Aside from using the built in pushes what are some techniques are there to get pushes? Anything that is particularly effective?

As far as I know, BIAB only provides the one method to get pushes, with a choice of the push being the timing of an eighth note or a sixteenth note. You can vary the intensity.

I often use MIDI in the Melody or Soloist track to reinforce a particularly important push.

Some of my songs sound better if I freeze the tracks except for the drum track, remove the pushes, and regenerate. Or vice-versa, and leave the drums as the only push track. It depends on the song's needs.

The pushes, as defined by BIAB, often do not "line up" with the push I have written (composed? ) into a song as I feel it. And I have done it a bunch...

I have found (after much experimentation) that the best (easiest?) thing to do is to define the push yourself in your DAW and edit the BIAB tracks in your DAW to fit YOUR push. It doesn't take a lot of effort.

You can start with a predefined push from BIAB (or not). Once your tracks are set up in your DAW, record an instrument of your own, playing along with the tracks, and playing pushes as you feel them (not strictly following the track at that moment). Then cut whatever section necessary in the BIAB tracks and slide the "hits" (be it chords or notes or drum hits) to match your playing. (I use an acoustic guitar, but any instrument will do...)

I can give examples of songs where I have done this if you need them...

I will have to try this when I'm back in the studio.

Doesn't this create a gap between where the audio is moved to and where is used to be?

You aren't moving the entire rest of the track up (as an example) 1/16 note at the point of each anticipation, right?

I feel like I'm missing something

I know when I drum to a metronome, I do anticipations all the time, but the metronome stays the same.

I think what Floyd is describing is to select a clip, move it, and smooth out the cuts. Any DAW makes this fairly easy. He's not talking about moving the whole base track, just shifting the "hits" here and there as needed. Where the clips overlap, some smoothing is required to avoid dropout and clicks. Each DAW handles this differently, and it requires some operator skill.

Operator Skill? You mean like setting the grid snap to 64th notes?

As Matt said... "just shifting the "hits" here and there as needed"...

You have 2 choices built in to BIAB - a 16th and an 8th... so, if you use one of those as a "jumping off point", your pushes shouldn't be far off from one of those. But, as I hear them, a small amount of "off" is noticeable and needs to be "corrected". Having no formal musical training, pushes, for me, are all feel...a minute movement is all that is required.

And you don't need to move every instrument... pick the ones that would most clearly define the push. Guitar chords. Piano? Bass? Let the rest "cover the gap" (that doesn't take much). Use your imagination.

For "Shadow Of A Man", I built the brass track from short samples - so I could put them where I wanted them. So they really help to define the pushes (there are a LOT of pushes in this song - in the choruses and the bridge). I slid some guitar chords also... using the BIAB pushes as a starting point and a recorded acoustic guitar as the refinement reference.

http://floydjane.com/Songs/Shadow.htm

Yep... I was going to say a DAW and audio editing tools with something like Audio snap or Melodyne that will move the audio without changing it except where it appears on the time line.

I do a lot of this too HTL. Biab isn't perfect but it's a great start. To get what you really want you have to refine the track. I've been using RB exclusively for years for this and it works but sometimes not as "elegantly" as other DAW's. If I was doing this all the time like some here do it would be worth it to learn another DAW but the thought of that makes my teeth ache...

Bob

Great info! Thanks much!

FJ...are you kidding me? That songs production is insane! That had to take a while to pull off! Be proud of that one! Dang!

Now back to the DAW. Lol

Thanks again everyone!