mac & others on using biab/rb 2 create a song

mac & others on using biab/rb 2 create a song

real tracks disappear when I generate additional midi track 

I have a file named 'click.mid' that I use to start every project. It's 100 bars of a click on a midi track. It helps in a lot of ways to have this.
I load it, find the tempo, and things go real smooth from there.
Just create the track once. and save it as a .mid file.
Then you can load it and adjust the tempo easily to fit to a song.
Later you can cut it to just a count-in if needed (this helps with online collabs and such).
It'll even follow a tempo map for tempo changes, etc. (like the one generated by the ACW). -rharv 

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You have a lot of questions in this post, let me answer this part. 

What this quote is describing is exactly how I work. First you don't have to be stuck with keeping the first 8 bars as BB tracks. That's useful if you want to keep regenerating your whole song using all the parts but 

working one track at a time which to me is the best way, 

go up top and click on track1 then at the bottom of the list click "make all BB tracks regular tracks". 

Then select a style in the style box, right click on a track and at the bottom highlight "generate midi track" that opens up another window and you pick an instrument, say bass. Click that and it generates a complete bass track according to the chord grid.

 You can keep doing that using all the instruments until you've used up all 48 tracks if you want.

 You can change styles any time you want and either generate a new track each time or highlight just a section of the current track, like verse 3 or whatever and it will regenerate just that section using whatever style you selected. 

That means you can have multiple styles in the same track. This is where you can really start getting creative with Real Band. 

This is using the Biab midi track function. 

To generate a single Real Track, right click the track and hit "select and generate Real Track" 

That opens the window showing all your RT's and then the generation works the same way, it just takes a lot longer but you can also put different RT's on the same track just by highlighting individual sections. 

Real Tracks are already audio tracks, no need for further conversion. 

For me, I don't use Biab any more for basic song creation because RB is so much more flexible but you can still do that if you want and then open the BB song in RB and start there. The only reason I would use Biab for this sort of thing now is if I want a Biab midi soloist because RB won't do that part but it still will generate a RT soloist just fine.

=====================

A quick way to generate a Midi Style instrument track is as follows: In the Main Tracks Window, first select an unused Track then Control+A to highlight the whole track. In the same Menu, select Generate Midi Track near the bottom of the list followed by the selecting the style instrument you wish to use. 

Under tracks menu choose "make all BB tracks regular tracks"
Choose the style you want to use for the part. Do not generate.
Right click on an empty track and choose " generate midi Track"
Click on appropriate instrument & your done.  

The lessons I learned here:

1. After importing a BIAB song, convert the BB tracks to regular. If not, any additional track added will wipe out BIAB parts.

2. Begin adding any additional tracks at track 9. There must something magical about tracks 1-8 that BIAB watches over regardless of whether they are used by BIAB or not.

Thanks to all,
Rachael 

   

misc

MIDI Maestro MIDI Maestro is a fully-featured software sequencer and MIDI editor with unique and powerful features designed especially for live performance situations.

how to string a guitar

how to string a guitar-1
Bob Westbrook  

How to change guitar strings: 

How to Stretch and Retune the Guitar Strings

YouTube - How to String a Guitar
tringing an Acoustic Guitar 

The proper way to restring a guitar by Bill Baker

intervals

Intervals

transposing

Transposing notes for a Bb clarinet?

Common Transposing Instruments

Transposing Instruments Basics

The alto sax is in Eb. This means that when the alto sax player reads and plays the C major scale, s/he thinks of it as "C major" but the pitch we hear is Eb. Applying this principle (and not worrying about octaves) gives the rule that the pitch that the sax player reads is a minor third lower than the pitch we hear. So, if the song is written in E, a minor third lower is C# (enharmonically the same as Db) and this means that the sax player would need to play in C# or Db to be in tune with the backing in E.

To make it easier for the young guy, I encourage you to transpose your song to Eb rather than E because then your printout would be in C. Transposing is very easy in BIAB and I'm sure the young guy would find it much easier to read music in C than in Db (or C#).

I always think of the alto as a major 6th above concert pitch (same as down a minor 3rd) because it is easier for my brain to transpose. The 6th is the relative minor, and that is an important association. Plus when I think of chord structures, I generally think up rather than down. So in the key of C I would play the Major 6 arpeggio as C-E-G-A and A is the relative minor or the alto sax pitch. (Note: that arpeggio is the "meat" of the bass line to zillions of songs)

BTW, The Tenor (a Bb instrument) is a whole step above concert pitch.

I played tenor and alto in guitar bands most of my life. Guitar players like E and A concert, so I learned to play the sax in the keys with lots of sharps in them.

As a result, I actually prefer to play in keys like E and A to what are supposed to be easier keys like Bb and Eb.

It's all a matter of what you get used to. F# is not any more difficult for the fingers than any other key. IMHO the sharp keys are actually easier to play than the flat ones. I don't know if it is what I'm used to or not, but the hands actually seem to be more comfortable in those keys. The transition from B to C# is much more fluid than B to C on the sax and the Bb is always a bit of an awkward note to play in fast runs (which is why there are alternate not-quite-in-tune fingerings for that note).

I encourage all sax players to learn to play in E and A concert because there is so much music that is played in those keys.

Insights and incites by Notes

from

Musical Instrument Range Chart

musical instrument ranges & names

MediaSmart TV

HP SL4778N 47 inch MediaSmart LCD HDTV
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ableton live

training from ableton

Video results for "ableton live 6"
We have made some of the video tutorials for Ableton Live 6 freely available 

youtube tutorials

U-tube Ableton Tutorial - Music Production

songsmith

songsmith home 

Microsoft Research Songsmith forumn

Get Microsoft Songsmith installed on Windows 7 beta - Download Squad

elvis info

Information about original versions of numbers recorded by Elvis Presley.

Other interesting and/or amusing Elvis links around the world

Elvis Presley WWW Virtual Library (Australia)

Elvis Directory -- your guide to Elvis on the Web (UK)

biab rests

biab rests

>>>but I don't see a complete list of rests pushes etc one section on C. C.. and C...

Try the HELP button, under the topic rests...


Rests

"Breaks" (Rests, Pushes, and Held Chords)
"Breaks" are points in a song when one or more of the instruments rests, plays a shot, or holds a chord.

· Rests Can specify any, some, or all instruments to rest at any bar. For example, you could rest all instruments except the bass for the first 4 bars, and then add in the piano for 4 bars, and then add in the entire band for the rest of the song. You may optionally disable the rests in the middle or final choruses (where people are likely taking solos, and rests are not appropriate).

· Shots You can specify certain instruments play a "shot," where the chord is played and then a rest follows. For example the song "Rock Around The Clock" has a shot on beat 1 followed by a rest for 2 bars.

· Held chords You can specify that certain instruments hold a chord sustained for a certain number of bars. For example, you can have the bass and piano hold a chord sustained while the drums continue to play a pattern

A chord can be specified as a Rest by adding a period after the chord.
indicates a C chord that is a Rest.
A chord can be specified as a Shot by adding two periods after the chord.
indicates a C chord that is a Shot.
A chord can be specified as a Held Chord by adding three periods after the chord.
indicates a C chord that is a Held Chord.

Putting these breaks into the chord sheet: in the example that follows, bar 1 will have a normal chord then bar 2 will have a chord with a break on it (a rest, shot or held chord).

Here is an example of 2 bars of the Piano part played by Band-in-a-Box.

2 bars of C chord ( no break on bar 2 )
This is the usual situation without any break. Note that the piano plays rhythmically on bar 2.

Rest on bar 2
This rests the instruments until the next chord on the Chordsheet.
The rest is typed in as a C chord followed by one period.

A shot is put on bar 2
The shot plays a staccato chord on bar 2, and then rests until the next chord on the Chordsheet.

The shot is typed in as a C chord followed by two periods.

This illustrates a held chord on bar 2
The chord on bar 2 is a held chord that will be held (sustained) until the next chord on the Chordsheet.
The held chord is typed in as a C chord followed by three periods.

"Breaks" for only some instruments
You can specify that some instruments not be affected by the break.
The coded names for the instruments are:
B for Bass

D for Drums
P for Piano
G for Guitar
S for Strings

To type a rest for all instruments on a C chord type

C.

To exempt instruments, add their letters following the break. For example, typing

C.bd

will put a rest on all instruments EXCEPT the bass and drums, or to put a held chord for all instruments except the piano, type

C...p

Let’s say you’d like to do the following:

· For the first 4 bars of a tune, play just the drums. (Bars 1-4)

· For the next 4 bars, add in the bass. (Bars 5-8)

· for the next 8 bars, play all instruments. (Bars 9-17)

· On bar 18, play a shot. (Bar 18)

· On Bar 19 resume playing all instruments.

Let’s do this to an existing song. Load in any song.
Here’s how you do it (for all these examples, assume the chord is C).

1.) On Bar 1 type the first chord as C.d

This puts a rest for all instruments except the drums until the next chord on the Chordsheet.
Now you need to type all chords from bar 1 to 4 like this. There is an easy way to do that. Choose Edit | Copy Rests to copy the rests from Bar 1 Beat 1 for 4 bars to Bar 1.

2.) On Bar 5 , type C.bd

This puts a rest on all instruments except the bass and drums. This has the effect of adding in the bass, since only the drums were playing at this point. Choose Edit | Copy Rests to copy these rests from Bar 5 to 9.

3.) On Bar 9 to 17 we want chords with no rests, so you don’t have to make any changes. If you want to erase rests from that area, copy a chord with no rests to that area.
4.) On Bar 18 we want a shot; type C..

This plays a shot on beat 1, and will then rest till the next chord on the chord sheet.

5.) On Bar 19 we resume normal chords

LET’S SET THESE RESTS TO HAPPEN IN THE FIRST CHORUS ONLY.
By default, a song will play these chord modifications the same way every chorus. If you want a variation, you can set the rests to happen only in the first, middle, or last choruses. To do this, choose Edit | Settings (for This Song) and deselect the Allow Rests checkboxes (shown below) to determine which choruses will or will not allow rests.

force the generation of the guitar part.

force the generation of the guitar part.

Import the song into BIAB

Select Guitar Window (), icon or window/Guitar
Click on the Tutor button
Enable Chord
Play thorugh midi
Select patch
Type of Chords to display - This sets up the chord patter from simple folk to Advance Jazz and some alternative tunings.

Play the song/this will force the generation of the guitar part. You can then copy thie part to melody or solo track for printing and working from.

rb & biab

To simplify this whole process-
I think I'd load the seq file, then select the style and generate the BB tracks in RB to save time

Do what you do in BIAB and then save the *.mgu file. Open Real Band go to file, open, navigate to the *.mgu file you saved and open it. That's the beauty of RB. You can now open BIAB tunes directly.

Another option- open both RB and BiaB, then copy the track from BB and paste it into RB on any track you want it on..


Load in your Midi file. Select the Style you require and Generate the Style Tracks. RB automatically adds the BB Tracks to the top of the tracks. If you want to add another BB Style tracks, use Tracks > Make all BB Tracks Regular Tracks first then Generate the additional tracks. Finally delete those you do not want.

Remember you can also generate RealTracks and RealDrums audio tracks.


I will open the midi file only and then decide what Biab tracks I need. Usually, I don't need a whole Biab arrangement just a few tracks to complement the midi file. Pick any empty track and right click it. That opens a box for you to select only the instrument you need like guitar for example. Pick a style, click the track and it creates a Biab midi guitar part. Don't like it, overwrite it with another style or maybe you might like it but you're not sure yet so pick another track and do it again. This way you're not wasting time generating 5 tracks all using one style, you're only doing exactly what you need at that particular time and you can create 10 different tracks using different instruments all with different Biab styles. And this is all using midi, the Real Tracks/Drums are a separate thing.

This is why I hardly use Biab any more except for the soloist, harmonies or making band charts. RB is way more flexible as far as song construction is concerned. Remember it uses the exact same chord entry screen with part markers that Biab does so it works the same way to generate parts. I can't remember the last time I cared about using the first 8 tracks as Biab tracks. Oh yeah and don't forget the partial track feature. You may only need a piano comp for bar 34 through 50 or whatever. Pick a style, highlight that part of the track, right click, pick the piano and viola, done.

pgPost