Hi Folks,

The following is just my opinion, my method, etc..it's kind of "in response" to Douglas Murphy, with whom I was sensing a little frustration with BIAB and his demos..

Note: others might use BIAB differently and get great results..

Feel free to ask questions and BIAB users, one and all, feel free to disagree and/or add your two cents..consider this an "open forum" for BIAB users..

First of all, I couldn't personally make good demos without using other things besides BIAB.

BIAB alone functions poorly as a "workstation" and one needs some kind of workstation to assemble BIAB tracks, virtual instruments, VSTs, effects and vocals.

I use FL Studio for my workstation. Cubase, Nuendo, Logic, Performer, there are dozens of good ones.

Laying a good foundation is the most important thing, to me, in making a good demo. That usually means the lead vocal. Without a good lead vocal you've got nothing, really. To that end I use a considerable arsenal of tools. Compressors, reverbs, pitch-correction, etc..I'll assemble some temp music as guide tracks to sing with, knowing that I'll probably dispense with these tracks on down the line.

Melodyne is indispensable for me. It is a pitch correction tool that can work on vocals or polyphonic material. I'm a pretty good singer if I rehearse something for a few days, but with Melodyne, you can forget about being pitch perfect and focus on a strongly emotive performance. It's hard creating great vocals in one or two "takes" --especially COLD..without having lived with the song for at least 3-5 days, and this is what makes Melodyne so indispensable, since I try to deliver finished demos in a timely manner.

Melodyne can also take a BIAB solo realtrack and make it better cuz you can move individual notes in its GUI. Notes that BIAB spit out that you didn't care for. Maybe it's giving you bluenote minor thirds and you want major thirds. Boom. Done.. Grab ahold of the note and move it up a notch. Nothing could be smoother.

So I cannot emphasize "laying a solid foundation" enough.

Melodyne works best when used subtly. I hate the "Autotune" sound as much as the next guy. Don't use presets, edit bad notes manually..

Vocals need to have the proper effects on them, or they will not "pop" in the mix. To this end, good EQing and compression are vital, and some reverb is very important too.

I sing one verse or chorus at a time and loop record at least half a dozen performances which I then "composite" together like Stanley Kubrick did with film. This is easily done in FL Studio.

Once I have assembled the vocals, I then focus on the music, and start auditioning BIAB tracks. I think of BIAB as a session musician's union of sorts, and use BIAB's export audio tool that lets me have seperate tracks for each musician's performance. I literally have BIAB render many dozens of these for every demo I work on, so I can have lots to choose from as I assemble the music in FL Studio.

Once in a while, a given BIAB style will be the main music, but this is rare. I usually grab a guitar from one style, a piano from another..and slowly build the bed of music like that. Floyd Jane assembles his tracks in similar fashion.

I'll assign each track a channel in FL Studio, pan everything except bass, drums, and solos, and add effects to all..Have fun and be creative with this, or if you like, develop a methodology that never varies..it's all good..

With most BIAB tracks, they will not be perfect. This is where "cross-fading" becomes so important, and is something you can't do if you are using BIAB as a workstation for your finalized demos. In a workstation you can lay out, say, 3 fiddle solos stacked one on top of the other, and automate the volume controls, turning them all "off" as it were..then you can audition them one at a time, turning up the levels on the parts you like. Most of the BIAB tracks I end up using are cross-faded, at least at some point. With BIAB solos, like the aforementioned fiddle solo, I will not only cross-fade between at least a few different "performances" --I often use Melodyne in conjunction with, giving me that extra edge, knowing I can get exactly the notes I want..

In addition to BIAB, I use an arsenal of virtual instruments, mostly using Native Instruments' Kontakt sampler, which is the one that everyone writes their virtual instruments for. BIAB has it's limitations. You can't force it to copy a singers' chorus melody to use for your opening mandolin solo, at the start of the song. As good as the BIAB session players are, they are "dumb" when it comes to re-using the chorus melody in the Intro..or any specific melody, for that matter. The Realtracks in BIAB are simply the wrong tool for that, and so over the years, I've bought licenses to hundreds of sampled instruments and effects, and use these to do what they do best. In fact, when I'm not making "demos" I rarely use BIAB at all. I do a lot of intrumental library music and rely solely on my arsenal of virtual instruments and the occasional soft synth for more Electronica outings..

I gotta stop for now, but want to add one more thing..back when I started with computers and music, I found the Internet was a great place to learn how to do stuff AND to find legal (yet) free instruments and effects--many that to this day I still use..

So be industrious! Be resourceful! The BIAB forum is a great place to learn BIAB, and there are many tutorials on youtube..

I'll be glad to answer any specific questions about BIAB (and demo-making in general); I'll look in on this thread when I can, probably once a week, and BIAB users, please contribute your thoughts and/or methodology if you're feeling it. I bet we all have different ways of getting stuff done. It might be helpful to BIAB newbies..

Mike

Thanks for sharing your tips and thoughts Mike!

OH! This post?

This is one of the things I am looking for. What you have explained here is great. I, probably like many others, have to consider the cost and expertise needed. I use Band In The Box to create a base, then use Audacity to mix and play. From that, I can entertain myself and create something that is pleasing to my ears [I do not mind listening later to those songs I have done.] and decent enough to share.

So here I will ask you for your advice in improving vocals. I am slow so go slow and list it out any way you can that says something like, "First do this and then add that and etc..,"

Thank you for chiming in Mike. "Advice is always welcomed.

Douglas

Hi Mike and Doug:

I was hoping you (Mike) would chime-in on this subject Doug mentioned on another forum. Wow, what a wealth of information. Ingenious combination of ways to turn BIAB into a Super Power and a major music making method when orchestrated by skillful and knowledgeable talents. I was especially impressed with what I saw on various video demos about Melodyne. It appears it can be bought in pieces to suit the needs of the individual... whether it be the vocalist or, like in Mike's hands, a full blown producer and demo artist combined.

Mike, from a vocalists point of view, which version of Melodyne do you recommend? Realizing that I (at present) record everything onto only one track, I'll have to adapt to using at least a separate vocal track in order to use Melodyne.

Can you see the bells, whistles and light bulbs going off inside my brain? LOL!

Thanks for sharing. More questions later.

Regards, ----Dave

Mike, you sound like a far more competent version of me:)

I like BIAB because it suits my style of writing. I always begin with a melody in my head and it's usually pretty much fully formed, with at least some of the lyrics. Then I go to my keyboard and work out the chord progression, before I ever go near a mic or a computer. Then BIAB is a bit like having a band that you go to and say, "Hey guys, I've got this great idea for a song. It goes like this."

I have never used a BIAB solo. I always create instrumental solos (sax, fiddle, harmonica, cello, etc.) with real or virtual instruments and lay them over the BIAB background. I'm interested that you have had success with the BIAB solos. Whatever you're doing sounds great, so maybe I need to investigate this further.

I only discovered Melodyne recently. I tend to use it sparingly, because I feel it can suck the life out of a vocal, if you're not careful. Not that it necessarily creates that awful autotune effect, but that it seems to kind of flatten things sometimes, especially as a lot of the stuff I do depends on having a warm, conversational tone. I think it's great for conventional pop songs, where you're not really listening too closely to the singer. Your approach of only using it on individual notes probably eliminates the problem I'm talking about. When I use it, I do use the macros, but I choose a relatively low percentage correction to get rid of the real bum notes without imposing an unrealistic perfection.

I use Mixcraft as my DAW, and the Pro version comes with the basic version of Melodyne integrated as part of the DAW. It's quite an economical way to get Melodyne, if you don't need the upscale features.

Thanks Mike!I found out real quick how much BIAB is limited.I have gotten real frustrated trying to get things to sound like i want but couldn't and had to settle for far less.About the best i can do is put a little something to my lyrics just to get them out of the notebook so to speak.I'm sorta pleased with some of my songs that i do on my own even though i know they're not 100% the way i hear them in my head.I'm pretty sure that's why i slowed down lately in my songwriting.I still enjoy it though when i do hit on it again.It was interesting to see how you get things done,i really enjoyed it. Mike

Hi Douglas,

Audacity appears to allow the use of audio effects and so is a good basic piece of multtrack recording software.

Your vocals are decent with an old school Pete Seeger-ish kind of flair, but do suffer from some pitchiness that could be dealt with by loop recording verse-by-verse several takes and then compositing and choosing the best bits. They aren't boomy or dull sounding so not much EQing or compression would be needed, not unless you remixed the music to be more impactful. A little mid-sized room reverb (set somewhere between 20-45% wet) would help give your vocals on a song like "Daisy May" for instance, a little sheen, applied on the vocal's channel. Less is definitely more, with reverb. The minute you notice it's there, it's probably too much, unless you're a Goth band, LOL...

How much energy one puts into making their song "great" is totally in relation to what one intends to do with it. My demo work gets all my skills thrown at them, whereas with my more personal work, it varies, but I do tend to take more risks and do more experimental stuff with my own music, library or otherwise.

One doesn't want to suck all the fun out of any of the work, though, and so it's often a compromise with the areas of recording art that are less fun than others, such as, for instance, mulling over "syllibants" that are too loud, etc..this is why folks use "de-essers" (or nothing) rather than dealing with each ess and tee seperately, on an individual basis (by simply lowering the volume on the ess or tee in question, using automated volume envelopes), though this latter way gets the best results..

Something we are just going to circulate among friends and stream on the Net might find us thinking "these vocals are just fine," and certainly, if that's true for a particular thing we're working on, then it's true, cuz we're the boss of our own stuff--even though we know that perhaps they could be better vocals with more work--it's always a kind of compromise. Sending stuff to publishers or making demos with the intent of having them "go someplace" entails a completely different mindset and approach towards the work, though.

Mike

Hi Gavin,

Melodyne is indispensable for pro quality demo making, but depending on what one intends to do with their finished work, it may not be a necessary tool.

Never use the Melodyne presets--they tend to make things worse. I loop a few bars of vocal audio while looking at the Melodyne blobs, and set the pitch grid to "no snap" and nudge offensive notes "into the ballpark" which is generally towards the center but not on it. You can retain the style and sound of the original vocals by simply getting the bad notes within 10 or 15 cents minus or plus, but keeping a flat note flat and a sharp note sharp keeps the style and sound intact, I found, through years of experimenting.

Rather than sucking the life out of a vocal, I've found Melodyne has done just the opposite, with me. It free's me up to really "go for it" since I'm not worried about hitting every note. I can put my full concentration on dynamic, exciting performances, verse-by-verse, chorus-by-chorus..

Mike

Hi Dave,

I use Melodyne Editor (up to version 2.0.1), which is basically their "single track" offering and the least expensive.Single track just means one track per instance. The track can be a mixdown of several things, or a solitary lead vocal, and one can have several instances on several tracks, if one wants. One puts it into the vocals' channel and then clicks the "transfer" button so it turns orange and then Melodyne captures the vocals into it's software, and it's fairly intuitive to use, though I can't imagine how some people use the Standalone version that comes when one purchases the software--I just use it as a VST effect in FL Studio..

Thanks, btw, for the kind words..it's fun trying to be helpful!

Mike

Thanks, Mike:

I'll be checking Melodyne Editor (up to v 2.0.1) at one of the big box stores in Ft. Worth next time "the Boss" lets me out of the Kennel... LOL! I always prefer to have the entire package, box, cd, instruction pamphlet (if included) and verify it will run on my "stand-alone" system under XP. Looking on-line, it appears to cost about $99 bucks but they are not clear about which Windows OS is required, etc.

I've been tardy about letting you know the entire album's worth of demos of my songs you did for me are on my ShowCaseYourMusic Page 'cause they've been "down" for at least two days. (Finally came back up this morning... so maybe some of our folks "sitting on the fence" about that demo will be able to determine your versatility and complete set of skills.) My current plan is to leave the page "as is" for at least three more weeks, then I'll decide if I'm going to "submerge" for a while.

Thanks for all you do to encourage and support folks at JPF. I remember the initial contact with you about making a demo for me... and from that point forward... it has been smooth sailing. There is something really rewarding to hear how someone else will Perform (and in your case, Produce) one's original song. I'm still collecting candidates for the next batch I plan to send your way.

Regards, ----Dave

Hi Mike,

Your demos function just fine in the capacity to give us listeners a really good idea of a song's strength and weaknesses. Your vocal phrasing is strong and I am sold on your songs based on that much of the time. BIAB can function from anything from a sketch pad at one extreme, to a part of a full blown demo making process, on the other, and that's what makes it great software and so much fun to use. I am starting to learn the names of all the loops' performers. It makes it feel more real and reminds me these are real people playing these things.

Mike

Gavin,

Depending on what it is about the real track solo performances that you don't like, as long as you find you like "bits and pieces" of them, then you can make them work with the "stacking and cross-fading method" I describe. Add Melodyne into the mix to get exactly the notes you want..I think if you do this you will find most of the solo performances can really be fantastic sounding!

Mike

Thanks, Dave,

I love your songs and look forward to working on more of them.

Mike

Thanks for the tips but for me it sounds way too confusing and way too much work.
You do make great demos though and good melodies.

Hey Douglas....in my opinion which is just mine don't concentrate on all the gimmicks
on your voice and sing from the heart with emotion. Sing like you believe it and sing relaxed and conversational. If somebody picks the song up they just want to hear that. Of course all the bells and whistles and gimmicks for our demos are OK and many use them so that's my two cents. BUT Mike makes great use of his equipment and also has lots talent....

Thank you, Barry. That is one of my problems, trying to improve what just might be good. I will take those two
cents and use them.

Douglas

I learned a hard lesson years ago and along the way. Don't try and sing like a singer you like or just a singer. You are a Singer Songwriter and must sing from the heart with warts and all. Be convincing and don't be afraid if it doesn't sound smooth and slick. Listen to Rod Stewart or Bob Dylan or Joe Cocker or even a guy like Harry Chapin.... I know older guys but they sang their songs they way they interpreted them. I think people love when there are singers with flaws as we all have flaws. The technology is ok but you are cutting songs where probably others would probably sing and record and they must FEEL your vocal and song....

I think it depends a bit on the type of song, Barry. Your songs mostly call for that conversational style, as do a lot of mine. Every so often, though, I write something that calls for a bit more actual "singing." You actually need to hit the notes and hold them. I don't have that ability. Melodyne can help me at least produce something that's less embarrassing to present to a real singer or stick up on SoundCloud..

OK that sounds reasonable. Good Luck.

Hey there Barry!

I totally agree with you about "singing like you really mean it" and not worrying about hitting every note perfectly, but then it seems we veer into totally different paths.

I tend to think of tools like Melodyne and "choosing the best bits from several 'takes' " (aka compositing a vocal track) as actually doing the opposite of what you say they do. These tools are meant to free up the singer to really "go for it" and not worry so much about pitch (cuz you know you can 'fix' really bad notes), cuz again, we're agree-ing that there's probably nothing worse than a "too careful" vocal fueled by a worry over missing notes. "Sing it like you mean it" --that is always and absolutely the first order of business.

I just think that, once you've got a killer emotive vocal, and one that might be a little pitchy (cuz again, the singer "went for it", but did take after take) that it's nice to know that there are tools that one can choose to use and steps that can be taken to make a good performance perhaps even stronger by making obvious sour notes a little sweeter. It seems a little strange to advocate singing one's heart out but just saying "no" to tools that can make that heartfelt performance..perhaps better?

I am simply advocating having tools in ones toolbox that can help build the solid foundation of strong vocals. Singing with "heart" is the correct place to start.

Anyway, I always tell the singer-songwriters I produce to "sing with style and flair and don't worry about hitting every note perfectly" --or some form of that statement.

Certianly singer-songwriters have more leeway in terms of pitchiness, and as I said, "it depends on what our intention is" with our music--in terms of how much work we might want to put into a given piece. But even a Bob Dylan who was notorious in his later years for going into the studio "cold" --even Dylan's vocals have so-called gimmicks of compression and EQing and reverb on them to make them sound more professional.

ANyway, you've "caught the spirit" I was hoping for in my thread, here. We all have different ways of doing things and I appreciate you sharing your "method" a little bit. You are more a Cassavetes and I'm more a Kubrick, but both made some really great movies.

And what I layed out in my first post was how I make demos for clients, and I carry the mantra "it's not done until it's done" with me as I work on each cuz I can't do good work if I'm worried how long it might take.

And as I said, when I do personal stuff and stuff for fun, my "process" is usually a bit less rigorous. But rigorous, in my case, usually produces the kind of results that I can then feel good about handing a finished demo to a client.

Mike

Thanks, Brian.

I agree mostly what you say. I don't have the money for anything these days and can't post any new songs as my computer won't let me upload a cd anymore. I still use old crap like a Boss 8 track and an outdated piano with some rhythms on it. I used to make demos with all kinds of bells and whistles and spend days on them until I realized that with my expertise and equipment a simpler demo would suffice. I also found that I used to bury my voice and use too much this and that and I felt I lost that raw sound I have. SO I love your demos and if I had one extra dime I'd probably use your services. But for now going forward I'm not going to write any new songs if I can't post them. I have MANY Songs at my youtube page already. I do write a lot of lyrics also. Keep em coming and thanks for the comment.

Hi Folks:

I suppose it's all about perspective. Have you ever spent hours prepping for a recording. then laid down a nearly perfect vocal except for one stinking note? Since I don't do 8 track recordings, my only choice is to "let it slide" and put out an imperfect recording... or start over and do the whole darn thing again.

That's what got me excited about the Melodyne method. I know it means I'll have to start doing at least two tracks (vocal & music) but being able to save all that work, especially when (in my delusional mind... LOL!) I "nailed it" except for that one cotton picking note. When it comes to learning new methods and software, I'm also a bit leery of all the work it represents... but success can be so rewarding.

After "flying the new method around the patch" a few times... it tends to get easier and eventually, viola! Success.

Yeah, I know, this is a bit over-simplified, you are probably thinking, but... if you never try, you never fully understand. I also agree with Barry. If you don't sell your song with all the emotion or sincerity... or even comedy if required, nothing else will come to your rescue. A bad vocal is a bad vocal.

On the other hand, if you have mastered your vocal abilities and are already at the professional level, all this technological stuff is probably a waste of time. Then there is the story going around that nearly every "artist" uses some kind of pitch correction technology... or it all gets done "magically" by the recording techs behind the scenes after the session is over.

Being the "Klutz" I tend to be, what do I know? Very little, it seems. But sometimes it pays to try. What if Mike had never given technology a shot? A tremendous resource would have never been available to us! That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

The easy "out" for most of us is to "hire" someone with more talent to do a demo of our song for us. Compare what it would cost to get a Nashville Demo done and you'll do cartwheels when you hear Mike's quote!

Regards, ----Dave

No matter how good our demos are it doesn't make it any easier to get a song to Tim McGraw or a new Artist. Even if it was perfect it wouldn't matter. Without some connections to somebody in Pop, Rock or Country it doesn't matter. I am always looking for a playwright who wants to make their play into a musical...That would really be fun,,,,

Well,
While it is hard to get a song to anyone these days some, usually Nashville Publishers want a polished demo made in Nashville to even take it in their catalog. Some people will want a raw demo and tend to turn down the polished, over polished demo, usually producers seeking songs for an Artist they are producing. I have had requests for more songs with just my own Guitar/Vocal. If you have what they are looking for, the demo will make little difference. I used to worry of how good my demos were. While there is practically no place to pitch songs these days, If I think I have something the producer is looking for, even if it is my Guitar/Vocal, I will send it. In the past I have had the worst of my Guitar/Vocals demoed by a demo service to make it a bit better. I still have songs I would like to have a Pro Demo made but with no place to submit to I will not go any further.

I totally agree with Mike about how these tools free you up to put your heart into it. You can just go for it, even improvise on the fly, and know that you can "fix" it later, either with something like Melodyne or just splicing in another take that was better.
I'm working on a song right now, which is actually pretty difficult to sing. My pitch was all over the place, but I just kept plugging away and did a number of imperfect takes, chose the best one and fixed a few spots with cut and paste from other takes and then followed Mike's advice and used Melodyne to fix individual notes. It's still me singing, but the difference between the original and the "fixed" version is pretty amazing. I'll post a link to it here in the near future. I definitely won't post a link to the original version!

That's pretty cool news, Gavin.

Melodyne is a great tool, and after several years of use, I can offer this advice:

ALWAYS work with NO SNAP in the Pitch Grid so you can move notes individually, cent by cent, and "nudge" them towards the center but not too close to it. Within 8-15 cents is usually fine, and if you have a good ear, always use THAT instead of what Melodyne is showing. Pay more attention to the orange line which is the actual pitch than the blob which is Melodyne's "guess" as to the note.

NEVER ever ever use the "Pitch Modulation" part of the Pitch Tool to "flatline" a note. This is how to make a natural sounding note into a "robotic" one, in that it sucks all the nuance and quaver out of the note.

Use the normal "top" Pitch Tool to move notes upwards and downwards, cent by cent, and also use the "Pitch Drift" part of the Pitch Tool by "Left Click Holding" onto the note in question and scrolling up or down to "center" or "anchor" a note with the aim of making it more balanced from left to right on that note. You will notice that all the nuance of that note is still there, just within the same pitch range and not, say, starting fifty cents high and ending fifty cents low.

Lastly, use the "Note Separation Tool" on the far right to chop up complex legato notes, aka cells and phrases that Melodyne "hears" as single notes. These will happen often if you ornament sung vowels at the end of a phrase with more than one note, or add grace notes or other types of ornamentation to your vocals.

Melodyne doesn't do it's best work with notes that have heavy vibrato on them. This is an observation more than advice. Pay close attention to what you hear coming out of Melodyne and you should be okay.

Mike

Thanks for sharing Michael.

Melodyne is built into the DAW that I have. I bought the stand-alone program a few years ago. When I want to use it, though...I send a WAV to you. Nonetheless, it's interesting to read what you write about your techniques..

Martin

People must understand that anything you use from "realtracks" are in the public domain. So, if you register an SR Copyright, only the truly unique portions of the recording will be protected (anything but the realtracks). But, caveat: I'm not a lawyer.

I've been thinking about a musical, for a long time. Been studying the genre, how musicals are made, the nuts and bolts stuff, and the pitfalls. i'm finding that It's probably tougher to make a successful musical ( one that, say, gets as far as an off - broadway production ) than it is to write a song that actually becomes a hit.

I agree about a Musical....Impossible to do.

Thanks, Martin.

The program can't be explained well in three paragraphs, those are just some ground level things. All the tools therein have some use. I DO find, though, that vocals w/vibrato are often given blobs that are too sharp and that if I were to take Melodyne's word and nor use my ear it would be a sad state of affairs.

Thanks again.

Mike

Pat,

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=348403

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=244842

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=248234

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showthreaded&Number=99943

You most certainly can copyright a sound recording with Realtracks in them, of course the Realtracks themselves are not "protected" in the sense that other BIAB users can create music culled from the same Realtrack performance, but that doesn't mean that you have to worry about that when having your sound recording that has Realtracks on it copyrighted--there's no need to mention them at all. BIAB users simply know (that other BIAB users might use similar Realtrack performances in their sound recordings) going in, and none would claim SR copyright infringement (over this particular issue), and neither would BIAB (they state clearly the music we create with Realtracks is royalty-free), and neither would the Realtrack performers (BIAB owns the work they did).

And since BIAB software chops up the Realtrack performances into much smaller chunks (of one to four bars per chunk, usually) based on ones chosen chord progressions, the odds of any two songs having specific parts that are identical for more than a few bars is very small.

It's kinda like if different producers use the same session musician. The session musician has a certain style and certain chops, and if one was to listen to various songs the session musician was on, one would be able to spot signature phrases the session musician likes to use. But that fact doesn't render those performances "uncopyrightable" cuz they are not unique.

Careful how you choose to use the words "public domain" as that means a specific thing, as in music with NO copyright claim of ownership, and BIAB (not the Realtracks performers) owns their software and the raw Realtrack performances from which BIAB users then chop up to create their songs with.

The word "unique" is mainly used (in the context of SR Copyright Law) when talking about the overall actual recording in question. The overall sound recording needs to be unique--not every constituent part, like you seem to suggest. In other words, with clearance, I could theoretically use all the samples that make up an old Beck song, for instance. But I can't use them exactly like Beck did, in the same places in the song, with the same chords and rhythms, etc..that would basically be stealing the musical bed he created for that song.

"Sound recording copyrights were intended…to protect against bootlegging,…the unauthorized copying and sale of a recording,…and against illegal sampling,," * --Realtracks does none of that.

BIAB has covered the licensing. Most folks who make and sell loops don't use a two-tier approach of a cheap license for personal use and a "pro" for commercial use, and BIAB has made it clear one's recordings are one's "own" even with Realtracks in them. The BIAB Realtracks session musicians were paid, I imagine, on a work-for-hire basis.

BIAB uses the "session musicians for hire" model from top to bottom. Using Realtracks is not so different from hiring a session musician to play (on a work-for-hire basis) on one's song. The main difference being with a LIVE musician one can hopefully cull more nuance specific to the song in question. When using Realtracks one has to apply craft to achieve similar results.

The only thing you can't do is sell Realtracks in their raw state as "loops." BIAB allows for there usage in any type of recording and demo, and one need not put an asterisk in one's SR copyright request. They are just like any loops that you buy. The license allows one to use them in any way you see fit except to turnaround and sell them as loops.

If a BIAB Realtracks sessions player had an issue with their performances being used in a commercial recording (and they haven't), their issue would be with BIAB, not the licensed user, but it would never even come to that. But if I actually had made a bunch of money on a song with a BIAB performance, I'd track down the performer and sweeten his or her Christmas for sure.

Mike

* https://www.lynda.com/Audio-Music-M...recording-copyright/197192/378157-4.html

Hi Mike,

I just stumbled across this since I just joined the forum. I am a pro user of Band-in-a-Box and actually started the beginner's forum over there.

Your article is great and certainly lays it all out clearly.

In its simplest terms I think a lot of folks misunderstand Band-in-a-Box. If you have the audiophile version you can essentially generate the kind of .wav file instrument tracks that would come out of a professional studio--with 5,000 + possibilities of "styles" at a bare minimum--5,000 x 5,000 if you experiment.

But in any studio, a bare track is a bare track. You still have to put those tracks in a real DAW (I use Sonar) and then go to work with your EQ-ing and mastering tools. (I have about 300 plug ins, many of which I got free from the Focusrite collective, but some of which I paid for from IK Multimedia and Izotope.) With those plug-ins I can do just about anything I want. I saw a video a few months ago and it looks like I have the same set-up more or less that U2 has. For about $300 bucks almost anyone can get close to what U2 has, unless they decide they really, really, really want to go into a studio and use that 64 track board and soak up a few suds.

I think some people expect BIAB to work miracles, but the pro users on the BIAB forum (of which I am a hyper active member) know the workflow. You find a good style in BIAB that is "close." I have found some 2017 styles that sound so close to 2017 John Mayer it is scary. Then you doctor them, add other parts. Then you either export them, or open them up in Real Band (the free BIAB DAW) and fiddle some more with track gain and so forth. Maybe add a few more tracks. I actually record all my audio in Real Band because it is so simple and is very easy to work with as an audio editing tool. Then I export.

Then I load those tracks into Sonar, turn on the amp, plug in the Tele, grab the Taylor, tune those puppies up and get down to work.

For that, BIAB is an absolute miracle and Godsend.

But, it does not mean you don't have to play producer. You do have to spend a year teaching yourself how to be an engineer. I think that's the part a lot of folks don't get.

Thanks for a great post.

As you mentioned, there are a gazillion tutorials and constant education on the tools at www.pgmusic.com for folks who want to sign up.

Great post David.

I started with the most basic version of BIAB, because the prices for the more upscale versions were a bit high for me. Then last year around Christmas I got a really great deal on an upgrade to the EverythingPAK which opened up so many possibilities. It's worth keeping an eye open for these deals.

Hi David,

Great post!

I looked at Real Band a few times and never bothered using it..it's good to know it functions as a DAW.

BIAB still needs some work under the hood, imo..the "pushes" aka syncopations are pretty unusable as they make the performance change style to a slow strum and it sounds like just one sample there, used over and over again throughout the song, which can make for a pretty spastic sound, lol..

Try getting any BIAB strummed guitar to mimic the opening guitar sequence of "My Sweet Lord" for instance, where Em starts the strum and the A occurs on the upbeat, the AND of the fourth beat..it can't be done without those awful sounding "pushes." Then there's the 'double the tempo' theory cuz then you could simply write the A major chord on the fourth beat (of the same song at twice the tempo), but this only works well when the doubled tempo is below 200 BPM or so, and one was lucky enough to find a performance that worked well in the given song, at that ultra-fast tempo.

I found the best way is a workaround in one's DAW. I recently did a song for Ricki requiring a chord change on the upbeat after the second beat in every bar in the verses, mid-tempo, swing eighths, and what I did was first create a chart of the song with that chord change on the very next downbeat--in this case, beat three, then render the tracks and load them into my DAW. Then I made a copy of the BIAB strummed guitar and automated its volume down to zero, and moved it one swing-eighth ahead of the original strummed guitar file. Then I added automated volume to that main strummed guitar, and every time it came to the AND (upbeat of the second beat in this case) I'd lower the volume of the main guitar strum and cross-fade it with the copy, sometimes cutting and stretching the syncopation well beyond the third beat--whatever sounded good. When I figured this out, I realized there were many new options that opened up, using this method, and it became a breeze creating a really dynamic guitar part with chord changes on an upbeat, though it did take a couple hours, but it was time well spent, and it won't take that long next time..

I am having fun applying odd effects to some BIAB performances as well..things like their chamber strings--I'll sometimes put a 'gate' on them that allows sound to only pass through on a defined rhythmic sequence, and then either soften the settings to make it sound natural, or go strict "on and off" with the rhythm for a more electronica sound.

But BIAB is a miracle and a Godsend, I agree. Used in tendem with polyphonic pitch correction like Melodyne expands it's usage beyond the given performances into near infintity..

Thanks again for the great post!

Mike

David and Mike,

Thanks for your posts. You guys are great to have around.

Martin

Put Sub and me in our own boxes, for we can be a BIAB! hahaha. (Meant for a laugh, not to be taken as anything else)

My one concern about BIAB realtracks is that they are in the public domain, and I suspect are therefore not protected if one desires an SR ( sound recording) copyright.

Hi Pat,

I address this about seven posts up on this page, in response to you there as well. I think there are more substantial things to worry about than if the use of a BIAB track ended up in a lawsuit involving an end-user (license owner). I mean, it's been several years and it hasn't happened yet.

As I said, any real lawsuit would have to be one end-user vs. another end-user, and that would be ridiculous, since BIAB users understand that Realtracks are created from the same source performances and would never sue over Realtracks. This doesn't mean that other things like composition or melody would be safe, but that has nothing to do with BIAB.

One can certainly copyright songs that have Realtracks in them. What, do you think the Library of Congress has a BIAB filter that sounds an alarm when they are used? No. It would take a recording artist that felt violated to come forward and sue another recording artist, and then they'd sort it out either in court or out of, but as I said, it probably wouldn't ever happen over Realtracks..

Mike

To me the issue is not copyrights, the issue is that somebody could end up with the same sax solo, as your song has. Could end up with the same bass line, keyboard part etc, and the tracks will sound the same sonically as anyone else who uses it

how are you going to stand out sounding the same as everyone else?

If 'standing out' is the issue, BIAB is still not the problem, just another tool in the musicians' toolbox. Perhaps a lack of creativity in how to create a sound recording that stands out is the problem. Getting five guys playing "live" in a studio is no insurance for "standing out," either. And then, you may stand out, but it might still be "crap." Standing-out is no insurance against bad music.

Advanced BIAB users know how to cross-fade multiple tracks and get resultant tracks that nobody else can, or pitch shift a performance in Melodyne getting resultant performances no one else can.

But I also think in most pop music that is OUTSIDE of the "experimental" label, a VERY high percentage of what you are hearing has all been done before (anyway) and you are hearing the aural equivalant of musicians standing on the shoulders of other musicians.

But it's that small percentage of DIFFERENCE that can make a song unique, that can make a song stand out. That difference should be the most salient part of the recording.


Just my opinion..

Mike

Michael safe to say you are an advanced user of Biab?

your demos using biab do not sound like professional demos, they sound like good song demos.

That's not knocking your talent as a musician or producer, but you have to be able to hear the difference

I never heard a biab demo that I would buy. i haven't heard many that i would send to represent my music.

Definitely, not for rock music

I don't think Mike is selling his work as a finished product.

Nobody is selling music, even veteran rockers. Only the top 40 artists of today sell anything significant

My point was you can't say you can make professional quality recordings, using band in the box. The recording itself may be doable, but not using the instrumentation. Name one professionally released recording that used biab

Listen to Macs recordings, listen to Mark Kaufman or Jody They dont sound anything like band in a box.

Im not saying they are world class recordings either, but they blow biab away

So What? It certainly sounds better than just singing with a guitar. I fluffs it up and makes it sound better for presentation or for posting on facebook sites.

Well if the answer is so what? Then the debate over whether biab can produce professionally released quality recordings, must not be a debate.

never denied it can do what you said it can do, I have doubts it can what users of biab say it can do.

To my ears it sounds like elevator music. If you can keep it simple in arrangement and play lots of live instruments with it, then you can get better results. I have heard some decent recordings.

But if recording live instruments with it, why not just use live instruments instead of it?

I think drums have come a long way.mezdrummer and superior drummer can really get close, especially if just using a simple beat.

With chords and melodic instruments it's just not as good sounding

acceptable and professional are far apart

Bugsey,

My thread was created with a sincere desire to help BIAB users make the best possible demos they can, using the software, not to have a debate about "whether BIAB can generate professional sounding recordings." That is your private debate.

But many folks use BIAB here, and I wanted to give them some ideas on how to get the most out of the software. I'm sorry if that is somehow not okay with you!

But I must address some faulty logic of yours. You say, "But if recording live instruments with it, why not just use live instruments instead of it?" You think this is sound logic? How is that so different than saying "your left leg works fine, why not just put your full weight on your right leg instead of using a cane?" The cane is a tool to help handicapped folks walk better. Walking is the goal. BIAB, loops, and virtual instruments (like Mac and Mark K use--I do too, more than BIAB) are tools that help folks who aren't multi-instrumentalists and have no access OR DESIRE to record with bands or other competent musicians to have a way to get a full demo. I can think of a hundred reasons, off the bat, why a musician who uses SOME live instruments does not just go ahead and use ALL live instruments, but supplements the live instruments with tracks created by other means, such as virtual instruments, samples and loops. Perhaps your inability to "see this" like I can is a failure of your imagination?

BIAB is like having a musicians union with hundreds of musicians who specialize in different styles of music, all on your desktop. There are literally tens of thousands of hours of real performances by respectable studio musicians therein, some of them well known like John Jarvis and Brent Mason, and the BIAB engine insures that each performance generated by the BIAB algorithms are unique, overall. And tweaking them further insures complete, unadultarated compositional and sonic uniqueness, and they sonically sound great. You think the performances themselves are aesthetically akin to elevator music, and that's fine. I am not here to try and sway you off of how you feel or debate aesthetics, but only asking that you allow that others feel differently, okay?

BIAB is just another tool in the musician's tool box, but I get it, you have strong feelings about certain tools, and I can live with that. We have a difference of opinion, but I really don't have the time to go down any rabbit-hole with this. I expect you will have more to say, but please excuse me if I have no more time to engage with you on this, Bugsey. No offense.

EDIT: Hey! we agree about best sounding recording (Peter Gabriel - So)..that's something.

Mike

No no offense taken, I don't expect you to agree with me if you don't.

But every time in the tread a point is brought abiut it, you have two paragraphs of writing to write about it.

I get it you like it. Fine.

Your demos are decent demos. If you can't hear that, I don't know what to tell you. When I record, I k ow immediately it doesn't sound up to snuff, I don't think I myself a, capable of producing a record quality recording, without some help

I agree with you. It's just for a demo.

Btw, this notion of its just a tool,

It's a tool that at its very best sounds like cheesy elevator music.

Ask Mac or Johnny or mark or sub if they think band in a box is a tool to record professional track with.

A 39 dollar Casio with built in drum machine was a tool too, I don't think they made too many hit records using one

A missed point could be:
Five live musicians don't make a hit either, without the songwriter, arranger and producer.
BIAB doesn't write a hit song on it's own.
It needs a lot of help. It's a tool.

Vic

I’ve been in the studio with two of the people you have mentioned so I’ll chime in.

“Is band in a box is a tool to record professional track with?” Professional/radio ready No!, Demo yes. BIAB helps those who don’t have the money, talent or resources sound much better. Like any other computer program garbage in gives you garbage out or elevator music as you call it. BIAB in the hands of a skilled musician will give you results that are fantastic. Mix in some well played live instruments and it becomes pretty gosh darn good.

Oh and it wasn’t a 39 dollar Casio, but Gary Wright made an entire album using a keyboard. Same principal.

@ Vicarn, terrible songs can be made to sound great with the right recordings and production, and instrumentation. People with biab can't do that. It will make a terrible song even worse. Though I agree it takes a team to make a great record.

@ Iggy,

“Is band in a box is a tool to record professional track with?” Professional/radio ready No!, Demo yes. BIAB helps those who don’t have the money, talent or resources sound much better.

Thats the honest answer I was looking for. Somehow it gets taken as an attack saying this, and a rebuttal begins
I agree with everything you said EXCEPT this:
"BIAB in the hands of a skilled musician will give you results that are fantastic."

it has nothing to do with skilled musicianship, because you are not playing anything.

Id say it's more like "in the hands of somebody with good ears, and computer savvy" it can make some nice recordings.

For me, as a guitar player, I dont like how it sounds, thats not to say that people dont get good sounding demos with it.

Well, the first challenge is not to make a terrible song.
I hear through the grapevine that even the big studios use loops these days.

You may not like biab. You may not know how to use it. Many guitarists and other musicians do like it and are still learning how to get the best out of it.

I doubt if a non musician could get a decent song out of it. You need musical knowledge to fit it all together in a pleasing way.

Vic

Yeah, I didn't mean to say it didn't take knowledge of music to get good results. Somebody buying it thinking it be like some loop package where they didn't have to create anything and just rap over or sing over would not be happy with it.

It does take at least knowing what a chord is, and what a progression is, and knowledge of sound palates and what kind of arrangement you want. Song structures etc.

I think of this video. As stupid as it is, and people buy into it being this easy, but this guy couldn't have created this using biab, and what's overlooked is how good the finished product actually sounds.

With the right production and sound, anything can be made to sound great, even crap!

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2s0UIPOQY

Lollylol! Priceless.
Good to see our Calvin in his early years.

Vic

I hear ya, and some very valid points you make, but my situation is a little different than that. I have a few compositions, that I copyrighted as masters ( SR copyrights ) and secured publishing contracts, these publishers are trying to get deals in TV and film licensing them. Thing is, I haven't disclosed that some of the recordings employ the use of realtracks, which are, if you go by the definition used in Title 17, in the public domain ( given that they are available to anyone who purchases a copy of BIAB ) so I'm wondering if their lawyers knew exactly what "realtracks" were, would I be breaching the "no samples" clause in the contract I signed? I've been afraid to ask ( I needed the contract, but maybe I'm selling myself short down the road, thing is, I can't afford to hire live musicians ). I didnt make that clear in my previous post, but this is the reason I posted what I did.

Here is an example of the kinds of stuff I do with BIAB, it's great for latin and vintage jazz.

https://soundcloud.com/patricklockwood/you-stepped-into-my-life-1

Hi Pat,

Show me the part of title 17 that says audio that is available to anyone such as licensed owners of samples or loops is considered in "the public domain" ..? My understanding of sound recording copyright is that there's hardly anything considered public domain by current definition, and BIAB audio performances are twice removed from that definition in that they are owned by PG music and then licensed to BIAB users who then have a right to use "cut-up" versions (as opposed to the original performances that follow an intricate circle of fifths kind of song) of said performances in their works, and publish them, etc.

My guess is (and take this with a grain, please) is that you are fine. It really depends on the Library or Publishers in question, but I imagine the worst that would happen would be they'd stop representing your song. I imagine "their laywers" are worried about any possible lawsuits that might come from (unlicensed) samples being used in a song that they were representing, and there wouldn't be any lawsuits coming at them "from the outside" in regards Realtracks.

Of course, if a song with a Realtrack in it became poplular, the artist that was the original Realtrack performer (that was paid in work-for-hire fashion) might get miffed cuz they won't see any of that money, and then try a "hail mary, full of lawyers" lol--but that's like sour grapes, though perhaps justified, if you look at folks like Paul Simon who paid Los Lobos members and a bunch of New Orleans and African musicians to just come in and "jam some rhythm tracks" for him, and then he pays them outright but then used several of the performances on his Graceland Album. I don't think legally anyone successfully sued Paul Simon in this regard, though bad blood between Simon and Los Lobos remains to this day.

Why not just ask your publisher? Then you'll know for sure. If you are fearing action against you involving money--why would they do that? Where's the financial damage? Worst case--they'd probably thank you for coming forward and say, "sorry, we need to return your songs to you" --iow, if you ask your publisher, that AT LEAST prevents them from selling one of these songs and having it make them money and then they get slapped with a lawsuit..then they might want restitution from you..but I still doubt even that..cuz again..who would be suing--who would be "damaged?"

Mike

Hi Michael,

This is a great thread and thanks for your insight.

I've been thinking about BIAB as an extra tool, as I don't have much free time. To work things up from scratch is very time consuming just for formatting, and for this task I have been used to Sony Acid. I like it's grid system and can drag and drop samples in any place, then say, copy the format of a verse or chorus, very time saving. Also it accepts any loop, and sound grab, vocals, live instruments, and MIDI and the plugins are great and limitless per track. Want to edit any part ? Real easy, just move or fade what you like.

I have an almost limitless sound library, so for me, this method works. Just replace with live tracks as required.

As my computer crashed, I need to start over, so my question is, in work terms, would you find BIAB a suitable tool in this regard ?



I'd just like to make a comment on some of the negative comments being presented.

Firstly, anyone who doesn't use, or doesn't know how to use the tools available to them is simply wasting their time. If you are not familiar with writing, arrangement, production and post production, then the wonders of digital production are of no use. All production services use all available methods to get the best results they can, be it a top line studio or a smaller production house. On time and on budget is the rule.

I was first introduced to computer aided production re:musicians at a professional level in 1993, in a very expensive studio. In this case a drummer who was doing a session for me. He had a sponsorship with Roland amongst others, and whilst setting up, he attached MIDI pressure sensitive sensors to his acoustic kit. Why ? Whilst playing, the drum kit is also laying a MIDI track. In post, you can use that to trigger/overlay say a snare with a sampled sound, hence total freedom of post production. Also, you can correct "mistakes" in feel and grove. He was an excellent drummer and also gave a level of service which few could attain. The MIDI track was only used, as it happens, for snare and kick overlay.

Second, and the main point is, what's real ? In the production of music nothing is or has been real since music could be amplified and recorded over a hundred years ago. Is techno real or is it fake because it's all "artificial" instrumentation and sound samples ? Does a piano player play a digital piano instead of a grand studio piano ? Of course he does, so he can manipulate the recording and post mix down. Are samples "real" Of course they are, played by professional studio musicians in multi-million dollar sound stages.

As the actress said to the Bishop, it's not what you've got, it's all in how you use it.

Thanks for your insights Michael, it's a good discussion.

cheers, niteshift

Hi, I don't find raising the question if a software is effective for pro recordings to be negative, I'm sorry if it's taken that way.

It's also helpful to steer people towards better possibilities, if possible.

It seems money changes perspectives. There is no doubt that biab is probably the best pre made arrangement piece for the money. And the instruments sound pretty good. But when people complain about not denting the music scene, it never dawns on them that the music they produce may not be on par with others, and that may be the reason, it might not be the only reason, but it's one.

We all agree it's a tool. The question is how good the tool is.

There are hundred dollar tools, thousand dollar tools, tens of thousand dollar tools, and upwards.

I think the few hundred bucks invested is fine, and can be lots of fun. I bought the basic kit about 7-8 years ago, and tried to convince myself it was the best thing I could do.

It's not software snobbery, I love ez drummer, for drums I can do just about anything with it my imgaination can think up. But that's drums, not chordal instruments.

There is a lack of emotion in biab, there has to be otherwise the emotions would spill over and you'd be using a heartbreaking guitar solo, over your happy vocal etc. it's vagueness is what makes biab work in so many applications.

I just question the pro calibreness of it.

Hi Geoff,

I hope I am misreading you and you had your programs and samples backed up on external drives and are just dreading having to get everything re-authorized which in and of itself is a big PITA.

Although BIAB ships with a workstation (Realband) I'd recommend sticking with a real DAW and using BIAB simply to generate raw tracks based on your chordal input, then inporting those tracks into your workstation.. Even Acid would work fine in tandem with BIAB.

You probably know enough about BIAB to know that it generates performances based on chordal input. I would not recommend it for folks looking to make Electronica, but for pop and jazz and country and everything in between those genres, it's fine. It's as fast to learn and as intuitive as Acid, and does one thing really well that neither Acid or any DAW can do, and that's to generate complete performances/tracks based on chordal input with literally hundreds of instruments and styles at your disposal. I forget the exact number, but the 2018 Audiophile Edition has 2,500 hours of performances to draw from, and these were real studio musicians, all pro, and some well known who were performing.

So if this ability to create instrumental tracks that conform to your chords and run the entire length of a song in any of several hundred styles is something that would be useful in your studio, maybe consider purchasing a BIAB license. You can also use it to generate loops, but generally it gets used to create entire song length performances with usually 4-5 band members performing in each song.

My work method is usually to export indivdual performance tracks into FL Studio my DAW and work with them in there where it's all nice and cozy, and there's dozens of ways you can tweak the BIAB performances to get even more mileage and individuality out of them, such as running the Melodyne VST in your DAW to re-pitch bits of the BIAB performances, or cross-fading between multiple performances of one instrumental and/or style.

Recently I used Melodyne to force a BIAB fiddle soloist to play exact notes I wanted (echoing the vocal melody) and I got great results.

BIAB still falls way short when it comes to chords that change on an upbeat--it does that in a really un-musical way. Sometimes the only working solution is to put two iterations of the same track in your DAW and cross fade between those two tracks, with one of them nudged an eighth note ahead acting as the syncopated part. There are workarounds involving doubling the song tempo so then there are no upbeat chord changes, but double the tempo might not work if the original tempo was already fast.

If you were to get BIAB you would want the Audiophile edition (shipped on its own drive) because you get 24 bit WAVS as opposed to 128-192kbps MP3s, and I think that would run between 5-7 hundred bucks depending on where or when you would buy it.

I find I use it a lot for rhythm section stuff, and the guitars are all really usable, as are the drum kits (not as good sounding as Drum Drops though) and basses. The pianos need to be mixed well and with something else happening on the downbeats as otherwise you can hear the break between samples most of the time, and any instrument recorded with vibrato becomes problematic with a large tempo disparity between the BIAB performances and the tempo of the piece in question. Otherwise, the "Elastique Engine" which is at the heart of what makes BIAB tick is in it's third iteration and vibrato-less performances can be tempo shifted to over double or half the original tempo without noticing a change in quality. So that makes a majority of the vibrato-less performances work in just about any tempo, though I wouldn't take a performance recorded at, say, 65 BPM and try to make it sound good at anything higher than say 150-160 BPM.. I'd say about 25-35% of the performances have some kind of vibrato, and though it's usually a fast give-away to hear a too fast or slow vibrato, usually the changes in vibrato speed are within acceptable perameters.

Whereas dropping loops into the Acid DAW tends to create Electronica sounding stuff, due to the repetition of the loops, BIAB performances always sound like real musicians playing, as part of the function of the BIAB engine is to make sure that no two identical musical phrases will be repeated anywhere near each other.

You would have a 90% grasp of the program within a day. I guess you would just need to figure if this is for you, given the price tag. If it's something you imagine you'd use in every session, then it would be worth the price, probably.

Cheers,

Mike

Good stuff, thanks Mike, I shall investigate further.

cheers, Geoff

Hello Mike, Z


This is a VERY interesting thread with a wealth of information.

Calvin


http://www.soundclick.com/bands/0/calvinstewart

Geoff,

Michael Z. has done a great job laying this out and I can't add much except to say the audiophile version is worth every dime, if only for the bass and the drums.

There is so much misinformation about Band in a Box in general and so much erroneous, misinformed, out of date, and utterly clueless information in some of the posts about BIAB here, I will try and help.

1.) It is a fallacy to say you cannot make a record quality production with BIAB. That is insane. You can. If you have been in a studio you know they spend a day on the drums for each song. The BIAB drum tracks sound great and are always in the pocket, and if you double them and add the right EQs, you can get really, really close to a live drum sound. Especially if you add fills and such with any number of drum sampler programs. But you have to know how to mix and EQ.

2.) If you go into a studio and record a bass part you will in many cases get a bass part that sounds like the .wav files you will get out of BIAB in so many genres. You use that track that in your DAW just like you would any bass part, recording live or not. Then you have to EQ it of course, but that is part of the mixing process so there is not much difference.

3.) BIAB can get you very close to a live studio sound if you are doing songs "in the pocket." If you want a drifting sound, something that is more helter skelter, with a lot of retards and tempo changes and weird indie noises or garage band sounds it won't work. But if you want to sound just like The Rolling Stones (or almost any other "tight" band you can think of in any genre) and you take the time to learn, you can. If it is a drawback, BIAB often always sounds "too good." It is hard to make it sound sloppy unless you add in your own sloppy parts. And some people dig the "sloppy" sound so those people won't like it. Don't get fooled or bamboozled by uninformed BIAB critics or blowhards right off the bat though if those people ostentatiously say they want their music to sound "real" and then blab on and on about what a travesty BIAB is. First ask those critics to let you listen to their stuff. It if sounds like they just wandered out of a crack house, go ahead and give BIAB a chance.

4.) Most people who use it well use the Real Tracks as a "bed" and add their own guitar playing, singing, piano playing and stuff like that. It is the same thing you would do in a studio. If you look at the EQing VSTs on the market, you can have exactly the same stuff on your computers that the members of U2 have on theirs.

5.) Again, to say you have to go into a "real" studio to get a professional production is absurd. Taylor Swift didn't on her last album. She sang in a guy's apartment.

6.) I have heard some people using BIAB in their home studios that make stuff that sounds much better than what is on the radio.

7.) I have heard people talked into doing $5,000 recordings in a "real studio" that sound like....well, you know what the word is.

8.) For the forum record, Michael Zaneski who uses BIAB in some production work (as one tool OF MANY) has created many productions that are not just "demos" they are in fact productions. If anyone argues that, go search this forum and see if you can find where the disputing poster has ever actually WRITTEN or POSTED a song. Yep. Guess what. You probably already know the answer. Of course it is harder to keep a blowhard off a music forum than it is to keep a troll out of a fairy tale.

I hope this helps and feel free to ask me anything else offline in a PM if I can provide further insights.

Somebody advised to let it go, so I will

I called the trumpet player who recorded the trumpet realtracks, and let him hear my song.

That's precisely what his reaction was, 'shouldn't I be compensated?"


I told him that he was already compensated by PGMusic and that they grant a license to let users use the tracks to their heart's content, it so states on their website, and that if he had any issue, he needs to take it up with PGmusic.

I never heard from him again.

As for Title 17, it has a lot of info, and I forgot where I read it, but it specifically says material
that has been recorded or performed before, will not be protected by a new copyright registration.

Realtracks fit that description, and given that they are available to anyone, I don't see how I can copyright them, it would mean that no one else could use the track I copyrighted, and that doesn't make sense.

As such, they must be in the public domain.

Sure, I can copyright the melody and words, but if I do and SR copyright on the physical recording, the registration only applies to stuff I did, not stuff other people did, unless I got a work-for-hire from those people. What lawyers at recording companies worry is people sampling stuff, and if someone sampled the realtracks backing tracks, how could I stop them? The stuff is available to anyone, heck, they could go right to the realtrack recordings and find the licks there. (not that anyone would want to, this is just I'm imagining how a lawyer would look at it).


That's how I understand it. I can't afford a lawyer right now, and I don't want to bring it up to the publisher, not right now anyway. Realtracks are hard to explain. "They've been recorded before?" they ask. "you mean you are not giving us original work" they ask? so I say
" yeah, but the tracks are ....."

sheesh, it's hard to explain. See what i mean?

The only thing about real tracks I imagine that might be copyrightable is the sequencing, but individual licks, since anyone can access them, anyone can use them, and how can they be copyrightable? Plus, the fact that they were "done before"

I've submitted songs with BIAB tracks to publishers, no one has been able to tell my backing tracks were BIAB, yet.

You know, no one is saying that you "CAN'T" do passable demos with Band in a Box. You can. Plenty do. Many studios use samples and other effects in their recordings. Much of all that depends on who is DOING the producing. Just like you could hand a really crappy, out of tune, strings six inches off the frets, beat up guitar, to Eric Clapton, and he probably could make it sound like a million bucks.

The difference in demos (I don't even like that word any more, because we really don't do "demos" anymore. We do "RECORDINGS" because over half the things we record end up on web sites, CD's, downloads, and thousands of other applications.) are the PLAYERS. If you have someone really good, know their stuff, have a good command of the PERFORMANCE as well as the TECHNICAL aspect, they can be a great asset.

But believe me, there IS a difference. And what you have to understand is a couple of things. First of all, your songs are NEVER listened to in a vacuum. They are never listening to just ONE song. They are listening to hundreds and thousands of songs in a daily fashion. Anyone that listens to songs also have their favorite writers, favorite singers (there are reasons people that actually get "cuts" often use the same players and singers over and over again. They work.

So is using BIAB a liability? Nope. It is a legitimate way to get your songs recorded and you have to use whatever tools are at your disposal and your budget. And your application.

For myself and most of the people in this town, we use certain players and processes for a reason. As a matter of fact, I am an hour away from going to a pre-production charting session at a studio, for tomorrow's session. We are doing one of my songs and two of a client from Australia. On my song, it is something that took me about 15 years to write, and I want the best production and players I can get because it means that much to me. We use live players because the feel and direction of a live session can't be replicated. The sounds may be similar, but the feel can never be replaced.

If you have something that works for you, by all means do that. But do understand there are other elements to consider. Good luck in whatever you do.

MAB

By the way, the Australian guy is doing the instruments in Nashville was a Band in the Box user. Until he did his first session here. Since then he has recorded all his tracks here because he wants an "authentic approach" to his music. He still uses Band in a Box on his work tapes. Then does the "real recordings" using a studio here, and then doing his vocals with the artists he works with, in Aussie land.

Good Luck Marc!!

Marc, that is the point. Nashville just wants to stick their singer into the mix and sell it as is.

They dont want idea demos, or this could be great with...this and that demos.

They want finished product.

No way no how a famous singer like Carrie Underwood or Jason Aldean is going to just sing over your biab tracks. It won't happen

We all agree you can make good demos, so far, I'm the only one who believes that asking a 200 dollar software package to replace tens of thousands of dollars of recording gear is asking too much

I'll change my stance if yiu show me a professional release that uses biab

Just about to have a chat with Al David re BIAB. He's a master. Will return soon.

cheers, niteshift

NS, it really amounts to this:

He or she thinks it can, he or she thinks it can't

Play me a song that uses biab, it won't be anybody in the know

It might be Joe Schmoe win an indie cut, or with a placement in a documentary

Some of my own stuff has been used by people. One song was used in a college visual thesis, by a friend of a friend etc, on bullying

Another was touted for a PowerPoint presentation on unemployment of all things

And just recently an old one re surfaced when a buddy asked to use it in one of his financial podcasts, he just wanted the music as a intro and seque

But I do not believe for one minute that my recordings are good enough for anything beyond that. I was reluctant to use them just in that stuff.

I'm like u sure u want this? Why not use some cheap music online which is royalty free.

I have known for a long time that my weakest link is not being able to blow out recordings like some of my contemporaries.

I have made some good starts, and bought some gear, I even had biab a while back and just did not like how it sounded.

I record right now just to hear how it might sound

It's not even the gear as much as it is having expertise in using it, and having people who are going to play to YOUR music, not a software.

Id rather have 4 guys playing live, and recording live, than tracking everything myself and faking my way through bass, piano, drums, etc

It's not a concept of good enough, it needs to be great to compete

Complete crap will sound better and appeal to people better than a great song played with an out of tune guitar and a bad singer

Don't take this as a, oh u guys can't do it like me, I don't claim to have anything close to radio ready

By the time a Carrie Underwood or Jason Aldean got to the stages where they got deals they WERE doing full up sessions. When they were doing work tapes on earlier things, they might have used something like that. Maybe home studios, or "WORKING" toward their actual recordings.

But again, everyone has to do what works FOR THEM and what is on their BUDGET. To respond to the original post of "can people do "demos" on BIAB. They can and do. But once it reaches a higher level, such is in major pitches or radio ready, it's best to up the level.

MAB

Exactly how much is BIAB?

Basic package starts at like 200 ish, but the more style sets you buy the more they charge. They carefully seperate usable stuff onto different style sets so that all will be bought. Ie. If you want a Rolling Stones type of track one style set, if u want an 80's style more

You can by the whole complete set on cd rom for 1000... I believe? The uncompressed stuff is supposed to be higher quality

But it's not the pricing that keeps me away, one thing it is is VERY afforable

For the price of the Basic Package of BIAB one can purchase Logic Pro app from Apple. Its $199. Comes gigabytes and gigabytes of sounds, a plethora of synthesizers, and a good cross section of "drummers" in varying styles with varying kits with highly customizable grooves. Plus its a full on professional recording platform.

I can understand the desire to take the easy way of pre-made style vibes, but for the cost you can't beat Logic.

That sounds like a good idea, but won't I first know how to use a Mac?

Sure, it's 200 bucks AFTER you buy your 4K dollar Macbook Pro... (I know, it works on cheaper machines, but most people do music production on macbooks,,,)

All computers have an initial cost. Macs range anywhere from about $900 (for MacBooks) upwards to $4,000+ (for Mac Pros). My MacBook Pro was roughly $2000 for a 15" 2 years ago - still going strong running latest OS & software upgrades. It is my mobile rig, and is my live guitar rig. My studio machine (Mac Pro) was $4,400 - also running smooth latest OS & Software and able to do major productions of over 130+ tracks at an extremely low 32 sample buffer rate. Most people would never need that type of power for recording, especially not for demos.

That being typed, please don't continue the whole PCs are cheaper thing, until you do a part for part comparison. Generally all Macs will cost the same or, at worst, slightly more than a PC with the same parts/specs. Sometimes they're actually cheaper than an equivalently parted/spec'd PC. And most Macs often have a much lower cost of ownership over the life of the machine.


I'm guessing you meant to ask, won't I first need to know how to use a Mac. Otherwise you're saying you already know how to use a Mac.

All computers tend to work the same way:

1. Power on.
2. Boot up.
3. Launch software.
4. Work.
5. Get some lunch.
6. Work some more.
7. Save work.
8. Quit software.
9. Shut down computer.
10. Power off.

Pretty sure they all tend to do that. Most modern OS's all work the same way. Right? Though often now, one doesn't need to power computers on and off unless they need to install software.

My point was that for the cost you can go with BIAB barebones application, or you could get professional grade recording software for the same price as a bare bones version of BIAB. Oh, and Logic software upgrades - free.

Where did I bring PCs into this? You chose to do that, not me. That argument has zero to do with my comments.

I'll fix it:

BIAB also costs $200+ after you pay for a $4,000 computer.

Jody, seems like you're always expecting a wise crack outta me, lol

I was serious, I have never worked on a Mac even in office settings

I have heard in the past that macs are better for recording than pc, I just wasn't sure if a Mac required Any learning curve, maybe by now they are all compatible

I'm just looking to sound as good as I would paying for a really good recording

Nah, I was trying to decipher your text, it didn't quite make complete sense. But I believe I got the gist of it.

A computer is only a tool. Some people are die hard Windows users, some are die hard Mac OS users. Personally, I've been on the Mac side, but only due to it working the way I like it to. Meaning, I want the computer to get out of my way and just be a tool. Yes, Logic only runs on Macs.

I know too many Windows users that have had constant tech work to get their machines to run as smooth. I do know some composer guys that run military grade Windows machines and swear by them.

At this point, I'm guessing that they both run about the same and neither require tons of tech time. But I could be wrong.

To sound as good as paying someone else that knows what they're doing will take time. Time to get good at engineering audio, editing audio, mixing audio, etc.

Well,
You can probably make a good, or better demo with any Software Program. If it is still Available there is the free Audiocy Program. Some have mentioned the Reaper Program. I have had requests for more songs from my Guitar/Vocal. So the song has to be something an Artist wants or the best demo in the world won't sell it. Geronimo!

Ray I have heard that bs so many times, it's just not true.

90 % of songs are not special in any way, and are not clearly
better than any other song, especially with subjectivity involved

Especially today, without great sound you are nothing. Nobody will listen and nobody will consider you.

A demo can be likened to education.

A bachelors degree is today's high school diploma

A great recording today is what a demo used to be.

Um, Fdemetrio,
There are demo companies in Nashville who tell you the same thing. You need a "Great Demo" to pitch to Publishing Companies and they are the one who can do it for you. Hey at $!000.00 or more a pop I can do a great demo. You may
have heard the term Polishing a ****. Yes 90% of songs are not special in any way. I know, occasionally I Tune in the Radio or Great American Country on the T.V. Most of those productions, I hesitate to call it music, should have never made it's way into the Studio, let alone out to the public. Hey, it's their money!

Terds are polished into hits all the time, but even songs that are not terds would not sell millions of copies without great productions

In my opinion it is just plain stupid to spend any large amount of money on a slick demo.....It's just a waste of money.....

I agree with this statement. You can make a good demo with Audacity (which I think is Ray's Audiocy) or Reaper. My suggestion of Logic had more to do with getting more bang for your buck over BIAB.


I don't doubt that, a guitar/vocal or a piano/vocal will always be more ideal than listening to a pre-made type thing like BIAB. And Ray, you're equally as guilty for using BIAB or something like it - at least for the example song you gave on another thread about not letting a star having writing credit.


Having a great representation of your song will always help sell it. Computer recording has given everyone the possibility of making a great sounding demo and/or a professional recording.

My own personal feeling on a demo is this: if you're going to shop a song - leave as much out of the arrangement as possible; i.e. do only a guitar/vocal or piano/vocal.

Any time you start adding more than that to a demo, you're going to shoot yourself in the foot. Because you're competing against producers who can run circles around your stock BIAB demos.

All that being typed, I have done some submissions to some artists, when I have been called to. In those instances, I had to record the song as close to a fully produced product at possible. It was required. And its because if the artist wanted the song, they'd just swap out the temp vocal with their own vocal, do a new mix of the track and off the races it goes.

There isn't a hard set rule about what really qualifies as a demo, but stock sounds from BIAB are not likely it.

I agree Barry, it's much smarter to invest in many recordings...buying some good stuff, than buying one recording of a song, (when nobody asked for it in the first place)

Yeah Jody, per Ray's point. That is what Im really talking about. A daw is a daw..(of course of course), what matters is what's being recorded by the daw.  It's more about how do you get a great arrangement and sound from the instruments used

That's where your Logic Pro idea might come into play

I feel I got Guitar and Drums covered...with EZdrummer which I really like.

But I dont think there is any reason for demos any more because so few artists record songwriters songs anymore, and a major cut is about as likely as getting struck by lightning twice...on the same night!  A demo is nice I guess for playing it to yourself or friends.

It's now more like recording is to showcase your capabilities as a writer, producer, and/or performer.

Maybe you get a placement here or there, or just doing it for the art of it, or record your own album, which is on my bucket list.

Um Sorry Jody,
Wouldja run that by me one more time. What, pray tell does a Music Software Program have to do with granting or not granting an Artist part of a song? I don't have or use a Music Software Program to make demos. As I explained to Ronnie Dean, on another Board, gosh I hope I got that right, In a Nutshell I use a Tascam Cassette recorder with my 2 $6.60 dollar dynamic Microphones I bought in the Far East in the early 60's and my Trusty Martin, or other Guitar to record a basic demo. From there I can transfer the tape recording to a disc with my Sony Stand Alone CD Recorder of which I bought a few years ago. No longer sold as far as I can tell. As I understand it, A music Software Program is used to make demos but could be used and some do it to make a Recording to release for sale. Heehaw.

I use gas powered recording gear. I send my vocals down a flight of piping so that the vocals have more power on a downward trajectory, and gravity can provide a natural compression.

Show me where I wrote that using audio recording software has anything to do with granting an Artist part of a song. You need to re-read what I wrote.

I listened to the example song you gave in that other thread. I wrote that it sounds as if it was recorded using BIAB or something like it. You're saying otherwise. End of story.

** Oddly enough you edited the post, took out the direct mention of one of your songs and the website: http://www.geocities.ws/fiverosesmusicgroup/ray/This%20Heart%20Belongs%20To%20Me.mp3 "This Heart Belongs To Me".


Ou Naturale

Aw, Well,
That demo was made by a demo service back in 1994. Speer Group or something like that. I don't know what they used. Could have been a Software Program. I didn't put down Music Software Programs that I know of. I didn't edit anything. I have heard that Music Software Programs have been used in Nashville to produce Music to be sold. I don't live in Nashville so I have no first hand information.

Hey All,

Ah well, since I needed a new rig, I've jumped the shark and am currently downloading the 2018 version. Only the MegaPACK at this stage.

It seems to be able to take everything I need , as well as accommodating my old third party VST's , loops, MIDI, and sound files, so we'll see what what happens. Big learning curve, here I come........will report back.

cheers, niteshift

PS - if I don't return, you'll find me at the bottom of the garden eating worms.

Completely agree! There is thousands wonderful creative tools out there, their purpose is to make the creative process easier but they don't create a good song! and sometimes the use of all this tools prevents creativity..

Niteshift, every so often, usually around new Year, BIAB runs a promotion with some really significant discounts, particularly if you are upgrading to the next year's model. The promotion is structured so that you can upgrade from a more basic version of this year's build to a much bigger one of next year's. At least, that was the case when I upgraded to Everything-PAK for a huge discount. You might want to keep your eyes open and see if they do it again.

As far as not doing demos anymore , thats one persons view point

Publishers still exist , and thats the only way they can get their new songs

heard ;

Country Writers who know what they are doing , just use nothing more than

Lead Vocal , a Drummer, A Bass player, and a Keyboard player, at the most,

some writers can do all that themselves;

At the start of any song a writer needs to do a rough demo just piano and

vocal or guitar and vocal. without that How can he or she know where

the song needs Re Writes?

Yes the above is ( for most here) ---- (The Bleeding Obvious) to coin a phrase

spoken many a time by John Cleese of Monty Python Fame.


I believe I can hear a hit , with just vocal and guitar.

All this rubbish about your song needs to be Radio Ready is complete Crap

Why? because the average Pro Writer let alone Wannabe Writer has not got

much idea about Production, certainly not to a Record Release Standard

The worst thing about Digital Recording is the reproduction of the Human Voice

Thats why its not a bad idea to mix Analog Vocals with Digital Backing .

Vinyl is coming back thank God , There is still a big market for C D s,

Streaming quite frankly is diabolic , especially in Countries with large

rural areas where they are using ancient phone lines , and there are

many of these

It's not crap, Cheyenne. It's fact with few exceptions. Unless you can email Kenny Chesney's producer your guitar/vocal living room demo, you need to fork over a grand. I've heard plenty of demos of hit Nashville songs and they were indistinguishable from the final cuts. They even tailor the demo singer to the artist they intend to pitch to. That's what discouraged me about Music Row, the expense. Hell, the songs themselves were nothing special at all. You need to kiss serious ass and pay through the ass on top of that. For a born dissenter with shallow pockets, that ain't for me.

Some love the Music Row system and good for them. But if you don't fit in, don't despair. The money isn't what it used to be and if you don't crave the validation, you don't need the headache.

WOW! I should not have started reading this thread while sitting in my wheelchair. Now I am motion sick! My head is spinning! What a learning experience this thread has been for me, as I am in the category Cheyenne cited (the average Wannabe Writer has not got much idea about Production, certainly not to a Record Release Standard). I am a wordsmith. I am a lyricist. I can listen to a beat and rhythm and conjure storylines with words to match the timing and mood, but when it comes to contracts, production, mixing, mastering, post-production, manufacturing, cover art, ISBN, copyrighting, marketing, and distribution, I am clueless and must rely on the professional members of my producer's team (musicians, engineers, and Bernie Grundman mastering, and Lansdowne-Winston-Bloor-Hoffman House publishing).

If I hadn't had a good demo to showcase my storytelling with professional music to back the stories (done in a pro-studio with $$$ provided by a toy company), I would have no audience now beyond my children and grandchildren (the best audience anyway). My demo, done professionally, was impressive enough to excite a producer so much, he was willing to do it all at his own expense (considerable indeed). We have done four albums together. He will not release anything not done to Record Release Standards. Every sound must meet his uncompromising standards that have been honed from over 50 years as a professional musician. Music he has done for movies, television, producing, recording and engineering for other performers has placed him in contact with professionals in all parts of creation and the business end of the music industry. I just hopped on for the ride, my words being my ticket for the adventure.

This site is gives me more than my own experience can afford me. The knowledge and expertise in this collective body cover more than any one person can glean by themselves in a lifetime. Thank you all.

Hi FD,

I feel a need to address what you wrote to Deej here.

You say, "What they do is take the most popular stuff ever recorded from different eras, and have studio musicians play a similar version of it. Then its actually a midi track, which goes through an algorithm and it will spit out different variations of what was originally burned into it."


As I have said several times in this thread, you are referring to a past era of BIAB--BIAB before 2012. Midi is still available to use, but Realtracks AUDIO has superseded midi as the main, central, "go to" feature. Very few BIAB users use the midi styles at all. Realtracks Audio are actual audio performances from actual pro-studio musicians, playing along to a long, boring chart that runs through most every key, no midi involved whatsoever in this process.

And these "charts" the musicians are playing are generic "circle of fifths" kinda charts, and every performer plays the same chord chart, so..ahem..when you say, "they play the most popular stuff ever recorded from different eras, and have studio musicians play a similar version of it." --THAT, kind sir, is wrong, wrong, wrong. EVERY PERFORMANCE STYLE plays the same "circle of fifths" style chart that runs through most keys, so the algorithm that can snatch specific chords from specific performances can do a consistently good job of it. If there was inconsistency in the audio-rendered-chord charts, there would be mayhem at BIAB central, LOL.

For the most part, very few of these styles refer to or are copying actual songs or even artists that exist in the real world, but are more generalized. Whereas in the midi era, you'd have BIAB styles named after songs or artists, with Realtracks they wanted to offer something that was less specific to an artist, but more specific to a genre. And the BIAB labeling of Realtracks has followed suit. Instead of a midi style named "Mylie" or "Miles ballad" you have Realtracks styles labelled, "Country Syncopated w/Resonator Guitar" or "smooth jazz ballad with trumpet solo" --but with BIAB post 2012, to dial in a specific artist or song, one must either go retro and use a midi style, or God forbid, write the darn thing out by hand and render it with a virtual instrument in a DAW..ooh shudder at the thought..kidding..

There are some exceptions. Funny you mention Dire Straits, cuz when BIAB transitioned into their audio era, they started to still make a few styles that referred to artists and songs, and Darin Favorite's playing on the Realtracks style, "Sultans of Straits" is spot-on Mark Knopfler--partly because Knopfler's way of touching a Strat is very specific to him and few others (Richard Thompson being one of the first) BUT also because BIAB hadn't figured out their new path was to move away from "artist specific" styles and into "genre specific styles" which is 99% of what they are doing now and mostly since 2012, with Realtracks Audio..

A prior issue I'd like to address. I think the reason you thought BIAB sounded like crap is because back when it was all midi, (midi being the prior BIAB era that you've been talking about, unbeknownst to yourself) when playing a song in BIAB, you were hearing "Roland Sound Canvas" or "Edirol Hyper Canvas" --which came with BIAB. These were basically teeny tiny "soundfonts" that would give a producer an "idea" of what it could sound like. NOT MEANT FOR FINAL PRODUCTION..No..When producers used BIAB as a tool before Realtracks, they had to render the midi to a virtual instrument in a DAW, such as Cubase or Logic. THEN and only then would that midi style come to life and be anything nearly good sounding. But some instruments still sounded crappy when rendered to audio via virtual instruments. Strummed guitars for one, always sounded crappy. I don't think I ever rendered a strummed guitar from midi to audio via a virtual guitar that was usable. But the Realtracks audio guitar styles are all pretty good, and few since the Dire ones sound like anyone in particular, but umbrella over particular genres nicely.

You can still search through BIAB's "songpicker" by writing in names of famous songs, and oft times a Realtracks audio style will be mentioned. But if you listen to that style, it simply shares the same tempo, time signature, type of note rhythm (straight or swing 8ths, or straight or swing 16th notes) and shares a BASIC common feel, such as "country ballad" or "sparse Americana."

If you don't want to research for yourself and don't trust me (a daily BIAB user for over a decade) for whatever reason, ask Vic if what I say here is true or not. He uses Realtrack era BIAB more consistently in every song more than me, at this point, and you yourself have made nice comments on his songs.

There is no debate to be had on this issue. There is NO MIDI involved in a modern day, everyday usage of BIAB. It is only optional, and as far as midi goes, you are indeed correct. But hardly anyone uses the midi functionality in BIAB, anymore, and there are hardly any Realtrack audio styles being generated at BIAB headquarters that sound like particular artists, unless it's an artist that is simply sounding like themselves..they've had several well known studio musicians performing Realtracks, mostly from the jazz world like Jeff Lorber and Ron Carter.

Mike

I substitute real tracks for midi as I feel fits a style/song

Mike,

Thanks for chiming in here . . . in my limited experience with BIAB, I'd agree with what you've written. Having visited and posted on the BIAB forum, I can add that MIDI is pretty much (for lack of a better word) frowned upon there . . . and in the songs I've done in BIAB I've only used a single MIDI track. Everything else has been a "Real Track," which is as you described.

Sure, there are a few song styles that clearly are intended to mirror certain artists . . . but I find that more the exception than the rule (sometimes to my frustration) . . . at least with regard to BIAB in its current form. I can't speak to how it was prior to a year or so ago. I don't expect to input chords and choose what artist it's going to sound like . . . it's a bit more involved than that, in my experience. It's less confined than that, for better or worse . . . with a lot more choice.

Just sharing my impressions and experience . . . I'm not looking to debate (as has been done above) the merits of using BIAB to produce songs. It's got its positives and negatives (more that former than the latter, IMHO, but I'll leave it at that).

Regards,

Deej

Spot on VIC Too MANY waste money on songs that are quite frankly

not finished , Yes of course a well produced song certainly helps

Any decent publisher can hear a hit from a simple but well sung Demo

The ones who cant ? do not bother with them

It's partly a matter of whether they can hear it and partly whether they can pitch it. A publisher pitching to Tim McGraw's producer at a meeting knows he has a far better chance with a $1000 demo of an uptempo southern rock song than a g/v of the same song.

I don't have a lot of contacts but the ones I have are quality. You need the expensive demo. The only alternatives are to kiss Music Row ass until you have the personal emails of artists and producers OR you're invited to write with the artists. I'll bet MAB would say the same thing except he would call it "networking".

That's gonna take a whole lotta time and money. If you have that much time and money, why do you need the royalties from a hit? With YouTube etc, royalties are down, esp with five fricken people on the credits of one of those crap songs.

Tin Pan Alley is over. No radio song written by "pros" in 2019 will be as good as Up on the Roof. Unless you love the "game" of Nashville, New York, LA or Austin, just be happy where you're
at. If you consistently post strong material on the internet, word will spread. And you won't be forced to tweet PC nonsense to keep the press writing positive reviews of your latest "very personal" album.

Most publishers are lazy today. They want broadcast quality demos up front. They definitely aren't going to redo your demo themselves. And I doubt they'll pitch it to the big artists unless it's a high quality recording. And yes, musically it's gotta knock their socks off. Exceptions? Always, especially if you're a well established songwriter.

Best, John

I'm new here and this is my first post on any forum. I have never heard of BIAB (is it Band in a Box?) I use midi to compose with but it sounds like "midi". Does BIAB sound better? Is it something like Pro Tools or is it used differently? I do "play" all the sounds on my midi keyboard, strings, piano, organ maybe a pad or 2 and use EZ drummer for the beat, record it all on the DAW with vocals. The quality of sound misses the mark and doesn't sound professional.

I have taken a few of my songs and had "real" instruments put to them but in my opinion and the opinion of a few other people the songs are still lacking something. It costs loads to go into the studio and just do a few songs, and then you realize you cannot pitch the songs because they still sound like a demo.

Hi Jane,

Very nice to meet you.

BIAB (yes, it's Band-In-A-Box) since 2012 works mostly with phrase generated audio. Stored inside BIAB are 20,000 hours of audio recordings played by professional studio musicians. The user inputs chords into BIAB and then chooses a "style" from among thousands, then after pressing "play" the internal BIAB algorithm sorts out what audio to capture for your song. So in a nutshell what BIAB does is generate semi-specific audio, based on the user's input--audio (files) that can then be chopped up, edited, and anything else you would do in a DAW.

The newest BIAB can go right inside your DAW, as a VST plugin these days, as well, but I still prefer to import audio into the DAW myself.

Out of the box, you can get acceptable results with very little learning curve, other than writing chords, choosing a style, and hitting play, then if you like what you hear, either export as audio into your DAW, or use BIAB as a VST plugin inside your DAW.

To get really pro-results, there's a bit of work involved. I cross-fade and composite two or three performances, choosing the best bits..

I also use the midi functions (in BIAB) that can provide midi of the exact same audio performance. This comes in really handy if you want a "virtual instrument" to play in unison or in harmony with a particular BIAB performance aka audio file of that performance.

I use virtual instruments in addition to BIAB. I don't play them from a keyboard, but "write" the midi info into my DAW, and then assign that info various virtual instruments. The quality of the music relies partly on the writing, but mostly on the quality of the virtual instruments you are using, and the amount of time you are willing to tweak the midi info to make the results sound better. Good virtual instruments, like those that run in Native Instruments "Kontakt" sampler can be fantastic. But still a performance may need tweaking.

To make really good demos from the desktop, you need a good DAW and a sampler like Kontakt (all the best virtual instruments aka "libraries" are written for Kontakt), and BIAB can be the icing on the cake, because it truly is like having a stable of great studio musicians at your disposal. Many here use just BIAB and a DAW, and get perfectly good results.

If you have specific melodic ideas you want in your music--this is not something BIAB can do. As good as the studio musicians are, they aren't mind readers. This is why virtual instruments/libraries running in a good sampler like Kontakt can be very important. If writing specific melodies is something you want in your music, then you will definitely need good virtual instruments. NEVER use the midi soundfonts that come with Windows. Those are horrible. AT least be using the instruments that came packaged with your DAW, and learn how to tweak various midi CC parameters (such as vibrato) to get more "expressive" realistic sounds, then you're off to a great start..

It took me a few years to get anywhere near good, using all of the above (and Melodyne for pitch correction), and can get expensive if you start lusting after lots of virtual instrument libraries, cuz some can run a few hundred bucks. My LA Scoring Strings cost me, I think, $800 bucks, back almost a decade ago now, and I still haven't learned the software as well as I could..

But if you are in for the long haul, maybe it's worth it.

If you have a vision of what you want to make, then that will set you in motion with the actual doing..Don't expect great results overnight, but keep at it, and over time, you will hear your hard work pay off.

To hear BIAB in action, head over to the MP3 forum..several members here use the software, such as Vic and Deej. Vic uses BIAB more exclusively in his demos than Deej or myself, so his might give you a better idea of what your can do with BIAB. Also, check out the BIAB listening forum that's part of their site. Some really good producers share their stuff there.

Mike

Thank you Mike. I most certainly am missing out on things in the DAW recording world. I've got to look into this.


Jane K

Well the midi tracks for sure sounded like crap.

The main problem with $1000 demos even still is there is no way to know by what percentage you increase your chances by having a $1000 demo. do you go from a 1% chance to a 2% chance, not worth it, or from a 1% chance to a 50% chance. Nobody knows, we do know that without the great demo you wont be heard at all

In the end if everybody has a 1000 demo, then we start all over again. I still believe it comes down to how good your song is. Your melody, your chord progression, your hooks, good being subjective of course. But you could have a $10k demo, if the person in charge doesnt think they can make money on it, in the trash it goes.

Your best shot in my estimation is recording your own stuff, releasing it as you, or if you cowrite releasing it under your cowriter, and see what happens online.

If writing for fun, you really dont need demos at all, unless you record demos for fun.

You're most welcome, Jane. Don't forget to have fun in the process!

Mike

Then again, all recorded music is no longer acoustic/ live music. All recorded music has to route through different playback devices (amplification and speakers). Even “live” music is altered by its acoustic environment. I think of MIDI instruments as recorded/ sampled “live” instruments. There’s a world of sounds out there. I appreciate them all. I once had a violin major, fresh out of music school, ask me who played the violin on one of my tracks. She said that violinist had so much feeling and expression. She was impressed with the sound the violinist got out of his violin. Wanted to know what violin he used. I told her it was a Kirk Hunter violin.

Moral of the story... "if it sounds good, it is good".

Best, John

Hi John,

I agree wholeheartedly. The one thing I dislike about Keith Jarrett is not that he occasionally stops a solo performance to chew out the audience for a camera or a hushed whisper, but because he has some kind of Gurdjieff-like belief that acoustic instruments are somehow "truer" music makers, and I just can't follow his argument.

Sample libraries can sound great. So can (modern, post 2012) BIAB which is a different paradigm altogether, being more like Sony's Acid platform that ushered in loops some twenty years ago..wow..time is flying by!

And the thing is and why I disagree with folks that say, "you just need this or that" is that BIAB compliments sample libraries because they work differently and have different strengths and thrive around different instruments. I would never use a BIAB piano front and center for instance, because from phrase to phrase, you can hear the sustain getting cut off, then starting again, and in a very unnatural way. Very annoying. But Musart's Pianoteq is a brilliant "physical modelling" software that can morph into ANY make of piano known to man, and has a footpront under 100 megabytes! And good sampled pianos (like Native-Instruments') can sound realistic too. Sampled guitars are catching up.

BIAB's main weakness is it's inability to play specific melodies. But that's the forte of sample libraries. So together, in a DAW, you've got the best of both worlds.

But if I was to be stranded on a desert island and had to choose one type of software to compliment my DAW, I'd go with sample libraries, cuz they are MUCH more versatile than BIAB. They can do BOTH chordal work and melodic work equally well, but sometimes take so much time to tweak the midi CC info that one thinks, "darn..if only BIAB had pan flute performances, I could just write the chords in BIAB and have Zamfir do the rest."

Mike

Yes. Inarguable.

Recordings are made to be listened to. "If it sounds good, it is good."

I wouldn't waste any money on a demo. Either learn to play and find others who can to and record something live with personality and style, or pay someone to do it and watch your money go up in smoke for nothing. Because, as we've all said a million times, unless you are ASKED to pitch personally by someone who is a decision maker in the room, the rest is a waste of time. Even if their "decision" power only goes from you to a "yes, this can eat 4 minutes of the final decision makers time without costing me my job" type of power. You HAVE to have an in, or you HAVE to already be an artist/songwriter in demand. The best way to be in demand is to create something FOR REAL, using either your talent or a band you construct (or a brilliant studio pro doing pop/electronic/rap/R&B etc. style that can be ALL samples, drum machines and programmed music with a show stopping vocalist. If you don't have all of the above on your side, just make some damn music for yourself, your local friends/family and if you can impress them all enough to ask their friends/families to check out your stuff or better still come out to a club some night to hear you perform live, then do that. That is where it STARTS. You can also just play live into a camera and create a youtube channel (or another social media platform) and start building content that attracts repeat business... you can pull anyone in by a clever title alone.. but you better deliver SOMETHING when they show up or you'll be done. Most people making music are NOT making music worthy of people's time to listen to it. Over the years I have had SOOOOO many people BEG me to listen to their work and though I have had enough juice to get material to a handful of successful artists over the years (and have done just that one several occasions) I rarely hear anything worthy of anyone's time, let alone a company that would have to spend a million dollars just to CONSIDER doing something serious with you. The opportunities are so limited and the time of decision makers cannot be wasted EVER or people get fired or they simply get forgotten immediately and for good. It's cutthroat, it is unfair across the board, you'll be met with every level of prejudice from actual malicious identity politics stuff to simply because they don't like the shirt you wore in the room. You have to eat a lot of s^it even on a good day and that is IF you have the goods and that almost NEVER is true. People who have the goods have proven it in the trenches a hundred times over. They have filled rooms with paying customers who anxiously awaited your appearance and want a piece of you when the show is over. People who have "IT" were often born with it, not because they deserved it, it just IS. And if you DON'T have it, you can't fake it. And you can't fake anyone out either. I know many people who qualify as having "IT" but who STILL fail usually due to their own inability to do the work, take the time, preparation and complete single minded focus to make it. It is only the rare case of having both. Exceptions? People who get in the door because they are part of, or highly connected TO the ruling elite class. For super attractive women and gay men, they can use sex to get in the door sometimes. Otherwise, you have to BRING IT which means you have to HAVE IT first, then you have to WORK IT until you can MAKE IT. And today, you can look forward to a FRACTION of financial gain of previous eras. If you sign a deal, the money you get upfront is usually the last money you will make from your music directly with only a tiny number of exceptions.

Want a reality check? Watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dJQdF7cvbU&list=LLlABkig0jxlPHR5gVTHvrLw&index=2&t=0s

That's just one of a hundred videos I could give you. It's a bunch of Rap artists talking truth about becoming an artist and signing that "deal." "But I am a songwriter" you say. Well, if the TALENT gets screwed this bad, imagine how at the mercy of massive corporations you are as just the writer, one of millions and millions and millions of others when every artist and label has a century worth of songs already written by themselves or their people meaning they keep the money so why are you wasting their time? Brutal doesn't even begin to describe it.

Make music to please yourself. If you have enough talent to do that, you are blessed and should revel in it. 99.9% of people do not have that ability. If you can also move your friends and family, BONUS. In truth, if your music speaks universal truths to people in a way that is original, unique or extremely pleasing, you will find an audience even if it is via this message board. Keep getting better and pleasing yourself because music is telling yourself the truth that you need to hear but your mind knows you aren't quite getting it so your mind tricks you by producing a piece of art to tell you the truth about yourself. If you can do that, others will respond. Even if you do it with BIAB or on a guitar and scratchy vocal on your porch or via some program on your computer. UNIVERSAL TRUTHS are key. First you have to respond to yourself. It is easy to lie to yourself, but you're still smart enough to react when you start telling the truth. When you start saying something meaningful and in the most meaningful way you can. You won't become famous unless you have "IT" but you CAN have a satisfying life with your music and even have the respect and admiration of a good number of others in a niche you invent around YOU. That's what I suggest people focus on. Most will ignore this hard earned advice and that puts you into the teeth of the beast. Good luck with that.

I guess the main reason why record labels want to get their artist as young as possible is because they are much easier to impress and get their names on contracts that benefit the labels and rob the artist. Mainly because being that young you know nothing about the business side of music, all they see is the big advance that they get that must be paid back plus all other expense to get that artist out there. All the young artist sees are stars in their eyes while the label sees dollar signs in their eyes.

I read where a lot of artist are not looking to sign with these major labels anymore because they are either getting smarter or they've heard too many stories from artist that have been robbed by these labels. It might be a good thing if these labels go under, then maybe we'll start hearing better music on radio.

Before I forget... let me first welcome Jane K to JPF:

You picked an interesting and somewhat adversarial post to begin your participation here... (chuckling a bit...) and I hope it won't make you think we are "at each other's throats constantly" at Brian's Website. If you are a music fan or music creator, slide over to the MP3 Forum (down the main page) and you can hear song-posts by other JPF participants... or post your own if you can provide a link to another website or legal storage outlet.

Wow! Guys and Gals:

I don't use BIAB but have made use of the services of BIAB Artists and they sound pretty good to me. My method is different and works fine for me... but... as I have often said: "If you can create a song or melody with a Kazoo and it "goes viral"... more power to you." The method of creation pales in comparison to the final product which first had to be "roughed out" on an instrument of some description... and, if a song, decently vocalized after a great lyric was scribbled down on paper, papyrus or stone tablets! The "Final Product" had better be practically air-worthy or cause immediate rapture in high places if it is going to enter the fray to compete for the charts.

Sadly, little of the above matters because there are too many of us creating "white noise" and the ears in Nashville, LA, NYC, Sheboygan or Atlanta are confused to the point of not wanting to hear anymore. Besides, the interns tend to do what they are told and the good stuff (those with free passes past the gate guards) goes straight to the ivory tower for worship or rejection. Terrible odds. You should all "give up" immediately... leaving the field for me alone!

Later, ----Dave from West Mayberry

I find it a little amusing, a little sad, highly ironic, and a total learning experience..this thread..

My intention was clearly to help folks use BIAB (and Melodyne) better, so as to become better at producing songs themselves. I think that is self-evident in every post I made.

First I saw it morph into an attack on the software itself, which was unfair, since I was basically saying to the folks who already use the software, "here's how to use it better."

And now it seems more focused on whether it's worth it to pay for demos or not..

And from where I sit, whether or not people who do what I do are doing something worth paying for.

Okay dokey..

AS I said a learning experience..

I've learned that indeed, no good deed goes unpunished..and moreover, once you put something "out there" into the hands of the public, it's really no longer yours, and whatever benign intentions you may have had, don't really matter.

Carry on, as you were, but I'm out..

I do believe, though, that "hope" is a rather un-quantifiable thing that is being left out of the equation, out of this last round of thought. We all need some solid form of it. Making something, creating something tangible like a good recording of a song is always on the plus side of hope.

Mike

Mike I have a response to this. I see you took down the scathing remarks u made, i sometimes do that to. For what its worth, i came across the info of the real tracks actually being saved as midi internally online, i think it was by the makers of the software. Perhaps u can write Peter Gannon for details, i may not have articualted right as Im not a BIAB nerd

The point was, these demos are not enough to cut the mustard, if there is even mustard to need cutting. Ive been saying that since day one. Its not to attack BIAB, its a usefull software but nobody is going to get serious consideration with this software. The reason perhaps for the switch in emphasis of the thread is that its becoming a band in a box forum, they already have one. Theres more to songwriting and music than band in a box, theres also the art and fun of it, nobody goes there....

Yeah Ive been known to say that as well. One thing though, what sounds good is also a matter of debate, When my folks were around, nothing I could play myself or my albums SOUNDED good to them. It was always ahh God damn turn down that noise........

If u go on home recording forums, there will be rigid debates as to what sounds good and what doesnt.... we cant win!

By the way Mike, I regret (mea culpa) that I did NOT first thank you and celebrate your contribution on this post. It was an outstanding, straight forward explanation in great detail. It was a credit to you and all the educators who have come before and will come first, and I am sorry to have helped diverge it off the rails, but I am SOOO incensed when people are convinced spending 1K of money they usually don't have to start with thinking an unproven song will suddenly be heard by decision makers and change their career trajectory. BIAB is absolutely fine to get your ideas down in a listenable form and I think doing so is both fun and satisfying. More power to anyone doing so, please do not stop. Just please people.. don't waste money on expensive demos. It is a dead end. If you only write lyrics, and you WANT some type of success you have to do the work FIRST to put yourself in position for success. It means meeting people, forming a band (even if you don't play, you can be the lyricists, van driver and gear hauler if needed). You can supply a place for rehearsals. You CAN find a way to get people to work with and it is a BLAST! I don't care how old you are, how young, or anything in between. But it takes that much effort at least to do something FOR REAL. All the BIAB demos in the world will not make you a commercial success.. that is not how it works. It isn't because of BIAB being good, bad or otherwise. It's because that isn't WORK on the level of finding success in the music business. What is it? It's fun for sure. It's a release. It's PRACTICE. It's a way to let a band HEAR your idea in musical form. It will make a demo for what "demo" originally meant. To show someone a new, but not yet finished, song. For a band to learn. For fun. For friends and family. That's a lot. But with today's "business" it doesn't work as it used to. It used to be fine to get just about ANY version of a song down to convey your idea to decision makers. That is no longer true. The reason? It is CHEAP AND EASY to record great sounding REAL music (with the caveat that many genres use samples and keyboard players to input the entire music bed and add vocalists into cpu processors and make them sound like anything they want on a simple decent modern laptop and a few programs a bit more complicated than BIAB). With the bar SOOOO very low to produce professional sounding music, the market is beyond saturated. FOREVER.
In all of the remaining time on earth we don't need any more songs.. we will not run out of songs to fill the airwaves for many millennia. .And every year going forward, we'll add another 1000 years of music to the pile that always grows with all previous music being squashed underneath.

That was my point. But it does not refute or discredit BIAB and it certainly should not have ignored Mike's work, effort and contribution.

THANK YOU MIKE!

I've seen people lap up and buy some pretty poor quality music just because the song spoke to them or they liked the artist. The industry has pushed the quality of the production so high just to get the sale on the production alone that the quality of the song, the lyrics, the story, means little. The idea of songs, at least in some genre, is to tell a story or idea that people can relate to. The song says what the listener is thinking but can't verbalize in their own words. That's why love songs are popular, or use to be popular, it says what the audience feels but can't say for what ever reason. Most people are not poets. Many people, especially men, are reserved or shy about telling their mates how they love them, but they will request a love song (or sing a love song, if they can sing) for their mates that conveys the message that they want to say. Love still exist (I hope) but not so much in many songs today. It is more about drug, alcohol, partying and one night stand sex, and of course fast cars and pickup trucks. It's all about production, the sound, not the message, keep polishing the turd till the turd is not even noticed. The music becomes the message.

It's like the lowly potato, most young people will not want potatoes to eat unless it is deep fried, battered, spiced, chipped, curled, wedged, flavoured, etc etc. It is still potato but all the other things make it more attractive, not more nutritious or healthy(probably less so) but it is what "sells" the consumer on eating it.

To me, if a song speaks to somebody, it's good. There are songs out there that I have no idea why I like them. I love the song "pretty in pink", not my style, not anything I would pay money to go and see, but some reason that song speaks to me on some level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nu0sYQRECkY

One of my favorite Doors songs is "Love Street" of all the great songs they have, that one gets to me somehow. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pldftoUbM80
Theres a ton of songs that I hear on the radio that I cant turn off, even though Im not more than a casual fan. Ozzies Crazy Train is one, that frickin harmony on "Going off the rails" gets me every time. One of the whimpiest songs ever I love is called Truly Madly Deeply, by Savage Garden. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WQnAxOQxQIU

Im almost embarrassed to admit some of the songs I like, but I cant deny they hooked me in some way. Im usually embarrassed to tell people my favorite Doors song is Love Street, i just think its a phenomenal melody and Jim just sells the whole song with his crooning.

You know, sometimes its the lyric, sometimes its one line, sometimes its the story, sometimes its melody, sometimes its the groove. Sometimes it's the musicality, the instrumentation, guitar hooks and guitar solos, sometimes, its the energy...enter any ramone's song. Often times its the singers voice. I listen to Tom Pettys "Wake Up Time" one time I listened in headphones half asleep, I swore the guy was talking to me personally. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AtcYvOz2vc

I think when you're a band or artist, you have more ways to capture an audience, as a writer, you have melody and lyric.

Today alot of the music is computer driven, and im sure the stuff has been tested and it works. You cant call it bad per se, its done for a different reason


oh yeah another favorite song I have that I dont admit often is Roxy Musics More Than This.... Absolutely killer, but dont tell no one...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOnde5c7OG8

Hello everyone,

Regarding the subject of making great demos - Yes, you must have good songs to start with. You must not be a mature woman if you are just starting out. And of course, you must have a lot of connections.

My problem with getting professional demos done is that they often turn out boring and unimaginative. If you ask for production help from recording engineers and sessions players (I play keys and do my own vocals for my songs) they end up giving you lackluster versions of songs (They still get the money even though they don't deliver the goods you expected).

Of course you find this out later when you get critiques on song forums (not here yet) and other songwriters tell you it is not anywhere near ready.

Not impressed so far here in Bakersfield with the recording studios here (We only have a couple). So I try to do it myself at home with the "built in the DAW" sounds and various plug ins. But I am an amateur everything -taking up a DAW at my age isn't easy - I don't know if I will ever get the "finished product" sound. And yes with all the music out there, and no real appreciation of music from the general public, you say to yourself, well it is just a hobby, a very fulfilling hobby and at least find maybe a few people who want to listen.

Thanks for welcoming me to your forum. Really interesting stuff here.

Jane K

I believe that you are missing the point.

If the Rolling Stones did not sound good to your parents, that is not at issue. Not their kind of music. That's personal preference. This thread to me, is about whether or not a listener likes a recording that is their tastes.

For example, A hypothetical recording artist may hear a demo made at home with BIAB et al and it may sound good enough to be in contention for his next album. It may also sound good enough for consideration by his producer.

But then, you tell them..."that was done on a home computer with band in a box."
And they reply..."Throw it out then. We only want the real thang demos."

Not likely. "If it sounds good, it is good."
And getting better all the time.

There is reality to this. I've no doubt that the Nashville demo factories have to hold their nose as they make many recordings. I've no doubt that they consider many, if not most of their clients as internet wannabees who have no real talent or prospects. I suspect that the idea is to sit down and put something out that "checks the boxes" as a professional or quasi professional recording and move on.

I agree with all you said, but one thing you may be missing is the internet effect. The internet has created more amateur writers, recording artists, recording engineers, critics, politicians, sportscasters, healtcare pros, experts than any other time in history. You'd be amazed at how many production nerds comment on professionally released albums, and say "Oh my Goodness, what were they thinking on that reverb..or that is the lamest sounding guitar I have ever heard. And we know about the common auto tune complaints.

And we also cant dismiss that the majority of people WONT like any song, no matter how much money was pumped into the production or not. There are hit records that have 100 or more tracks to them, meticulously layered and processed. And still MOST people will say "Oh man I HATE this song....."

Your point about a listener saying "this is band In a box" so throw it out, is not the right argument. People dont know who recorded what, whats a sample, what isnt, whos using auto tune and who isnt, who is tripling the vocal and who isnt....all they know is a wall of sound that their ear tries to sort out for a pleasing experience.

They dont know band in a box is making it sound less exciting to them, they just know it doesnt sound exciting to them. Thats not to say they will say "Oh gosh this sounds terrible, they wont, cause it doesnt sound terrible. But play a band in a box demo, and then play a hit song off the radio back to back. If it cant compete, then it wont compete

Fd

Im not sure that we are talking about the same thing, My view of this is much less complex.

Martin

Fd

Im not sure that we are talking about the same thing, My view of this is much less complex.

Martin

I know, you have stated your view before. You feel that in order for somebody to like a song, it must be recorded well. That if you expect somebody to listen to your song, it should be recorded well.

What Im saying is that when people are listening to the better recording, more often than not they are enjoying the sound of the track, and not really the song.

But you need great songs for anything else to really matter

The world has changed. There is no reason to fork over a grand unless you have a grand to waste and you like what you get for the money. A great demo is not getting you anywhere unless you already have the connections you need to get a decision maker to WANT to hear your song and WANT to help you based on your already established relationship. They are not helping strangers no matter how amazing your song is. If you truly have something great, they will just take your idea, rewrite it and put it on in their own name and life goes on. People need to stop wasting their money on stuff that really didn't work much even decades ago and is a joke today.

A phrase that rings in my head when I really like one of my songs and think I might Nashville demo it.
"you can't polish a turd" LOL
There are so many writers with inside tracks, including the artists, that it's a lottery level gamble.

The truth can be brutal, but it's always refreshing to see.

I remember other sites (dream churners) where people would be parroting all of this..."Nashville is a family. Everybody looks out for everybody and they all want is for your success." I remember thinking to myself..."What a load of complete crap."

Back in my troll days, I would enjoy making it clear that I felt that way and quickly be dismissed as a heretic and deluded fool.

Like I said...in a world that is 85 percent crap, the truth always looks good to me.

There is always the option of Royalty Free music catalog sales that can really accommodate any music style or even quality if someone were say looking for a garage band just starting out sound. Even though they may only use 20 to 30 seconds of your song they should be about 2 minuets.

Problem with Royalty Free music is that it takes a while for anyone to find you and there is very little money until it gets wide distribution. It's a gamble but for me I'm retired and it keeps me off the street when not doing CGI stuff on my workstation.

That's a rational approach Sue. People need to REMEMBER why they are making music. The only right answer is because they can't NOT make music. If you could stop, you should stop. Find something more productive to do and leave making music to those people who are driven no matter what they face. It is so unlikely to lead to real money, especially if (as an artist) you are over 25. That is already too old for 99% of any opportunities as an artist. It's just reality. That doesn't mean someone older can't make a great living working hard, gigging and choosing your actions carefully and with well earned wisdom, but if you hope someone ELSE will hear you and help you, it is highly unlikely today that they will help you if you are more than 25. Even, in truth, if you are over 23. At that point, you'll have to go he hard way, on your own, busting your ass and forcing your way into relevancy. Sure, there are people who break through short term due to a gimmick.. a video, something viral etc. but straight up making it just based on your music and having someone discover you and spend millions in dollars and in equity trade (favors, reputation, the whole deal) is not happening once you are old enough to be a competent parent. Frankly the best thing you could do for the world at that age is to start having healthy children with a spouse and teaching them to be good people will values and morality and empathy for others and common sense with a competent work ethic. Few people are doing that anymore. And as you go through those experiences (i.e. real life which doesn't place yourself as the most and only important thing in your life) then you might have someone WORTH writing about.

But I digress. Don't spend money on a demo that you can't afford to lose outright. If it is your hobby and you have cash to burn, spend it how you want. I would suggest finding a young talented artists, help develop their career in exchange for them performing and fronting your writing. That is what I would do. Hell, I might even do that when I retire from this.

Brian

I have done exactly that Brian - Had two young rappers come to me and although the songs were good they had no show experience - I told them to go out for a year or two and do any live gig anyplace and don't worry about money - learn how to sell yourself to an audience - then come back to me.

Don't know how it worked out for them - I could see AC was about to die and sold my biz and was one of the first to desert a sinking ship.

One of the sad parts about entertainment today is that the small clubs where the old folk played and the young folk learned their craft have all but died. Till the Beatles got to play all the time in a small club they basically sucked. Springsteen when he was playing local dances sucked - it was the house band gig at the stone pony that turned him from boring to an entertainer.... those places where a young person could look and learn how an old timer could play an audience for the most part all gone.