New guy. I'm enjoying my BIAB Pro 2019 a lot. I just need more styles.

Is there a way to create more styles? Not looking for full instructions here, but if someone could point me in the general direction.

Or do I have to buy styles?

Thanks
Jim

This would probably get more response if it were posted on the main BIAB forum.

While you can create your own styles and UserTracks, it is time consuming and requires skill to get a good sound.

The Pro Pak you purchased is the basic package that only has enough styles to get a taste of what BIAB can do. You can get more styles by upgrading to the Mega Pak or a even more styles by upgrading to the Ultra Pak.

If you are okay with MIDI styles, Bob Norton has a whole bunch of quality MIDI styles for sale at nortonmusic.com.

You can also find user (MIDI) styles for free by doing a web search, but you will find they tend to be somewhat dated and of questionable quality.

It's what John says. PGMusic has more than 6,000 total styles if you get them all. Plus, there's third party midi styles available as well. Every style is 100% editable so there is really an unlimited number of styles to have.


PGMusic posted a video today explaining how to import different midi instrument patches into any Style so even with your basic package you'll find it's fairly easy to import these different instrument to create your own custom styles without having to do a lot of programming.

For instance, there may be a bass pattern in a style you really like and an organ from a different PGMusic style and you found a drum sound that works with a lot of your songs you make. So, you import all these different instruments into a BIAB project and save it as a new Style.


As John stated, PGMusic sells upgrade packages that will give you up to 6,700 Styles and thousands of RealTrack audio instruments.

What would I be searching for to find Styles in a Google search? Are these MIDI styles? BIAB styles? When I do those searches in Google, I get tons of listings for MIDI files, but they are likely to have melodies and particular chord changes in mind. Am I making a style out of those files, or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Regarding Styles when using Band in a Box (BIAB), the style is specific to the BIAB program. Most of what you will find of BIAB Styles in a Google search are likely private party or third party Styles. You can compare a BIAB Style as similar to the styles that are specific and are included with a Keyboard like a Yamaha, Roland or Korg. They will all have a number of styles included but most likely you can create or import additional styles through an external source like a flash drive.

Every BIAB package includes a number of Styles. There are three major types; Midi, Supermidi and RealTracks. There are also different combinations constructed from the three major types. For instance, these hybrid types may consist of both RealTracks and midi tracks. As stated before, if you have all of the BIAB styles there are around 6,000 so someone can usually find an existing style to work with their song project. Every style is completely editable and can be modified to work to be a custom style for your song project.

BIAB provides tools to either modify or build midi and RealTracks from scratch. Several companies exist that create quality third party styles and BIAB song files for sale.


Making a BIAB style from an existing midi file is very easy and quick to do.

In short, a BIAB Style is not a midi or Karaoke style file. You are correct that if you do make a Style from a midi file, you would remove the melody from the midi file because you will be creating a backing track that's "in the style of" the particular song the midi file is comprised from. You will likely then use that new BIAB Style to create backing tracks for original or covers of similar songs to the song in that original midi file you used.


For instance, assume you use a midi file of "Get Back" by the Beatles and you modify that midi file and save it into a custom BIAB User Style. You can use that style with any chord progression, tempo and key signature BIAB project you want to. You can instantly change tempo, Key or chord progression and your User Style will function the same as any other BIAB Style. What will be different is there will be certain recognizable instrument patterns from "Get Back" in your BIAB project. An example is the specific bass pattern or drums used in the midi file "Get Back" you modified for the customized User Style you created.