In Band-in-a-Box®, F5 or Edit | Settings for Current Bar will open up a new window allowing you to adjust the number of beats per bar, apply tempo changes and patch changes, or apply a different Style, and even choose harmony changes to your Band-in-a-Box® song!
I can not make changes to the melody instrument or solo. Tried everything. Used F5 bar settings but it does not take account of the change of instrument. Tried saving; tried regenerating. Does not work. Please give me step by step instruction. I have prepared melody and chords and played it but when I go to a bar and use F5 it dos not make the change I asked for. Please help. I have watched the videos about this and seen all the fancy things it can do BUT nobody ever talkx about how to change the instruments at any particular point in the song. Am I doing somethig wrong ?
You probably know this, but in the MIDI world, instruments are called Patches. The column on the right for Patch Change is where you make the changes.
However - if you would, please tell us what version of BIAB you have, and what build. Go to Help menu, About and you'll see that info. There have been some recent patches that might affect this.
What do you use for your MIDI sound? A hardware MIDI synth like Roland or Ketron? Or a software instrument? You could tell us what you have in Options Preferences MIDI Driver, the middle column. You would adjust the entry in Patch Changes for whatever the name of your Melody instrument is, six positions from the top, or three from the bottom.
Thank you for your reply. I have had BB before on my Mac mini, which I much prefer. I was using BB 2012 build 52 and had a similar problem there but did not progress very far, partly because I could not get the patches to behave, and also because I nursed my wife with motor neurone for 10 years. Now I decided to get the very latest version and put it in my PC laptop because it is a newer machine. Newly installed but in hindsight wonder if I should have stayed with the Mac. However I still haver the same problem. If I try to alter the patches. Tried it all. Is there some sort of logic or specific order for things to happen. I gather styles take precedene. If I change melody patch when I pres play it switched back to the one set in style.I have tried saving, tried regenerating. No sense. Also find adding melody harmony also changes the melody patch. At 86 my hair is not too bad but soon it will be in a pile on the floor. Is it possible to fix the melody patch and then add harmony without affectig the melody.
by any chance are you importing and playing back and/or adding to or changeing midis from a third party that you didnt create ? if so , they might have embedded commands in the midi data stream that are overriding your own commands/patch changes. a good way to check is in the biab midi EVENT EDITOR. if so you can in the event editor remove those commands and insert your own eg patch changes , whatever. its very difficult to advise further without more details of your set up//workflow.
In BiaB on your PC, please go to Help > About Band-In-A-Box and on the second line from the top, next to the version number, there will be a number in brackets. Can you tell us what that number is on your system please?
I can not understand. After our contact I went back to it with a fresh start and it was like magic. Everything worked - well almost everything. It was brilliant. Now this morning : fresh start again. it has a nice solo line but I can not change the patch again. It insists on playing piano. I have tried using F5. I have tried changing through the mixer. The mixer shows a new instrumentnbut it still plays the piano. Help.
Have also found if harmony has been added its quite hellish trying to get rid of it. Tried various things. Deleting melody - cant get rid of stuff left behind. Even tried a no style from utilities - still left stuff behind. Seems like I have to start from New, which means recording the melody and chords again.
