Song Created Using BIAB Real Tracks + Reaper + User Tracks

[Greg Cutshaw]

I just posted a song called I'm Not Crazy Yet in my Excel keyless review. Just wanted to share my experience with merging BIAB with other tools to created a finished product.

To start with I created an EZDrummer drum track and added a real bass, rhythm acoustic guitar, 3 part fiddles, lead guitar and E9/C6 tracks to it in the studio using a ZoomR24. Then I ported these tracks to Reaper.

I then created the same exact chord chart at the same tempo as above in BIAB RealBand and generated a complete rhythm track with piano, rhythm guitar, bass and drums using all RealTracks real instruments. Ported these to Reaper as individual wav files where they fit perfectly with no skew or tempo adjustments.

After listening to the merged tracks in Reaper I picked the best parts of each source for the backing track. I kept my own walking bass part and EZDrummer tracks. I discarded my rhythm guitar track and kept the super smooth shuffle beat one generated by BIAB. The BIAB piano track was discarded.

To my own steel, lead guitar and 3 part fiddle tracks I wanted to add lead fiddle and piano solos. I highlighted the area of the song in RealBand where I wanted these parts, froze the existing tracks and had BIAB generate Real Tracks for the Fiddle and Piano solos. In fact the fiddle parts were "Multi-Riff" so i was able to preview and pick from 7 different takes on the same fiddle part style in one operation! I ported the fiddle and piano parts back to Reaper adding some Ambience stereo hall reverb to each.

Piano part: RT2123 (John Jarvis)

Fiddle Part: RT2120 (Rob Hajacos)

The base style of the BIAB track (I did not use all the tracks!):

CNTRYSH.STY. Country Shuffle w/ Piano
All RealTracks. Quintet. Tempo=120 (90-150)
Instruments: El.Bass, Ac.Piano, Ac.Guitar, PedalSteel, Drums
RD: ** N/A ** CountryShuffle: a: CountryShuffleb: CountryShuffle :Shawn Soucy
RT539: Bass, Electric, Pop Sw 120 , Byron House
RT2048: Piano, Acoustic, Solo-Accompaniment CountrySwingJohn Sw 120 , John Jarvis
RT372: Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming Hank Sw 120 , Tony King
RT370: Pedal Steel, Background Hank Sw 120 , Steve Hinson
Memo: Country shuffle with all RealTracks, including acoustic piano, acoustic guitar, pedal steel, and CountryShuffle RealDrums.

My completed song!

[Larry Hopkins]

That's some great picking Greg! Luv it.

[Jim Smerk]

You are using BiaB like I do, as an addition, NOT a full blown backing band....and it shows! that is a great sounding track!

[Greg Cutshaw]

Thanks Larry! Ray Price's original version of this song is so humbling to listen to. The tone and bite of Tommy's fiddle and the steel parts which sound simple are harder than heck to play smoothly. As each year goes by I appreciate more and more how good those musicians were and how effortlessly they played everything.

Jim, I think BIAB RealTracks is awesome but it would be very frustrating to get all the little drum fills just right using RealTracks only. It can be done I suppose if one inserts an editable midi drum track into RealBand then hand edits all the midi jumps and fills. That's what I do by hand in EZDrummer. Can't have too many tools on the shelf and no one tool does everything you need in the studio. I had about 15 hours in this song from start to finish including mastering all the volume envelopes and adding stereo reverb to some parts and slightly compressing others.

[Ron Hogan]

Good job Greg. Is there anyway I can get that realband file you made for future use?

Ron

[Greg Cutshaw]

Here's link to the SEQ file with the tacks that I kept (right click and "save link as":


http://www.gregcutshaw.com/BIAB/I%27m%2 ... %20Yet.SEQ