Simple MIDI style based arranger

[Misha]

Done this request a while back.   With the arrival of new Sonar on horizon want to revisit this wish.

I think it would be neat to have a MIDI style based arranger baked in new Sonar. A software version of something like Yamaha  QY100 or Roland backing modules, etc.  Likely with tens of thousands free and paid  multi part / multi instrument styles available, there is no shortage of content.  Styles can be used for many different proposes, such as complete backing tracks,  partial tracks to replace a "missing" musician, practice, assembling arrangements for keyboards, composition companion, good source for retro music and less common genres MIDI content not traditionally found in content sold as MIDI loops, etc.

The only professionally written (but limited) software option that I know of was a Yamaha Mobile Sequencer. Unfortunately it's only on iOS and was discontinued this year. All others don't come remotely close. I am aware of likely most of them.

P.S. Similar to what EZkeys does with MIDI phrases following MIDI chords or chord track. Everybody love it...like it's something new, while root technology existed since 80s. if not much earlier.

 

Thank you for considering.

 

[David Baay]

Band in a Box can be used as a plugin. Personally I'd rather the Bakers not spend time on something so far outside their wheelhouse and - sorry to rain on your parade - I'm not really concerned they ever would.

[Misha]

David, its's not too "outside"

A friend explained that  a Chord Track in Studio One does just that. It reharmonizes given MIDI clip to whatever you input in the Chord Track.  A Chord Track is a highly requested Cakewalk (Sonar) item.

A Style is just a collection of MIDI clips. So in a way it is an extension of a Chord Track request. 

 

P.S. I am well aware and a proud owner of BIAB. 

[David Baay]

Yes, I understand the chord track is highly requested; I mentioned it in another post just yesterday. It's the "styles" part to which I'm objecting. Maybe I misunderstood how complex a feature you're talking about but if something like BiaB "doesn't come close" to satisfying the need, that does not bode well. Even just building a browser with meter and tempo matching to/from the project and curating/licensing a library of "tens of thousands free and paid  multi part / multi instrument styles" sounds time-consuming and potentially costly. Content that's free to end users is rarely free to re-sell. Cakewalk has always catered primarily to musicians and composers who write, record and sequence their own MIDI and audio compositions and performances from scratch. If they want assistance from algorithmic composition tools or canned clips, there's no shortage of 3rd-party products that provide this capability and do it better than Sonar ever would.

[Misha]

Given at one point we will get a Chord Track  with a combination of  Arranger track (which we already have) It should be fairly straight forward connection.

As an alternative a style can be "unpacked" as a grouped  set of MIDI files (because that's what it is) in Media Bay that you can audition from there and dragged to chord track.  

With all its weaknesses I love BIAB, but unfortunately working with 3rd party MIDI clips and re-harmonizing  them is a big pain.  

Essentially I am putting a request for enhanced Chord+ existing Arranger track combo.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

Everything I've ever heard made with Bland In A Box sounds cheesy and terrible. Maybe it's the user's fault and it can actually be made to sound really good instead of canned, or maybe it's just really meant to be a placeholder for something better like a live musician.  But it's often easy to spot when someone has used it.  

I've been asking for a chord track for several years ( and have received hints that it's coming ) but I think going further and providing some sort of full on auto-accompianment falls outside the remit of a DAW and gets into 3rd party plugin territory .  There's already a ton of good quality virtual backing band type plugins available for example :-

Toontrack have EZkeys, EzBass & Ezdrummer

Sonscore's 'The Orchestra' is great for Orchestral parts as is the Orchestrator which is part of EastWest's Opus Orchestra

Ujam have a bunch of stuff  like virtual drummers, a virtual bass player and several virtual guitarists

Then there's loads of Kontakt instruments like NI Session Guitarist series, Session Strings and Session Horns with their animator presets

Also if you're down with the kids  there's stuff like LoopCloud which has 4 million samples and can repitch / tempo match to your project and can be a useful source of inspiration 

I'm sure there's plenty more options I've not come across and doubtless once Ai plugins start coming to market we'll have tools that we can tell to just play a guitar or violin solo and it will spit out something pretty good.  But anything that whiffs of something from a 90s home keyboard isn't really writing music in my book and also tends to sound generic and of low quality. 

Edited September 25, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Byron Dickens]

1 hour ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

Everything I've ever heard made with Bland In A Box sounds cheesy and terrible. Maybe it's the user's fault and it can actually be made to sound really good

There are people using it to make really good stuff but they put a lot of work into making it give them what they want instead of just plugging in chords, picking a style and letting it rip - using what gets spit out verbatim.

When I occasionally use BIAB, I use it as an idea generator and the final product is considerably different than what I was given.

Edited September 25, 2023 by Byron Dickens

[Misha]

Mark,

"Everything I've ever heard made with Bland In A Box sounds cheesy and terrible."

I don't know what you "heard" and "where" you heard it, but I respectfully disagree.

I don't follow your "something from a 90s home keyboard" comment.  Midi segments are Midi segments. If they were played / programmed well, they will sound good 100 years from now.   They are just instructions,  just as with gazillion EZ keys MIDI "packs", that people can't stop buying, which are  essentially melodic (or rhythmic) MIDI snips.   

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

8 hours ago, Misha said:

I don't know what you "heard" and "where" you heard it, but I respectfully disagree.

Back in 2010 I joined the Taxi forums ( self proclaimed World's Leading A&R Company ) so I've heard a lot of it used there from various people trying to get into the industry. 

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

8 hours ago, Misha said:

I don't follow your "something from a 90s home keyboard" comment.  Midi segments are Midi segments. If they were played / programmed well, they will sound good 100 years from now.   They are just instructions,  just as with gazillion EZ keys MIDI "packs", that people can't stop buying, which are  essentially melodic (or rhythmic) MIDI snips.   

Because generally they're not that well programmed esepecially when it comes to anything vaguely contempory. Dial up a Pop preset on any pre-baked arranger and it sounds nothing like what we would call Pop now for example.

Yes if they're really well done the Trad Styles in the likes of EZkeys can probably stand the test of time much better but if you're trying to make music for today's market they're probably not a great idea. 

[Misha]

Mark,

back 13 years ago Band In A Box was a mainly  smart MIDI sequencer.  Since then, they adopted Real Tracks, performed by real studio musicians from all over the world on real instruments of all kind of genres from Rock to Bossa Nova. Not loopy loops, but entire performances. They recorded thousands of hours of these Real Tracks and Real Drums.  Perhaps, you should re-discover BIAB.

Pre-baked arranger...  In my opinion modern styles  are very usable. They are as good as they were programmed or recorded.   I have heard amazing stuff done on Tyros / Genos. Obviously they were modified for particular tune. 

---------

Again, the core of my request is a Chord Track that would be linked to current arranger track , where you can drag in MIDI phrases (loops) or short MIDI performances and automatically re-harmonize them based on the chords typed in that Chord Track.   

A real world scenario is this: you assemble your midi phrases on a regular Sonar MIDI track(s), check tick "follow chord track" on individual MIDI track.

 

Edited September 26, 2023 by Misha

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

4 hours ago, Misha said:

Mark,

back 13 years ago Band In A Box was a mainly  smart MIDI sequencer.  Since then, they adopted Real Tracks, performed by real studio musicians from all over the world on real instruments of all kind of genres from Rock to Bossa Nova. Not loopy loops, but entire performances. They recorded thousands of hours of these Real Tracks and Real Drums.  Perhaps, you should re-discover BIAB

I first tried it in the late 90s when as you say it was purely midi , wasn't impressed then ( I ended up buying a Yamaha TG300 and programming my own tracks instead ) nor in 2000's when I demo'd it again nor more recently after they introduced RealTracks and there was quite an in depth review in SOS magazine. I think if you're into a certain chintzy kinda trad style or just want a tool that will let you easily demo a song to be replaced with better parts then it has a role to play but some of the more modern styles are laughable once it goes outside it's lane.

4 hours ago, Misha said:

Pre-baked arranger...  In my opinion modern styles  are very usable. They are as good as they were programmed or recorded.   I have heard amazing stuff done on Tyros / Genos. Obviously they were modified for particular tune. 

  Just had a watch on Youtube, the actual instrument sounds on these things have not improved that much in the last 15-20 years, they're not as good as what you can do in a decent plugin which may even be free. Again the style are kinda chintzy throwback trad stuff which is fine - I didn't spot anything vaguely contemporary but I suspect given the sounds are not that brilliant it would be another cheese-fest. Something like VPS Avenger will sound way better, 

4 hours ago, Misha said:

Again, the core of my request is a Chord Track that would be linked to current arranger track , where you can drag in MIDI phrases (loops) or short MIDI performances and automatically re-harmonize them based on the chords typed in that Chord Track.   

A real world scenario is this: you assemble your midi phrases on a regular Sonar MIDI track(s), check tick "follow chord track" on individual MIDI track.

 Cool but that's not what you originally said.  As an extension of a Chord Track feature it should automtically reharmonize the underlying midi ( and audio) to follow anyway. That's how it works in StudioOne for example. But it's nothing like a QY100 etc.

Edited September 26, 2023 by Mark Morgon-Shaw

[Misha]

Mark,

have different opinions on many things and that is perfectly fine.

"some of the more modern styles are laughable once it goes outside it's lane"

Perhaps it is not designed for Hip Hop / electronic music (yet). That is true.  But traditional styles like Folk, Rock, Country, Jazz, Blues and Pop (in traditional meaning) are well represented and that is pretty much my boat.   You don't have to use pre-made styles (I never do) You can assemble your own "band" and have a humble Irish harp player jam with hard rocker and add your favorite Kontakt synth to play along.   BIAB is a very special software that has many purposes, besides playing demos

"Cool but that's not what you originally said"

The core of the request is a chord track+arranger.  Combined, that will pretty much do what I am talking about.  MIDI sequencing, reharmonizing performances / phrases regardless of the key  they were initially written in.   Styles are just set of MIDI files. It would be nice if Sonar could slice them properly, but that should be pretty easy to do manually. 

P.S. QY100 is a MIDI sequencer (with cheezy sound chip, yes)  that reharmonizes MIDI phrases based on  live or programmed chord progressions and other parts.  That doesn't make it less than a MIDI sequencer.   

 

 

 

 

[User 905133]

On 9/24/2023 at 9:32 PM, Misha said:

Done this request a while back.   With the arrival of new Sonar on horizon want to revisit this wish.

I think it would be neat to have a MIDI style based arranger baked in new Sonar. A software version of something like Yamaha  QY100 or Roland backing modules, etc.  [emphasis added]

I am not familiar with Yamahas.  By any chance is your reference to the Roland their "Intelligent Arranger" line of products (keyboards and modules)? I ask because I have used some of those and was reminded of some old song-creation methods. I created instrument definitions for my Intelligent Arrangers and would also use a dedicated MIDI track (done in Staff View) to control the chords (aka chord control track).

It was lots of fun and I can envision in my mind's eye an integrated tool that has these and additional song creation features. 

  

[Misha]

User 905133,

Sorry, never had a Roland arranger.

[User 905133]

Found manuals for the BK-7m. It certainly looks like it has its roots in the Intelligent Arranger series.  

Quote

• Four real-time parts
  • The BK-7m comes with four MIDI parts (Upper 1, Upper 2, Lower, Manual Bass) that can be played in real time—either together or in isolation.
• 16 NTA parts (Note-to-Arranger)
  • The BK-7m provides up to 16 MIDI parts dedicated to Arranger control via MIDI (“Note-to-Arranger”).
• Cover function for Standard MIDI files and Music Styles
  • Simply by selecting one of 30 presets, you can cause a Viennese waltz to be played back by a heavy metal band, etc. Even though the arrangement (rhythm, riffs) does not change, the song’s character can be changed beyond recognition.

 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

On 9/26/2023 at 7:59 PM, Misha said:

 BIAB is a very special software that has many purposes, besides playing demos

I agree it's certainly special 😆 

[John Vere]

Had to laugh at some of what has been said because I think it just points out that one man’s Cheese is another man’s  ?? Steak dinner??

Anyhow I just have to agree with Mark I had a rip off copy of BITB back in about 2004 just before I got Cakewalk. To me it’s a Mall organ. I’ve used cheap Casio keyboards that sound much better. The bass especially sounds like a tuned fart.

And ya I tried it again in around 2015 and nothing had changed much. Just more styles  

And those drum rolls are almost a dead giveaway that a download midi file was created with it.

It is a great tool for the folks who wish to create music that was based in 1958. Absolutely nothing wrong with that.
But myself it would take 10 times longer to finish a song using it than just playing the parts ( badly) on my keyboard controller and then editing them. 

For me the best part of making music is actually playing it. No matter how bad I might be,I know I can fix it with midi and good old Cakewalk just the way it is.
 

This feature as said is already well covered in other software and $150 keyboard workstations.   I’d rather do it the hard way. It’s more fun. 

Edited October 5, 2023 by JohnnyV

[Misha]

Johnny,

If you didn't see difference between 2004 and 2015 versions, perhaps you were not using it right? That happens sometimes... 

Here is a vid of a guy making  a backing track to practice to:

 

 

 

BIAB is amazing for making these type of practice tracks &  fast sketches. If you give it enough time, you can compose pretty advanced stuff, as you are not limited to the styles they are offering as examples or starting points. You can assemble your own "style" in a matter of minutes from thousands of  Real Tracks.  Most of people who compose with BIAB that I know usually use between 1-5 tracks from the software and record other instruments / vocals themselves.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[msmcleod]

In my experience, BIAB is second to none for realism and quality for automatic backing generation.  The only complaints I have are:

1. The styles are very middle of the road
2. Handling of anything but common time signatures isn't great (i.e. it kind of works, but is a bit of a hack to be honest).  For me it's a blocker when using time signatures of 5/4 or 7/8.
3. Unless you have the audiophile edition, the audio quality is good but not great.  I've got the ultrapack, and the backing does have an "mp3" type quality to it. 

However, I have had some great results taking single parts and putting them into a completely different musical context.  This works particularly well for acoustic/rhythm guitar parts - i.e. you generate a guitar part using a country or latin style, then use it in a rock context.  Also using only one or two parts from BIAB alongside your own ones does go some way to hiding the audio quality shortcomings if you've not got the audiophile edition.