- #Bluegrass band in a box free tracks how to#
- #Bluegrass band in a box free tracks skin#
- #Bluegrass band in a box free tracks windows#
Now I go back to the tracks view and regenerate only the tracks I want to "hold", which in this case is the bass, the acoustic guitar and the piano. Open up the "Chords" view in RealBand and enter the chord and then three dots "." in the required spots.ģ. Delete the loops and electric guitar from bar 1 to bar 4 (just be careful that you select a place in the track where there is no audio when deleting)Ģ. To get the desired effect in the intro I will simply do the following.ġ. You can see all the instruments playing all the time. Here, I have opened the basic Band-in-a-Box SGU file (with no holds) in Realband. (In the song "Stop and Smell the Roses" I added a banjo and a mandolin in Realband). I can also use holds on additional tracks that I generated after transferring my workflow over to Realband. I also find Realband to be very flexible in that I can regenerate only certain tracks in certain bars to obtain the "hold effect" in those bars. This is because I generally do this after I have recorded and tuned my vocals and I have moved my workflow over to RealBand. My preferred method of putting holds into a song is using RealBand. ie in bar number 2, I could type in "C.d" and this would have the same effect as right clicking and selecting "Chord settings, etc. For "Stop and Smell the Roses" I did this for bars numbers 2, 3, and 4 and in other places in the song where I wanted to add interest by having certain instruments to hold while others continue playing. A quick way of entering this notation is simply to type in the chord symbol, three dots and then a "d". This shows that there is a "hold" on the chord for everything except the drums. You will notice that Band-in-a-Box changes the chord symbol to red, places three dots after the chords symbol and the has a small"d". Then select "All except" and select "drums". Now, to get the "hold" effect on the other guitar, the piano and the bass, right click on bar one and select "Chord settings".Īnd then select "Hold chord" from the drop down menu. In this case, the electric guitar and loop has been muted in bar one and then set to "back to normal" in bar 5. This shows you that you have "something going on" behind the scenes. You will notice the little red underline on the first bar and on the fifth bar. In this example I wanted the electric guitar (guitar 2) and the loop to start playing on bar 5. Right click, select "Bar settings" again and select back to normal. Then go to the bar you want the electric guitar to start playing. In this case I did not want the electric guitar (guitar 2) and the loop to be playing in the intro so I selected "mute" for guitar 2 and for loop from the drop down menu. Now choose which instruments you want to mute. Here are the steps to achieve this in Band-in-a-Boxįirst, specify what instruments you want playing in what bars. Right click on the first bar and choose bar settings.
I also did not want the electric guitar or loops playing at all. For the intro I decided I wanted to have the acoustic guitar, the piano and the bass playing one single strum at the beginning of each bar while the drums continue playing normally. Here is a picture of the Band-in-a-Box file for Stop and Smell the RosesĪt this stage it we have the bass, drums, two guitars, a piano and a drum loop all playing all the time.
#Bluegrass band in a box free tracks windows#
6 Simple steps to make cool backing tracks using Band-in-a-Box or check out my video course First song with Band-in-a-Box for Windows
#Bluegrass band in a box free tracks how to#
If you want to know more about how to do this, check out this blog post.
The first is using Band-in-a-Box itself.įirst type in your chords and choose a style.
#Bluegrass band in a box free tracks skin#
There are two ways to skin this particular cat. This is achieved by using a combination of "mute" and "hold" The electric guitar and loops do not feature at all. For example, in the introduction the acoustic guitar, the piano and the bass are playing only one strum per bar, while the drums are playing "normally".
If you listen carefully you will notice how I don't have all the instruments playing all the time. The song is called Stop and Smell the Roses Here is a song I wrote recently with Liz Petty as part of the 50 90 songwriting challenge. It really is quite a nifty trick and worthy of a its own blog post. I recently launched my video course First Song with Band-in-a-Box for windows and one of the things that has peaked the interest of the more experienced users of the course has been how I use holds in my arrangement to create interest. If you want a detailed step-by-step guide on how to make and perform with Band-in-a-Box backing tracks, have a look at my eBook " Band-in-a-Box 101: A beginners guide to making and performing with Band-in-a-Box backing tracks"