Good morning luminaries.... Well...a friend of mine bought me BIAB (v2012.5 close out with Amazon for 79$) thinking it would be an interesting tool to work with. Although I say this with levity, I feel like I'm cheating. :) For the record, I've always recorded my material the old fashioned way by actually playing the instruments. :) I've never used a loop or other tools like BIAB for original material. I figured this tool would be an interesting change and might stimulate (what's left of) my musical creativity. So...I have worked with it for the last couple of days and put together one of my current songs using BIAB. I'm not finished with it yet and it doesn't sound too bad as there are boatload of options within BIAB. Just curious if others have made any jump to BIAB for similar reasons? Experiences? A creative day to all....carry on.

The "cheating" aspect has been argued here and other subforums (software, Producer, etc) ad nauseum.

My personal take is that it's no different than hiring a studio musician and I have several songs which utilize BIAB.

BIAB has the ability to create an entire song, structure, melody, everything - if you want it to.  If you do that, then I think you're "cheating" - you're not doing anything other than generating a song from algorithms.

but if you us BIAB to supplement the instruments you can't play yourself (or can't play well) and the song structure is yours and the melody is yours and you play SOMETHING on the recording (even if it's vocals) then BIAB is a great tool for that.

I use it on every song I create, EVEN if I don't end up using any of the instruments from the result.  it's a great tool to help with creation of the song.  I have a few songs that have NO BIAB instruments on the recording, but I have a BIAB file of that song because I used BIAB to help me create the structure and "feel" of the song.

just my 2 cents.

others will disagree.  cest le' vie.

Beagle The "cheating" aspect has been argued here and other subforums (software, Producer, etc) ad nauseum. 
 
Oh yes...I've been around long enough to know that....hence....my comment 'I say this with levity'.
 
I agree with your take on it also.
 
I've enjoyed working with it on my current song and have become quite aware of the depth of the program.
I hope I have neuron surplus so I can grasp some of this depth while I'm still above the dirt. :)
 
Thanks for commenting....I'm on a vertical learning curve with BIAB.
 
Carry on....
 

Beagle


My personal take is that it's no different than hiring a studio musician and I have several songs which utilize BIAB.

just my 2 cents.

others will disagree.  cest le' vie.

I sure don't mind being the one to disagree with that.
 
I can't imagine anybody that has ever played for any length of time with live musicians
not being able to know the differences.
 
The day a machine can replace what a live guitarist can bring to the game....game over for me...I'll
take up evaluating whiskey. :)   ( not to mention all the other instruments....and beverages :)

Hey spacey....

" I can't imagine anybody that has ever played for any length of time with live musicians
not being able to know the differences. "

I would agree with that comment also.

I was endorsing Beagles' take that:
"but if you us BIAB to supplement the instruments you can't play yourself (or can't play well) and the song structure is yours and the melody is yours and you play SOMETHING on the recording (even if it's vocals) then BIAB is a great tool for that."

I would not use it just to quickly generate songs with all the default offerings.
Using a tool of this nature is all new to me.

Thanks spacey for chiming in.....carry on.

spacey

Beagle


My personal take is that it's no different than hiring a studio musician and I have several songs which utilize BIAB.

just my 2 cents.

others will disagree.  cest le' vie.

I sure don't mind being the one to disagree with that.
 
I can't imagine anybody that has ever played for any length of time with live musicians
not being able to know the differences.
 
The day a machine can replace what a live guitarist can bring to the game....game over for me...I'll
take up evaluating whiskey. :)   ( not to mention all the other instruments....and beverages :)

Actually, I didn't state anything about the quality of the track from BIAB vs a studio musican's track.  I was merely speaking from the perspective of whether it's "cheating" to use BIAB tracks in a recording or not.
 
I completely agree with you that you will get a better quality sound from a hired studio musican, but that was not what I was saying.

When it comes to one enjoying themself making music it's whatever floats their boat.
Why would one care what others think anyway?
Why would you? I mean it's not like you're asking because you might buy it.

Turn the thing on and take it for a ride. It'll fit or it won't.

But can you really, really imagine such a crazy thing.....
Not real....just imagine...

Ring, ring...Hello? Hi Mike, it's Bill ( a great guitarist we've heard of)...Hi Bill, huh, what's up?
Man I'm in the hood and thought I'd lay some tracks down with ya........long silence......
huh Bill......yes Mike....man I have BIAB, I'm gonna have to pass....click.

Have fun with it...check it out...Years ago I bought it and haven't seen it since....but that's me.

I am a Box of Bandaids user... if that helps. Does it have Garage Band in a Box? Then it might make it worth it to buy an ipad. I'll have to confer with the monkey though...
 
J

Beagle

spacey

Beagle


My personal take is that it's no different than hiring a studio musician and I have several songs which utilize BIAB.

just my 2 cents.

others will disagree.  cest le' vie.

I sure don't mind being the one to disagree with that.
 
I can't imagine anybody that has ever played for any length of time with live musicians
not being able to know the differences.
 
The day a machine can replace what a live guitarist can bring to the game....game over for me...I'll
take up evaluating whiskey. :)   ( not to mention all the other instruments....and beverages :)

Actually, I didn't state anything about the quality of the track from BIAB vs a studio musican's track.  I was merely speaking from the perspective of whether it's "cheating" to use BIAB tracks in a recording or not.
 
I completely agree with you that you will get a better quality sound from a hired studio musican, but that was not what I was saying.

I took it exactly as written. I wasn't talking about sound quality either.
If you meant something else.....nevermind.
 

I accidentally bought the union version of BIAB so I've never heard anything from it since the "musicians" went on strike immediately and don't do anything except threaten anyone trying to use my DAW...