If you just wanted to use drums or a bass as background, is there any way to do that without selecting a style? i.e. if a group met with various instruments for a jam session, but without a drum set, could something be set up to just play bass or snare drum without the other background? thanks

If you want MIDI drums and bass, you should select an appropriate style. If you choose a bass RealTrack and a drum RealDrum track, then the style does not matter. In either case, just mute the instruments you do not want to hear. Note that, without entering the part markers for a particular song, you won't hear drum fills in the right places; there is no way that I know to control that in real time.

One way to mute a track is to click on the instrument button, then right-click and select Mute.

Tip: the Mute setting does not save with the song, so one way is to set the volume of the track to zero before saving.

There are other ways to do these actions as well, but first see if this gives you what you want.

Or instead, use Realband;

In RB -
Right click a Track and pick an instrument to generate.

If you right click an audio track, you can use Genereate Realtrack (or RealDrum track)
Then you can generate a single track of whatever instrument you want.

If it's a MIDI track, Right-Click and use generate MIDI instead.

All you need is a tempo and the chords, and you can open a BiaB file in RB if you need to use the tempo/chords you already have.

I choose Realband over BiaB for this exact need quite often.

It's perfect. Thanks

Just mute the other tracks.

yeah, I think you need to select the style, but you are free to mute the tracks not needed.

I do this all the time..... especially when I want to work on something to see how it sounds or works by itself.

This is how I've done it for years.


There are two ways to Mute undesired tracks.

1) By the Session: Rightclick on any Track(s) that you do not wish to hear at playback and choose Mute option. This will stick throughout the particular session, such that you can load other Styles, or other songs with various Styles in them, and only hear the ones that are not muted. This will not stay that way if you close BB down and reopen it again.

2) To have any songfile load, but only play the desired parts, use the "Save Song with Patches and Harmony" window, found under the File menu. Only check the instruments on the LH side of that window that you desire to hear when the song is loaded. I use this one for live performance with BB in order to get just the instruments to provide my Virtual Jazz Trio or Quartet for each song. Just load the next song and everything comes up as desired, just Drums and Bass, or whatever.

Muting Instruments in Styles is powerful stuff. You can get the best of both worlds this way, many of the Styles have some dynamite Bass and Drum parts in them that sound great without the rest of the instruments, just add yours in realtime as it plays back.

On top of that, I often invoke and use the CONDUCTOR feature when jam sessions with BB are happening. That way, I can easily extend things like number of choruses to suit, can also quickly invoke Last Chorus and Out whenever that is desirable.


--Mac

You can mute the undesired tracks in both BB and RB.

Want to test your melody? Mute everything except the drums and bass and sing the song.

Like this>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkXNEmtf9tk