BIAB Advice

billkath · #1 01-31-2010, 06:39 PM

Hi everybody-just looking for some advice.

What I want to achieve is this-make some very high quality (audio-wise) backing tracks for a Sax+Guitar Duo. All I want is some piano, bass and drums. See-we're going to be going out as a duo for small paying gigs, where we'll swap solos and put in some vocals, and then go fully live with the drummer, Bassist and keys for bigger gigs.

Now-the thoughts of sitting down and sequencing 100+ songs the way we want to do them on Sonar is just going to take too long. I've heard some good things about BIAB, and I'd like some advice on what I actually need.

What I don't need is sounds- I have excellent VSTi's, hardware and software samplers and synths. What I do need is an easy way to just generate realistic basslines and drum patterns, quickly, and by just typing in the chords etc.

From what I've read, BIAB is the tool I need. Now-I really don't need any other styles apart from jazz, and any sounds- I just want to generate the midi song, and then use my gear to record that down to wave files.

Does the basic BIAB-the 120 buck jobbie-give you all the styles for jazz? If not-can you buy the basic package and just buy the styles seperately? As I said-I wouldn't need the sounds- just to be able to generate a trio of drums, bass and basic piano chords.

Any help would be appreciated.

oilywrag · #2 01-31-2010, 06:54 PM

Hi Billkath
I am pretty new to BiaB so all I would advise you to do is to check out PG Musics website because they go into great detail as to what each bundle will give you.
Hope this might help you Cheers Tom

billkath · #3 01-31-2010, 08:11 PM

Thanks a million, Tom. I have checked out the site, but find it very disorganized-would you agree? I'm having difficulty working out exactly what is what, and that's why I was hoping some actual users would give me some real-world advice. I'll check it out again.

fep · #4 01-31-2010, 09:15 PM

Hi Bill,

I bought the $99 version of Biab a couple years ago... It came with 326 styles.

You actually may be interested in more than just the jazz syles. The jazz styles will probably be best for most of your tunes but I've found that for some 'jazz' standards a blues or rock style may work best. And the latin syles are necessary for you Bossa or Samba tunes.

For instance, I like BBeeRock.sty (a rock blues style) for the standard Mercy, Mercy, Mercy.

I also have Sonar which I use for recording orginal music. I haven't imported a midi file from BIAB to Sonar so I can't speak specifically to that. But creating 100 tunes that way seems like a lot of work.

I've heard great things about the latest version of BIAB with RealStyles/RealTracks, you may be able to get the kind of quality you're looking for without adding the work of importing midi in Sonar, selecting syths for each track, mixing, exporting to mp3 etc.

It literally takes a few minutes to create a tune in band in the box, adding the Sonar step could be an extra hour per tune... at least the way I work. How much is your time worth?

You should listen to some samples of the real tracks in the latest version of BIAB and see if the quality is up to your requirements.

FWIW, here's a list of the styles that came with my economy version of BIAB (pdf attached)

billkath · #5 01-31-2010, 09:34 PM

Excellent, Fep!! I will have a listen to the demos-definitely. The quality thing is really more about the consistancy. Know what I mean? Different kits, or different basses going on different songs -it'd would bug me, tho' the crowd wouldn't probably notice too much. I think that it's worth the 99 quid, even if it doesn't give me exactly what I want. Once you have the start, you know, it shouldn't be too difficult to move things around in Sonar just to get some variety.

keithshapiro · #6 02-12-2010, 09:35 PM

I can tell you that BIAB completely rocks! It's been the quickest way for me to learn tunes and has been so helpful. What I do is save a song out as a midi file and import it into Cubase 4 and it uses vst instruments automatically that sound great. Then any addition VST instruments I want to swap out or parts I want to edit are at my fingertips.

Personally I love it and I haven't even scratched the surface on what it can do.

I just discovered the practice module in it and it's been tremendous. Plus you can find BIAB files all over the net.

DO IT!

billkath · #7 02-13-2010, 06:10 AM

Thanks, Keith. You've helped me make up my mind!!

keithshapiro · #8 02-13-2010, 09:15 AM

It's really worth it to me. What I also love about it is, I had been watching a Richard Severson video and he uses a looper, I forget the name and I thought that would be a good thing. Wound up buying a Line6 JM4 looper and it had all kinds of tracks but for a practice aide, it was hopeless. More cables and power and blah!

But if I want to work through any chord vamp just type it in, throw on a style hit F4 and I'm off.

I can't say enough about it and know so little about ALL it can do because I'm not the best manual reader.

Let me know how it works out.
Keith

Drumbler · #9 02-14-2010, 02:45 PM

It's great.