PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows How to create a Stop in BIAB

Hi,

Is there a way to create a stop in BIAB?

What I mean is to have the whole band stop (hit) on a given beat, for some number of beats, and then resume.

e.g.: 1 2 3 4 | 1* rest rest rest | Resume

The above would be a "stop" on 1, followed by 3 beats of silence, then a resumption of the music.

When typing the chord for beat one, bar two, type a single period after the chord name.

Use F5 to mute any instrument that might keep playing. F5, back to normal in the next bar.

There is Help, Index, Rest Shots and Holds for more info.

Right click on the bar where you want the hold on the 2nd beat. Click on Chord Options. Click the Beat 2 radio button.
Click the pull down box labeled Rest Type and select Rest Only. After that bar all instruments will resume.

You can do this a couple of ways; you'll need to understand how BIAB implements what it calls Rests, Shots, and Holds.

If you want everyone in the band to just play a hit (shot) right on beat one and then not come back in until the next bar, then you would just implement a shot on the chord on beat 1 (see below).

If you want the band to just stop playing after beat one, then you can implement a rest on beats two, three, and four, and then come back in on beat one of the next bar.

For all three, (rests, shots, and holds), once you set it, it remains in effect until the next entered chord.

Rests - implemented with a single period after the chord name. So in your case, lets say the chord for the first bar is a D and the chord in the second bar is a G. What you would do is enter a D on the first beat (to play a D chord) and then a D-period (D.) on the second back to tell all the instruments to rest. Then in the next bar, enter a G chord on the first beat. What you will hear is: | Play D-rest-rest-rest | Play G ... |

Shots - implemented with a double period after the chord name. So in your case (instead of doing the above), you would enter a D-double period on beat one (D..) of the first bar and then a G chord on the first beat of the next bar. This will play a shot (hit) on the first beat and all instruments will rest until it sees the G chord on the first beat of the next bar.

Holds - this isn't what you are asking about, but you should know the capability. Holds are implemented with a triple period ofter the chord name. So if instead of the shot in the example above, you instead entered D-triple period on beat one (D...), instead of hitting a shot on that beat, all the instruments will just hold the chord until it finds the G in the next bar.

And now for more information than you even asked for, but should know:

Rests, shots, and holds can be modified even further by excluding specific instruments. You do this by putting the legacy instrument (track) names (indicated by a single letter for each instrument) after the dot(s). The legacy instruments names (in the order they appear in the radio buttons across the top are B for Bass, D for Drums, P for Piano, G for Guitar, and S for Strings. Since BIAB allows you to assign any instrument to the tracks, these may not be what you see on those tracks, but you just have to know this. So even if you have a Fiddle (indicated by an "F") on the Strings Track, you still need to use the letter "S".

So, if you implement a shot on beat one of the bar, but you want the drums to keep playing, you would enter a D after the period (D..d), which means play the "D" chord, and all instruments play a shot except the drums (which will keep on playing). If you want to also let the guitar track keep playing along with the drums, just add both letters after the dots. So, if you entered D..dg, then the instruments on the bass, piano, and strings track will play a shot, but the drums and guitar will keep playing their normal riffs.

You can only do rests, shots, and holds on the accompaniment tracks; not on the melody or soloist tracks.

You can read more about rests, shots, and holds in the PDF user manual on about page 133, or just look it up in the help file.

Hope this helps and hopefully didn't make your head explode. This is a great feature to make your songs more musical.

I should have said two dots (not one). One is a Rest, two is a Shot (and three is a Hold). As mentioned, and as is often the case, BIAB gives several ways to do things.

Shots, holds and rests are my favorite features for making BiaB sound like a real band. A nice complimentary feature is "copy special..." under Edit for quickly copying the same shot/hold/rest patterns (like guitar shots on beats two and four) across as many bars as you wish. Another is "adjust shot velocity" under Options/Preferences/RealTracks for adjusting the loudness of shots/holds. These are all features worth exploring if you want to get the most out of BiaB.

Many thanks to those who posted above! Much appreciated!

Going a bit further with this, is it possible to create a "triple hit", ala the bit in Van Morrison's Moondance that goes:

"... shine" /// "in your blush" ///

I did this song some years ago. I will look around to see what remains. In the meantime here is what you need to emulate. Perhaps others can suggest how this is best done.

I don't know the piece, but assuming the hits aren't triplets, yes you can...using the methods listed above. If the lyric is one beat followed by three "hits" (in BIAB parlance, "shots") with X being the chord name:

X.. , X.. -- X.. , X.. would get you one bar with four "shots". Typing the comma will put the second command on the second or fourth beat.

If you want nothing to play on the first beat:

X. , X.. -- X.. , X.. would get you silence on the first beat followed by three "shots". Typing the comma will put the second command on the second or fourth beat.

If those shots are syncopated, that's another kettle and would require "pushes". What I outlined are four quarter beats. If they are triplets, then things are considerably more complicated.

Music Student posted while I was typing. Looks like a triplet over part of those hits, at least. Could be troublesome to copy exactly. Maybe he'll have better news for you.

Dan,

How I'd approach bars 3 and 4 in the above is to use to use three bars of 3/4 followed by 1 bar of 2/4. The 3/4 bars would be used to play the triplet feel.

For the 3/4 bars, since three notes (i.e. the triplet) are being played in the time of two notes in the song, the tempo of the 3/4 bars would need to be increased to a new tempo of "original tempo" x 3/2. For example, if the song's original tempo is 100, then the 3/4 bars would need to be set to 100 x 3/2 = 150. How this would translate into Realtrack generation would depend on the Realtracks you've used. My experience is that some would be better than others. With MIDI tracks, though, it should work fine. (Note: the 2/4 bar would be at the same tempo as the original tempo in 4/4.)

Regards,
Noel

I just want to say, thank you for your explanation.
Nice, straightforward, and easy to understand.

Thanks all for making this easier to understand.
Regards.

You now have volume automation on the Master track, just select Audio Edit > Master > and select the volume automation mode button.

This can be done in Microchords. Edit-->Microchords settings, or F6. Here are the settings for that window.