The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
Reply to Thread Bookmark Thread
Posts 1 to 16 of 16
  1. #1

    User Info Menu

    HI Guys.
    Does anybody know of any online BIAB tutorials out there, Youtube, book , whatever. I've had a copy for two weeks and have still not figuered out how to use the real band features to change from Midi to something more "real" sounding for the demos I what to record next week.
    Any ideas would be well recieved.

  2.  

    The Jazz Guitar Chord Dictionary
     
  3. #2

    User Info Menu

    I'll take a stab at what your are looking for. First load your song and style you want to work on. Than go to the styles button and pick out a style with real tracks. The real track should light up the real tracks in green. you may or may not want to mute any buttons that do not light up green.Than if you want a real soloist go to the soloist button click it on and click on real tracks and pick out a soloist. When you go to your style button you must have a list of styles with real tracks area. If you do not you may not have loaded everything.

    good luck

    steve

  4. #3

    User Info Menu

    Thanks for that Steve, will be trying that out wnem I get back home.
    That was just the answer I was after. Thanks a million. Do you use BIAB too, if so what sort of things are you doing with it, I heard to folks that even do live gigs with it with the real band option!

  5. #4

    User Info Menu

    I'm attempting to prepare tracks for live playing. have had some very good results on some tunes. however, biib can be very squirrelly. i (painstakingly) created melodies on "Mood Indigo" and "Minor Swing" to double what i play on the guitar. sounded great until i burned it to CD. the volume was about 1/2 of the other tracks i burned. i'm guessing it has something to do with the Melody track as the tracks that played at normal volume had no Melody tracks.

    I have another question for biib users-i want to edit the bass part of minor swing. when i go to the Notation screen, i can view the bass part and switch into Edit mode which makes me think the part can be edited. It allows me to move notes around but when i play the track, the bass part resorts to the original part. The track has been saved but it seems to be regenerating parts each time the track plays (the bass part differed slightly each time i played it). any suggestions??????????

  6. #5

    User Info Menu

    I think BIAB is a great practicing tool, but as far as using it live I'm not sure if it's quite ready to do that. Maybe in a few years they'll get the software up to a level where it can be consistent enough to use live, but for now you may be better off using something else.

    MW

  7. #6

    User Info Menu

    Matts probably right about BIAB not being ready for the Jazz crowd. But I've been using it for years for the Dinner crowd, and Cocktail parties. No problems here.
    Its pretty simple for what I use it for. Write out an intro, how many times I want to go thru the song write out an ending and get paid. No problems here. I'd guess most of the people I play for never heard of Monk or Wes. But they know a show tune when they hear one.
    Now for the Bass part. Click on melody Track, pick a style ,mute bass. pick a bass instrument IE (Fingered bass) and start putting in notes. Try a couple of measures at first to make sure you are writing the Bass notes in the octave you want. Than you can transfer the melody track with the bass written in to the Soloist track when you are thru. Which frees up the melody track in case you want to enter a counter melody. You can not edit and save the Bass track that BIAB generates
    Now for the volume, did you normalize the volume? Was the Volume for the track turned up or down?

    Good Luck

  8. #7

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by pickguard
    Matts probably right about BIAB not being ready for the Jazz crowd. But I've been using it for years for the Dinner crowd, and Cocktail parties. No problems here.
    Its pretty simple for what I use it for. Write out an intro, how many times I want to go thru the song write out an ending and get paid. No problems here. I'd guess most of the people I play for never heard of Monk or Wes. But they know a show tune when they hear one.
    Now for the Bass part. Click on melody Track, pick a style ,mute bass. pick a bass instrument IE (Fingered bass) and start putting in notes. Try a couple of measures at first to make sure you are writing the Bass notes in the octave you want. Than you can transfer the melody track with the bass written in to the Soloist track when you are thru. Which frees up the melody track in case you want to enter a counter melody. You can not edit and save the Bass track that BIAB generates
    Now for the volume, did you normalize the volume? Was the Volume for the track turned up or down?

    Good Luck
    Thanks for the suggestion. i'll give it a try.

    The volume was set at the max (127, i believe)-the same as other tracks recorded.

    My performing needs are not very sophisticated either. i just need to perform for some older folks down at the assisted living center. but i'd like to have some variety in the backing tracks.

    i'd like to get some more free advice. I used the RealTracks sax on some recordings which sounded great in biib. however, when i played the tracks on Real Player (before burning them to CD), the sax part was missing. I read in the biib manual about saving the RealTracks file as a .wav separate from the .wav file with the accomp track file but using the same name for both files. seems to me that would overwrite the accomp .wav file. i'm completely ignorant of midi stuff so that's most of the problem, i'm sure. thanks for your input.

  9. #8

    User Info Menu

    I haven't used BIAB but I suspect that the sound card in your PC may have an affect on the sound quality. When you generate audio (e.g. mp3, ..) from MIDI the quality is determined by the hardware you are using. I have no knowledge of individual products but I feel sure that you can buy audio hardware that you can connect (USB?) to the PC which will give you much better sound.

  10. #9

    User Info Menu

    If you have finale installed with the garritan sounds, use that plug in.

  11. #10

    User Info Menu

    i'll have to do some homework. thanks to both of you for your input.

  12. #11

    User Info Menu

    I have found BIAB to be a waste of time for making good backing tracks. It's fine for practising. I resently found a very good site with free backing tracks. Ralph Patt's Jazz Web Page There are other backing tracks to be found on the web too. Good Luck Kevivn

  13. #12

    User Info Menu

    If you put a VST on BIAB it sounds really great. Now that I have BIAB again I use the garritan sounds and it's an instant aebersold!

  14. #13

    User Info Menu

    Quote Originally Posted by Kevivn
    I have found BIAB to be a waste of time for making good backing tracks
    Really? Most people who listen to my stuff can't tell it's not a real drummer or bass player. But I usually program in intros and endings and lots of breaks throughout the tune. Depends how much effort you're prepared to put in to learn all the quirks.

    SoundClick artist: Peter Kossits - page with MP3 music downloads

    (the one's that don't have <Solo Guitar> in front of them)

  15. #14

    User Info Menu

    Peter
    The tone of your guitar sounds wonderful and your BKs also sound spot on. I tried to make BKs and put a lot of effort into it. I did get some good results but it was very time consuming. I don't have the time required to mess with it. Now if I could just place my order for a BIAB backing track I would surely use it. What guitar do you use? I'm also Canadian by the way. Kevivn

  16. #15

    User Info Menu

    Thanks for listening. Glad you liked them. I realized right after I wrote my last response that I was cheating a bit though. Most people are probably going to ask Band In A Box to provide a harmonic instrument for them to solo over - the Band In A Box guitar definitely won't pass scrutiny, and the piano although good would probably get a bit repetitive over 7-8 choruses. So I'm cheating a bit by hiding some of BiB's weaknesses and throwing some live sax in as well a nice mix of live instruments and auto-generated.

    There's a bunch of different guitars in there depending on what you listened to. But the sound you liked was probably a Hopkins Contessa; made by a luthier out in British Columbia. Really special treat for my 40th birthday last year.

  17. #16

    User Info Menu

    Just to update for anyone interested. I talked to tech support at biib and the fellow was very helpful. He showed me how to use "Bar Settings" to mute and "unmute" the Melody and Soloist tracks which has allowed me to have two soloists coming in at various times thru out a tune.

    For my purposes, biib is OK for accompaniment, especially if you create interesting intros, tags, etc. Piano, Jazz Organ, Vibes sound decent, even the Trombone is adequate in moderation.

    Concerning the Real Tracks problem, the tech says they still have bugs in the Soloist and gave me a site to download a patch. Unfortunately, i was still unable to get the Real Sax to download to a WAV. file.