I have a ballad that uses a piano and synth pad; both are real tracks. When playing a transition where bar #1 = C,C/B and bar #2 = Am7, the Synth Pad sounds choppy through the transition. Is there a way to smooth the synth pad through the transition?

Does the tempo of your song fall within the tempo range of the pad? That is the most likely cause of not getting a smooth transition I would think.

since the synth pads are normally background, try using a straight up C to Am vs the c,c/b followed by am7 and see if that makes a difference.

In other words, simplify the synth pad part.

Yes - I selected a synth pad from the style picker that matched the song's tempo.

How do I set the chord progression for the synth pad separate from the other instruments?

I did simplify the chord progressions as you suggested, but I lose the dynamics of the other instruments. I would like to retain the progressions for all instruments except the synth pad.

Thanks.

Question: when you did that, did the progression on the pads work like you wanted?

If so... and you can't get the other instruments to sound good.... this is a case where, to get the song finished like you want, you may need to have 2 versions in BB. The one you want and the simple one for the pad part. You then export the tracks and combine them in a DAW.

Have you tried opening that song in Real Band and see how the pads work there? Remember that RB is a DAW and if you can get it to sound like you want, you can always import just the pad part from BB.

Where there's a will, and some out of the box thinking, there's always a way to get it done.

In BIAB, you can also freeze the other tracks with the regular chord progression, then adjust the chords to simplify for the synth pad and regenerate the part. The frozen tracks won't be regenerated unless you unfreeze them.

Exactly, I then I'll come back to the project in a day or so and forget why some tracks are frozen. Unfreeze, regenerate and it's all messed up again. This is where having two versions with separate file names and separate song names and also pop up notes has saved me.

I deal with the choppy strings and synth issue a lot. One thing that bothers me is that I can hear a re-trigger of the strings/synth on every bar even if there was no chord change. I want my strings and pads to be smooth and often hold out the same chord while other instruments make some chord changes. That's why I'll make 2 or 3 versions of the same song and name them according to their purpose. I often go with midi for strings and pads for this very reason. I simply stretch out the notes in a piano roll editor in my DAW.
The melody track does not regenerate. So, if you copy or import your pads track there you can mute your strings track and still regen the rest of the song as you work on it.
Usually I do my best to ignore the choppy strings/pads until I get it into my DAW where I know I can easily move the midi notes around to my liking.

)) a ballad that uses a piano and synth pad; both are real tracks. When playing a transition where bar #1 = C,C/B and bar #2 = Am7

Two settings would help here. Both are in the song settings dialog, accessed from the song settings button on main screen.

1 ignore slash root except bass. That would turn the synth part into this
C Am7

2 natural arrangement. That would insure that the synth part is allowed to make small modications to the chords if it would lead to a better arrangement,

Hi Peter. Do you have any suggestion/s on the audible re-trigger of sustained chords such as I typically hear on legato strings and synths in BIAB? As I mentioned, I most often don't want the strings or pad to strike a new chord on the beginning of a bar but might need the other instruments to go ahead and play. Lets say piano and bass are of course striking on the beginning of each bar whether there is a chord change or not. But, I want the synth pad to simply hold that chord through consecutive bars without re-stiking , or at least inaudible restrike, at the beginning of each consecutive bar. Perhaps adjustable cross-fade selected track/instrument at bars of choice.

When we write MIDI strings, including MIDI Supertracks and regular MIDI styles, we avoid retriggering the same note.
So from C to AM we would hold the common tones of C and E for example. So you might be better off using a MIDI strings part, either a MIDI super track or a single track from any MIDI style which you do from the track menu (eg strings track) and choose custom midi track.

That's the only way guys, use midi for this. The reason is RT's are audio files, you can't put a sustain envelope on an audio file like you can with midi. That envelope will sustain it in midi as long as you want. It's called ADSR for Attack, Delay, Sustain and Release. It manipulates midi data but is useless on audio files.

This is one of the big limitations of the RT's when using chording instruments like synths and piano. Remember these tracks are prerecorded. The player in the studio doesn't know what chords you will be using. If he recorded that part using those changes then sure he would sustain the common notes or use the sustain pedal on the piano but without that info you're going to hear those chords as separate sounds.

Bob

I want to thank all of you for responding to my initial post. I've been under the weather over the past couple of weeks, so I'm just getting back into the swing of things. I plan to implement your recommendations over the next few days and let you know how it goes.

Regards,

Tom J.

That's the best solution, in my opinion. I do it all the time. It's simple and takes very little time and/or effort. I think it's a great answer.

Alan

I remember this feature, but what I don't remember is, does it have to be on the legacy strings track, or is it sensed on any track as long as one of the GM (or presumably GM2) strings patches are selected. And does that apply to just the ensemble strings (49-52), or patches like violin and viola (41-45).