Hi,

Charlie Fogel and I have been communicating privately discussing the use of BIAB to create cover songs.

Charlie knows a bunch of stuff about how to use BIAB. He suggested he could make available a private link to something he is working on for the purpose of discussing the methodology.

As I don't want to deal with the vagerances of copyright infringement issues, I am posting a short clip of a song that I own the copyright on. I created the song and played and sang the vocal....sorry about the vocal...lol

I really never had any desire to create cover songs with BIAB. I have in the past recorded and sold commercially a few cover songs which was truly a waist of time and money.

I would like to use BIAB to create my own ideas. I am trying to figure out what is possible with BIAB and what is not.

Could you emulate this clip in BIAB and if yes how?

https://soundcloud.com/planobilly/house-clip

Cheers,

Billy

Sorry if I missed something in between. How did you create the backing track for the audio clip you presented. Presumably it wasn't BiaB, and presumably you played all instruments, yes?

I played all the piano parts, guitar parts, electronically generated the bass track with software or played it on the piano....I don't remember.

None of this was generated in BIAB.

Billy

Does "you" know theory or not? If "you" knows theory, as soon as the clip started "you" said "This is in C and it's 12 bar blues. So C to F to C to G to F to C." Then "you" heads to the chord chart and puts in a 12 bar blues pattern. Then "you" picks a style and hits generate. And "you" has a song.

However, every "you" has different levels of music comprehension. Can the "you" in question play those blues piano embellishments? This particular "you" heard that this should be played on a heavily phased Wurlitzer piano sound.

Where the rub starts is that a newbie, novice level person, when given that "C to F to C to G to F to C" immediately asks "What's a C?" followed quickly by "What's a bar, since there are 12 of them? Isn't a song longer than that?"

So the answer is yes, anything can be created with BIAB (in my case Real Band, as I have still never booted up BIAB). It isn't going to sound exactly like what you are copying, but why do you want to? If that is the end game, you can buy karaoke tracks and just sing over them. The shortest of shortcuts.

From Merriam-Webster:

Definition of musician: a composer, conductor, or performer of music

Composer of music.

I'll stop talking now.

Oh, PS. The example clip you have posted, a standard 12 bar clip, immediately brought to mind the Paul Butterfield Blues Band playing Walkin' Blues, though they did it in A. With one of the greats on guitar, Mike Bloomfield. Sadly he dies at just 38 under quite dubious circumstances, and there has never been a concrete explanation of how he died. He was found dead behind the wheel of his car with all 4 doors locked. One theory is that he died from a drug overdose and was driven to where the car was found by someone who then thought to lock all 4 doors.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9dkse6R3Tg&ab_channel=JrFender

I'm guessing that the underlying question is: "does BiaB have any styles available that sound like this?"

Please clarify if not correct.

And I think that answer would be "yes". A 20 second scan in Real Band says "Even Blues w/ Background Bari Sax" would do it.

_RDHSEHS

Set # RT 176

And I would have to think there are a dozen more that would fill the bill.

Yes, The style is not real common. Eight bar syncopated blues. Most likely does not exist in BIAB.

The real question is more about if something can be started outside of BIAB. In other words, go play something on the piano. Can you then find something reasonable that fits with piano part.

I don't have any problem starting something in BIAB, forming a harmonic structure and then playing something live on the piano to conform to that structure.

Starting out on the piano and creating some sort of structure and then trying to find something in BIAB to go along with that is the issue.

I am beginning to suspect that BIAB just does not lend itself to easily conforming to some outside structure.

Perhaps I don't know how to ask BIAB to do something I want it to do. I feels like the program is saying to me "just play what I generate and make your stuff fit".

I have not listen to every single blues style that exist in BIAB but I have not come across anything like I posted.

I will go load up what Eddie suggested.

Sorry Eddie...RT 176 sounds absoluting nothing like the clip I posted.

Even if it doesn't exist as a style, you can do one similar and cut and paste.



Other way around, based solely on this question. Are you going to be able to hand play in such perfect timing that you will be in time when you sync your hand playing to the precise clock timing of BIAB or RB?

At some point it takes figuring it out and executing it. There's no autopilot in music, though many people try to find that magic shortcut.

Well Eddie...LOL...yes I can play in time to anything I create in BIAB at least on guitar. My piano playing is pretty amateurish.

I like anyone, have limits in speed and style, plus good days and not so good days. My goal is always to be able to play clean 16th notes at 120 BPM which is a sort of University music school standard.

I am getting old and can not currently play to that level but the clip in question is at 100 BPM. I can deal with that.

The "magic shortcut" is called a click track. The "magic fix" is called Melodyne if one does not screw up too bad...lol

Other than having a kidney removed, I can't think of anything more painful than having to play with someone who can not play in time...lol

Biab does not have a style that fits your clip. To me it's a standard classic rhythmic style, sort of a New Orleans thing. However, your question is really about a style, not the program itself. Biab is fully capable of doing basically anything because all it does is play back styles. If you're looking for a particular style and can't find it, then that's what the Stylemaker is there for. Create it yourself or check with Bob Norton. I would not be surprised if he's created a style that fits.

Bob

Hi Bob,

I also thought that what I played on piano was not anything exceptional. I am not sure exactly what one would call it.

I don't have any current need for that style. In fact the song was not something that I would typically create.

We had a large gathering of musician friends in Dallas Texas at the House Of Blues. The guys ask me to write something for that occasion. That is how the song came about to begin with. I scored it out and another piano player played it live that night and I played guitar and did the vocal.The clip was just the demo I did at home.

I have no idea how to do what would be the simplest things to do in a studio. For example ask the guitar player in BIAB to arpeggiate a chord.

Anyway, thanks for the feedback.


Billy

If I were trying to emulate that, the first thing I would do is open Blank44 style then audition the RealDrums to see if there is one like it. If not, the chances are that you are not going to get what you're after. If there is, the audition 'jangly piano' RTs and so on, building up the Style as you go along.
Personally I think BB is poor on RDs. More are needed.
Ian

You and me both brother. Lot of that going around!

Hi Billy.

Like Eddie, I always work in Realband and never in BiaB - to me, Realband is the hidden secret of the BiaB package.
I have a couple of problems with BiaB and the main one is exactly what you've experienced, finding a style which fits.
Once you forget about style, things get easier and you might find this exercise useful.

Try booting Realband, set a tempo and then enter your chord chart. Next open the BARS window, highlight a number of bars on the first track and hit GENERATE. Select Realdrums and experiment with a few different patterns until something fits what you want to do. Don't be too put off by the descriptions - they can sometimes be misleading and steer you away from something useful. Next, you can generate Realtracks on the following tracks in the same way. You simply pick an instrument and try it. Once again, the descriptions are a good starting point, but I often end up with a complete mix of styles. At any point in this exercise you can add in one or more of your own live tracks - you're not limited as to how many, as you are in BiaB. Sometimes, you only need say guitar, bass and drums to get a groove going.

Basically, Realband is like having your own recording studio, with a room next door full of top session musicians waiting to add the tracks you can't play yourself. If you start to think like that, instead of looking at "auto-accompaniment" you may find an easier way of working.
This is a link to a track which I put together using this method, to demonstrate Realband for Sound on Sound.

https://soundcloud.com/music-prof/realband-demo

Possibly you know some of this stuff already, but just trying to be helpful.
ROG.

Hi ROG,

I was half asleep when I listen to the blues track you generated. Then this guy started singing in French...lol
J'ai vécu à Paris pendant quelques années. Je vais en Europe chaque année. Je serai heureux quand je pourrai revenir. The coronavirus really sucks!

Thanks for your input. I wish I was in York. I have thirty quid setting here in my desk drawer that could buy us a pint or two. No one here has seen money with a clear window you can look through...lol

One of the things I have been doing every day is to go through style picker and play over thirty or fourty style demos to try to get some idea what exist. I also find how they are named and layed out a little less than intuitive. Well...c'est la vie, c'est comme ca

Other strange things like demos in Gb...what's up with that...lol Who plays in six flats...lol

I guess I better be be careful what I say before one of these piano players who's mum chained them to the piano and made them play in Gb smacks me...lol

I will give the real band idea a try.

Cheers,

M8

Are they calling it Gb, because F# makes more sense..... LOL!!!!