Say for four bars, maybe only two, and then the bass comes in. But what does one program to make ONLY the drums sound?

You can mute everything else in BB or do as I do.... use volume envelopes in the DAW....

I use this quite often. In my latest song.... Tropical Sky, I used this along with copy and paste to get the light intro that builds.... volume envelopes absolutely rock.

In BIAB:

C.d | Am.d | f.d | G.d |

C.bd | AM.bd | F.bd | G.bd |

C | Am | F | G |

This will provide 4 bars of drums only then

Four Bars of Bass and Drums only then

Four Bars of all instruments playing.

[The chord locations in the above examples assume each Chord is placed on the first beat and the lines delineate between bars irrelevant to the BIAB 4 beat grid for demonstration purposes of the chord programming.]

There are several other ways to achieve the same results. This is one way of many.

Thank you! I appreciate you explaining this to me.

Thank you. I'll make a mental note of this but my DAW experience is so limited I don't know what a volume envelope is. (But I will learn!)

Envelopes.... volume or panning as well as other things... are essentially automated control over a specific parameter in the track.

You can automate or envelope almost anything you want. I generally use the volume and panning envelopes. With more than a few tracks in a project, adjusting volume and panning on individual tracks manually is an impossible task. Envelopes get the job done.

Another option is to use the count-in as a drum intro.
1-click on preferences/options
2-count-in/met
3-allow lead in bars
4-select lead in type

Thank you! I think I can follow that.
Although I've had BIAB for a few years now, it was mainly a practice tool for playing along to jazz standards and basic blues. Now I want to use it to record my own songs, so I have to build from the ground up! It's a learning experience but the sounds I hear other people get are so good that I want to have them to and I'll get the hang of it, however long it takes.

That sounds super useful. I'm sure I'll be using those "just as soon as I'm able" ("Rocky Raccoon")

Thanks - that simple notation make perfect sense to me and its a simple way to engineer an intro.

Better than fiddling with dialogs, but I get the fact you can do more with the software.

I experimented with a gentle bluesy shuffle start:
C.d
C.bd Am.bd F.bd G.bdp
C Am F G

Simple but powerful. I like the fact you can just look at it and know what is coming.

-Paul