My use would be
Bring in BB VST plug in.
Select some metronome/tempo synced tracks and contiguous bars of audio.
Have ACW figure out the chords for these bars.
ACW has the metro/tempo/bar/note data of the whole track and should not need any manual juggling

From there I can generate realtracks, and/or solos

I stay in the DAW and not have to write out tracks to run the ACW externally.

Just an Idea

12/22 Edit - in italics

+1

FreshStart,

Welcome to the forum and to Band-in-a-Box! Very nice idea. Thank for making the suggestion.

Great Idea !!
If BBvst could call on bbw4.exe to bring up AudioChordWizard_BB.exe and you could choose the source audio file (as I don't know if it would parse the audio in the DAW ?) then just send the chords to the BBvst.

I don't quite understand what you're saying especially your last line "not have to write out tracks to run ACW externally."

You don't write out tracks for the ACW, you import a prerecorded audio file like something you downloaded from iTunes or whatever and the ACW gives you the chords for it. After the ACW gives you a chord grid and you've corrected it then you select a style and start generating tracks.

As for adding the ACW to the plugin, Peter wrote his answer to my thread asking what are some benefits of using the VST. One of those benefits is it's a simple version of Biab which helps folks who have asked for that. That's why the VST can now run standalone. Apparently things like the ACW were left out on purpose.

Just from my pov, not anybody's else's I still don't get the value of the VST yet. It may turn out to be valuable but for now you can do anything you want in the regular Biab and just D&D your tracks over to your DAW. Everybody is saying it takes a very long time to generate tracks inside the VST which to me negates any benefit of it until they can speed that up.

There are so many different problems, glitches and confusion about the VST I'm not messing with it until it's all working great and everybody's happy. And, most importantly there are clear instruction about how to set it up and use it in different DAW's.

Bob

I agree 100%! We should NOT start adding BIAB features into the VST as that defeats the purpose. BUT, there are still critical features missing from the VST. So I give this idea a minus vote!


With all of the problems including what you cited, there is no reason to use the VST that I can see either. And, if the plan was to use the VST to attract new users, well, I'd say that is a dangerous gambit until they actually get it working! New users, especially young computer-savvy ones, are likely to see this VST and conclude the whole program is rubbish. And nothing could be further from the truth.

Thanks folks
This BB VST shows a lot of potential. A lot of Potentail!
It can open the user base to a whole next level of Musicians. Ones who are DAW centric which as far as I see the vast the majority of the market.

I think one turn off for people who aren't use to BB is that they'll have to enter the chords.
If you're in a DAW, and have a piano, guitar, bass track, and PGMusic already has an ACW Then why not have it read the tracks and do a once over to get the chords?
It can be a separate ACW VST but I don't think ACW would be useful to other use in a DAW, unless it first went through BB to generate midi or realtracks.

BB VST already has the tempo, and where the chord changes happen, and most daws let you set the key on the song. It has more information than the raw ACW has.

It's just an idea.
If it does't get implemented I'll wait for a Pipeline workaround.

Exactly !! thanks for posting, if you have any more suggest please don't hesitate to suggest them.
A lot of long term users are always looking for new ideas and better ways of doing things and are very welcoming especially to new users with new ideas, that's why it has advanced so quickly into the modern age .
I posted this yesterday in the pre-release forum:

Working with ACW will introduce tempo changes in a lot of bars. Take a look here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENaN1cFu-9Q#t=3m25s

(Small red lines on each bars mens tempo changes in that example)

I can't see how this method could work with any VST host.

If ACW would use some kind of elastic audio algorithm (like Reaper, for example) instead of this method, things would be different (and better).

On the other hand, there's still a lot of work to do in the new ACW, so in my opinion a VST would be, in my opinion, premature.

I use the ACW in RealBand to tempo map live drums
you then write the metronome to a midi track
drag the mid into Reaper import the tempo map
drag the drum wav file in and you have it
to go one step further
insert stretch markers at each beat
remove the tempo map from the master track
and snap stretch markers to grid
this will give you quantized drumming.

The vst will have an export midi chords tempo map midi drag export to give the DAW a tempo map and midi chords for virtual instruments.
It will also have in import midi tempo map from the DAW.
The midi will also give the time signature changes.

The old ACW will be easy as it's there now and will popup with one command to bbw4.exe

Biab box don't have decimal point tempos so it's always changing
see first pic import tempo from RealBand, the second pic is manually inserting changes into the plug:

Yes I can see that but that's only if you have an instrument like your drums that didn't record to a click. That was the primary reason the ACW was developed in the first place. It's to be able to add Biab tracks to old recording you made 30 years ago. Those old recordings were in most cases just live, no click so yes the tempo was all over the place. We're talking now about using it in a modern studio setting. There are so many different ways people record but I would guess 80-90% of the time modern studio sessions are using a click. Unless all the players are bozo's there's no need for a tempo map.

FreshStart, you're talking about existing DAW tracks. Where did they come from? Didn't you or other session players you know do them? In that case you know the chords already, no? JJJ's point is also very good. Unless you're talking about a two chord modern pop song, the ACW isn't all that accurate. You have to make so many corrections it's hardly worth it. But of course if you really don't know music that well, I guess you wouldn't know how to make the corrections anyway. But even then your ears would tell you something doesn't sound right.

Bob

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENaN1cFu-9Q

ACW will write tempo changes on nearly each bar no matter if the original audio was recorded with a metronome or not.

Try it and you will see.

I edited the original case above.

Pipeline is Spot On! He has some good enhancements! Hope he gets them done soon

On another case...
I can imagine that someone who knows nothing about music notation but can play along to a metronome could fire up a daw and record a track. Just strumming chords, not knowing what the chords are because some extra fingers were push down or some strings muted.

Then they think they would like to bring up the BB VST and add some real tracks, a solo, and develop a melody.

They don't know what the chords are so now their stuck with BB VST
The ACW should Really generate the chords based on the track they recorded and it should be tight with the tempo of the recorded track.

The ACW should have an easy time here. As Pipeline mentions other VST use ARA and get all the time sync data from the daw, They can read the whole track to do the full analysis, etc.

I don't know, it probably won't happen, it's just an idea

Good example. If ACW is not in the VST, just render to wav and open in Biab and use ACW there or even easier, Biab has an audio track so just record the track there. Usually a player like that only needs a few new tracks so Biab can easily handle the project by itself.

Bob

Yes new ACW in BB needs more options, the old ACW gave an option of writing the tempo map or not, and the ACW in RealBand asks if you want to keep existing bar lines and just get the chords.