As requested in another sub-forum, I'm posting this little mini-tutorial here in Tips and Tricks. Hopefully it will help someone in the future who needs to come to grips with setting up a non-General MIDI sampler for BiaB playback.

This example uses Garritan Jazz and Big Band 3 on a PC, but similar principles should apply if you need to set up a Kontakt player or other sampler for non-General MIDI instruments. Also, instructions on a Mac will be a little different too.


So, here we go:


Assuming BiaB and Aria/JABB3 are all installed and JABB3 is authorized:

1) Launch BiaB and open the "DXi Synth Settings..." from the "Audio" menu.

2) Click in the first plugin slot and select "Add VSTi Plugin..."

3) A browser will popup so you can search for the plugin. Browse to wherever you have installed the Aria VSTi plugin. This may be in "Program Files", or somewhere else, but the end of the path should look like: "\Garritan\ARIA Player\VST".

4) Select either "ARIA Player x86_VST.dll" or "ARIA Player x64_VST.dll" on a 64bit system. If you aren't sure, pick the "x86" version to be safe.

5) After a few seconds of loading, you should see the Aria interface in your BiaB DXi configuration window. You can now assign instruments to any one or more of the 16 slots, using the drop-down instrument selection menu for each instrument. For starters, I recommend a Jazz Brush kit, an Upright Bass, and the Steinway Jazz Piano.

6) For each of the three slots where you've assigned your initial instruments, the last number shown is the default MIDI input channel for that instrument. Click on each one of these last numbers to assign the MIDI input channels. Drums - 10, Bass - 2, Piano - 3.


You should now be able to play BiaB MIDI songs in any of the "Jazz Trio" styles, with the Aria Player, hosting your JABB3 instruments, serving as your MIDI instrument sound source.

This example with the three instruments is just to get you started. Of course, you can extend your instrument "rack" to include a soloist, say, a Trumpet on MIDI channel 8, etc., and you can pick different instruments for the three already assigned. For instance, you might want a straight "Jazz Kit" instead of a "Brushes Kit", or you might want a Rhodes Electric Piano instead of the Steinway. It's up to you.

These multi-instrument patches are called "Ensembles" in the Aria player, and you can also save these "Ensembles" by clicking in the black area just below the word "Ensemble" at the top of the Aria Player, and then saving to whatever file name you wish. These new Ensembles will then be automatically added to your "user" preset list, so that in the future, clicking in that black "Ensemble" area again will show a the Load/Save menu with a new "user" sub-menu, containing all of your custom Ensemble patches for quick loading.


I hope this helps anyone who is a little confused about setting up JABB3 or any other non-GM sampler in BiaB. Cheers.