Hi, My guess is BIAB can do this but when I tried to figure this out in the bar settings I had no luck. Has anyone figured got this to work? I prefer to use real track soloists.

Thanks
John

Yes. BIAB can do change the soloist for the next chorus. Several methods.

Here's one:

Assume your song contains the default three 32 bar chorus's. Regardless, this method works with any number of chorus's, including a single chorus song.

Open Bar Settings
At the top of the Bar Settings Window, open the "All Choruses" Button
Select the Chorus number that you want to change Soloist instrument
For instance using the Three Chorus default example, Choose Chorus #2
Then;
Assuming you want the entire Chorus #2 to play all 32 bars of the new soloist instrument, Select bar 1 in the Bar# Box in the upper right corner of the window

Select the RealTracks Radio Button
Select the Track that you want to change the RealTrack Soloist instrument
Highlight the RealTracks to... Box (small down arrow to the far right of the box)
From the RealTrack Instrument list, select a new Soloist Instrument
Click on OK Button to exit to the RealTrack Changes Window
Click on OK Button to exit RealTrack Changes Window
Click on OK Button to exit the Bar Settings Window

Repeat the process to change additional soloist instruments to other Choruses

Hi Charlie, Thanks for your help.

I hit a snag in your instructions (shown in red) but I think I figured out what you mean. It still does not work. Maybe you can spot the issue from my steps below.

--I am running BIAB 2018.
--I have 4 choruses of 32 bars each chorus.
--I have melody on all choruses but I mute it just before chorus #2 (in bar 32) and reset it in bar 32 of chorus #3 so it will play the lead in melody note into chorus #4.
--I generated a solo using the (Soloist, Soloist - generate and play a solo... Shift F4, clicked "Best Real Tracks", chose a real synth, and I had "mute melody in middle" checked then I pressed okay).
--So that works for the middle choruses (#2 and #3).
--So to get to your suggested popup I right click on Bar #1 and choose Bar settings.
--I click on the "All Choruses" button and choose Chorus #3.
--I do not see any "Bar #" box in top right of this dialog window so I assume Because I have right clicked on Bar #1 I have essentially done the same thing.
--I click on the "Real Tracks" button as you suggest and I choose the soloist track.
--I then go down a bit and click the drop down and a new dialog window appears.
--I search for "solo" and get a revised list of tracks.
--I choose 434 Fiddle, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130 and click okay.
--I show that dialog box in a picture below.
--I Then click okay to the next dialog box down and I am back on the Bar settings.
--I show a picture of the bar settings at this point.
--So I close down the bar settings dialog window.
--I then do a regenerate and play song (F4) to try and get it to pick up the change.
--The result is I still get the synth soloist playing on Chorus #3.

Can you see what I might have missed?

Not sure what's happening.

The bar# box came in versions newer than 2018 so ignore what I said about that. Viewing your bar settings picture, every thing looks in order. It appears that at Chorus 3, bar 1 the 434 fiddle should replace the synth on the soloist channel for all 32 bars of the third chorus and the synth should return on bar 1 of the fourth chorus.

I made a four chorus 8 bar following your instructions, 4 choruses with a synth soloist and the "mute melody in middle" box checked and I exited out.

I opened bar setting window and selected Chorus 3 at bar 1 and then the RealTracks button, selected the 434 fiddle and exited back to bar settings and the exited the bar settings window.

I generated the song using F4 and at bar 1 on Chorus 3, the fiddle replaced the synth for the entire third chorus and the synth replaced the fiddle at bar 1 of chorus 4...

So, it's working for me. Try saving the song, clear the chord chart and import the saved song again and see if that helps. I don't see any steps you're missing or doing incorrectly.

< -I have melody on all choruses but I mute it just before chorus #2 (in bar 32) and reset it in bar 32 of chorus #3 so it will play the lead in melody note into chorus #4. >

I did not have anything playing on the Melody track with the style I used on my test song. (Walkin.STY)

With your song saved, remove the melody portion of your song and regenerate to see if that resolves the issue. Walkin.STY has bass, piano and drums and I placed the synth and fiddle onto the Soloist Channel.

I tried what you said (close it down and restart). Did not work.
I tried starting before the end of chorus #2 so it would play through chorus #3 and that did not work.
Maybe I should attach the Song file or send it to support.

Just saw your post. Will try that. I have a working copy.

You know what - I think you have the synth selected in the "all choruses" section. Remove it from there and set your chosen soloist to play by Chorus # rather than "all choruses.

Return to that setting and if it is selected, remove and move the selection to Chorus 1 and 2 to play the synth and chorus 3 to play the fiddle and the synth should return for the 4th chorus but to be sure, select the synth to play the 4th chorus too.

So I removed the whole melody and the results are still not good (no soloist change).

Select any bar and press <F5> to show the bar settings, then press the Print Summary button (near the bottom of the form) and then paste the results here. Somebody may be able to see where the issue you are having is.

Check the "all choruses" setting to be sure if the synth being listed as the instrument on the Soloist Channel.

If it is, it's likely overriding the other chorus changes and you would need to remove it from the "all choruses" setting and manually set the soloist instrument in each of the four choruses. 1,2 synth; 3 fiddle; and 4 synth.

Here is the Print Summary from my song:

**** Band-in-a-Box Report of Changes in the song at any bar ******
Song Title is: Untitled Song, no file name (song not saved yet)
Bar 1: Chorus #3,Soloist,RealTracks Changes: 434 Fiddle, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130

I am not totally clear here on the details of your idea partly because I gather I have a newer 2018 version. But I get the drift of your idea. I will see if I can work with this idea with a new empty BIAB song file.

Here is the print summary.

**** Band-in-a-Box Report of Changes in the song at any bar ******
SongTitle is: Nature_Boy_4_4_JJRB_HL_C, FileName is C:\Users\John Bowles\Downloads\Nature_Boy_4_4_JJRB_HL_C.MGU [Fri, 02 Apr 2021 22:45:52]
Bar 1: Chorus #3,Soloist,RealTracks Changes: 434 Fiddle, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130

Bar 32: Chorus #1,Melody,Volume Changes:Mute,
Bar 32: Chorus #3,Melody,Volume Changes:Back to Normal,
Bar 32: Chorus #3,Soloist,Volume Changes:Mute,

Bar 35: TimeSig to 1/4.

So the all chorus setting shows Synth (from the initial create a soloist run). See picture

Okay to go back to scratch is easy by just creating a new BIAB file. Creating a soloists for each track is new to me. Maybe the method we have been using is the way. I will pock around.

Okay success with a brand new song (full blank slate). Details as to what I did will be updated here soon.
Print summary below.

I created an 8 bar song. Wrote a simple melody against quick simple chords. Muted melody in the middle. Used the same method I was using to change soloists to allocate it to chorus #2 and another one to chorus #3.


**** Band-in-a-Box Report of Changes in the song at any bar ******
SongTitle is: Untitled Song, FileName is C:\Users\John Bowles\Downloads\Untitled Song.MGU [Fri, 02 Apr 2021 23:27:50]
Bar 1: Chorus #2,Soloist,RealTracks Changes: 436 Mandolin, Soloist Bluegrass Ev 130
Bar 1: Chorus #3,Soloist,RealTracks Changes: 774 Sax, Soprano, Soloist Jazz Swing Sw 110

The question now is how to I clear out the auto soloist generation so that the above success works? In other words how do I get rid of "Synth" in the soloist track?

I tried erasing the soloist track to get the synth out of there and the track says silence but I still hear synth...lol. Hello...lol.

I even did what the picture shows and I still get that synth even though it says silence now. Almost time to call it a night :-)

It's a process of elimination.

You've confirmed with another SGU file the process works so the issue likely is something with the original SGU file.

What happens if you mute the soloist channel? Does the instrument still play?

If it does play, then check that you haven't inadvertently rendered a track or the song as an audio file that's playing simultaneously along with the BIAB Mixer tracks.

If it does not play, then use an alternate method to clear the instrument off the track from the method you've unsuccessfully attempted.

For instance:

Rt click to open menu on the Soloist Track.
From the drop down menu, - Track Actions | Erase Track - and follow all the prompts to erase the entire RealTrack and underlying MIDI if prompted.

1152 Silence is interpreted by BIAB as an instrument the same as it does every other instrument and I'm not sure why it isn't applying silence to the track as it should.

Thanks Charlie,

I tried all the stuff you suggested. They all do what they should do. I have tried other stuff to get rid of that synth sounding solo. They also all work. However every single time I do these things that work properly and get good results, when I subsequently go back to use the bar settings to put in the solos that work on the brand new song file, in this song file all it does is start this synth again rather than the solo I selected in the bar settings process. So essentially the feature of generating a solo seems to be intercepting my bar setting choices and saying "No John we think our choices are better so we will use ours instead"...lol. I even tried changing the generated solo. All that does when I remove it and try the bar settings is replace my bar setting choices with the latest generated solo choice.

I have passed this thread on to PG Music support because I am taking a wild guess this is an issue that has for the first time surfaced (a new bug to fix). If they can not come up with a solution maybe I could export and import the melody and chords into a few file. I have done melody but never chords. If this is the only solution I have about 6 or 7 songs to do this to.

I also really analysed the new generate a solo feature and there seems to be no way for me to select a new soloist of my choice for each middle chorus. So it appears I should avoid using this feature from now on. At least with your help I now know the proper way :-)

John

Sorry we didn't find a way to resolve this in a satisfactory way for you but if it's a bug, it's out in the open now and can be looked into by PG Staff.

No Problem Charlie, Is there a way to export everything except the soloist track and import it into a newly created song file? If not how do I export and import the chord stuff? Is that possible?

Another interesting tid bit.

If I use both (tracks erase and kill entire soloist track) I get the track showing Soloist and showing that track as totally empty and I get no sound (the "kill entire soloist track" is what removes the sound). But if I save those updates to disk and close BIAB down and reopen that file I see the track showing Soloist and showing that track as totally empty but the synthesize sound comes back. Mute of the soloist track silences the sound. Now that has to be a bug.