# My New Video: How to Create a Sax Solo in Band-in-a-Box



## Reid Rosefelt (Apr 23, 2021)

The Saxophone is one of the hardest instruments to make into a virtual instrument. Unless you are highly skilled, or are able to hire a real sax player, using Band-in-a-Box just might be your best option for getting a realistic saxophone solo. After all, it generates a solo of recordings of session musicans playing along with the chords to your song. 

However there is a big problem. While the recordings are real, the stitching together of the solos is done by a computer algorithm. An excellent algorithm, but still an algorithm. You may not always be thrilled with the results.

This is how I get BIAB to do what I want it to. This works with any BIAB soloist. You do need a DAW with a comping feature.

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## Reid Rosefelt (Apr 24, 2021)

By the way, this video was inspired by the very impressive sax part in this piece by VI-Controller @Tatiana Gordeeva which was generated with BIAB. 

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## jbuhler (Apr 24, 2021)

TigerTheFrog said:


> The Saxophone is one of the hardest instruments to make into a virtual instrument. Unless you are highly skilled, or are able to hire a real sax player, using Band-in-a-Box just might be your best option for getting a realistic saxophone solo. After all, it generates a solo of recordings of session musicans playing along with the chords to your song.
> 
> However there is a big problem. While the recordings are real, the stitching together of the solos is done by a computer algorithm. An excellent algorithm, but still an algorithm. You may not always be thrilled with the results.
> 
> ...



I don’t have BiaB but the workflow seems similar to how you might extract a solo using Sonokinetic’s Noir, though playing the changes is a bit harder in the case of the latter, and you don’t have nearly as many solo snippets to work with. You do get a bit more control over which solo bits Noir generates though. In any case very interesting.

Does BiaB place any restrictions on reuse? I imagine you run into similar issues with respect to content ID as with other phrase-based libraries.


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## Reid Rosefelt (Apr 24, 2021)

jbuhler said:


> I don’t have BiaB but the workflow seems similar to how you might extract a solo using Sonokinetic’s Noir, though playing the changes is a bit harder in the case of the latter, and you don’t have nearly as many solo snippets to work with. You do get a bit more control over which solo bits Noir generates though. In any case very interesting.
> 
> Does BiaB place any restrictions on reuse? I imagine you run into similar issues with respect to content ID as with other phrase-based libraries.


I actually used Noir to create the brief sax solo at the beginning that accompanies a snippet of silent sax playing stock footage from Pexels. Best tool for that particular job.

Noir generates brief solos that work well with the other music that Noir creates, but BIAB starts from zero with the chords that you create. Depending on your chords, it can string together some pretty long phrases. 

As far as I know, PGMusic places no limitations on the use of BIAB. Of course the issues with Content ID happen with any phrase library, Omnisphere preset, and any of the billions of loops sole. In most cases you have a good chance of winning disputes on YouTube if you can prove you have t paid for the rights to the music you made. God knows, BIAB with all the realtracks is not cheap.

But it's a good question and I'll ask on their forum and get back to you.


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## Tatiana Gordeeva (Apr 25, 2021)

Thank you Reid for mentioning my music! Very nice of you!
Yes, the sax part in Nostalgia was challenging enough that I considered hiring a sax player to do it but that soon became impossible. My husband suggested BiaB as an alternative and that proved to be a viable idea. It came with its own set of difficulties but in the end I think that we prevailed


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## dflood (Apr 25, 2021)

TigerTheFrog said:


> God knows, BIAB with all the realtracks is not cheap.


Great tutorial Tiger! BIAB is an underrated unicorn program - it has a clunky, outdated UI, a bazillion features and settings, most of which I don't use, and yet I keep purchasing the audiophile updates every year. There is just so much in there, and like you, I often just mine it for those solo phrases. However, it's also great for quickly creating 'bed tracks' in a particular genre, even if you don't end up using them in the final version. Sometimes you really want to perform a part yourself, and other times you just want a session pro to step in and perform it. BIAB goes a long way to achieving the latter.


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