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Posted By: Mackraken Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/04/17 12:15 PM
The double click in the load style window is assigned to play the demo rather than actually load the style. This is annoying when we would like to try different styles for our song.

Playing the demo does not help since its a different melody.

The demo has its value but should never be as important than the main reason for this window which is to load styles, not preview them. This does not comply as such an important shortcut like double click is not assigned to load the style but preview it, making harder to load the style since we are forced to go through the "ok button" to perform the action.

The request would be to assign double click to load the style rather than load and play the preview, which takes time and hangs the window while its at it.

Thanks!
Best Regards
Posted By: MarioD Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/04/17 12:57 PM
This would be a good idea IF there was an option like a A/B switch where set to A a double click would load the style and set to B would load the demo.

This way both sides would be happy.

+1 for the above.
Posted By: w Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/04/17 06:30 PM


Perhaps, the programmers could install two separate buttons and clearly assign one to play the demo for the selected style and the other to actually load the style without the demo .
I agree with the problem description and I like the idea of two buttons.
Posted By: Noel96 Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/04/17 08:39 PM
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
The double click in the load style window is assigned to play the demo rather than actually load the style. This is annoying when we would like to try different styles for our song.

Playing the demo does not help since its a different melody.

The demo has its value but should never be as important than the main reason for this window which is to load styles, not preview them. This does not comply as such an important shortcut like double click is not assigned to load the style but preview it, making harder to load the style since we are forced to go through the "ok button" to perform the action.

The request would be to assign double click to load the style rather than load and play the preview, which takes time and hangs the window while its at it.

Thanks!
Best Regards


This will do the job for you...

After you select the style, press the 'Play' button that I've highlighted on the image below. This will generate your chordsheet using the style that you've selected and thus allow you to here how your song sounds with this style.

Attached picture play current style.JPG
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/05/17 12:47 AM
Hi Noel thanks for the tip, wasnt aware of that, but the point is that is harder to load the style when double click is assigned to preview and we have to go through the ok button. Also the previews takes time to generate and sometimes unresponsive.

In my opinion it would be better if we use the play button to hear the preview if we like, and double click to load it into our song. This way it will be quicker changing and trying many styles. I would appreciate to spend less time on this window and more on the program itself tweaking my song.

Please, let me knows your thoughts. Thanks

Best Regards.
Posted By: MarioD Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/05/17 11:55 AM
Noel, you beat me to the punch. I just found this last night and I was going to post it today. I had a check mark on the 4 bar preview and thought that was all the play did. Once that was unchecked everything worked perfectly.

There is so much to learn with BiaB!
Posted By: Noel96 Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 10/05/17 04:33 PM
Originally Posted By: MarioD
Noel, you beat me to the punch. I just found this last night and I was going to post it today. I had a check mark on the 4 bar preview and thought that was all the play did. Once that was unchecked everything worked perfectly.

There is so much to learn with BiaB!


Mario,

You right about BIAB! It seems like not a day goes by where I don't learn something that I didn't know the day before. It's such a vast program.

Thanks for mentioning the 4-bar preview. I should have covered that in my post but forgot to. One of the advantages of forums is that if one forgets or doesn't know some aspect of something, others are always there to help out and add to the knowledge content. The collective always knows more than the individual.

Regards,
Noel
Thanks everyone. I don’t go here often so I forgot the tricks.
Posted By: zedd Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/15/17 06:39 AM
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
The demo has its value but should never be as important than the main reason for this window which is to load styles, not preview them. This does not comply as such an important shortcut like double click is not assigned to load the style but preview it, making harder to load the style since we are forced to go through the "ok button" to perform the action.

The point of the StylePicker is to pick the style of a song you want to work on. How are you supposed to choose the style if you can't hear what it is and audition what's available? The StylePicker is all about hearing the demos so that you can make a good choice, without having to take the time to load a style that is nothing like what you're looking for. It's quickest to make that judgement listening to the pre-made demos.

Therefore, double-clicking on a style should play the demo because that is the fastest way to find possible options and rule out the others.

You only have to click the OK button once, once you have determined you have your chosen style selected. A single click of the OK in order to exit the StylePicker and load the song is too much work?

How many times are you ever going to come into the StylePicker and know exactly which style you want to use without first auditioning it? I don't see how this change would be anything but LESS efficient than they way it is set up already.
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/16/17 01:59 PM
Find the style by hearing a different melody is not a good way to know the end result, which is playing your song. If you want to do this, instead hearing a random melody, the process of loading, and eventually find the style you want, is harder. If we are speaking efficiency, assign the shortcut to anything else that wont speed speed the proccess of load the style is not efficient.

You can look it the other way around, instead of being forced to go through the ok button to load the style you can use the play preview button and assign double click to load style so you are able to hear the style with your own song.
Posted By: zedd Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/16/17 04:57 PM
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
Find the style by hearing a different melody is not a good way to know the end result, which is playing your song. If you want to do this, instead hearing a random melody, the process of loading, and eventually find the style you want, is harder. If we are speaking efficiency, assign the shortcut to anything else that wont speed speed the proccess of load the style is not efficient.

You can look it the other way around, instead of being forced to go through the ok button to load the style you can use the play preview button and assign double click to load style so you are able to hear the style with your own song.

My guess is that if we took a poll, most BIAB users would find the quick auditioning of the song demo the quickest way to get a sense of what a particular style sounds like and would NOT just be loading random styles to hear how they sound with the chords of their song unless they got the sense from the song demo that it was in the ballpark of what they want their song to sound like.

Clicking on the OK button once you have selected a style that you want to try does not seem like an awful inconvenience. Doing it the opposite way would add more work EVERY time you audition a style. The percentage of times styles are auditioned is way higher than than the percentage of times a selected style is chosen to be loaded, unless you have somehow memorized all the style demo and rarely have to listen to them.

I'm pretty sure PG Music won't be changing this, but as always I am not opposed to configurable options if they care to make it one.
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
Find the style by hearing a different melody is not a good way to know the end result, which is playing your song. If you want to do this, instead hearing a random melody, the process of loading, and eventually find the style you want, is harder. If we are speaking efficiency, assign the shortcut to anything else that wont speed speed the proccess of load the style is not efficient.

You can look it the other way around, instead of being forced to go through the ok button to load the style you can use the play preview button and assign double click to load style so you are able to hear the style with your own song.






Originally Posted By: MarioD
This would be a good idea IF there was an option like a A/B switch where set to A a double click would load the style and set to B would load the demo.

This way both sides would be happy.

+1 for the above.


Actually aren't both options sort of available now?

Double click and the demo plays.

Click on the Play over your chords and the style loads over your chord progression. You do not have to click ok for this to happen. If you cancel out of the Stylepicker, the style you selected and tempo will still have loaded over your chord chart.

One thing not mentioned in the discussion so far is the fact that the Stylepicker has many filters and search parameters beyond simply listening to a style demo or playing over your chord chart to demo and load a style. Not every search is done to demo and locate a style.

A search through styles also is providing a measure of auditioning many different RealTracks very quickly. Styles normally have 4-5 different RealTracks.

A filtered search for a specific RealTrack artist allows a quick way to locate a similar performance by an artist so that rather than load another style, you can load another RealTrack guitar such as a Brent Mason Lead solo and just replace an instrument rather than a style. I just did a song that used 3 different Brent Mason lead solo Realtracks from three different styles and also three different Dow Tomlin Bass tracks. I located the instruments using the Stylepicker search filtered to match tempo and artist and then used F5 Song settings to select the RealTracks replacement using the Chorus # and the Chord Chart part markers to place the changes. Putting the different instruments on the same track, Biab reads ahead along the chord chart and causes the track to generate smooth transitions and cross fades. This is a very handy feature to avoid a specific riff from duplicating over every few bars.
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/16/17 11:15 PM
Its hard to change things you are used to, i know. But for my surprise the first comments i got from people used to the software from i guess a long time were favorable. Its 3 favorable comments to 1 so if we take that poll i dont know...

The problem is to preview your songs with a random melody rather than the song you are composing, which is the whole point of this request and an important part of BIB.

How is it going to be better the other way around, where you are hearing something which is going to be different once you actually load the style, to have to go back and keep looking when you thought it was the right one? This request would make that trial and error less painful.

To remedy this there are two choices, either assign double click to load the style which will play your song and speeds the process of going through this window or leave it as it is but playing your song instead a predefined one. This is how BIB would be faster to fulfill this process.

Looking forward to hear more comments and opinions. They are all welcome.
< Looking forward to hear more comments and opinions. They are all welcome.>

Please accept the following as welcomed opinions.

<The problem is to preview your songs with a random melody rather than the song you are composing, which is the whole point of this request and an important part of BIB.>

The solution already exists: To preview the style with the song you're composing, highlight any style and click the Play over current Chordsheet Play button. The highlighted style will generate and play over the chord progression you created in the Chord Chart and in the key signature of the chord progression you have input. If the song you are composing is in another tempo, you input the correct tempo into the Tempo Box. At this point of your audition, you do not have to exit from the Stylepicker page. If the highlighted Style is unacceptable for your song, highlight another Style and click the Play over current Chordsheet Play button. The highlighted style will generate and play over the chord progression you created in the Chord Chart and in the key signature of the chord progression you have input. Repeat this process until you locate an acceptable Style.

Once you are satisfied with a Style and you're ready to exit the Stylepicker to continue work on your composition, exiting by either clicking OK or Cancel returns you to the Chord Chart Page and the highlighted Style is loaded over your Chord Chart.

<How is it going to be better the other way around, where you are hearing something which is going to be different once you actually load the style, to have to go back and keep looking when you thought it was the right one? This request would make that trial and error less painful.>

A few examples where auditioning the Style Demo may be useful:

Many composers use Style Demos for composing inspiration and song ideas.

Many artists use Style Demos as a starting point for song covers because many, if not most, demos are a song chord progression or at least chord progressions that are common and work well together. It is not unusual to hear a Style Demo that sounds familiar to a popular song.

A Stylepicker search for PGMusic Realtrack artists creates a list of the artist playing in many different styles. It is very useful to pull an instrument by the same artist, likely playing the same instrument as is playing in the current selected style, and importing the second style instrument into the current selected style to add variety and energy to your track.

You end up with the same artist playing the same instrument but with a different strumming pattern, different arpeggio, riff, etc. I often use this technique to use in songs where the bass guitar pattern changes throughout sections of the song. The same with lead instrument solos. Each track in the Chord Chart Page can have up to 10 separate instrument occurrences.

Just as you can search for PGMusic RealTrack artists, you can do the same for RealTracks...
Using the doubleclick feature, you can quickly audition dozens of Styles in just minutes. Each Style will have 4-5 instruments so you have the ability to audition hundreds of individual instruments over dozens of styles in minutes. This provides you the option to make your track completely unique and varied from any other artist using that same Realtrack. The odds of another Biab artist using the same RT as you in a song, and even using a similar chord progression and tempo are fairly even. Meaning you may hear a particular strumming pattern or riff in another artists song. The chances of hearing another Biab user selecting five different versions of the same RT instrument in a track are astronomical. Simply using another version of the same instrument to replace repeating sections throughout your song eliminates the 'sameness' of sharing the same audio tracks with all other users. This method greatly increases the amount of recorded audio the Biab search engine accesses to create your track audio.

The Stylepicker as it is currently setup allows users to perform functions normally completed by moving your project to RealBand. The Play Over Current Chordsheet button is not available in the RealBand Stylepicker. That means that if you are a user of the Play Over Current Chordsheet feature, you will have to work between Biab and RB on every track of a project....

The current Stylepicker makes it very easy to create a project one instrument at a time rather than by editing styles method that is most common. An artist can quickly search, locate and load up to 7 versions of an instrument, mix, mute, add effects and panning and export the audio to a WAV mix, import the audio and convert the audio mix to a Performance Track and continue to build tracks on a per instrument basis for every instrument, thus creating not only a 'custom' style but a completely unique and unreplicable track from others using stock RealTracks configuration....

My point to you is that I believe your wishlist item only views Stylepicker at its most basic use and discounts most of the advanced features.
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/17/17 10:30 PM
Hi Charlie

Thanks for the tip to use the "play" button in text instead the one with the icon. That helps a little.

I dont think im disregarding anyone, just trying to make some sense of this very cluttered window. The clutter is not the problem but considering the behaviour of hearing something else other than you song as most important than working on it is.

Playing random melodies for inspiration is fine but should never be as important as finding a style for a song that already exists which would be more common, since this is the whole point of picking a style.

A regular workflow would be to create the chords progression you want bib to play and then pick a style for them is it? The opposite, pick a style without a chord progression does not make sense since at the end this is required for bib to do anything and required to know whatever you want to create.

The actual workflow leads to the situation already explained. Double click will play a random melody which forces to preview the song twice in order to make a decision, once to hear the random melody and a second time once you load it with your current song to actually know how it will sound and eventually having to repeat the process if you are not satisfied, when you should be able to hear your song directly without having to go through the random melody. This is bad enough as it is.

The inspirational point is valid and understandable but not enough to make it more important than the main reason for this window.

Regardless of how well these previews are composed, the end result once you load the style is what matter most, or should at least.
Posted By: zedd Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/18/17 12:24 AM
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
The actual workflow leads to the situation already explained. Double click will play a random melody which forces to preview the song twice in order to make a decision, once to hear the random melody and a second time once you load it with your current song to actually know how it will sound and eventually having to repeat the process if you are not satisfied, when you should be able to hear your song directly without having to go through the random melody. This is bad enough as it is.

The inspirational point is valid and understandable but not enough to make it more important than the main reason for this window.

Regardless of how well these previews are composed, the end result once you load the style is what matter most, or should at least.

Mackraken,

I'm on the fence about this... sort of...

First of all, given all the things I like to do in the StylePicker in order to narrow down my style selections, I know I would spend more time WANTING to hear the PG Music style demos than hearing the styles with my chords, so given the choice of what double-clicking the styles does, I think it is more beneficial for it to behave as it does, if nothing else is to change.

Having said that, I was playing around with loading up the first 4 bars of my song in the StylePicker and auditioning them from within there, and I have to admit that it is kind of fun hearing them like that, when you are willing to wait 4-5 seconds each time to hear the results.

Since I found myself enjoying that and could see the benefit in auditioning styles that way more often, it would indeed be easier if you could double-click the style and get those 4 bars to load each time.

So my simple suggestion for PG Music would be for them to add an key to the double-click to achieve the alternate option. If double-clicking the style remains exactly the same for auditioning the PG Music song demo, then holding down the Control/Command key while double-clicking could achieve the results of immediately loading and playing 4 bars of your song chords in that styles.

Or Alt/Option double-click.

Then we are all happy in all circumstances because it is just as easy to do it either way according to the circumstance.

I wish this was implemented already because it really is kind of fun hearing those 4 bars, and you are right that if you choose to do that a lot it would be better if there were a faster way to get those 4 bars loading.
The 4-5 second wait to hear a style over the current chord selection is due to Biab having to generate the Realtracks and midi. That is unavoidable and will have to occur with each change of style.


<Playing random melodies for inspiration is fine but should never be as important as finding a style for a song that already exists which would be more common, since this is the whole point of picking a style.>

Not necessarily. If someone is auditioning styles for inspiration and finds a suitable style, they can load the demo which in turn populates the chord chart page with the chords, tempo and key signature and all of the instruments for the style. The composer is then free to edit the chords, tempo and key to customize the demo into their own original piece.

<Double click will play a random melody which forces to preview the song twice in order to make a decision, once to hear the random melody and a second time once you load it with your current song to actually know how it will sound >

Double click is a convenience to play the demo but is not a required step. It is not necessary to hear the demo unless that is something you wish to do. You can audition a style solely over your chord chart by highlighting a style and the click onto the Play over current chordsheet button.

<The inspirational point is valid and understandable but not enough to make it more important than the main reason for this window.>

I believe it is equally important to the users whose workflow is to use the demos for inspiration rather than developing a chord progression first. As stated earlier, you can completely avoid hearing the demos by simply not using the double click feature.
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/18/17 09:56 AM
Hi Zed.

The suggestion to add an option to change the behaviour was proposed and seems reasonable. I dont quite understand why would you rather like to hear anything different to pick a style for your song but i guess many people is used to.

Charlie.

Glad you find useful to hear and tweak other songs rather the ones you would be able to create. But this workflow you mention, although legit, makes harder to find a style for people who rather like to know how their songs sounds instead an unrelated one.

The reason being that an awful demo melody could be using a suitable style for your song does not help at all to make a decision.

To wrap up, what would be more important? use the software to compose songs of yours or to tweak predefined ones? What is what most people rather like? If everybody prefers the latter then im wrong but i doubt it would be the case because this software main goal is to let you create songs of your own.
Mackraken, you're correct that a Style can sound drastically different playing over the current chord chart than the specific and static chord chart the demo was recorded in. That is an important factor that will influence your decision to choose a specific style that works best for your current track whether it is a cover or an original composition when you are trying to match the Style you hear in your head. I've lost original ideas from being influenced by demo styles as I auditioned through the list searching.

That being said, Biab is primarily marketed as an easy to use accompaniment program. Enter a chord chart, set your tempo and key, select a style, hit play and Biab instantly produces a great sounding backing track.

I can't and don't speak for PGMusic but I think the Stylepicker as it currently works allows Biab to be marketed as above in a truthful manner. Any novice user can open Biab, enter chords, tempo and key; Select a style from a list of professional sounding prerecorded demos and be singing or playing along in minutes. Each year, PGMusic uploads many demonstration videos of the new RealTracks and new features of that current year version of Biab/RB. They always feature 20-30 minute videos previewing soundtracks of the Demos. They don't use nor do I recall them ever featuring or referencing the User Showcase Forum where original compositions made using the Biab program. That's not their focus.

The fact that Biab has so many additional advanced features, learning tools and composition possibilities is just icing on the cake...
Posted By: zedd Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/18/17 03:05 PM
Originally Posted By: Mackraken
The suggestion to add an option to change the behaviour was proposed and seems reasonable. I dont quite understand why would you rather like to hear anything different to pick a style for your song but i guess many people is used to.


I'll give you just one example of many... If I am using the StylePicker to search a particular musician who strums a great sounding acoustic guitar and a search for him produces 40-50 styles, I don't want to try them all with the chords of my song... I want to quickly audition them to find the rhythmic style that is closest to what I was envisioning.

And that goes for most things. If I load up all of my Bossa Nova favorites, for example, my goal is not to first try them all out with the chords of my song. My goal is to first quickly audition each of them to determine which one I imagine is best going to suit what I am looking for. Which style has elements that I really like... maybe great sound drums or a particularly alluring piano sound.

And that's the skill which maybe you need to try to develop... try to translate in your head what a particular style is going to sound like in your song. Of course it might not end up being what you imagine, but most of the time, if you are paying attention to the instruments in the style demo, you can envision what it may sound like in your song--at least enough to rule out the styles that are not worth loading up, and to determine which ones you like best and should try loading first.

Originally Posted By: Mackraken
But this workflow you mention, although legit, makes harder to find a style for people who rather like to know how their songs sounds instead an unrelated one.

The reason being that an awful demo melody could be using a suitable style for your song does not help at all to make a decision.


It's difficult to wrap my mind around the idea that you can't see the benefit of using the song demos to narrow down your choices and save you a tonne of time. The ultimate objective is to make the right decision that best suits the objective in your mind. So the short term objective when you open up the StylePicker is to use the song demos to help you quickly identify the style that you will want to try with your song.
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 11/20/17 09:58 AM
Hi Charlie, thanks for being understandable with the situation. In software ergonomics it has to be studied the amount of interaction needed to carry an action, the less the better of course. In Bib is not easy since has this large amount of features and so many use cases. A hint to make the right choice is to identify the common processes and optimize them whenever is posible.

Like Zedd and you mentioned before, its nice to find useful to hear the styles when you dont even have a song in place, but once you do, the styler picker is not so friendly since its designed to play predefined demos instead the one it should care about. From this point of view this behaviour improvable and i bet there would be a way that could satisfy both sides. Either by introducing an option or to rethink this style picker to find the easiest and quickest way, the one that requires less interaction, to find a style for the song you already have.
No problem. At the end of every Stylepicker search, it's all about finding that one right style for the project. Stylepicker gives us many roads to arrive at the same destination.

Charlie
Posted By: Icelander Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 12/02/17 11:31 PM
I just always double-click expecting to 'select and close' out of habit from...well, just about any other program I ever tried or had, on any computer I ever tried or had!

A MASSIVE PLUS MILLIONS!!
Posted By: Mackraken Re: Load a style by double clicking on it - 12/05/17 01:34 PM
Hi Icelander, thats what i thought it would happen the first time i used the style picker. As computer users, we are use to double click anything to carry the default action (open a folder, open a file, etc) but with the style picker we dont pick/select/load the style but play an unrelated song instead, which was odd enough since what i wanted was to play or just load the style with the song that i had.

To respect other users point of view, the behaviour could be improved in this way:

Create a single "preview style" checkbox. This would be located at the style picker window or bib preferences.

- On double click a style:

- If "preview style" is on:
- If the chord sheet is empty or less than 2 chords. Play the predefined demo song.
- If theres a chord sheet already written in bib. Play the 4 first bars with the same tempo, not a custom one.

- If "preview style" is off.
- Just load the style into bib.

This way, it wont only satisfy everyone but it would allow to clean up the interface, maybe removing the two "song players" into a single one and such.
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