I am a long time user of Band-in-a-Box/RealBand and I don't often post but I am really stumped. I have been trying to use a midi file for the basis of a backing track. I will give an example. I want to use a midi file of Take It To The Limit (Eagles). The midi file is correctly arranged by the creator. What I truly want is the keyboard track and some of the distinctive fills near the end of the song. I would like to then fill in the rest of the instruments with RealTracks. My problem is that when I load or import the midi file, the measures don't line up with the bars of the chord chart. I have set the timing to 3/4 and I even tried sliding all the midi tracks (in RealBand) to line up the first chord with beat 1 of a bar. The timing of the midi is still different than the bar markers. I can see on the midi tracks where beat 1 of each bar should be but RealBand still has a different bar length. What am I missing, or is the bar length of the midi determined by the creator of the midi file? How do I get the midi to sync with the bar markers created by RealBand or BIAB? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and Merry Christmas to all that use this great forum

Darren

A couple ways to do this.

One is the Audio Chord Wizard (ACW)
Do a mixdown of the MIDI using Audio - Merge Audio and DXi to stereo track.

Then import the track into the project (on a blank track) using Audio-Import audio

Then open the ACW (icon at top) and change the first popup to enable rewriting the tempo map.
Then once inside the ACW you can click the Play arrow and tap the F8 key on the '1' of each measure. This shoulw rewite the Tempo map as you go and you may find that after 8 or 10 bars you have a good tempo map set.

Alternatively, you can fiddle with the tempo setting itself in RB (box that defaults to 120) and adjust the bar length by adjusting the tempo. This may/may not work depending on if the author used a click track.

Using the ACW and listening all the way thru is more accurate, as ACW can adust tempo to match recording on every measure. Plus it allows decimal settings that get pretty exacting.
I'll see if I can find the (rough) video.

Edit -

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=0&Number=284902&page=6&vc=1

Thanks Rharv, I will give this a try. I have used the audio chord wizard for MP3s and Wavs but I never thought of converting the midi to an audio file and then using the ACW. I did try adjusting the tempo from the default 120 but this didn't work. I would assume that the author didn't create the click track as you mentioned.

Thanks

Darren

There's usually a way to het 'er done!

If you are familiar with ACW you should be all set.

This happens a lot with midi files, the author failed to set the tempo correctly. Another approach is do a Google search for another version of that midi file. You may get lucky.

Bob

Rharv,

Just to let you know, I converted the midi file to audio, ran the ACW and voila! It was successful.
Thanks again for the great tip! Now I am going to be busy!.

Happy New Year to everyone.
Thanks again,

Darren

a similar approach to solving this:

I usually start a project by loading the original recording to extract chords and tempo map it. Then I import the MIDI file (which doesn't always come in at the right location or tempo)

Once you've tempo mapped the original song, and seen where the 1st bar starts, save the project and close it. Then open just the MIDI file.

Set the tempo in the MIDI file to the same value in the tempo mapped project, and if necessary, move the MIDI to the same starting bar as in the original project. Save as > .MID, then close the MIDI file

Reopen the original tempo mapped project, and import the MIDI file. It should come in at the right place and at the right tempo.

NOTE: I always move the NOW line to zero before importing anything. Some DAWS default to importing MIDI at wherever the NOW line happens to be, regardless of where the MID was in its original file. I don't know if RB does this or not, but it's probably a good idea to reset the song to the beginning before importing.

Yes, RB (like many others) imports to the cursor location, or NOW.