Can someone reassure me that I haven't just spent 300 bucks only to discover that BIAB doesnt have any even 8 realtrack styles for jazz? The bottom lip is going here ... First tune I tried to make was a straight 8 jazz ballad. And all I can find is bossa nova ... Happy to buy the appropriate jazz pak if anyone can point me in the right direction ... thanks in advance

Welcome. It is true that jazz styles are generally swing feel and Latin styles use straight eights. But perhaps you could give us a song that has the style you are looking for (jazz fusion, maybe?) and we can look.

Also, what package of BIAB did you buy? That will tell us how many of the RealTracks and styles you have.

There are a lot of even jazz styles in the Ultrapak that I have. In the style picker under feel click on Ev 8. If you are looking for a specific genre under Category go to Jazz Styles more and to your right you will have a window with many even jazz style genres to choose.

thanks so much for the helpful reply. I bought the Megapak for Mac. I was thinking, I guess, of more ECM-type feels (De Johnette on Body and Soul / Keith Jarret trio; Roy Haynes on Pat Metheny’s Question and Answer; Jon Christensen on ... most things, really). Even most of the swing feels are very heavy - I did wonder if they could be adjusted somewhere (as you might the swing of midi in a DAW) but not having much luck so far. Anything you can point me to, be very grateful. I don’t mind if it’s a kludge ...

Wow - what a helpful forum. Thanks. The ultra seems to offer many more options than the mega. Maybe they’re listed on the site somewhere. I’m really just after a standard piano trio of the sort that seems to populate the jazz ballad / mid-tempo/ bebop categories - only playing an even 8 feel. Or even something much lighter - the default seems to be quite an old-school heavy swing. The bossa and smooth jazz genres sound great, but aren’t much use to me, alas. Will make do with any old workaround if the right Jazz pak doesn’t exist ...

sorry meant to write roy haynes on ‘change of heart’ / pat metheny / q&a

BIAB has many Latin-based jazz instruments. These are even 8-beat or even-16 beat.

These instruments could easily be incorporated into crossover styles that also contained some even 8/16-beat pop/rock tracks to create some very inventive jazz textures.

That said, I just had a look in the style list and in the Ultrapak version that's loaded on my computer, I have 266 Jazz Funk and Fusion styles.

Hope this helps,
Noel

• one of my songs: I Like Walking Beside You

I understand exactly what you're talking about although Change of Heart is a straight 6/8 feel. The classic post bop modern jazz stuff is not part of Biab styles. I think the reason is it's just too esoteric for Biab users plus it's too difficult to program anyway. The players are doing a lot of free form or partial free form stuff while Biab is a computer program. It does the same thing over and over with some variations but not major variations every one or two bars like Herbie/Chick/Jarrett/Matheny etc do. Even modern smooth jazz/funk/latin is pretty difficult to write a style for like David Benoit, Boney James, or Jeff Lorber. Too many specific phrases, rhythm punches, unison lines BS all that to work well in Biab.

Biab is a groove generator that will give you 32 bars of groovin rhythm in many classic styles from folk to rock to straight ahead jazz to lots of things. Put in whatever chords you want and jam along. This kind of post bob free flowing "can't tell what the chord changes are" stuff would be pretty difficult to write in a strict style that has to follow rules as in this is what happens at bar 4, here's what happens at bar 16 etc. If you can find any, good midi files of these tunes that were recorded live by good players on midi controllers could give you what you want plus give you the ability to change things since they're all midi.

Also, you asked why you can change stuff up in midi in your DAW but can't do it in Biab. This is because you're using Real Tracks. RT's are not midi, they're prerecorded audio phrases from 1 to 8 bars long. Biab has tons of all midi styles and those you can change as much as you want.

Bob