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Rhythm Section Software Solution

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(@rparker)
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Joined: 20 years ago
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Hello again, everyone. I was not sure where to put this one. Part of it will belong here and part of it in the studio section. without further adeau.....

I'm looking for a solution that will allow me to set up drums and bass tracks both from scratch or by a close starting point and adjusting, letting me tweak to my desire. I am not sure if this is going to be a software solution alone or a hardware solution embedded into hardware. Some examples I've looked at include things like line 6's looper and a similar product from digitech and others.

I do think that I'd rather go a true software route. Create here in my office, and if I ever play out and want, I can bring laptop or an MP3 player, plug into my keyboard/pa amp and play my finished product through it. To that end, I've looked at Band In A Box and got lost in their maze of products.

I've seen other brands too that contain bass only, drum only and the combo. I could see myself wanting to add other intruments in the future, so the more options I have now, the better. I've seen some of this very functionality bundled in with something called Pro Tools and a fre othr recording Suites. I'd much rather not spend $500+ for this solution. I'm thinking naybe $150 -> $250

Ideally and in my make believe world of honeydew mellons and birthday cake, I see myself doing one of three things. Importing my favorite songs and having the software analyze it and giving me a starting point base on their comonents...not the band I'm covering. The second is that I open up my software and stroll through the key adjustable pre installed loops & tracks and using that as a starting point. My third ideal here on fantasy island is that I hop off my hog after a nice long ride, wife got there an hour earlier just so she could be waiting for me with a cold drink, I hit the shower and come downstairs only to discover she's made some steaks. After eating these steaks and we <censored> and then she falls asleep. At that point I walk into my office, flip the switch and design something totally from scratch where I have total control of BPM, kit/bass, tone, key, etc., etc.

Thanks in advance for any tips. 8) :D 8) :D

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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 cnev
(@cnev)
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Wow Roy sounds like you are looking for alot. Is there sofware out there that can analyze a song and create a BT. I never heard of such a thing.

Other than cut and pasting generic drum/bass loops what other way would there be to create a backing track other than programming everything from scratch and that sounds like an exhausting project.

I would think that it would be difficult getting all of that correctly for a cover unless you are going to rearrange all the songs to fit whatever BT you come up with.

Good luck with it,just the thought gives me a headache. I don't have the time, patience or desire to do any of that kind of stuff. If I were to record it would just be through my looper and if I were to record the band ( that used to be) I'd use a Zoom H4 like I wrote the quasi review on and be done.

"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!


   
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(@greybeard)
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Sad to say, I think the part where you arrive on your hog (isn't that animal cruelty?) is far closer to reality than the rest of your dream.

I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
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(@danlasley)
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Joined: 16 years ago
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I think Band-in-a-Box will get you much closer than you think. Nick may be able to provide more details, but I know several people who use it for just what you're describing. My daughter's sax teacher used to give her backing tracks for her lessons.


   
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(@moonrider)
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Joined: 20 years ago
Posts: 1305
 

There's MIDI software that will convert a score to instrumentation, and vice versa. This comes closest to your dream. The programs that do this well aren't cheap though.

Midi drum software isn't hard to learn the basics of. Learning to make the results sound like they were played by a human takes a while longer, and again require some expense to get top quality samples.

It takes less cash to make friends with a drummer, buy a few mics, and learn how to mic a drum set. Search for "Recorderman method" and "Glyn Johns method."

Learning bass as a guitar player, is mostly learning how not to play bass like a guitar player.

Woodshedding guitar and bass parts only costs time.

It's usually faster, less frustrating, and much less expensive to track your own backing tracks.

Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.

Moondawgs on Reverbnation


   
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(@rparker)
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Joined: 20 years ago
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Topic starter  

Is there sofware out there that can analyze a song and create a BT. I never heard of such a thing.
It's very much in it'd infancy. Vox has something. http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Vox-JamVOX-Guitar-Jam-and-Practice-Tool?sku=159906 and so does Boss/roland http://guitars.musiciansfriend.com/product/Boss-eBand-JS8-Audio-Player-with-Guitar-Multi-Effects?sku=502872 Both of these basically lets you minimilize the frequencies of the unwanted portions of an MP3. It's certainly not a mature technology nor is it clean. I don't think that will be a clean technology until we are technically able to look downwards at a song's graph (something or other gram) as a cube instead of a flat dimensional object like any recording software looks like today.
Sad to say, I think the part where you arrive on your hog (isn't that animal cruelty?) is far closer to reality than the rest of your dream.
Once I get off these meds....hog riding time. I need to get her started up. Been months. :oops:

Laz, I've heard of the band-In-The-Box a few times. I think my next step is to see if I can find some youtube demos.

Moonrider, good points as always. I do have a set of electric drums here in the roy-cave. My son bases on them once in a while. I suppose I could learn them a bit and the same goes for the bass. We gots one of them and an amp too.

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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(@nicktorres)
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Joined: 16 years ago
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Notes is the expert on BIAB, no question about it. But BIAB can do exactly what you ask. I agree that figuring out which version you need is a PITA, but once you get it you'll love it.

Save those email receipts too, because you'll need to figure out what you have when you upgrade at the end of the year.


   
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(@rparker)
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Topic starter  

Well, I've found a good amount of Band in a Box demonstrations. Some sound good, some sound not so good.

Are there any other players in that market, or is BiaB the only one in that space worth a hoot?

The quick backing track set up as shown in many demos look pretty decent, but I wonder it you've got a limited number of usable variations before it becomes really old. Is it a fancy wrapper for some generic backing tracks that I can buy at Guitar Center for $20 or find online for free?

I do like some of the realistic sounds that they claim to have. Others sounded awful. I guess some users in Youtube land might be pumping up some old midi versions. I don't know.

I'm looking down a couple of other roads. One rreeware solution called Hydrogen that I got turned on to for drums is pretty neat, but it does bring onto play what cnev brought up. It eats time up in big chunks. Imagine having to do that for three instruments. Yikes!

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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(@moonrider)
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I'm looking down a couple of other roads. One rreeware solution called Hydrogen that I got turned on to for drums is pretty neat, but it does bring onto play what cnev brought up. It eats time up in big chunks. Imagine having to do that for three instruments. Yikes!

Hydrogen can make some excellent sounding loops, and it has the added attraction of using ANY wav format sound sample as a drum sample. One techno composer banged on pots and pans for samples.

Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.

Moondawgs on Reverbnation


   
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(@rparker)
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Topic starter  

That's neat. Looks like there's more under that hood than I uncovered already. 8)

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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(@rparker)
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Topic starter  

Well, I took the plunge on Biab. It came with two other products. One was called the "Audio Analyzer" and one was called "Real Band".

The real value to me is a set of sound bytes recorded from live instruments called "Real Tracks" and "Real Drums". Each collection of "Reat Tracks" comes along with some styles that might be called something like 'slow blues' or 'texas boogie swing'. Each of these songs has a few instruments and the instruments follow along the chord sheet and play in the syle that was selected.

All in all, not bad. All the flexibility is there to turn on or off instruments. Plenty of midi files out there for popular songs to serve as a starting point. I take them and "replace" one instrument at a time with a Real Tracks instrument that looks like it will match up the best. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't work so well.

The other component is an audio analyzer. You can import your favorite song for this software to try to determine the chords and tempo. This, as far as I can tell, only works on what the whole ong sounds like. Not the individual component. Once you've analyzed, you can then start adding the insruments that you want to hear via Real Bands instrument picker. The trick is, is to get as close to the tempo as you can as well as the style. You can then get the basic groove of the song as well as a chord sheet to play along with. For example, for the allman Brothers song called "Dreams I'll Never See", I imported, ran through the steps and ended up with drums, Organ and Bass Guitar. It's not a replica, but it caught the groove. I tried a few other tough ones too, like Brother's in Arms and a live song.

As far as which products to get, the third lowest ended up being the one for me. The 2nd lowest, as it would turn out, not contain complete Real Tracks. Only enough of the real track to do the sample songs. It really shined going the third one up called the UltraPlusPak. I'm still at the tip of the ice berg, but so far, so good. But, that was not until I got the ultraPlusPak.

So there goes it. And yes, Notes, it looks like maybe next month I'll be getting some of your song sets. Wicked cool. The online chat saleperson even mentioned you and you alone as a third party who makes great tracks for sale. I thought that was cool. 8)

Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin


   
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