Band-in-a-Box Styles

[rattley]

I just started playing around with the 2023 version of BIAB audiophile edition. I am impressed.  I've used BIAB before, but they have certainly improved upon it over the years.  As I'm auditioning some of the thousands of styles I'm thinking..............These could be a huge resource for making styles for Genos.  I recall others making Yamaha styles out of BIAB styles.  I look forward to exploring this more. 

A few thoughts..........

BIAB has midi and audio styles. I can see the midi files being used to make new styles. I'm not sure if the audio styles can be used directly or if they need to be converted to midi first?  I think the possibilities are overwhelming. -charley

[Joe H]

You might look at StyleMagic.  We can now Export individual style Parts and save to disk.  Then Import them into an existing style or build new styles from the many style Parts we Export... trying different combinations of Parts until we come up with something we like.  I have Exported over 6000 Parts already and soon will begin to create new styles from these saved Parts. Intros and Ending can be Exported as well, but I like creating Intros and Endings without chord changes so I can play my own chords.

There is a demo version of StyleMagic v3.5 you can try. It is fully functional except for SAVE.

https://www.midisoft.pl/en/

Look for the StyleMagic Image and click on the download link

Joe H

[rattley]

Thanks for the info.  I'll check it out.

I've been trying to learn Genos's StyleCreator.  I've been analyzing existing styles to see what settings are there and what they  do.  I change settings to see how things change. I've swapped some style parts but haven't really constructed any entire styles yet. About this time I get frustrated and cuss!  So then I play with BIAB a while.............and when i get frustrated with that I have the internet to confuse me even more!!!   I love it!!

Question:  Does it really matter which style you start with on Genos's StyleCreator??  What i mean is............If you know you are making a rock style should you find a similar style as the starting style?  Would there be any difference in the final product whether you start with a similar style or a style of a different genre?

Thanks for indulging me.  -charley

[Joe H]

Question:  Does it really matter which style you start with on Genos's StyleCreator??  What i mean is............If you know you are making a rock style should you find a similar style as the starting style?  Would there be any difference in the final product whether you start with a similar style or a style of a different genre?

Thanks for indulging me.  -charley

If you use Style Creator Assembly you can try different parts from any style. If you are wanting create a new rock style you can try parts from ballad or even other types of styles.  Just keep trying different parts until you find something that works.  You have to have a good ear to do this.  Once you find a new part that works, you might have to change the bar length (not sure how to do that in Style Creator since I use StyleMagic) and the Voice.  Once you save the new style make sure you give it a new name, then you can remix it in the Mixing console to suit your liking.

Joe H

[BogdanH]

hello charley,

...
Question:  Does it really matter which style you start with on Genos's StyleCreator??  What i mean is............If you know you are making a rock style should you find a similar style as the starting style?  Would there be any difference in the final product whether you start with a similar style or a style of a different genre?

I think that everyone has a little different approach on style creation, which depends on music genre that we play and obviously, it also depends on our skill.
First comes the question: Do you wish the style to sound the same as (or very similar to) original music piece? Or is it enough if it's just close enough so you can play it?

If close enough is good enough for you, then yes: It can happen there's similar style already built-in and sometimes it's enough to mute some channel (voice in style), or replace the voice with another one -that's the fastest way to do it. Of course, in this case it's important that you find the style that's really close enough to what you wish to get. If you choose the wrong style as starting point, then it will happen that you will change things endlessly and it will never sound the way you wish.

My opinion? No matter how close enough style you pick, at the end it will never sound the way you wish. The best you can do, is to adapt it so you can at least somehow play your song. The only right solution is custom style.. a style that is created from scratch for specific song that you wish to play.
Let me give an example... Please look at my River of tears video (link in my signature). As you can hear, the style is quite simple and you can immediately recognize song as authentic -because style is custom made for that specific song. And even being that simple, such style doesn't exist in keyboard. That shouldn't be surprising though.. it's impossible to expect hat there would be specific built-in style for every song.

Of course, as Joe H mentioned, you can use specific parts from other styles, if that suits your needs -anything is welcome what makes style creation easier.

Bogdan

[richkeys]

We can now Export individual style Parts and save to disk.  Then Import them into an existing style or build new styles from the many style Parts we Export... I have Exported over 6000 Parts already and soon will begin to create new styles from these saved Parts.

Joe,
I was wondering if it was possible to upload all those BIAB parts to a category section here on psrtutorial.com so people can play around/experiment with those parts. It might open up some doors creatively for people.  This website seems an appropriate place to do so, considering how much style content is already available to download here. Just thinking. Not sure what's involved in this.

Rich

[Joe H]

You need to ask a Moderator about how to upload to the Forum.

I am loading a lot of 3rd party styles that are different from the preset styles into StyleMagic so I have a lot of variety in the loops/parts to choose from.

Joe H

[richkeys]

You need to ask a Moderator about how to upload to the Forum.

I wouldn't be uploading them myself, I was thinking others could in the future, if appropriate to do so. I was interested in the 6,000 parts you had mentioned, or the thousands of styles from BIAB the original poster mentioned. I currently do not have StyleMagic or BIAB so I don't know much about this, just was curious about the originsl post here. Perhaps they might be a good software purchase for me down the road.

Rich