I am trying to add vocal to BIAB 2014, Build 386. I'm using Windows 10 and a Behringer UMC204HD Audio Interface. I have successfully added a vocal of questionable quality just as a test, but it doesn't appear on a track. Without a track, I cannot manipulate its parameters. I tried to look this up in the manual, but could not find anything on it. I'm beginning to think that I must export the BIAB file to Real Band or some other DAW to add vocals that I can edit. Am I correct in this assumption or am I missing something? Thanks for your help.

Was going to ask this as well ?

Any body ?

Use a DAW.

BB's recording ability is very limited at best. It will do it but not well.

The best way is to use a DAW and export your tracks from BB to the DAW. Then record your vocals there. IN a DAW you can edit, copy, paste, punch in and out, control the volume, add FX and do the things you need to do.

Real Band is a DAW.... but I use Sonar. Any good DAW will suffice to let you do this level of editing.

There should be an audio track. To the right of all the radio buttons at the top should be the word "Audio". It doesn't look like a button, just text. But you should be able to right click on it and do some basic (and I mean basic) manipulation. The audio track in BIAB must be named the same as the BIAB file (but with a .WAV extension).

John F,

Band-in-a-Box has an audio edit window. Have you tried that?

Hi John,

The Audio Edit window that Jim mentioned can be used for some editing of the Audio track, but for extensive editing, I'd open the song in RealBand and do it there, in the Tracks window.

If you'd just like to adjust parameters like Volume, Tone, Reverb, and Panning, hitting the "Audio+" button at the bottom-right of the mixer will get it to show up like the other tracks do.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

John,

I am going to have to agree with Herb on this one, record your audio in the Real Band DAW which you already have as a BIAB owner. The beauty of Band in a Box is that that Real Band will open a BIAB file, once you have your instruments and song in place.

But record the audio on Real Band to a mono track by right clicking on the number of the track and selecting mono as your source. Also go into options/preferences/audio and select your input channel. (Normally left or right.) All screenshots below.

Another indispensable free tool is Audacity, which allows you to do a lot of nifty auto editing after creating a file on a track in Real Band and exporting it (rendering/saving track to file).

You can also load the free G-Snap plug-in to both Audacity and Real Band which is a great free pitch correction VST. Just google audacity and G-Snap and follow directions. Load/save .dll into both Audacity folder and RB folder. To load free VSTs in Audacity, follow instructions on Audacity website. It is really easy.

To load VSTS in Real Band: If you click on the triangle beside a track in Real Band it will open a dialogue called edit VST which will allow you to add your VSTs of choice one time, and then remember them forever. This is a stage you should master in your recording career. This is where it all goes down.

The most frequent audio editing tool I use in Real Band is gain change, and the most frequent tools I use in Audacity are compression and normalization.

Also, if you are ever trading vocal files between one DAW and another and you get the chipmunk effect, you simply have a sample rate issue and Audacity will fix it for you. Just open that .wav file and in Audacity and save it again as a Windows .wav (if you are using windows) and it will now work in any scenario--at least to my experience.

If you get used to all of these tools they will change your life.

Have fun.

Audacity is good but all of the features mentioned are available in RealBand so no export is necessary.

There are also some nice vocal presets available when you record in RB.

To access them; Right click on a track and select Track Category.
From the window that opens - select from the various options- Vocals

From the window that opens, audition and select a preset.

Each of the various selections when you select Track Category contain presets for that group. I just chose Vocals as the example. They all work in the same manner.

In the Track Category check out Harmonizer for pitch correction and harmonies.

Right click on a track and select Audio Effects for compressors, gates, distortion, De-essser, reverb and more.

Hey Charlie,

I was just trying to say Audacity is a nice extra tool to use, and has some useful features that's all.

Didn't you mention in a previous post that you often do compression and normalizing in Audacity or was that someone else? I thought it was you--could have sworn it was.

I got it from one of you guys.

Anyway, I guess everyone has their own way of doing stuff.

You are right. That was me. I wasn't attempting to put off the use of Audacity but just to expand on the virtues of RB. I use compression and normalization on mp3's in Audacity to make playlists have a more uniform output, and to trim beginnings and ends, label tracks, and much more. My brother swears by Audacity and that is his main DAW.

On a recent Blog of The Recording Revolution of Graham Cochran, Graham featured a guy who recorded a song in his car and used Audacity as his DAW.

I use Audacity and like it and did not mean to diminish Audacity in any way. It's very convenient and useful but most of the effects I mentioned in RB such as the vocal presets and harmonizer are features not found in Audacity.

I mentioned the duplicate features only in relation to the mix adjustments made necessary when adding some presets that require adjustments to the ongoing mix. No need to export, tweak and import to Audacity in those situations.

Charlie

Yeah, that was pretty awesome. Case in point that it's not about the gear.

I did make a comment in the blog comment section about how much audio engineering goes into the design of a car interior. The sound booth was the most expensive piece of gear in the entire setup.

Charlie