Starise

@David Sprouse, Thank you!

@ SPAK much appreciated!

@Wookie, I'm not exactly sure what happened. The one site I suspect I can't prove they did anything.  On SC to gain plays someone has to play the track. I have been solicited by them before.Those sites somehow give listeners a benefit to listen to your track and charge you to use the service. If it is some kind of a promotional thing, I was never informed of it which makes no sense, since they would want to take credit for it.  None of this ever made any sense to me because A. There is no monetary gain in any of it. B. Promotional exposure is just more people on SC listening. None of them are paying customers.They just click play. C. Why would I pay someone to promote me in a place where promotion doesn't matter, or put another way, why would I want plays from people who are only playing the track because they work for a promotional service? I guess I fail to see any relevancy to any of it. Maybe I'm missing something.

bjorn, thank you! I made two versions of this. This one is more aggressive and might have more bottom end. Which would you keep?

https://soundcloud.com/starise/thy-kingdom-come-1st-version

@Will Hacket- Thanks for your suggestions.

@Amicus 717, Thanks. That sound came from a precision sound library. The rest was mostly Amadeus.

@ZincT, Thank you! It's just a bunch of kontakt libraries and me playing them.

@The Galtieriebrothers, Thank you for listening.

Ok sounds like you're a busy guy too. I'll invite you to my band and try to get something rolling from there. I play keys and can  play prog. I'm on a break at work now so not at liberty to be doing all of that. Thanks!

Cutting edge for the time though. My cassette recordings were nowhere near as well done.I still have a Mackie gathering dust in the studio.

Well the title probably raised more questions than answers. 

This is an orchestral piece I'm working on. I think there's something odd going on with SC. I don't pay anyone for exposure, but it appears one of those promo sites latched onto me? I really don't know. Ugh I need to change that grainy pic I loaded. 1st version on a private track.

https://soundcloud.com/starise/thy-kingdom-come-1st-version

Very restful music. Love the sound of an acoustic guitar. Matches the theme of the poem well.

Very nice track. Interesting history on it. I'm amazed CW loaded the old project. I'm sure there is still a lot you would be capable of with this if you had the desire and thinking out loud, the time.  

Thanks for sharing  it!

Blades, would you consider a Transiberian Orchestra, prog rock kind of thing ?  I still haven't had the time to put something up for my "band".  This whole process will be slow for me since I'm a part time musician and make my own music on the side with a FT job in between. I'm willing to give it a shot though. I mean what the heck are these DAWS for anyways ??? I have one guy who wants me to work with a track he played through an echo -pedal on guitar. I promised him I would download and work with it. I can free up some time somewhere though.

What style are you most interested in?  I'll make whatever you want.

I sent the invitation to my second account. Sorry about that. I didn't intend to have two accounts. You should get it now.

Thanks!

Thanks for your views Alex H.  I think I'm going to try this again just for fun. I started a band. Wei Liang I invited you to the band. What's next?

I released an album on CD baby. I didn't promote it and it didn't fly very far. My expectations were low. Not because I didn't think people would like the music. Mainly because I knew that no marketing or push would result in little sales.

Amazon or no Amazon, without a push of some kind you are buried under miles of other albums almost immediately. The day you release your album 100 other people did too. I didn't do it for the money. I just wanted an album online.

You fortunes could reverse if you could somehow maintain a high visibility on search engines. Good luck with that.

There are a few guys here who have pro studios and use CbB but I don't know if they are around right now. Probably too busy mixing.

21 hours ago, yapweiliang said:

Just make a new band and invite band members. You could test and make something with me if you like. I haven't tried downloading BL stems to work with CbB so i have no idea of quality. I would guess that it is good enough even if not lossless format. Particularly i don't expect a mobile phone microphone to give particularly high quality recordings. But i have incorporated a mobile phone recordings of singing into a mix and it sounds fine. 

Wei Liang 

I was actually thinking of doing something like this. I appreciate your willingness to try BL out with me. I have a few obstacles in my way. I believe I somehow managed to get two accounts accidentally. This all happened when Cakewalk users were being moved over. I remember signing on and requesting a change. I know this account is different because I had other material up on the other account. I will likely use the account you mentioned. 

Also I am not my my main computer most of the time, so I can't really do anything at present. I will look to see if you are there and follow you. I'll see about starting a band. I'll offer an open invitation to Micheal too, if he wants to look me up and join. If too busy with the other guys I understand too.

I think that eventually it would be a good idea to put up tracks in the songs section expressly made for  BL venture. No one put me up to this. I just think it's a natural progression to better unify the idea of BL. I do have a certain standard of quality though. I have used cell phone recordings which were quite good. 

Welcome. We can't go back. We might as well jump in.

@Wei Liang, I will familiarize myself more with this selective kind of approach. I didn't know you could do this. How about audio quality? Is the audio the same as an exported 16/44.1 .wav file? I think this would work best for me. Thanks!

@ØSkald , This was my experience as well. I put up a slow acoustic track and someone added a rap vocal track to it lol.

@mdiemer, I never looked at it that way. 

I guess if someone took a track of mine from BL and marketed it for profit I would not be a happy camper, unless I had artistic rights to it. If OTOH I put something up on BL for fun and people were creative with it, maybe came up with something totally different, that might be interesting to a point.  I see it more like a fun pastime instead of serious project recording.

Another thought I can't help having, what if we spend large amounts of time making something that someone else who put no effort into grabs and plays with it adding something else they found to it. IOW people who don't really create, only grab audio and mix it.  This seems a bit unbalanced to me. Of course, I can also grab someone else's hard earned work and use it on BL. At least I think I can. I'm not familiar with it  to that extent yet.    I could be selective in what I choose to upload . I wouldn't upload anything I cared about concerning having it modified or changed.  Couldn't be too personally attached to the music. It might go in sounding like pop and come out sounding like country.

Classical music, yes I understand. I don't see much in BL that supports this genre. Maybe it does and I haven't seen it.

To be fair, I didn't originate this thread to try and find fault with BL. On the contrary I'm trying to find the best way to utilize it. It also seems like a display of music medium like SC.

Thanks for your opinions. I think many here are easing into BL gently. I'm one of those. 

This brings up yet another question. Is there a benefit to using Cakewalk other than a way to upload tracks? IOW  couldn't we do that with any DAW. Or are the tracks identified as Cakewalk tracks that maybe hold the CbB DAW settings?  This doesn't appear to be the case. It looks like CbB uploads simple wave files. 

You have that guitar sound down in spades. This is pro release material. Sounds like it could either go straight to master or be the master. Nice work!

I don't know how you can stick with a project for so long and not get frustrated with the progress causing me to think you are probably one of those methodical thorough types who checks and double checks everything twice. This is actually a great quality to have and shows here in this work. The only thing that bothered me about the mix was the violin didn't seem to be coming out enough. Congrats on this!

Excellent, especially for such a fast comp. I enjoyed listening to it. I have a weakness for the flute. One of my favorite instruments.

@Lynn WilsonThanks for those words . I wrote this song for a competition. I'm not sure how it will place.  I have a lot of respect for anyone mixing pop/rock. Seems to take more effort for me than simple acoustic tunes. I made some further changes to the vox. It isn't a chart topper but yeah, I'll keep it around and thanks again.

@Kevin Walsh I hear you on this. I made some timing adjustments to the vox in relation to the music. Thanks!

Sorry for the confusion.

I intended to have this thread to address experiences. Q&A might not have been the best title, though it is a Q&A of sorts.

The motive mainly came from the overall reluctance of some Cakewalk users, including myself to use the BL app. I finally decided to jump in and give it a shot.

I wanted to know who might have more experience and possibly offer any advice on the best ways to use it. The "Q" was me asking some questions above. The "A"- I have a few answers so far. Not many yet. I had hoped there were others who might have advice.

 I hate to be painfully honest because I like what Meng has done with Cakewalk. Is it really worth the effort to use the BL app for you ? If so why and how have you been using it?  I'm not completely sold on the concept because I'm not sure I totally understand it yet. If the idea is to upload stems for the fun of it, that might be fun occasionally. If that's the primary use or purpose of the app I'm likely not a full time user unless there's some kind of a return for my efforts.

Sale

I picked up the Lakeside Pipe organ for 29.00! Check it out.

Isn't anyone here using Bandlab??

Thank you C2.

I seen an answer from Tracey on the VI forum. Apparently I must have done something wrong. I'm not sure what. I didn't have anything locked. Could have been the NI app acting up temporarily . It was the holidays and servers were likely overloaded with users doing one thing or another.

I made second attempt on my laptop today and everything went well.  Sorry for that scare, yeah go for it man. A great value IMO. No it isn't Spitfire, however this library has been used convincingly on pro projects by big names successfully.

On 12/27/2018 at 7:54 PM, Notes_Norton said:

I think BiaB is not for people who don't play instruments if making backing tracks is the desire.

BiaB could make a backing track simply by entering the chords, but the interface isn't for non-music people, and is rather awkward even for music folks at first. But that can be learned like any app. However IMHO the output from BiaB is "not ready for prime time".

First of all, the tracks are good but quite generic. And they should be. I had a customer ask for a style to make Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" so I made one for him. The problem was, as soon as that signature guitar lick came in, it stated "Don't Be Cruel" and if you tried using it on another song, it still shouted "Don't Be Cruel". So it was a one-song style. I could have sequenced the song from scratch easier than I could have made the style.

On the other hand BiaB has some very good things going for it. I've written aftermarket styles for BiaB and as work-for-hire for other auto accompaniment hardware and software apps. BiaB has by far the  potential to make a much more musical accompaniment. The 'handles' are there in the StyleMaker so you can have special patterns for exact musical situations. For example: The ii of a ii V7 I progression or the V7 that leads to a I at the beginning of an A or B section. There are more.

But like I said, BiaB isn't ready for prime time. Because the styles are generic, if you need song specific licks (like Don't Be Cruel) you have to add them when the song is over.

Some of the oldest BiaB styles use quantized drums, and could use some kind of groove filter to bring them to life. BiaB eventually got rid of the drum grid and allowed drums with a resolution of 120bbm, but the early styles have never been converted. As a drummer (it was my first instrument) quantized drums don't work for most forms of pop music. The exceptions would be some Disco, EDM, and so on.

I like writing BiaB styles because it gives me a chance to learn new things, use my schooling in theory and arranging, and there is a puzzle/challenge/game to overcome the limitations of BiaB to get it to do more than it was designed for and hide what it cannot do yet.

For example, BiaB only allows 4 chords per bar, but I invented a work-around that allows up to 8 chords per bar, I call them EXPANDED styles. They also double the ppq resolution of BiaB.

I write styles for BiaB more than I use it, but I do use it from time to time.

For my own duo's backing tracks, I use BiaB for what I call the 'mule work'. That is if there is an appropriate style.

Mule work? Say I've entered the drums, bass, and signature licks in a song in real time and those background comp parts like piano comp or rhythm guitar are close to a BiaB style --- I just put the chords in BiaB, extract the comp parts and put them into my sequence (I'm still all MIDI at this point).

For fewer songs, especially if there is an appropriate style, I can even use BiaB for the drums and bass. Latin Salsa, Rhumba, and Merengue come to mind immediately. Some rock, jazz and blues too. Even then, I'll touch things up in a DAW/Sequencer before recording it.

But for some songs I just need to get to the sequencer/DAW and play the parts in one at a time, starting with the drums and bass and adding the comp parts. I had to do that for "Blurred Lines", "Uptown Funk", and James Brown's "I Got You - I Feel Good".  I'm thinking about Rascal Flatts' version of "Life Is A Highway" next (we had a couple of requests) and offhand I can't think of an appropriate BiaB style. But I did "Your Mind Is On Vacation" by Mose Allison pretty much 90% BiaB a couple of months ago.

Also, BiaB has a harmonizing feature that follows the rules I learned in the Berklee Correspondence course many years ago. I can put the chords into BiaB, play the top note of the horn, string, or whatever line and have BiaB put the lower notes in for me. There are dozens of harmonization schemes to choose from. This can be a real time saver without any sacrifice of quality. It saves me of playing each part separately.

BiaB now comes with "Real Tracks" but I hardly ever use them. The Real Tracks are audio styles, which are non-editable for all practical purposes. What PG Music has done is genius, but if I wanted to even simple things change a drum roll, use a ride bell instead of the ride edge, change the LP sounding guitar to one that sounds like a Strat, change an acoustic piano to a Rhodes, or more advanced edits like take out a generic pattern and insert a song specific lick, or change where the accents are, even exporting into Melodyne won't do most of what I want to do.

But then I like PLAYing music and PLAYing with my tools. If I wanted to just play someone else's music, I'd pop in a CD, a flash drive or stream. I want the music to have my touch in it. They don't call it PLAYing music for nothing.

It's not for everybody, but if you like playing with your music, BiaB can be a good tool for many of us.

Insights and incites by Notes

PS, about musicians who don't commit. I've played in up to 7 piece rock bands, and even was the warm up band for headliner concerts many years ago. But there were always problems with the musician who got too high on the job, didn't show up on time, spent a too long break chasing some sex relations, and so on. Before the duo I was in a 5 piece, the bass player quit and we replaced him, the drummer quit and we replaced her and I was out of work for a total of 3 months while we worked in the new members. Then I realized that I had to depend on us if I wanted to work steadily, so Leilani and I left the 5 piece band in 1985, started the duo, and we haven't been out of work since. We don't play in as glamorous rooms as we did, but we take home more money per gig (the price people pay doesn't go up that much with each additional member). Anyway, if I want live band kicks, I go to a jam session  - that is as long as I know the house band is making decent money to host it.

 

Thanks Bob for that info on Biab. 

I can see the advantage in midi construction over audio work and why you choose to go that route.

 DAW makers have made  great strides in recent years adding the ability to stretch audio without changing the pitch. Lots of cool midi tools now too.For all practical purposes any DAW that can make midi and audio loops should be able to do a similar thing to Biab. I can understand the benefit of working in a medium we are familiar with, and probably why you like Biab as your go to. Biab has advanced chord recognition/construction. A few of the old time Cakewalk users were or are making extensive use of Biab in their studios. One in particular, anyone remember Herb?  Was using it big time in country music. I have been impressed with the quality achieved using Biab on some mixes I've heard. As you say, there are some limitations to the audio loops. 

I have been increasingly using backing tracks at my church. Mostly because we don't have enough people to do everything sometimes. I've been kinda lazy because I  buy the multitracks and use them with an iPad. I keep telling myself I should simply make them on my own, because frankly much of the time the bought tracks need an edit or two. Too much time between parts occasionally, or in all the wrong keys. Usually way too high. And sometimes, just bad compositions. If it happens to be a popular cover, the studio sends the exact tracks from the master. This can sound very professional, however it can be a 5 minute track with lots of instrumental fill in. That works great when listening. Not so good when people are standing in participation waiting for the next verse. 

I've tried all kinds of things in the past Yamaha style files and keyboard backup. Not real enough for me. Sounded like, well...............a keyboard playing cheap sampled backing parts. 

I seem to have no trouble making songs in a DAW. The process is somehow different for me when attempting to make something others will participate in. in making the right mood for it and in trying to get it to sound like something that doesn't stick out in a cheesy way and is relevant for them.