached picture.
I applied it but I hear no sound change.
I finally noticed the help button.
It is clearly worth clicking that button and reading the help.
Hopefully that explains why I hear no sound change.

I have just created a section in bold red at the bottom of the Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real which is dedicated to the type of stuff I feel should be available in a database driven Dare To Compare page. I suppose I should study Matt's practical suggestions at this point. Maybe someone at PG Music should be in the loop.

Anyway, as much as I am having a lot of fun I have to let it go for a while as I am under increasing pressure to get some Jazz Jams Club recording done. At this point the course outline should at least give a rough point A to point B learning process. As I learn more I will keep improving it and making additional pre-requisite sequence adjustments to it. I have already made my Jazz Jams Club members aware of it. I would say 40% of them have BIAB but most are not that advanced. It may help them at least be aware of the potential BIAB has.

I just did a complete review, reorganize and improvement to the lower section of the Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real. It is much easier to read and includes a better button breakout for the Dare-To-Compare Page. A special 3 way button for Midi Melody entry is now included. To go directly to these improvements click the link and ctrl+F string search for "28th". From there to the very end has been improved.

I am pretty sure I am finished that section now. After I get my two Jazz Jams Club recordings complete I hopefully can start the course myself...lol. That will most likely lead to improvements in the upper section of the course and these could go for a while.

John,

Thanks for the tremendous effort. I'm sure the course will be extremely helpful to many new users. It's great how you're trying to help new users!

Once again, thank you!

John. It was explained way back in this thread, the problem is how you input the melody into Biab's melody track.

You referred to AnthemScore. That is a so-called audio to midi converter and so far all of those suck pretty bad. There have been threads about audio to midi converters here for years. People test them out and they're not very good. I looked it up and watched a vid of it. The demo song was very basic guitar and for that it picked up the notes pretty good. There is no mention in what I read or heard that it picks up any articulations, modulations etc. If the part is simple enough I can this saves you the time involved in entering the notes and that's ok but it doesn't help with make a solo line sound real. It's giving you just the notes. To make midi sound real you need all the articulations and other things I'll describe below.

I'll give you an example of the problem with midi in Biab. Someone enters in or, in this case imports a track created by AnthemScore onto the melody track and sets up a trumpet to play it. With no articulations etc, what you hear is a straight, solid, unwavering tone that sounds like a trumpet for a split second or two but then sounds incredibly fake because no human plays a trumpet like that. No amount of you tweaking Biab is going to change that and changing synths won't change that either.

Say you picked up $2,500 brass synth that I can't remember the name of now. It sounds incredible but it has been explained at least 10 times in this thread already, that incredible synth is only going to play what Biab feeds it. That synth is capable of playing back all kinds of horn things like falls, doits, lipping techniques, all kinds of stuff. But if that information is not written into the midi file by the use of CC numbers, pitch bends etc, all the synth plays is the basic notes with zero embellishments and it would sound totally fake.

And you would be back here saying I bought this $2,500 synth and it still sounds like crap! Why can't Biab fix this? It's because Biab has nothing whatever to do with that. And it doesn't matter which synth because they're all the same when it comes to this. They all play what Biab gives it, nothing more, nothing less. There is no "automatic" adding of human articulations and realism after the fact.

A midi file is like a computer program, it tells the deaf and dumb synth what to play and that's all it does. It really is no different than you looking at your guitar sitting in it's stand and you ask it "why can't you play me something?"

Bob

Thanks Jim, I am glad you feel it will be useful. For me it is a fun change from the same old routine :-)

Hi Bob,

over all I find BIAB Editable Notation mode very fast for inputting melody compared to musescore. It's unfortunate problem is not being able to input triplets in a latin tune (triplets against 16ths). If PG Music could borrow the technique that MuseScore uses verbatim getting it to print and play properly it would serve all my needs. I suspect it is a programming challenge.

I have used AnthemScore twice with the spectrogram and once trying use its notation capture.

AnthemScore SpectroGram:
I find it sucks in its shortcut keys but I am starting to catch on to tricks for this. What I find is you start to learn to read the beat in the spectrogram such that you can count while it is running and if you are looking for a chord is is very good at helping with this (or single notes for that matter).

AnthemScore Notation Capture:
I vaguely remember trying to play a melody on guitar and record it in .wav and see how AnthemScore wrote the music and it was terrible in that the inaccuracies in the notation created more problems than it was worth. So the solution was to use the spectrogram and learn to see the beat within the spectrogram and enter it correctly into BIAB. Your eye, ear and mind automatically know after a while what beats the notes are suppose to be on (just like old fassion transcribing). This is the trick.




That makes sense. I think BIAB sounds better on fast tunes where the player has less time to do anything with each note and that is in fact the only time I would ever use it at a jam (fast hard tunes if the song initiator did not show up - it happens - I hate wasting practice). Bottom line is I can not use a daw, mp3 or .wav file at a jam. BIAB is the only option. I explained that in this post. We have had 23 or so people come out to the jams using BIAB and every one enjoyed it. BIAB in no way shape or form causes you to loose your ability to have fun and put emotion into your music. I feel sorry for those who limit themselves here. Sneaking in a midi backup part won't ruin the jam. This leads to the next paragraph.

BIAB needs is a midi snap-to feature for printing sheet music of a song. So the player plays their instrument and BIAB creates midi that accurately reflects the human inaccuracies but it is not to be used for sight reading (which is primarily what I am after since I normally don't have BIAB play melodies). Then if the user wants to print it for sight reading they indicate what they want the inaccuracies to snap to. It could be 1/8ths, 1/16ths, 1/4s, whatever. So it cleans the human inaccuracies so it prints something that other musicians can sight read and add their own personal inaccuracies to. Vibratos would be left alone. Bends would be left alone. Volume changes would be left alone. I am sure I have heard of software that does this (maybe triple play's software).

I have about 30 songs I wrote in my early 20s. I put the music to paper as well as recording them. I quit guitar for 22 years (never touched it, never listened to music). To go back to those songs I would find it far to slow to figure out what I did by lifting the recordings. I just go to the music and in a very short period of time I can play them again. Litterly hundreds of times faster than record lifting.

Here is the question. With all the complaints I am hearing about BIAB playing midi or anything playing midi why bother with Midi at all? You may as well just record to .wav which is the ultimate sound capture. Anthemscore can create notes from a .wav but it does note have a snap-to feature. When you play the music back in AnthemScore from the spectrogram it sounds just like the record.

I just watched the BIAB recording midi video.. Can it record guitar slides, guitar bends, etc. How do they look in notation. I generally read read song melodies exact on the first melody then after the solos I change the melody around (jazz it up). Its good sight reading practice and improvising practice. But notating midi again is for recording hard melodies just in case the jam initiator can't attend.

That's the problem John. No music program or DAW can add anything to what you enter. All you can enter into Biab's notation is the notes. Yes, you can add some velocity by drawing curves with your mouse in the piano roll and that helps a little. You can draw in a fade at the end of some notes so they don't just cut off for example. But to do that for an entire 16 bar complex solo melody line? Man, you could be a week doing that.

I think a far better way would be to find complete midi files online that contain the melody that someone else already took the time to play live using a good midi controller. A controller has the sensors to capture your playing including velocity, modulation and all the other things that make a midi line sound real. If you want a sax playing the melody there are files where the sax player used a wind controller that plays like a sax and the DAW records all the nuances the controller puts out and that's what's in the midi file.

The problem is you may not be able to find commercial midi files of the songs you need and if you do find them you may have to pay for them. That could be worth it because they're usually not terribly expensive. They can be something like $6 or $7 each and they usually discount them if you buy 5 or 10 at a time. Many times you can find free ones too. But free is free and you get what you pay for. Some are pretty good, some not.

Bob

I basically get what you and everyone else is saying Bob. It is not exactly the most complex thing to understand. What I write below should make if very clear that I indeed understand everyone but additionally help you understand my stance as well (touch wood).

The melody of a song is not the only enjoyable part of a song but lets focus only on melody at the moment. It can be broken down into a continuum. I give you the continuum below. Some are happy at #1. I am happy at #4. You and others in the thread are happy at #6. Some are not happy until they get to #8. I don't understand how people can be happy at #1 but I accept that they are indeed happy there and I do not put myself on a pedestal and say there is something wrong with them. You don't understand how I can be happy at #4. You need to understand that I am indeed happy at the lower levels but at the same time I am maybe a touch happier at the higher levels and am totally in joy if I can play at level #8 but I roll with the punches better than most from the sounds of it.

• 1: Talking. No Melody. (rap music or the marketing name "Hip Hop" that some in jazz give it.)
  
• 2: Melody with boring note selection and tiny and monotone.
  
• 3: Melody with great note selection but still tiny and monotone.
  
• 4: Melody with great notes and great tone played on a midi that actually sounds like a great guitar but played monotone.
  
• 5: Melody with great notes and great tone played on a midi that actually sounds like a great guitar but played with varying volume adjustments to show emotion.
  
• 6: Melody with great notes and great tone played on a midi that actually sounds like a great guitar but played with varying volume adjustments to show emotion and added techniques to make it sound interesting.
  
• 7: Melody with great notes and great tone played on a midi that actually sounds like a great guitar but played with varying volume adjustments to show emotion and added techniques to make it sound interesting plus the player draws respect because they show they can sight read and improvise (play the notes exact and later improvise them).
  
• 8: Melody with great notes and great tone played on a midi that actually sounds like a great guitar but played with varying volume adjustments to show emotion and added techniques to make it sound interesting plus the player draws even more respect because they show they can right read and improvise (play the notes exact and later improvise them and they can put in extremely difficult improvising to).

Because I am happy at #4 this allows me to enter record lift notation into BIAB rather than Musescore such that I can have it played by BIAB at a jam if no one is there that can play it (to busy playing something else or it is just too difficult to play). These BIAB midi sub melodies or filler melodies are not the main attraction of the show (our live playing is). We hide the fact that one member of our group (BIAB Midi fill in melody) has no emotion. But this is not to say that this fill in melody can not make a good contribution at level #4. Our live playing takes the overall performance up to a level 7 and even at times a level 8. In the end the participants at our jams have a heck of a lot of fun. Many don't have the time to come out but they stay on the list hoping they eventually will.

The other use of putting filler melody in BIAB is just to have a place to record it so it is not forgotten. Better in BIAB than in Musescore so we can at least use it at a jam.

Now if I can use a midi guitar to take the BIAB midi melody to #6 at times (with bends, trills, volume adjust, octaves, slides, etc) I will indeed do so. I will be a bit happier at that level but I will still enter midi melodies in BIAB using BIAB notation if I have trouble playing them. I don't burn the house down just because it isn't perfectly clean. If the continuum didn't work hopefully the analogy did.

I might see if I can rent hardware midi and midi guitar after I finish the course. I am more likely to be able to add interesting techniques on guitar than on keyboard. I also need to see if I can find software that can do midi snap-to so the midi notation is sight readable. In other words if it was suppose to look like a triplet swing I won't want to see it written as a 64th note. I will create a BIAB wish list for this.

John, the ‘snap to ‘ feature you are looking for is called quantization.

Some DAWs like Cakewalk by Bandlab (formerly SONAR) do use the term Snap but it refers to track alignment.

Ok John, you are persistent I will give you that. And I can be a bit slow on the uptake at times. But I think I am starting to understand a bit of the issue here.

I stated earlier that " none of this has really changed in the past decade...", but in fact it has. It used to be so much simpler then it is now.

Back circa 2000, when I first explored "making midi melody to sound real in BIAB", there were only three options 1) Internal computer sounds from the sound card (horrible), 2) External GM hardware synth (I still one in the closet) and 3) Coyote Forte GM software syth. That Coyte Forte GM software synth served me well for 20 years. In fact, I would still be using it today, and telling you to use it now, if it were not for the fact that BIAB killed it when they released BIABx64. So if you are working only with BIABx32, purchase a copy of Coyote Forte (not coyote wave) for $35 and call it a day.

Today working with Midi sounds in BIAB can be a horrendous chore to find a good sounds. Some of us solved this by taking our BIAB midi to our DAW where none GM sounds are the norm along with the tools to manage them. In my case, it was not until I started working with a midi control keyboard that I really appreciated the value of the midi creation (front-end). Otherwise, there are several GM sound players and VSTsynths, with very good sounds, which are being used in BIAB and have been mentioned in this thread. Unfortunately, they border on needing a audio engineering degree to comprehend and setup. The good news is that there are folks here in the forum who can help direct.

So, I agree, better schooling and training is needed for us all on this topic. Problem is, that is generally not the priority (well at least for me) for making music. But like you said "we do what we have to do".

Good luck my friend.

Dan

Thanks Matt. Terminology is important. Lots to learn :-)

Thanks Dan. I can't use a DAW because I do not know how many participants in my Jazz jams are doing a solo. They hum and haw because they are nervous then they change their mind and go for it or they chicken out last minute. So I get the final last second decision, set the number of BIAB chorus repeats and click start and off we go. So I have to accept accept accept BIAB and learn to be happy with that. Acceptance is a skill required to be happy. We do what we go to do. Acceptance is a skill that helps us as we get old to. Its the same in market trading. Two trades have exactly the same signals. I take both. One gives me $100. The other gives me $3. I accept it and stay happy. I learned this well when I got in a marriage with a person with issues. I learned a bit of CBT thinking I could help them. In surprised me that instead I used CBT to changed and accept them and I could be happy that way to. In the end I decided to leave. We try but when we can't get we accept. Its a constant balancing act.

Well, I'm not necessarily thinking just melody. One of the big things I'm trying to do with MIDI is to write horn charts in Real Band. Someone posted a soft synth that does fantastic synth sounds of horns, and as far as I can tell, the difference in these is the articulations. I forget which one it was, but it seemed to be a VST, having it's own sound editor. You could pick a note and apply a sound effect like sforzando, or vibrato at the end of longer notes, etc.

I wasn't sure how it worked in the VST and didn't want to spend the money on the plug-in until I'm sure how it works.

It just seems as though I should be able to pick, say, a trumpet part, and apply a filter to all of the notes in that part that change the velocity of each note to be a little higher at the outset of the note, like a player blowing the note into the horn. Then apply a filter that sets the velocity to increase for longer duration notes, and/or add vibrato with velocities on longer notes.

Is there any such way to apply such "preset" horn articulations to MIDI notes, or if there isn't a way to do this, why isn't there? Surely someone has thought of this concept before.

BTW, the Indiginus Blue Street Horns is the VST that I'm referring to. How can I get those sounds into Real Band, or into my BIAB melody track? https://indiginus.com/blue_street.html

I added the quote below to the Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real.



Hey guys, I have to tune out for a few days as of right now. So my responses will come in late.

On this topic, we are just waiting for Mario to tell us when the best time/price is to buy!

Otherwise, I am confident that the controls available in Reaper along with my midi controller will permit all those sounds in my melody track. Likely RB can do the same, but not so confident that BIAB can do this. Last I tried it struggled with VSTi plugins.

Velocity has no bearing on how long the note is held. Velocity adjusts the initial attack and sound of the instrument. If you have only a one layer sound there will be no change in the initial note attack or sound. But if it has a number of layers then different velocity levels will change the initial attack and sound. For instance say a trumpet sound has 5 layers. A low velocity will give a soft attack and sound while a high velocity will give a loud trumpet blast and sound.

Sforzando, vibrato, and other articulations are controlled by MIDI CCs or key switches. Many times the mod wheel (CC1) will control expression (volume after the initial volume CC7 is set) in horns, woodwinds and strings. This will handle all of your volume changes. Vibrato is controlled by other CCs. Most of the good sound sources have a MIDI learn where you click on MIDI learn and move a slider or knob and from then on that slider or knob will control vibrato. In the really good sound sources you can preset the amount of vibrato and how long into the note the vibrato will start.



The horn articulations you mentioned are accomplish by key switches. Say press a C1 note to get Sforzando or a C#1 to get legato, etc. The better the sound source the more key switch articulations and control you will get.

Note that the blue-steel requires the full version of Kontakt.

I hope that helps and good luck.

If you need help feel free to PM me.

Don't laugh I'm waiting for it to go on sale! But I rarely if ever have seen Indiginus products go on sale. They are really good VSTis!

So, are these Blue Street Brass sounds MIDI or sampled real sounds? In don't understand how the VSP works. Would I be sequencing a horn line, editing it after the performance with effects like vibrato, microphone, etc., and then importing that sound performance into the DAW? The time align with the current track, which I created in BIAB?

Clueless.

They are MIDI but I use sampled instruments for their sounds.

I bring my BiaB tracks into my DAW. I would then set up a MIDI track in my DAW with Blue Street Brass as my sound source and a MIDI controller as my input device. For this I would probably use my MIDI wind controller. I could use my MIDI keyboard controller also. I would record the horn(s) while playing the other tracks.

If using a keyboard controller I could be adding key switch articulations and expression control via the mod wheel while playing. If using my wind controller expression is controlled via my breath and vibrato by my mouth piece. All other articulations would be done either by sound on sound recording (recording the articulations live while hearing the notes) or drawing them in in the piano roll view.

I'm not a keyboard player per se, would have a difficult time playing the notes in time, especially while using the other hand to twist nobs, move pitch wheels, etc. Is there a way to enter notes into a a MIDI file and edit the controllers/effects after the fact? Import a MIDI file to my DAW from Finale, but but then edit the notes to have articulations, fall-offs, vibrato, etc.?

Yiieps should have started a new thread.... oh well.

Here is the
Manual

Of course Mario knows this stuff well, but let me add my perspective based on how I would likely use this, in a hope it clarifies rather than confuses

All these VSTs work a little differently. In this case these are individual real audio sounds. Individual notes triggered by individual midi notes. I can't determine if they are polyphonic, meaning if you hit a chord you get multiple notes, but I suspect it would. Just like Mario, all of BIAB comes over into my DAW to do this. If I were using this for a melody line, I would first just send the BIAB midi melody to this and here what it does. It should sound a lot better than any GM synth in BIAB. Now I can stop there. Or often if the melody line is simple, I will play it live with my controller keyboard. This allows more of me in the music.




Yes, of course. I don't see a lot of key switching which is typical in many of these to change parameters, rather, this looks like it has control commands (cc) to adjust in the midi line. The manual addresses these.

I have contacted Indiginus to see if we can get a special price reduction deal since we are such nice guys. I'll let you know.

I also notified the moderator and asked for this side bar discussion to be moved to a separate thread. hehe , We (I) really disrailed the OP long discussion.

I am back for a short while until I start working on my next recording :-)


You need go through the first part of my course :-) But I am serious. Give it a try. It is free :-) Skim the course and click the links to drill down to the details when you see the need.

So lets see if I have this clear. I am going to make some statements and maybe someone can tell me if I am correct or not on each.

First off I just determined I have BIAB 2018 32 bit and I updated my course about this topic. I also updated my course on how to switch back to 32 bit if you have the 64 bit (apparently 2019 comes standard with 32 bit - not sure about 2020).

Since I want the notation to have proper easy to sight read timing I enter the notes directly into BIAB.
I then export the midi file out and bring it into a VST that can add articulations to the midi file (Can Renegate do this?).
Now I bring my midi file back into BIAB and I run it through a synth that actually sounds like a real instrument (how to I get this real sound - I don't want it to sound like a tin can with great articulations). How to make it sound like a real (bass, sax, nylon string guitar, piano, flute, organ, vibes).

So simple! Can this be done? How? How much money roughly?

LoL. It's a question of money. Buy a few plugins like Ample Sound stuff, SaxLab, EZkeys and Superior drummer. Tip: rob a bank first.

But you'll need a lot of experience to get the best out of the best. Import BIAB stuff in a DAW, and then start messing with timing etc.

This is where BIAB really excels: with relatively little money it sounds quite good after a short period of time.
Alas it comes at a price, as BIAB is full of quirks and buggy RT handling if you want specialities like half-timing RTs, change beat counts at a bar etc.

I am starting to think there is not enough (demand for making the BIAB midi melody tracks sound real) to motivate PG-Music to make pursuing this goal easy. Either that or it is a future priority.

It's not so simple. BiaB is locked into General MIDI (GM) and it really has to be in order for everyone to be able to hear the same thing, i.e. GM is very easy to use.

You can get some realistic sounds using GM and the SFZ sounds that are included with BiaB. It takes a knowledge of the instrument you are trying to emulate and the MIDI skill via CCs to pull it off. (Note if you take a stock BiaB MIDI track and use a very expensive sound source it still be will static sounding; you need to animate it.) You can get a more realistic bass and nylon guitar by add some vibrato and slides. The piano and organ can sound realistic with the proper playing techniques.
Depending on what GM or SFZ sound source you have other instruments can sound better also. Note that soundfonts and SFZ instruments have many different sounds of the same instrument available. Think like what trumpet sound do you want? Miles? Maynard Ferguson? Satchmo? Sax is one that you will need to spend some money on to get a good sound, but google/bing to see is some free ones will be OK.

Why doesn't PGM automatically do this for you? I surmise it is because every system is different. They know that when one really gets into MIDI one of the first things they do is to drop GM. Lets say you want to have a trumpet slur from a half tone up to the desired tone. My trumpet sound my be set for a half tone slur while your may be set for a two tone slur. Thus mine will sound OK and yours awful! There are no standard for things like that and there souldn't be. It is up to you to set up your instruments.

If you really want to get into better sounding MIDI it does cost. I would suggest you get either Kontakt or SampleTank, both around $400. (I chose Kontakt because of the number of third party sounds for it.) I would wait for a sale on either of these excellent programs. I know that Kontakt goes on sale occasionally for around half price.

BUT before I would spend that kind of money I would start learning MIDI and playing with the sounds you already have. I'm sure others will have suggestions also.

I hope this helps and good luck.

Thanks MarioD. Your post is very helpful. I like your last suggestion.

I will probably refer to it in my web paged titled Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real. I need to read your post a few times to let it sink in :-)

John

A minimum investment for working with Midi. And no, you don't need years of piano lessons (although it won't hurt). The little guy, at ~99$ is over 20 years old and still fully functional. The bigger guy at $149 I picked up a couple years ago when I pushed to a next level. A relatively minor investment to go down this road.

Anyone wanting a short "what is MIDI?" overview might enjoy this 11:25 minute YouTube video: +++ A Beginner's Guide To MIDI +++

Thanks Jim. The I learned two things.

1/ I use speaker line out of the computer to my speakers. I am pretty sure that is analog. But I did not know that some send their computer output to a USB box which converts to analog and sends to a speaker.
2/ I did not know about the buffer size concepts. That makes sense. I am guessing the video for recording midi with BIAB should talk about that.

I also put it in my Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real

John

For your #1: all speakers are analog at the end, by moving a cone that moves air. After that, things get interesting. Speakers can be powered or not.

Powered speakers take the line level signal (line out). Unpowered speakers require a separate power amp.

There’s more. There’s always more.

Yes, I forgot about my notebook during jams sending microphone out backing tracks (analog) to a mixer which in turn sends line out to powered speakers. But still that is analog going out of the computer. Sounds great with those deep powerful 250 watt each pair of speakers :-)

It may be worth trying again with the demo. There's control over the reverb, or you can do your own in a DAW or whatever, but a really nice feature is the "condition" control almost hidden away just above the keyboard. With that you can adjust the modelling of the piano from "mint" to totally clapped out. Somewhere a little way from "Mint" tends to sound more authentic. Brand nianos need running in to sound best ... Pianoteq has an adjustment.

YMMV.

Gordon.

For a few years now I have considered buying a Fishman TriplePlay Wireless MIDI Guitar Controller but held back mostly because I just didn't have enough knowledge required to take the plunge. I remember asking if this device could be used to record directly into BIAB and no one answered. So while creating my Course outline: Getting the BIAB midi (melody and solo tracks) to sound real I discovered this Recording MIDI in Band-in-a-Box video and it appears maybe I can use the triple play to record a midi melody directly into BIAB.

Last night I noticed BIAB has a Quantize Melody feature under (Melody, edit melody track, quantize time adjust, quantize melody). So I am wondering if I can get a somewhat articulated (volume changes at least) midi melody into BIAB with the triple play then use the BIAB quantize feature to clean up the lead sheet and also make it sound like a real instrument by using the the "sforzando SFZ Synth" or "Coyote ForteDXi" currently mentioned at the bottom of my Course outline.

Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Am I likely to be able to get the midi melody directly into BIAB with the Triple Play? Does the BIAB quantize feature work well? What sorts of articulations can BIAB record into the midi melody or solo track and play back and why? What sorts of instruments will sound real with the "sforzando SFZ Synth" or "Coyote ForteDXi" (assuming the person is purposely not adjusting the timing of the printed melody which I normally do in jazz before the solos start - I only monkey with the melody timing after the solos).

John,

You and other readers interested in guitar midi controllers may find +++ THIS +++ message thread informative. The thread compares the Fishman, Jamstick and Roland hardware.

The forum is run by Jam Origin who sells monophonic and polyphonic audio to midi software. They offer software for bass and guitar with violin software in beta. There is demo software to try.

Regardless of the midi guitar solution you select I believe you'll discover you'll need to adapt your playing technique to achieve the degree of accuracy you expect.

Thanks Jim, I will study that forum for sure. Might take me a while :-) John

Thanks MarioD. Very helpful. What you wrote in the quote above leads to some questions.

Is it likely that the Triple Play sounds can be used by BIAB? If yes would this be done via the plug in feature BIAB has which is described in this Using VST Plugins with Band-in-a-Box video? I did a Google search "using fishman triple play midi GUITAR controller plugins" and found only this one video The Fishman Tripleplay VST Plugin. I am taking a wild guess that these companies write plugins so they get more sales and these plugins have special install or use instructions. In my case the use would probably be during BIAB backing track output at a live jam. However lately I create backing track .wav files which are used mostly in Audacity since Jazz Jams Club members don't want to spend a lot of money. Each member participating in a song sends their track out to all other members who are participating and this way each participant can mix whatever way they want. So the plug in would mostly be used to simulate the melody meaning eventually a member will replace the BIAB melody with their playing the melody. However some songs might have a backing track record lift in the soloists track (a midi track). If it sounds good they may want to keep it.

I just went back to the Fishman TriplePlay Wireless MIDI Guitar Controller website. Other than mentioning there is a VST this is all I found.
--The triple play Works with any music software that accepts class-compliant MIDI

This BIAB forum thread on using the Fishman Triple Play with BIAB may be interesting.

I think once you get Triple Play you will love it. MIDI guitar controllers can open up a whole new world for you. There is a learning curve, first off you have to set up the controller for your playing style and that is a hit and miss situation, but after that is it a lot of fun. My guess is that afer you get it you will start using it in a DAW where you have a lot more options.

Thank MarioD. I have it on my to do list to update my course outline with the info You and Jim have provided and from what I learn from Jim's recommended thread and that thread I found on using the triple play with BIAB. It will take me a while to get this done but it won't be forgotten. Eventually I will probably get a triple play or something similar. I like the wireless idea. At that point I will probably start to tweak the course outline (replacing the questions with answers). I use it as a reference fairly often already.

John

This is interesting. I guess some of the reason some of the midi instruments sound similar to the real instrument (with every attempt to avoid articulations).
https://audiouniversityonline.com/why-do-instruments-sound-different/#:~:text=The%20reason%20the%20same%20musical,has%20a%20unique%20harmonic%20character.