Instruction Manual

Chapter 11: User Programmable Functions
338
Additional Entries in the Text File
Bars Blocked
During the testing of your style, you may come across instances where a particular bar from the style wave file
simply does not sound good going into another specific bar from the style wave file. When this happens, you can
enter a “BarsBlocked” line into your text file to ensure that these bars are never played back-to-back.
When “BarsBlocked” is typed into the text file, followed by bar numbers separated by commas, Band-in-a-Box
takes the first number, and all of the bar numbers that follow are “blocked” from ever following the initial number.
So, for example, if this line is entered:
• BarsBlocked,24,35,41
then bar 24 can never be followed by bars 35 or 41.
However, when using this feature you need to be very careful that you are not creating situations where Band-in-a-
Box will not be able to find a possible match for a bar. When you block a bar, you need to make sure that there are
patterns defined starting on other bars that would also work.
Comments
When you create your style, you may want to add comments into the text file as reference points, or as reminders
about certain aspects of the style. This can be done in two ways: 1) semicolon comments 2)Pascal-style comments
If you type a semicolon into the text file, whether it’s at the beginning of a line, or at the end of a pattern definition,
and text that is typed after the semicolon is ignored, which allows you to type comments. For example:
• ;this entire line will be ignored by Band-in-a-Box
• pattern,normal,A,5,0,4,15;this text will also be ignored by Band-in-a-Box
Pascal-style comments are comments that are enclosed by { and } characters. Any text enclosed by these characters
will also be ignored by Band-in-a-Box. Unlike the semicolons, these comments can occur in the middle of a pattern
definition, and the line can continue after the comment. For example:
• {this entire line will be ignored by Band-in-a-Box}
• pattern,normal,{this text will be ignored}A,5,0,4,15
Alternate Styles & Expanded/Reduced Styles
Alternate Styles
It is possible for a wave file to be used for more than one style. For example, you may want to duplicate a style, but
omit certain fills, or assign different weights to certain patterns.
In this case, you still need to create a new RealDrums style group by creating a new sub-directory in the “Drums”
folder, and the text file for the style needs to be present. The only difference is that in the text file you would have
the name of the wave file you are using, and that name will be different from the text file name.
For example, if you have a “MyFunkyStyle” style at 90 bpm, these files would be present:
C:\BB\Drums\MyFunkyStyle\MyFunkyStyle_090_Style.txt
C:\BB\Drums\MyFunkyStyle\MyFunkyStyle_090_Style.wav
To make an alternate style, you could create this file:
C:\BB\Drums\MyFunkyStyleALT\MyFunkyStyleALT_090_Style.txt
The first line of this text file would be:
wavename=MyFunkyStyle_090_Style.wav
Expanded/Reduced Styles
Often you will find examples of drum grooves where the pulse can be treated as 8
th
notes or 16
th
notes. For
example, different musicians may disagree on whether a groove is 90 bpm with a 16
th
note pulse, or 180 bpm with
an 8
th
note pulse. In Band-in-a-Box, some styles are treated as 8
th
note styles and others are treated as 16
th
note
styles, and you may find examples where a drum beat that is intended for 8
th
note styles may work equally well on
16
th
note styles at half the tempo. In these cases, you can create two separate styles that both point to the same wave
file, and treat it as two different tempos. The same method as described in “Alternate Styles” above could be used,