User Guide

Chapter 14: User Programmable Functions
412
• pattern,PostFill,A,8,0,8,1
• pattern,PostFill,A,5,0,1,9
• pattern,PostFill,B,4,0,2,17
PreFills
PreFill bars occur immediately before Fills. PreFills are not essential for a style to work, but can be useful
in situations where a drummer begins an elaborate fill a bar early. When Band-in-a-Box picks patterns for
bars that precede fills, it picks from among the pool of normal and prefill patterns. PreFills can either be 1
or 2 bars long. Prefills can be 1 or 2 bars long, with the 2-bar prefill containing the actual fill as well.
Here are some examples of PreFill patterns defined:
• pattern,PreFill,A,4,0,2,7
• pattern,PreFill,B,7,0,1,57
Normal patterns
Normal patterns generally make up the bulk of a Band-in-a-Box song. Any bar that is not immediately
before or after a part marker, and is not a count-in or ending, will be taken from the pool of normal
patterns.
Example 4: All of the highlighted bars in this example are “normal” bars.
Here are some examples of Normal patterns defined:
• pattern,Normal,A,2,0,1,3
• pattern,Normal,A,5,3,2,11
• pattern,Normal,B,5,1,2,75
• pattern,Normal,B,2,5,2,64
Endings
Endings are always 2 bars long, and generally have characteristics of fills for the first bar, but then end with
a drum hit on the 2
nd
bar, sometimes with a cymbal on the downbeat, but also often with a particular
rhythmic figure. You should check the ending in the Band-in-a-Box style that you will be using the
RealDrum style with to see what kind of rhythm should be used in the drums to match up. Endings can
only be 2 bars long, and you need to have at least one ending defined for a style to work.
Example 5: The two highlighted bars show where an ending is played in Band-in-a-Box.
Count-ins
Count-ins are always 2 bars long, and always occur at the beginning of a song (unless the count-in is
disabled in settings). Count-ins are usually sidestick tapping “one… two… one, two, three, four”, but you
can put anything in these two bars. You can have a person actually counting in, or you can have 2 bars of
drum fills as your count-in, etc.
2. Section Definition
Band-in-a-Box styles and RealDrums styles have two “subsections,” an ‘A’ subsection and a ‘B’ subsection. When
defining patterns, you need to specify whether the pattern is intended to be played during ‘A’ section or the ‘B’
section. For patterns to which the section is not applicable, you can fill this space with a “0.” These include the
count-in and the ending. You can make an exception for the ending, if you want to specifically designate an ending
to occur only when the preceding bar is ‘A’ or ‘B’. Instead of “0,” you would enter “Aending” or “Bending.” Just
remember that if you do this, you need to cover both eventualities. If you enter a “0” ending, this on it’s own covers
both cases.
Here are some examples of ‘A’ patterns:
• pattern,Fill,A,1,0,1,8
• pattern,PostFill,A,8,0,8,1