Hello!

I opened a midi file. It appears on melody track only. Mean, everything, drums, keys, bass etc.., are merged in the melody track.
How can I separate them and export as multitrack midi. I want to edit instruments separately. Please, help. Thanks.

Hi pelvax,

Welcome to the forums.

What you describe is how BIAB works. If a multichannel midi file is loaded, there are two options; the first one is to load all tracks of the file onto the Melody track (as a multichannel midi) and the second one is to load the file onto the Soloist track (also as a multichannel midi).

One of the things that I had to wrap my head around when I first started using the program was that BIAB is not primarily designed as a midi editor... it is backing generating software.

If you want to edit existing midi files, you would be better using a program designed for this. If you purchased BIAB (Windows), then you will have Realband already installed for free and Realband makes working with midi much easier.

When I create multichannel midi in BIAB, what I do is to import the melody and the chords from a file I find on the net. Then I use BIAB's backing generation technology to create accompaniment in whatever style suits what I want to do.

If you don't mind my asking...

Ultimately, what do you want to do with the music you create?

Regards,
Noel

P.S. I'm pretty sure others will jump in and share their opinions, too.

Noel is right on the money. Real band is a good midi editor, and so much more. It will also open you .sgu, .mgu etc so you can further edit your BIAB file. Play around with Real band for awhile, you'll soon get comfortable with how it works and you will have so much more flexibility.

Rob

I would generally go the DAW route for a multi-channel MIDI file, especially if you end up also using MIDI styles, since you can get channel conflicts. That being said, if you click on the "Sequencer" button, you will find that there is still a fair amount of stuff you can do with those channels.

• checkbox whether to play the channel or not
• ability to re-assign a different general MIDI instrument (keep in mind that since all these MIDI channels are on the same track, they all have to reference the same MIDI synth - you can't assign each one to an individual synth)
• ability to split the channels for leadsheet notation
• ability to show or not show the channel in the notation windows
• Edit - Delete to delete the channel data
• Edit - Rechannel to assign the data to a different channel
• Edit - Merge to merge the data with a different channel
• Edit - Change velocity to change the velocity of the notes on the channel (which effectively changes the volume, depending on your synth, to help better balance the sound with the other channels
• Edit - Move to soloist track to move all the melody track multi-channel data to the soloist track, thus freeing up the melody track for something else, to include more MIDI data - again, be careful for channel conflicts, or you'll hear the wrong instruments and the wrong volume
• Edit - Isolate as Melody to move all but the selected channels to the soloist track, leaving the selected track as a single channel melody

Again, a DAW is better for more finely adjusting multi-channel MIDI, but as you can see, you can still do a fair amount of massaging within the Sequencer feature of BIAB.

If you go to the piano roll on the Melody track, you can select the channel to show (Ghost will show the other channel notes in light gray), select all notes on that channel, cut, go to another track in the piano roll, paste.

Hello!

Thanks everybody for useful answers. To Noels question: I use the BeatBuddy drummachine pedal and it works with midifiles and it can produce not just drum backing, but drum with bass, keys etc.., also. It came with factory prepared tracks(they are just drums), but users made a lot of custom kits, with other instruments. Preference of this pedal v.s. other drumstuff is the ability to have fills, change the verse, chorus parts of the song in live situations handsfree, which gives us more flexibility, instead of classic karaoke style backing track. And again, in live situations. Anyway, in short, the process is following: I want to edit the song to my BB pedal. I find on internet the midi of the song.Say, I need just drums and bass from it. Open the midi in BIAB, and pull out drums and bass only. Why BIAB? Because it gives me complex arrange of bass and drums in the style, what I need and I don't have to record them separately. It's pretty time saver thing. Another way is, that I write chords via chord builder of the song in a new project in BIAB and it generates everything for me. So, I want to cut the song to intro, verse, chorus etc., end then put this midies to my pedal. Hope my description is clear. But some songs appears in BIAB as, one track in melodist. That's my problem. Will tweaking around your solutions. Thanks again for kindly helpful answers. Regards.

Hello Pipeline!

Not clear what to do after pasting to another channel. Succeeded to separate the drum channel in pianoroll, cut it, paste it, and then?

I have the solution. Opened midi with Guitar Pro 5. It splits multichanel merged midi to separate instruments automatically in a moment. Yes, BIAB is for different thinks. Thanks for everybody.