I've already created a finished MIDI and Audio tracks arrangements, and I want to add a lead guitar part based on the chord charts I have. I know I've done it before, but it was almost 10 yrs ago. Can anyone send me a link to that tutorial in ver. 2023.

Also, IN those tracks I want to see if I can recreate JUST the piano part just as I recorded it (albeit it sounds like the grace of Frankenstein played it), but something that sounds more realistic and graceful. So, I'm not looking for anything in the Style library. I've never seen this kind of exact feature, so I'm not sure if it even exist.
Thanks Much,
King Conga

King, you'll probably want to start with these two:
Soloist feature overview
Partial track regeneration
These should get you pretty close. Have fun!

Thanks MUCH Ron!

King, sure, easy stuff!

Didn't address your 2nd question, which is, to my knowledge, not possible with BiaB. You CAN do manipulations of RTs with Melodyne, for example, but that's not the same. Think RT improvisation off of human-made tracks is the next frontier for AI and BiaB. Scary stuff, but thrilling.

I think this is possible, sort of.

Export JUST the piano part as a .wav and/or save as mp3.

Go to Fadr. Sign up for a free account.

https://fadr.com/

Upload stem to FADR and have FADR read the stem.

Export the midi.

Open the midi in a DAW and use a piano VST from a good library.

Edit, quantize, fiddle with it.

There ya go.

YOU DA MAN! I haven't tried it yet, but looks simple enough, and it's FREE!!
THANKS!

You da man is my middle name.



P.S. If you do this though, you will be using AI, and as everyone on the forum knows, AI is horrible, evil,dark, diabolical and the work of the devil.

You may become demon possessed.

But if you are not scared, go ahead and give the devil his due.

I GOT MY GUARD UP. DON'T WORRY!

Since I play guitar I will often just record my own tracks but there have been times where, for whatever reason...... couldn't get the right groove, wasn't in the mood to play, or just plain lazy...... I decided to let BB do the tracks.

The problem was that for a solo, there has to be a certain groove or feel to it that builds properly and quite often BB doesn't read my mind and throws out some wonky stuff right in the middle if the solo that just ruins it. So.... I understand there is now partial track regeneration capabilities so there's that, but I have never used it. There's also using Melodyne to simply fix an errant note or two, but the method I've used on a few occasions is to simply let BB generate a number of instances of the same track. Since it almost never duplicates what it did previously, it's a safe bet that all the tracks will be different in some way or another. By moving those tracks into a DAW and using volume envelopes, one can easily comp the tracks to get a more perfect, or at least acceptable, lead guitar track. The one example I can think of is where I used 5 generations of the same track to get a very workable solo. A piece from here, the next section from there, a snippit from that one, and the ending comes from those two..... Waa Laa, a cool lead.

In western movies, there's often the plot; There's a new sheriff in town. For BIAB, the new theme is; There's new math in town.

In older versions of BIAB, the riff feature in BIAB and RealBand would generate seven riffs and after a few regenerations, duplicates might appear. In other words, riffs had a fairly low unique number of generations. As Herb (Guitarhacker) notes above, this is usually enough to get a solid and unique solo. The method he references to generate 3-5 tracks of the same soloist instrument and comping riffs from each is also a very good method to capture a quality performance.

But today's BIAB can generate riffs that blow by the limitations of manually making your own off the charts. Partial regeneration increased riff capability up to 40 and BIAB now has 24 tracks to generate a soloist instrument multiple times on multiple tracks for manual comping.

However, RealTrack Medley Maker, an old feature, has been upgraded from working on the original seven Legacy Tracks to include the 16 Utility Tracks so all 24 tracks can now access this feature. There's an notify message for the Audio Track and DrumsTrack that a RealTrack must be loaded rather than pre-recorded audio or RealDrums. It's a RealTracks feature so Medley Maker applies to all of the 24 Tracks that have a RealTrack assigned.

RealTrack Medley Maker is marketed for two applications, Thickening (using the same instrument multiple times on the same track) or create a Medley of different RealTrack instruments to play simultaneously or consecutively as programed. But for music generation, there are hacks to generate very complex and detailed arrangements that are edited and arranged by BIAB.

The math for using the full compliment of 24 channels to use all of the Medley Maker sub-tracks and have BIAB create a soloist, BIAB would access and generate these sub-track RealTracks 264 times in a single generation that could have volume auto-leveling and panning. The RealTrack Medley Maker has 8 pre-sets that can be set to play a Medley either consequently or simultaneously.

Using multiple Mixer Channels with different variations of RealTrack instruments, applying Partial regeneration and then arranging these tracks into a single, unique stereo or mono soloist Artist Performance Track would be a huge manual undertaking that would require hours to duplicate what a single render in BIAB would produce.

Hey Gang,

OK, this is the 1st chance I've had to work on this since making these posts. I just took a long break cuz I was really tired of this project. Anyhoo, I'll go ahead and embarrass myself and admit I have a bit of a thick skull. I've tried several ways of getting the chords from the 62-bar section I want the guitar lead to follow INTO BIAB. GEEZ! It was hard enough getting them OUT of Studio One. What's making it complicated is the fact that I'm not using just 1-2 chords/bar, but almost 1 per beat in the first 2 bars of the phrase. I tried importing the MIDI section from the orig into BIAB, that wasn't even close. I was trying to use the C7 Chord button (the 4th button under Tools) since that seemed to offer the option for inserting chords per beat. However, that's really tedious as well, and doesn't seem to work. It's just a 4 bar phrase that repeats itself about 12Xs, the rest of the tune is more conventional. Any suggestions? I'll be glad to send you whatever files you think would help, but I wasn't sure which you would ask for. Just let me know.
KC

Sometimes the easiest way is just to type the chords into the song. It doesn't usually take that long, while the playing about trying to get chord symbols out-of/into software can be frustrating.
Using the "K" shortcut can speed things along; copy and paste ditto. (details of both, p95 of the 2024 manual).

@Gordon makes a good point. Typing in the chords is probably quicker than trying to import them. And the shortcuts should help speed it up. No need to overthink it - give the typing method a try and see how it works out for you!

OK! You win. I tried importing an audio file using ACW. Why is it, with everything in life, theory always works better than real life. Anyhoo, the main reason I tried that instead of writing the chords in was when I tried that first, due to the fact that many of the chords fall on offbeats, and only last 1/2 beats, and the s'ware simply wouldn't play nice with that factor. I know there's several ways to get this done, so considering that fact, can you pls suggest the easiest BIAB method where I can write the chords in, even if it's the actual note events, then copy that 4-bar phrase about 12X's, then the rest is pretty standard fare.
Tnx,
KC

OK. I'm moving, but it's a SLOW, bumpy ride. I'm using the Pno Roll view inserting MIDI events. 1 of my issues is I can't figure out how to create an accidental (Bb - B). The other issue is my Pno is on Ch. 2, but the stinking BIAB keeps switching back to Ch. 1 on playback. How do I keep that from changing. I can't believe I have to go thru all of this, just to generate the gtr lead.

I HATE THIS STINKING PROGRAM! Problem #1.) I DON'T want BIAB to play ANY style, and I can't figure out how to make it SHUTUP and play MY audio file. ACW doesn't sync up correctly. 2.) MIDI Piano Roll doesn't allow me to create an accidental, and the tutorial doesn't cover that. NONE of the features used for entering chords (EXCEPT MAYBE the piano roll) comes even close to what I need.

To disable a style:

1) Click inside style label area (Pop-up menu appears)
2) Remove check mark beside "Style is enabled" by clicking on the words. (This toggles between enabled and disabled).
3) When a style is disabled there is a "x" placed in front of the style label.

I can't help you with the rest.

Thanks Jim. Sorry I flew off the handle. I just get REALLY frustrated sometimes when I just want to get something simple accomplished, and for the life of me, I can't do ANYTHING creative bcuz the technology doesn't cooperate. I'm SOO frustrated with BIAB, as a matter of fact, I have to move on to another project so I can at least be productive. For instance, I can't believe even PG Support can't even tell me how to insert an accidental into my score. I asked for a solution in P.R. view, but they said that was impossible. OK! So WHERE? And they hung up?
KC

You may find Realband much better of a fit for how you work .. I sure did.

It has a much more intuitive workflow for me .. to just generate a new section using whatever RealTrack instead of Styles, etc.
BiaB has its benefits, but for my workflow and expectations on how things should work, RB is much more convenient.
It came with your BiaB purchase, so don't throw the baby out with the bath water (so to speak), it may be worth a try
It is much more like a familiar DAW interface than BiaB is.It does *most of what BiaB does, and some things better

I believe you need to be in the Notation window to write accidentals. BiaB also has "intelligent accidentals" that are context sensitive to the chord names.

Press F1 to open the Help window, select the "Search" tab and the top three choices discuss accidentals and the Notation window.

Thanks to BOTH you guys. Great info. Wonder why PG Support didn't mention RB.

When someone asks a question about Band-in-a-Box I generally respond with how to do whatever in Band-in-a-Box. There are a few reasons

First and foremost Band-in-a-Box for Windows includes RealBand but Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh does not. I've had several Mac users get riled when I suggest using RealBand.

Second, RealBand is a DAW that has been modified to use Band-in-a-Box SGU and MGU files. However RealBand does not have all the features included in the main Band-in-a-Box program so the longer you stay in Band-in-a-Box the longer the features are available. It also means less swapping between program if you change your mind or song direction. A small change like changing key signature from "C" to "F" can really slow you down outside the program.

Third, RealBand is a DAW just like Reaper, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Studio One or any other DAW you name. RealBand does DAW like tasks like visualizing the song in a timeline very well while Band-in-a-Box offers superior track generation and arrangement options.

Most people discover and use DAWs before they discover and use Band-in-a-Box so they are more comfortable using a DAW like RealBand.

When you first start using Band-in-a-Box it is easy to get interested in the available styles, RealTracks, RealDrums, SuperMidiTracks and loops and overlook learning the program capabilities.

Hello Jim,

Actually, getting the X to disappear is no problem. It's making it appear so MY song plays INSTEAD of the ZZJAZZ! So, if I have a very specific piano part that I created in my SO DAW, and I have either the MIDI or audio ver., which method do you suggest using to tell RB what & where the chords are. When I tried it in BIAB using ACW the Auto Marker seemed to skip every other bar, or at least that's how it played back. So, instead of playing at 125BPM, it played at 94. It also insisted on inserting A7sus4 instead of Am7. So, I had to go in and replace all of those, and it never came near to VISUALLY representing where the chords actually were. Basically, the whole exercise was useless. Thanks for your help, though. Seriously.

Not Jim,
but FWIW, the ACW in RB is not the exact ACW that's in BiaB .. this particular feature was one of the few that has its roots in RB and got ported over to BiaB later ... many times the features go the other way. In RB ACW you can set the Tempo to whatever it should be .. you can also tap the F8 key on the one of every measure while you play it, which causes RB to adjust the tempo clock to match (and it looks ahead and recalculates the upcoming bars accordingly as it goes) .. it is pretty cool for setting tempo maps with little effort (but does require a little).
The Chords detecting engine .. well that is pretty similar in the two programs, though changing the represented chords in RB doesn't cause frustration here, once you learn how it's pretty easy

When you first launch the ACW in RB there is an easily dismissed pop up that asks if you want to use the single track to determine the tempo & chords or if you want to use all the enabled tracks (the song) then another popup that asks if you want to preserve the current tempo map or create a new one .. sometimes paying attention to these options can be very helpful.

ANYONE:....I've been trying for 2 days to DISable the Style Picker in RB. I've right clicked on everything, but it just doesn't work. Support hasn't helped either. I Rt click on the Blue font that describes the Style, but all that shows up is the Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste menu.

Why can't I add chords in the Chord View with any higher resolution than a 1/4 note? I need to enter a series of chords for a key change using 4 16th notes with ea. 16th having a chord. Pretty simple, but not for BIAB! I tried adding it in the PRoll view, but for some reason it didn't accept it.

It's not a right click, it's a left click in the black background to the left of the name.

What you want to use Band-in-a-Box calls Microchords. Microchords can do up to four chords per beat.

To learn about Microchords press F1 to open the Help file, select the Search tab and type Microchords into the text box. The first entry tells you about Microchords and the second entry, Tutorial #34, teaches you how to use it.. +++ HERE +++ is a YouTube video that demonstrates how to enter Microchords.

You're a GENIUS JIM!! In fact, YOU need to be training Support. They weren't even close.

I'm glad I was able to help.

Jim,

Hey, I was trying to use the MicroChords, and I think I have the gist of it, but now what's happening is although, I have chords starting right on Beat 1, Bar 1, when the metronome starts the cursor moves thru the 1st 2 Bars without playing anything, and the music doesn't start until it gets to bar 3. I DON'T think it was doing that before. Support tried to tell me it was my drivers. I know it's not. I have scrnshots of the music if that helps.
Thanks,
KC

Band-in-a Box does not display the first two bars of a song project. The first two bars are "saved" for a two bar count-in that can be part of a RealDrums track, generated by midi drums or turned off. Not all RealDrums tracks have an audible count-in and sometimes the volume level of the count-in is very low.

The 2024 Tracks window displays the first two bars normally reserved for the count-in. In the example below you can clearly see the drums track does not include a count-in so there is silence.

One way to get a count-in is to (1) get a drum arrangement you like, (2) freeze the drum track, (3) move the frozen drum track to an empty track, (4) Go to Song Settings and select the desired drum count-in and (5) generate new drum track. You can use volume automation or F5 settings to switch between the two drum tracks.