PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Controlling rogue bass line

The chords are:
/C, , Em,Dm/F /

BIAB bass is playing
C, DOWN to low E, UP an octave to D, then DOWN to F !!!

How can I tell BIAB which bass octave to play?
IOW play logically/musically?

C, UP to E, DOWN to D, UP to F (then maybe octave down on F).

On a fretted instrument these are your basic/simple choices due to the instrument itself.
Once you hit low E on a bass the only way to get to a D is to go up (almost) an octave .. I would 'expect' these intervals on a real bass.
If the bass is played on a keyboard it may be different, but played on an actual bass, it makes sense to me for RT's.

To over-ride the bass selection you can sometimes try something like using Cmaj7/E for chord entry (instead of Em) for the second chord, which may force the bass to go more where you were hoping, but in your example chord structure it sounds to me like a pretty expected result.
RT's only have so many options to choose from.
Unless you 'revoice' the chords .. and try to force something else

Thanks for your reply.

It just seems to me that after all these years (decades really)
BIAB does not look ahead and analyze a chord progression, but rather simply looks ahead chord by chord.

Why jump up and down octaves for three consecutive notes when it is not necessary?

C, DOWN to low E, UP an octave to D, then DOWN to F !!!

If BIAB looked ahead and saw the D and F, surely it would have realized that going UP to the E instead of DOWN would have made a much smoother bass line?

Try using a different, but similar Bass RealTrack. A different Bass RealTrack might have a different run for the same chord progression built into it.

Look in the RealTracks picker to see what the suggested tempo range is for the Bass RealTrack you're using. If the Bass RealTracks that you're using is close to the edge of the tempo range, freeze the rest of the tracks then change the tempo. BiaB may select something different at the different tempo.

I was just explaining how I (with bass in hand) might have 'seen' it and played it with the described chords.
I would think in my head the sequence would be C (second string) then E (open low E) then closest D is up a string .. etc.

It may also depend on the style chosen as they all are different, like mentioned above by Jim ..
My next go-to attempt would be to redefine the chords to see if an alternate voicing can get my 'desired' result as opposed to the 'expected' result using the added options in RB.

The cool thing in RB is the ability to make these kind of changes, generate a given track and then revert back to a different RT/chord progression later for other tracks. In BiaB you are asking all tracks to abide by the new chords, which may affect some tracks inadvertently.
In RB the new chords can apply to only a given track when generating a new option ..

Thanks guys for your suggestions.

A little too complicated for me though (I also don't use RealBand.)

I transposed the tune from C to G and that has helped quite a bit.

However there are still a couple of undesirable bass lines.
Here are the slash chords:

//C/E, Bm/D, Am/C, G/B // D7sus...

Naturally you would want a descending bass starting on E.
But BIAB has a mind all its own and starts with the low E, then jumps up to start the descending line after that!

Is there some way to indicate to BIAB (here and in another instance) which octave you want for that note?

Well lucky me!
I discovered that the bass line IS MIDI!

So now I am in the piano roll and don't know how to move notes?
Any tips?
The intuitive way of grabbing the note and moving it up or down is not working...

Keep re-generating Playback until you find one you like, then save/freeze it.

OK well I opened the Help file and learned that you move the note by clicking the Middle of the note bar...

Now the problem I have is when I re-generate the song, the notes go right back to what they were originally.

How do I FREEZE just the notes I changed?

You've just frozen the track.
Now you want to make more changes to it.
Do you unfreeze, change and then re-freeze?

And how about changing an F note to an F# in Notation mode?
I don't see how?
When I drag the note it never wants to put a sharp.
If I just click a note it asks if I want to add another note over the existing note!

One more question.
You are in Notation mode.
How do you start playing the song from a particular note?

BIABman:

You said: "You've just frozen the track.
Now you want to make more changes to it.
Do you unfreeze, change and then re-freeze?"

The answer is YES.

For changing your F note to an F#, it may be easier to go back to Piano Roll mode, then (as you've discovered), just grab the middle of the note bar and move it up.

Good luck!
LLOYD S

BIABman,

While you're doing all this experimenting, I suspect that it would help if you turned off the automatic track naming feature. This feature names tracks according to the instrument that is placed on them. While this naming has advantages, it also has disadvantages (I'll explain a bit more below).

To disable auto-naming, the options shown on the image below are found on the opening screen of "Options | Preferences" (in BIAB 2018).

When disabled, the tracks are always called Bass, Piano, Drums, Guitar, Strings, Melody, Soloist. These legacy names do not change when instruments change.

Once legacy names are on display, it becomes easier to identify which tracks will regenerate and which will not. If you make changes to notes on the Melody or the Soloist tracks, these changes are unaffected by regeneration. Any changes on the other five tracks though will get over-written by regeneration unless the track is frozen.

Also... to answer you question about freezing a few notes... it's not possible. The freeze process applies to the whole track.

Lastly, at the URL below, you'll find some video clips. While most of these use older versions of BIAB, the principles outlined still apply today. These clips might be useful for you.

http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm

Hope this helps,
Noel

Thanks Lloyd.
That's what I ended up doing, falling back to
something I know will work.

OK.




Thanks Noel!

Personally I think you are better writing your own bass lines using a DAW. Bass is such an important part of the song and the bass line should be logical and rhythmic. The bass RealTracks will often jump about in an unmusical fashion which is a shame. As a result I normally play my parts in using a midi keyboard and a vst like Trilian. After that I edit the timing so it sits well with the drums. I actually enjoy producing the bass line and think it is essential to the success of a track.

"Well lucky me!
I discovered that the bass line IS MIDI!"




Funkycornwall has given you the best suggestion in my opinion.

I think what you've run into is a RealTrack with a Real Chart. If that is indeed the case, anytime you re-generate the track, the RealTrack will regenerate and so will will the Real Chart. It will change to conform to the RealTrack.

To have your bass play the Real Chart, you will have to change to a midi bass instrument. That's not a bad thing because you can then notate the bass to play whatever notes you choose and desire.

This older tutorial video may be useful to your situation and allow you to continue to use RealTracks in your project.

Replace RealTrack parts with song specific riffs

Thanks Funky and Charlie.

I will rant some more now, because I get so frustrated with this program!

I look to BIAB as a point and shoot program.
Up until now I have never messed with playing out the bass parts or any other parts.

For 99% of the time I use BIAB to lay down bass and drums, that's all.
I don't use any of the other bells and whistles the program offers.

So I learned (or thought I learned about Freeze mode).

I went back to the beginning of the song.
Played through the first verse to check chords and bass line (and changes from 4/4 to 2/4 and back to 4/4).

Then I went into Notation mode to change the bass line to my liking.

When in N-mode I noticed that Spacebar will Stop and Play from current bar.

I continued to edit the bass line and finished the first verse.

Before Freezing it I wanted to save time and copy it to the second verse.

So I copied bars 1-20 to 21..
Then I put the cursor at bar one and pressed Space bar.

All my bass line work was lost!!!

What am I doing wrong? ARghhhhh!!!!

P.S. I have been using BIAB off and on for 25+ years!

There are a few ways to copy things in BIAB. You haven't told us which one you used.

From the sounds of things, you've employed a process that also copied and pasted part markers. That would cause BIAB to re-generate the next time the song started.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the Melody track and the Soloist track don't regenerate (unless you have a Realtrack or MIDI Supertrack loaded on them).

With this in mind, and if you have a recent version of BIAB...

I encourage you to follow the sequence of numbers on the image below and...

1. copy your MIDI bass track to the Melody

2. work on the notation on the Melody track

3. When you get it how you want, move the track back to the Bass track.

BEFORE DOING THE ABOVE, though.... make sure that you save a backup copy of your song. Then, if something goes wrong, you can get back to where you were. Also save a backup with another name before you send the bass back to the Bass track.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks for helping out Noel.
I don't have much hair left on my head (for pulling out)
and my time is limited on this planet now (for song tinkering).

I followed your instructions but they didn't work!

1, 2, 3.

Bass line went right back to the way it was originally (before all my edits).

ARGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

If you use a Supermidi Bass, you can edit and save the notation changes you make. I recommend using Supermidi because it will generate a part the same as a RealTrack but because it is midi, you can edit it the same as you would a regular midi track. You can then use Sforzando VST to get the right bass sound you want.

BIABman,

If you want to private message me, I'll give you my email address and you can send me the BIAB file. I'll move the track for you and send it back.

To send me a private message, click on 'Noel96' on the left and select 'Send PM'.

I'll do my best to save your remaining hair.

Regards,
Noel

It's all screwed up.
Copying Bass to Melody didn't help.

I then Moved Bass to Melody, worked on Melody and played back.
Bass re-appeared magically on its own!

It sounds like you might have a Realtrack bass with notation attached.

If you email me the file (my email address is a PM reply), I'll better be able to see what to do.

Hang in there, we'll get there eventually.

Earlier you said you've never used Real Band. My question to you is why?

If there ever was a great example of why you should be using RB this is it. Here's the why:

RB gives you almost all of the Biab functions combined with a DAW. That means once you're happy with the rest of the song, you isolate just the bass track and experiment as much as you want and you're not forced to just use one track for bass. RB has 48 tracks. If your song uses 5 instrument tracks plus the bass you have 43 tracks to experiment with the bass. Try one thing on track 7, you think it's close but no cigar. Move to track 8 and try again, then 9, 10, all the way to track 48 if you wanted. Here's the really big deal. RB DOES NOT automatically regenerate a track much less the whole song unless YOU TELL IT TO. You can cut/paste very easily from several test bass tracks until you've stitched together exactly what you want. Oh, and each track can be generated using a different style or bass patch or Real Track or both or whatever the heck you want.

You could have done this in RB in far less time than it took to keep replying to this thread and you're still not happy.

Bob

I've just sent the file back to you.

Have a look and see if that helps.

Regards,
Noel

Thanks Bob.
So you're saying that basically RealBand gives you everything that BIAB has and more?

That I should be entering my chords from scratch into RealBand rather than
BIAB?

Do I even need to install BIAB?

Exactly what is the relationship between the two programs?

Does one program need the other?

I'm sure I didn't bother installing RealBand to save disk space and because I was sure I wouldn't use it.

Not a happy camper here bob.

I reluctantly installed RealBand.

Now it seems I will have to cope with two headaches instead of just one.

Fired up RealBand. It opens midi settings to start.
I don't have Input. It asks to choose Output.
I choose standard Windows Wave.

I go to open the song I was working on in BIAB,
RB complains that it's 48k instead of 41k (or vice versa).
It opens it anyway.

Then the program freezes!
Can't do a bloody thing.
Programs crashes when I try to close it.

ARghhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

"Initializing accompaniments"

That's what RB says after I try to load another version of the BIAB song.

Then it opens a Note .txt file on screen and the song/program is basically frozen now.

The green song Play light is on.
But the song doesn't play and nothing can be pressed in the program.
Esc key doesn't work. Responds to nothing except the Royal Salute (Ctrl-Alt-Del).

I don't think RealBand is going to work out very well for me.

Realband needs to be run in administrator mode (so does BIAB to get the best from it).

To set this...

1. Right-click on the program shortcut.

2. Select "Properties".

3. Under the "Compatibility" tab, select 'Run as administrator'.

4. OK your way out of the settings and start Realband.

Regards,
Noel

Biab only works with 44.1 but RealBand being a DAW will work with any setting. With the setting at 44.1, you not have that issue again.

Regardless of any DAW you use, it will have to be set up with certain default on the initial startup. You will have to set up midi input/output even if you don't use midi. You'll have to set the bit rate and similar settings.

Once the program settings are complete, RealBand retains the settings so it only has to be done once.

Once RB is setup, you will find it has many Biab 'wishlist' features. To name a few, it has markers you can place anywhere in your song so you can label the song structure, intro, verse 1, verse 2, pre chorus, chorus, verse 3, chorus, outro or similar, it has 48 tracks rather than 8. You can have access and use of all 16 midi channels, tracks can be grouped and color coded, it allows you to 'see' your song in a timeline, the mixer section and outputs are much more robust than the Biab mixer and it has the editing features of a DAW.

It has useful features that Biab doesn't have at all such as the ability to select and regenerate a section of a track rather than have the whole track regenerate as it does in Biab. A track will only generate or regenerate if you tell it to, unlike Biab does a complete regeneration unless a track is frozen. It has a multiriff feature that will generate 7 different segments of audio/midi of a selection or an entire track. You can choose any number or all of the seven to use in your song. I had a song with a track I generated from 18 different multiriff selections. That is like having a session musician generate 126 punch in's were that to be done in a live session.

Thanks Charlie.
I am sure RB works really nicely for you.

I have a feeling that I was not destined to use the program though.

I have started to jump through hoops just to open/run the program.
I changed it to 'Admin" in the properties as recommended by Noel.

The program opens, but I dare not try to play a song I just played in BIAB because it freezes/crashes the program!

So I enter a few chords just to see what I can do.
Try to select a style, it says 'initializing'.
That's it!
That's all RB will do before freezing up!!!

I'm not sure if you want to pursue getting RB working working at this point and that's ok. Just let us know if you do. Otherwise, I'll not try to push you to use it. It's a tool. It has to be set up. It can be quirky. You can certainly use Biab and never use RB and you can use RB and never use Biab. But I get it that Biab/RB is mostly about having fun with music.

I will attempt to answer the last questions you posted.


Q: So you're saying that basically RealBand gives you everything that BIAB has and more?

Biab and RB share a lot of features but each have features separate from the other. They are different types of software programs from each other. RB is specifically a DAW (digital audio workstation) and Biab is an audio accompaniment program.



Q: That I should be entering my chords from scratch into RealBand rather than
BIAB?

You can do that. Most bigin a project in Biab and move the project to RB to refine their project. Biab generates tracks much faster than RB. Biab's Stylepicker works faster to review and select styles than the RB Stylepicker.

Q: Do I even need to install BIAB? Not sure as I've never heard of anyone not installing Biab. PGMusic sells a similar DAW software called Power Tracks that RB is based on but Power Tracks does not have the Biab interface features contained in RB.

Q: Exactly what is the relationship between the two programs? They are married. They share features, styles, RealTracks and Rb can open Biab saved files.

Q: Does one program need the other?
Not necessarily. They can work fine independent of each other but are designed to work complementary to each other.

Q: what RB says after I try to load another version of the BIAB song. "Initializing accompaniments"
Good news. This is normal behavior. That is part of RB syncing its startup procedure.

Q: Then it opens a Note .txt file on screen and the song/program is basically frozen now.
The note text file is also normal behavior. I'm going to speak just a bit more about the freeze up in a moment. That is obviously not normal behavior, or is it?

Q: The green song Play light is on.
But the song doesn't play and nothing can be pressed in the program.
Good news again. That green triangle is always on. When RB is working properly, the green triangle when clicked, appears like the button is indented.





Let's talk about this post for a moment.

A big difference between Biab and RB is how they open. Biab generates a song(RealTracks and Midi) very fast and allows you to press and begin playing the song after just a few seconds because Biab is reading ahead of the playing and generating the remainder of the tracks in the song while you listen.

RealBand generates a song differently. RealBand generates all the tracks of the entire song before you can play the song and it takes a minute or so before you can press play and the song plays. IF you hit play before all the tracks have generated, this may stop the generation process and attempt to play the tracks but they have not generated yet so the program freezes as it continues to search and play generated tracks that are not there.

There are many things that can cause a newly installed program to freeze up and most times it's something easy to correct by pushing a button or changing a setting but it's not always easy to find. I can't tell from your post if you possibly pressed play before the tracks generated but that would be a very common and easy mistake to make until you are familiar with the program and how it operates. It is only one of many things that could be causing your issue.

It looks to me like you have RB really close to being properly setup. If you want to give one more try I recommend we try to simply get RB to open on its own and not worry about importing a Biab file at the moment. That may be your ultimate goal and use for RB but we should concentrate on getting RB open and ready to accept a Biab file.

If you're interested, try these steps. It should take less than 2 minutes.

If Biab is open, close the program.

Open RB and wait for all the messages to complete and it to initialize.

You should be seeing the Tracks view

At the top of the screen in the VIEWS Menu, click on the CHORDS button
You should be seeing the familiar Biab Chord Chart.

Enter 8 to 12 chords as you normally do

Return to the TRACKS page

There may or may not be a STYLE chosen. Once you've used the program it defaults to the last Style used (or that's how mine reacts and I don't recall setting the program up to do that so I think it's the default setting)

Regardless, if there is a Style in the Style window you are good to go, if not, choose a Style from the StylePicker.

The only other change you need to make is to set the END BAR number to the number of chords you entered on the Chord Chart page. 8 or 12 or whatever your number of bars are. The other defaults should be fine.

There is a Large Button 'GENERATE' - Click on that button and select the first entry "Generate all BB Tracks (Entire Song)

You will get a spinning cursor and you can monitor the generating tracks by watching the small bar across the very top of your screen.

The style I've chosen _FLYAWAY.STY has three RealTracks and one RealDrum Track. I entered 14 bars of chords on the Chord Chart page and my RB program defaults to a Bar Offset of -0- and the 2 bar button is checked so when I change the END BAR to 14, I have a 16 bar chart and my tracks generate from bar 1.

So, wait until all 4 tracks have generated and are visible on the TRACKS view - Three green tracks and a Yellow Drum Track. The Drum Track is always the last track to generate and you will see a message pop up saying the RealDrums are generating.

Once all 4 tracks have generated, you can press Play and the song should play from start to finish.

If it doesn't there is still a button to push or setting to change to complete the RB initial set up. If that's the case, report it back here and we'll walk you through the setup that's specific to your computer and gear.

Hope you'll try this but no problem either way. I get it that music should be fun and life is to be lived.

I would like to thank you for all the RB information. I started with BIAB around 2010. Looked at RB then and said no.

Within the last few months I re-looked at RB and said "oh I can do that" and "I can do this." Guess I just needed to more time.

I am still hunting and pecking what I want to do but it is working for me.

Bought a simple keyboard and when I get the time I want to try it with RB. We shall see.

Thanks again!

...Deb

Thanks again for trying to help Charlie.
Trying is the operative word.





It has now been close to 10 minutes and nothing has been generated, no sounds etc.

There is no "small bar across the very top".

The CPU/RB indicator at top right shows in red that activity is red-lining it at 98%+ all the time!

I have been afraid to touch anything on the screen because I know if I try all will be frozen.

I will now try...

The only key that worked was "Esc".

A pop-up said " BBOutput.txt not found OK

Small circle goes around on screen...
Top says Generating music...please wait...

going on another 5 minutes now...

If it takes 15 minutes to generate 12 bars, this program
is not for me.

I somehow managed to Esc out of the freeze.
Had control of the program again.
Play wasn't working.
I tried to Exit and got a message saying "RB is trying
to do something important like generate a song etc.
If you exit now the program will likely crash."

I was stuck in a catch-22 situation.
Nothing was working for me.
But closing the program would crash it!

Arghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You're right Biabman, there's definitely something either wrong with the install or setup with your RB. A 12 bar song generation takes less than 45 seconds on my old machine. I'm really sorry you're having such an issue.

I'll leave it up to you if you want to work through getting RB working correctly.

There is a discussion on another thread discussing a batch file that resets RealBand that may address your issue. I think technically, there's not much wrong but I'm sure the time and effort you've expended makes the situation quite a major frustration.

I'll continue to monitor this thread and I'm sure others will to if you decide to press onward, just let us know. We'll work until we get you going.

Try changing your audio driver to MME and see if that helps. (It's under "Options | Preferences".)

Also, the latest update (#5) for Realband is at the link below. It would pay to download and install that, too. Just double-check the paths when it gets to that part of the installation.

http://www.pgmusic.com/support.realband.htm

Regards,
Noel

Thanks Noel.
My driver was set to MME.

I downloaded the latest update #5 and that did the trick!
At least I can enter a few chords and play them.

I also tried to load my BIAB song and it worked.
However it took more than 3 minutes just to generate and render the tracks!

I figured I may as well save the file so it wouldn't have to gen/ren it again. When I clicked save, it defaulted to a BIAB file extension!

I thought it would be a RB file?

...
Maybe I spoke too soon?

More than 10 minutes ago, I clicked save the file.
Now I want to close the program.
It tells me it will crash now if I close because it is
doing work on a file!
I see the CPU working at around 25% (not 98% like before).

But I can't close the program unless I crash it!
Something still isn't right.

I will give up on RB in short order.
I fixed the problem I was having in BIAB thanks to Noel.

I don't see any benefits to using RB now really.
And given all the headaches it is giving me it isn't worth the time. I see a slow, buggy program.

I saved the BIAB file after I opened it in RB, hoping it would open faster the next time.

It did the same thing! It generated and regenerated everything taking more than 3 minutes.

Now here's the kicker!

This last time when I opened the file, it unmuted tracks I had muted, AND re-wrote the key bass track that I had worked on in BIAB.

I had created a melody track with the bass line.

It deleted this melody track!
It put the melody track into the bass track!
And it changed the bass track back to the original
notes that I had changed in BIAB!

BiaB wouldn't normally replace your own notation in the Melody or Soloist tracks, but it would replace any changes you made to other tracks unless you froze those tracks.

The Mute setting is not saved with individual songs, it is global, however, the volume settings are saved, so you could set the volume to zero and save the song.

Making the Mute setting local and not global has been requested many times.

Thanks VT.
Yes I learned these things about BIAB with Noel.

But what I was talking about wasn't within BIAB.
I simply opened a BIAB file inside RB.
RB did the damage.