Can you burn BIAB files to CD?

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 7 Apr 2001 2:53 am

Since my PC speakers are no match for my stereo speakers, I was wondering if it's possible to transfer BIAB files to CD without buying a specific software package.
Has anyone done this? Thanks.

FIONA TOMANY · Post by **FIONA TOMANY** » 7 Apr 2001 3:39 am

I don't thinks so you should have software that cmae with your CD-writer to do the job.
I suggest you connect your computer to your hi-fi system via the Aux socket on the hi-fi and the line out on the computer. The speakers that come with the computer are not very good. I have the computer connect to the hi-fi all the time. I have been taping the Grand Ole opry for my mates this side of the pond.

Jim Cohen · Post by **Jim Cohen** » 7 Apr 2001 3:58 am

Yes! I've just done it, with the help of Big Jim Baron (bigjim4b@madnet.net). First you click on the button that turns it into a wav file and save it. Then you use your regular CD burning software to burn the wav file onto the CD-R. Voila!

Only trouble I've had is getting the volume correct, and also it doesn't want to use my VSC-88 sound module because of "latency problems" so it defaults back to the AWE-64 card in my computer which doesn't sound quite as good. But, overall, yes, it can be done.

------------------
www.jimcohen.com [This message was edited by Jim Cohen on 07 April 2001 at 07:46 AM.]

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 7 Apr 2001 5:28 am

File has to be burnt in .wav format to be able to listen to it on any CD player other than your CD-ROM. MP3's require a specialized player to be able to listen to them.
As Jim says, save it as a .wav file, then burn it to CD. Will play in your home, car computer etc. then.

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 7 Apr 2001 5:34 am

You have to have a later version of BIAB in order to save it as a wav file. I think Version 9 was the first to have this feature.

The reason you have to convert it is because BIAB uses MIDI to play songs.

Kenneth Kotsay · Post by **Kenneth Kotsay** » 8 Apr 2001 8:15 am

Yesterday I did this with my computer.

I removed the computer speaker wire from my Compaq computer and hooked a cable from the computer to the "IN" of my home hi-fi system amp. Took a blank cassette tape and recorded MIDI C&W tracks that I downloaded from the Midi sites into my ROLAND (BIAB) VSC88.

YO................ not only did I change the tempo of each track but also the key and man what a sound I got on my cassette, also you can delete various instruments in the Roland VSC88.

LISTINGS OF TRACKS:
Lonesome 7-203
House of the Rising Sun (wow, what a track)
Hey Good Looking
Johnny B Good

This is just a start. Guess what, no more mail order steel tracks for me.

Next step is the purchase of a CD buner, most like a hi-fi system type not a computer installed unit. The Tascom 700 looks very good at $600.00.

My new computer soundcard by Yamaha is working real great, also BIAB sounds real cool.

KEN "THE STEELING POLICEMAN"

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 8 Apr 2001 3:42 pm

I just did it yesterday, using a sound recording / wave editing program that came with my sound card. The trick is to set your MIDI output to also be an audio input to your wave recorder program.

I have an old Creative SoundBlaster AWE32 sound card. It includes "Creative Mixer", which controls the volume levels of various sound sources (MIDI, CD, Line In, and Microphone). Each of those 4 channels also has a record on/off switch. To make a CD-able WAV file from MIDI, this must be switched on for the MIDI channel.

Next, I opened "Creative Wave", a bare-bones WAV file recorder and editor. I set it up to record at 44.1 KHz in stereo.

I exported my BIAB file as MIDI, then opened the MIDI file in Windows Media Player. (I might not have needed to do that, but it seemed to me that Media Player was a lot more "lightweight" than BIAB, and the less software in the loop, the better.)

So at this point I had Creative Wave ready to record, and Media Player ready to play the MIDI file. It set them side-by-side on the screen, hit "Record" on Creative Wave and "Play" on Media Player. 4 minutes later I had a WAV file on my hard disk, suitable for burning to CD with Adaptec's Eascy CD Creator.

I went through this process for 3 tunes, then burned all 3 to a CD and took it downstairs to practice with.

I was impressed that all of this was possible using the "free" software that came with the sound card and Windows. Best of all, I didn't have to install any weird shareware programs. Everything worked as advertised. How often does that happen these days?

------------------
<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (E9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 8 Apr 2001 5:02 pm

b0b, BIAB, V9 and above have the "record to wav" function. It works fine and there is no other program or operation to do other than the BIAB function. It does the same thing that you did but it's done within BIAB. Basically one click (OK maybe two) and it generates the wav file.

I have an AWE64, which is basically the same as your 32 and it works well. In fact, I like the SoundBlaster/AWE64 MIDI better than I do the Roland VSC88. I tried the Roland and de-installed it after finding the AWE64 was better. Actually I like the AWE64 better than the SB Live series. I tried a SB live MP3 V5.1 and took it back. The MIDI was crappy, compared to the AWE64, and I had internal conflict problems that I couldn't resolve that was hanging up my CD burner when trying to burn CD's.

Jerry Gleason · Post by **Jerry Gleason** » 9 Apr 2001 11:18 am

Roland's VSC 3.0 can create an audio file from any MIDI file using the VSC sounds, which are very good. Just save your BIAB file as a MIDI file, then play it / export it with VSC 3.0. Burn it with your usual CD software.

Andy Volk · Post by **Andy Volk** » 9 Apr 2001 12:14 pm

Thanks, everybody. I'm going to follow your suggestions.

Kenneth Kotsay · Post by **Kenneth Kotsay** » 9 Apr 2001 4:15 pm

JACK or BOB - How do I get a Midi Song File that can be downloaded from a Midi music web site into BIAB, will the chords show up in BIAB screen, can I edit the midi song like change the chords & tempo????

KEN

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 9 Apr 2001 7:22 pm

The best thing to do would be to import the Midi file into Cakewalk. Then you can do anything you want with. Change keys, change tempos, edit the drum parts (slow downs or stops or the drum sounds),or add or subtract drum licks, mute, or change any of the instruments into different instruments,or change any instruments volume. It is almost unlimited. You can also do this with any of your BIAB files.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 10 Apr 2001 2:50 am

Ken there is an import function in BIAB. I've played around with it but never really got into it. The BIAB help file has information on that.

Actually, I have BIAB but I don't really use it a lot and haven't really "learned" the program the way I probably should. BIAB is not a "user friendly" program that you can install and run easily. It has so much in it that it needs a lot of time spent with it to really get a handle on all it's features and what can be done with it. I'm not knocking it as it's a great application - just you really need to "RTFB".

dlayne · Post by **dlayne** » 19 Apr 2001 7:23 am

Some one said that it had to be a wave file burned to cd to be able to listen to it on any cd player,MP3's can be burned and listened to on any cd player also.I convert my waves to MP3's to save on disk space.

------------------
Dan Layne

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 19 Apr 2001 7:33 am

Kenneth, I've never tried importing MIDI into Band-In-A-Box. To work with MIDI files, I use Power Tracks Pro. It's an inexpensive sequencer program from the same folks who produce BIAB. Often I export BIAB to MIDI so that I can polish up the parts in Power Tracks Pro. BIAB is sort of hard to use when it comes down to really refining a song.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 19 Apr 2001 3:58 pm

No, you cannot import midi's into BIAB. It only recognizes the chords you enter. You can, however, enter the chords from a keyboard, if you find it easier. It also recognizes the number system of entering chords. It would not be able to distingish which tone of all the notes being played in a midi was the actual chord note. It only accepts an actual note from a midi instrument or what you do manually. [This message was edited by Fred Murphy on 19 April 2001 at 04:59 PM.]

Kenneth Kotsay · Post by **Kenneth Kotsay** » 19 Apr 2001 4:17 pm

BOBBY LEE - I too have BIAB "POWER PRO TRACKS 3.5d" that came with my older BIAB version #7. I haven't installed the Power Track version into my PC yet. I currently have the new BIAB Ver #10installed. I'm hoping that when I do install the Power Pro Tracks it will be compatible with BIAB Version #10.

I have taken a song from BIAB and hit the MIDI button then saved it as a file in "MY DOCUMENTS." When I went into "MY DOCUMENTS", I hit the midi song file and it immediately opened and started to play in the ROLAND VSC88 sound canvas. You can do this with any song from BIAB. The Roland soundcanvas sounds very good and I can also edit the various instruments, tempo & key.

What I want to try in take a downloaded MIDI song file from a web site and try to loaded it into BIAB. You already told me that this cannot be done and the only way possible is to use the Power Pro Track program. Another solution I was told is to use CAKE WALK program but that software is high in price right now for me, I want to buy a professional rack unit CD burner like the one your purchased a few weeks ago so I can create my own personalized backup CD tracks.

The only problem I am having with the MIDI song files using the Roland VSC88 is that if a song has no " drum tics" (count off like most backup tracks have) then the problem I thus have is the song starts off right away, unlike BIAB songs that have "tic count offs" to them.

The Midi song "Lonesome 7-203" has a guitar picking the intro, if you edit the song and leave out the guitar well then there is no way of knowing when the song starts, get what I mean? The guitar is playing the melody line which I leave out and play the steel melody line parts.

So hopefully when I do load "Power PRO Tracks" I'll be able to add my own "drum tic off".

Thanks for the advice, by the way Bob how's your new CD burner??

KEN

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 19 Apr 2001 8:20 pm

http://music.cnet.com/music/0-1566074-7-1814695.html?st.mu.4638235.rc.1814695

If you check out this page, you will see that currently there are only 2 Audio CD players on the market that have the capability of playing MP3 files burned to CD. There are numerous dedicated MP3 players available tho, but a lot of them will not play a regular audio CD.
In the near future, we may have the best of both worlds, but not yet!!

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

dlayne · Post by **dlayne** » 20 Apr 2001 1:52 pm

Graham,I have MP3STER and it does just that,burns mp3's to cd,and listen to them on any cd,cdrom player.

------------------
Dan Layne

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 20 Apr 2001 5:19 pm

Dan:
I'll have to express my ignorance of MP3ster. Don't know what it is and can't find anything on the net about it.
I do know that mp3 files=digital=data, when burnt to CD. That is why regular home or car CD players can't play them. Audio CD's (whether home burnt or bought) are what is called "Redbook" CD's, which are made up of uncompressed audio known as CDA format. These will play in any home/car cd player, cdrom's, some dvd players and also on some of the portable mp3 players available today. Unfortunately, there is as yet not a lot of cross format players available in either the portable mp3 or home/car audio market.

I would be interested in hearing some more about this MP3ster you talk about. Web site??

Thanks

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 21 Apr 2001 4:04 am

The difference between a wav and mp3 is the mp3 is a compressed format. However, when they are written to CD are they both actually converted to the CDA format???

I haven't actually investigated how it is actually formatted on the CD, I'm just guessing from the other posts on here, but that seems to be what is happening.

Graham · Post by **Graham** » 21 Apr 2001 5:16 am

Jack:
From my experience, I would answer no. If I burn a directory of mp3's to CD, it is done using the data record function in Easy CD Creator, the same as recording a program like say, Windows to a Cd. The finished CD will play thru my computer on Winamp or Windows Media Player (I imagine other similar type players as well) but it will not play if I bring up the Windows CD player nor will it play if I put it in any of my home stereo CD players. The reason for this is that it is not in CDA (uncompressed audio) format but is instead Data. There are currently (see post above) 2 home audio CD players on the market which will play these Data CD's that I am aware of. I think we will see more in the future. There are also portable MP3 players on the market with the capability to play audio (CDA Redbook) CD's as well as MP3 (Data) CD's.
Hence my interest in what Dan is talking about(MP3ster) as my head is into music and I sure don't know all there is to know about computer music and /or sources for it.

That is what is so great about this Forum. We can all learn from it, even if the knowledge gained isn't about steel guitar.

------------------
Rebel™
ICQ 614585

http://users.interlinks.net/rebel/steel/steel.html

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 21 Apr 2001 6:18 am

Graham, let me put it another way. If I have a folder with MP3's in it and I "copy" that to a CD it will still be in MP3 format, same as a folder with WAV files or "data" files.

But, if I record an audio CD, from either MP3's or WAV's, don't they both get converted to the proper format for audio CD's?? or as was mentioned does it even matter??

I'm going to make a test "audio" CD with Adaptec from both wav's and mp3's and see what happens.

Jack Stoner · Post by **Jack Stoner** » 21 Apr 2001 7:18 am

Well, I made the test audio CD. I recorded two WAV songs and two MP3 songs. All four recorded without a problem using Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. I played them on my PC, on an older Sony boombox that has a CD player in it and on my stereo system CD player, that is at least 5 years old. No problem playing any of the songs on any machine.

According to the help file in Adaptec the songs can that you want to record (burn) can be wav or mp3, but I couldn't find any reference to what format was actually burned on the audio CD.

The only thing, I was unable to determine what the actual files were that were burned on the CD. All the various CD software that I have all just comes back and lists them as songs from the audio CD and not much more.

My conclusion is it doesn't matter which format, wave or mp3, that the file (song) is in when you burn a CD and the CD Recording (burning) Software takes care of any conversion, if needed.

Fred Murphy · Post by **Fred Murphy** » 21 Apr 2001 7:24 am

Kenneth I know you don't want to buy Cakewalk, but I believe you could buy a cheap version pretty reasonable. Around here, they have (Half Price Books) that sell used software. In cakewalk, you can import your midi file, then just advance it two measures, and then add your own count off tics, as many as your want. It makes it nice because you can edit any part of the midi, then just burn your file from the Adaptec program on your computer. You can edit out the lead instrument in the midi and leave room for your steel. There are probably a lot of different programs to do want you want, but this is pretty easy and works really well. They also sell the software on E-Bay, if you would want to take the chance.