PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Add-ons and UserTracks for Band-in-a-Box how good are loops

Kinda vague question but I was wondering about how dynamic? or stretchable loops are, in other words, if I have a guitar finger picking loop for "C" how many chords will biab transpose before the quality is degraded.
I've never worked with loops but I found some free finger picking loops that are about 2 sec and cover c,d,g,a,am,dm that sound nice.
It would also seem that loops could be used for user tracks as well, copyright permitting, with all the new features in 2014.
Yes, no, maybe?
Wyndham

Some loops transpose better than others. Loop content has a lot to do with it. A one measure Acidized loop containing one whole note (4 beats) will generally sound better transposed than a one measure loop containing four notes (1 note per beat).

Professionals with trained ears can detect a half semitone shift. These are the same people that practice their ear training by identifying which control of a 30 band equalizer was moved by half a db. Most people can tolorate two semitones without hearing artifacts too much.

Context also matters. You can most likely shift a background track somewhat buried in the mix more than a lead or soloist. There is a better chance of noticing four or eight measures shifted than one note in eight measures.

See the discussion about why the UserTracks template suggests using three chords C, E and G.

I'll get to start playing w/2014 this weekend. I'm sure a lot of things will become readily apparent when i get into all this.
Thanks Wyndham

Wyndham,

I had some old loop libraries that I haven't used much since I've had BIAB. I've started to play around with an old Bass loop library. The library has several "song sets" recorded at different tempos. Within each song set folder is the same few loop patterns recorded in 4 different keys (Bb, Db, E and G). I used to drop loops into SONAR 8.5 and I had to manually edit the loops as per chord changes of the song. Needless to say, I stopped messing with instrument loops because of the tedious nature of micro-editing each measure or each beat of a measure.

Since I've upgraded to BIAB 2014, I have converted 10 of the bass song sets. Boy, does the User tracks feature work great! I tried both a single file that contains all the loops in each key and separate files and songs in each of the different keys. I still need to understand the structure of User tracks. I've also tried to structure user track variations to the template BIAB song. I make my audio track exactly like my BIAB song. I'm not sure if the User tracks share a similarity to how a custom real drums track works.

For example, I will create a BIAB song with a 4 bar intro-8 bar verse-8 bar verse-8 bar chorus-8 bar chorus-(plus 2 verses and 2 chorus for each key). I then put a tied whole note over 2 measures for the ending. I have a fill at the end of each song section (intro, verse, chorus). I also have a slightly different pattern for each song section.

My questions are:

1. If I create a new song from my user track, will my new song play my fill on the last measure of a song section, regardless of length? For example, I recorded an 8 bar song template (fill on the 8th measure)but my new song uses 4 measure sections(fill on the 4th measure).

2. Does any new song I create use the special patterns I've created especially for A song sections and B song sections or does BIAB randomly pick my loops?

3. Does BIAB recognize my special 4 bar intro from my template and does it now use that pattern for any new 4 bar intro I create?

4. I have other loops that have special properties such as 1 note per quarter note in a measure. If I create a song template for user tracks that contain special 8th or 16th pushes, or a chord on every quarter note beat, will BIAB utilize those special "patterns" when I create a new song with my user track?

I have went through the song templates and some of this is covered. The main things I get from the User track song templates is how to put in all the different chord variations and the special inversion (C/G bass) chords.

I would like to see a special User tracks loop import feature in a future BIAB that works similar to the "ABABC" feature that you could easily define a loop wave file for song sections. You would also define each loop duration. It may also work like the DAW feature in reverse. You would create a BIAB song and drag loops into specific measures, instead of importing a complete audio file into your template BIAB song.

Sorry for the long post.

Rodm

I have sonar 8.5 as well and soon to upgrade to x3 studio, which has melodyne essentials, which might come in handy for some of the loops as well.

I may be overly excited about 2014 but it looks open ended as far as what I can envision.

I'm thinking that the playing of the fill part might be to create a user track called "fill" then at the bar select a part marker that plays that user track.

Just guessing, I just have to get some time to learn all of this.
Wyndham