Band in a Box/Soundcards

jbtsax

jbtsax

Distinguished Member
Distinguished Member
Not sure where to post this. I am toying with the idea of approaching a new restaurant in town that has a nice dining area downstairs to play "dinner music" on weekends as a single or perhaps a duo with a jazz guitarist and sound tracks for the bass and drums.

My ideal is to set up a playlist of accompaniments to ballads, bossa novas, and soft rock tunes using Band in a Box to accompany myself playing with my best Stan Getz and Paul Desmond "background" sounds.

The set-up I currently have on my computer is Sound Blaster Live and the version of BiaB is 10.0. My question is what can I do to get better quality sounds for the rhythm section instruments in the accompaniment tracks that I write? I am ashamed to admit I have very little experience in this area of music and electronics. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

John
 
jbtsax said:
My question is what can I do to get better quality sounds for the rhythm section instruments in the accompaniment tracks that I write?
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Bring a friend with a Cajón. He/she wouldn't even need a chair to sit on.
And live is so much better than synthesised.
 
I'd use a dedicated sound module - Roland JV-1010 or better - which will give you more/better sounds, reverb and effects, performance set-ups, etc.
 
Buy the realtrack sets. They are quite convincing.
 
hakukani said:
Buy the realtrack sets. They are quite convincing.
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If they're available, I'd go for this option. I don't have a problem with BIAB, per se, it's just that it can sound very mechanical.
 
Thanks Hakukani. That is the way I think I will go. It sounds great.

John
 
hakukani said:
I made this on BIAB with realtracks to shed ii-V's. It took about ten minutes to make, then I rendered it to an mp3 in order to show what the potential is.

http://www.box.net/shared/hak81erruh
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Very cool. One of my instructors did this for a solo I was working on last week. Then he shot me the file to play against. It took him more time to open the app than to create the sequence (8 bar X 3 with a bridge). I need to get better at using these kind of tools.
 
jbtsax said:
Thanks Hakukani. That is the way I think I will go. It sounds great.

John
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The sounds are nice and BIB is a great tool for practicing, mapping out arrangements, experimenting with styles, etc, but IMO, it doesn't cut it as a professional performance tool. I assume you are going to be performing as a professional. There's just no way you can have the computer plug in set comping note/rhythmic patterns to the changes, without it sounding mechanical and a-musical, after a few minutes. You will hear it, the clientel will hear it, and the manager will hear it. If you can play and sound like Stan Getz and Paul Desmond, then you are not going to be satisfied with anything less from your backing tracks. I would use BIB to map out your tracks in midi, then go in and edit the midi file of each part so it sounds like a real musician played it - get rid of all the stupid stuff that doesn't flow, do your own comping if you play keyboards or get someone to do it. Then record it and mix it to a nice mp3 file for performance.
 
Thanks for the suggestions, but my electronic music skills are not at that level at the present time. Plus it would take me forever to set up backing tracks for enough songs for 2 or 3 sets doing what you suggested.

Right now I am going to take baby steps and become familiar with using the BIAB real tracks as they are. I just upgraded to the 2010 version of BIAB which I am told has much better synthesized sounds than the older version I was using so I may be able to create some ok midi files using the regular BIAB process.

My background is very limited where it comes to working with mixers and synthesizers and stuff you have to plug in. I do much better with things that have reeds that you blow into and wiggle your fingers.
 
Well, forget the practicing and working on reeds. You won't have much time for it. If you get even a steady weekend gig, you'll spend all your time keeping your track list alive - you can't play the same sets all the time. ....and what about requests? The rest of the time will be spent with equipment.

I had a trio (me, guitar, chick singer + modified BIAB tracks) on Miami Beach for a couple of years for a Friday/Saturday night gig, from 7pm to 11pm. Just those 3 hrs, twice on the weekend, kept me non-stop busy the whole week. It was fun, but it was work too.
 
MartinMods said:
Well, forget the practicing and working on reeds. You won't have much time for it. If you get even a steady weekend gig, you'll spend all your time keeping your track list alive - you can't play the same sets all the time. ....and what about requests? The rest of the time will be spent with equipment.

I had a trio (me, guitar, chick singer + modified BIAB tracks) on Miami Beach for a couple of years for a Friday/Saturday night gig, from 7pm to 11pm. Just those 3 hrs, twice on the weekend, kept me non-stop busy the whole week. It was fun, but it was work too.
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The tech has improved since then. You can already get BIAB basic realbook tracks for free, plus the algorithms for style are light years ahead of what they were even two years ago.
 
hakukani said:
The tech has improved since then. You can already get BIAB basic realbook tracks for free, plus the algorithms for style are light years ahead of what they were even two years ago.
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I used the BIAB realbook tracks, and I didnt' think the style algorithms were that bad. I mixed up the styles, tempos, and meters a lot, for example, I did My Favorite Things as a 4/4 rock piece, Beseme Mucho was a Britney Spears groove, and Fool On the Hill was a Samba. You have to keep doing new tunes and using a variety of instrumentations and styles to keep things alive. Three hours of anything, with the same instrumentation will die hard.
 
Sorry MM, but most people, in my experience, don't notice. The only people that care are the other musicians.
 
hakukani said:
Sorry MM, but most people, in my experience, don't notice. The only people that care are the other musicians.
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That's been my experience as well---especially for light dinner background music which is what the gig would be. My plan is to start out as a solo playing for tips to see if it is a success for the management and then add a guitarist using the BIAB for the bass and drum tracks. As you can probably guess, I need the chance to get my "chops" going again more than I need the money. It will also be fun learning more about the new technology.

By playing the sets in different orders, the folks who come in to dine at the same time each weekend will heard different tunes. Patrons don't ordinarily stay longer than 30 - 40 minutes anyway.

John
 
hakukani said:
Sorry MM, but most people, in my experience, don't notice. The only people that care are the other musicians.
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I only have my own personal experience to go by, for what that's worth. Aside from that, if you, as a musician (I assume you call yourself that), and any other musicians on the stand, notice it, it will certainly affect your mood, your opinion of the gig, and your performance, especially week after week. If you are a fine player, things like professionalism matter. There's really nothing like being on stage and feeling ashamed (even if you don't think anyone notices) of what your tracks sound like, to send the atmosphere in a fine dining establishment down the drain. And believe me, if the guy shelling out the cash for your music, is even slightly successful in running a restaurant or club, he knows what is good and what isn't. He may give you a chance with BS tracks, but it won't last long if they don't improve. They want everything to be as good as their food. As soon as there is live music in any establishment, every other musician/band leader will be hanging out, handing the owner their demo. Maybe your family owns the restaurant though. Anyway. Good luck John.
 
.....but, having a good guitarist makes it easier. That's a very mobile/marketable combination, that can well even without tracks. Regardless, the people you have to please are not the clients or the owner. It's the staff, the waiters, buss people, hostess, etc. They are the ones working hard there for looooooonnnnnnng hours, and you are creating their work environment for the time you are there. If they start to get the slightest bit annoyed with what you are doing (and they are listening to what took the place of their CD's), you will notice, and the manager/owner is much more interested in keeping the staff happy than he is in making you happy.

Just doing Bossa Novas, ballads, and soft Rock, is nice, but it really pays off to spend the time to make arrangements, even simple ones, of all your tunes. They need an intro, and always playing the last 8 bars doesn't make it. They need a definite ending. Fading out is BS and sounds like it. They need to have some structural form and build. You can' t just repeat the same changes over and over, each chorus being the same. It's nice to add string pads here and there, tutti sections playing the melody (that gives you a break). The more time you spend on your tracks to make them musically interesting, even if they are just bass and drums, the more success you will have. Ballads demand it.

I've done a lot of this. I did 5 nites a week, 5 sets a night, just me, singing and playing, and my tracks, at a classy cigar bar on Lincoln Rd, Miami Beach. That's hard. I had a steady sax/piano + duo gig at a super elegant restaurant in San Juan PR. They had their own wireless house PA and 9ft Yamaha grand. BIAB don't make it there without some help. What you must always keep in mind is, what is the reaction in the house when they cut off the CD's and you start your set, and then, when you end your set, and they cut the CD's back in. Can you compete?
 
I'm more with MM on this, even though I've mentioned that I was in big-time with electronic instruments at one time. There are some exceptions, though.

There used to be a nice little Chinese restaurant a few miles from where I live. They had a Yamaha Disklavier baby grand (probably one similar to this). When the thing was set up just to play a real piano part, it did add a bit of je ne sais quois to the meal -- and it was at least as good as any human player. Then again, a player piano could do about the same thing (I have the Gershwin piano rolls CD -- a sample is on YouTube -- which was "recorded" on the rolls by Gershwin, himself).

I've heard BIAB "arrangements" before and I didn't think they were all that good just because I'm a former pro musician, but because they were just not very ... musical. What you have to be is someone who is not only a good musician, but someone who's very good at "coding" your arrangement in BIAB to make it sound like it's not produced by a computer. It's difficult to do both. And, to tell you the truth, a good backing CD played through a good sound system will sound better than synthesized.
 
Philosophically speaking, I think that there should NEVER be music as a 'background' in a restaurant. If someone is playing live music, people should be listening.

If, however, you're hired to be 'wallpaper', it doesn't matter how you create the music--whether with a computer and a program, or people playing together.

I quit playing lounge/dinner music back in 1980, precisely because no one was listening. There are much better ways to make a living, IMO.

The restaurant that I've been playing a regular gig for the past two years has a proper stage and a proper sound system, and people LISTEN--sure they talk more than you would at a formal concert, but the music is NOT background.

I recently went to Portland, and went to hear jazz in two places. One was Jimmy Mak's, where there is a proper stage, and people listen. Then, we went to another restaurant where the music was merely an afterthought--there was no stage and the musicians were cramped together in the space of two two-tops.
Guess which I preferred?
 
I think it's dependent on what you, as a musician or as a listener, want. When I used to go to a particular pizza restaurant, I'd pay the slightly higher price (and leave a good tip) because they had a live classical guitarist that I liked. In my Chinese restaurant example, I liked the food more than the music, but the music was a nice added benefit.

Now, I've also mentioned that there's a pizza place a few miles away from me called Organ Stop Pizza and it is generally a 50-50 reason why you go there: the food is decent and the music is interesting: it's the world's largest theater pipe organ, after all -- and the theater pipe organs were designed exactly for background music. For silent films. However, it's hard to think of the 100+ instruments and towering pipes of that thing to be "background" music, except in a large municipal airport. Outside :).

There's also an Italian restaurant near here called Carraba's. A couple of the waitrons are also classical singers and they do come around to your table to sing. That's an interesting job split: waiting tables and singing on occasion.

I dunno. As a musician, I want myself to be heard, but I also really enjoyed playing/singing. If someone was throwing cash at me to perform, even if I was "background", I wouldn't have that much of a problem with it: I'm getting paid to do something I love.
 
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