[BTW, I am not the BitFlipper on the Cakewalk forums...]
I have to say, RB is quite buggy. Here are a few examples:
First example:
I imported a BiaB song which had various bar settings at individual bars. Mute/unmute some instruments, that sort of thing. Those bars are shown with a red box around the bar number in BiaB. In RB, the imported song would show similar red boxes around the bar numbers, except they were now at the WRONG bars. I believe they were offset by two bars or something. So the generated song would play completely wrong because the instruments would be muted/unmuted at the wrong locations.
EDIT 1: How do I remove bar settings from within RB? So far I was unable to figure out how to do that.
Edit 2: It looks like the bar settings appearing on the wrong bars might be caused by deleting measures before those bar settings. So RB shifts all the data in the measures but not the bar settings. But even before deleting any measures, the bar settings are applied at the wrong locations. After deleting measures, the bar settings are applied at different measures, but still at the wrong locations.
Second example:
So I had some generated RealTracks in RB. I then tried to generate a MIDI track using a different style. The MIDI track was below all the RealTracks. As I was struggling to make it work (see Third example below), at some point my first RealTrack (the bass track) suddenly changed to a track that contains MIDI notes even though i wasn't even working anywhere near that track. The waveform was no longer visible, but the mysterious MIDI notes were. I then did an Undo, but nothing happened. I did another Undo, and this time things I changed previously was undone. Which means I could not undo the change that happened to the RealTrack, but I could only undo all my steps prior to that. I then tried to force the bass track to re-generate, but got a warning that I could not do that with a track that contains MIDI data. I then selected the whole track and deleted all the MIDI notes. Again I tried to re-generate the RealTrack, and again I got a message about not being able to do it because it already contains MIDI data. OK, so the RealTrack is now lost. How do I get it back?
Third example:
For some reason, when I generate data on a MIDI track, some parts of it refuse to play back, while other parts do. There are MIDI notes throughout the whole track, but some parts just refuse to make any sound. This might just be a setting where it is following some bar settings as mentioned in the First example, but since I could not figure out any rhyme or reason for exactly why it seemed to happen at random points in the song, I assume this is a bug.
These kinds of problems just make using RB a pain to use, and I end up struggling to work around these issues instead of focusing on the music.
Note: I have RB 2010 build 2. I just downloaded 2010 build 4 but I read through the release notes and I didn't see any of these issues fixed (or maybe I just missed it). Were any of these issues fixed in build 4?
Others may give you a point by point detailed answer but I'll just say this. All these points are correct normal functions and are in the manual. I'll just give you two examples:
In point 2 "the midi track was below all the Real Tracks". Right, RT's are not midi they're audio tracks, read the manual about the difference between Band in a Box tracks and regular audio/midi tracks. It's true it's a bit confusing for a noob but you really have to read the book and this RB forum. In point 3 you talk about some notes not playing on a midi track. That almost certainly is caused by a given instrument being out of normal playing range of the midi notes in the track like notes below the low E on a bass guitar track or high notes on a trombone track or whatever. Some synths will play those notes, some won't it depends. That has nothing to do with RB.
Bob
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Others may give you a point by point detailed answer but I'll just say this. All these points are correct normal functions and are in the manual. I'll just give you two examples:
In point 2 "the midi track was below all the Real Tracks". Right, RT's are not midi they're audio tracks, read the manual about the difference between Band in a Box tracks and regular audio/midi tracks. It's true it's a bit confusing for a noob but you really have to read the book and this RB forum. In point 3 you talk about some notes not playing on a midi track. That almost certainly is caused by a given instrument being out of normal playing range of the midi notes in the track like notes below the low E on a bass guitar track or high notes on a trombone track or whatever. Some synths will play those notes, some won't it depends. That has nothing to do with RB.
Bob
Are you for real? I said the MIDI notes appeared on top of the RealTrack where they should not have been in the 1st place. In the second point you bring up, the MIDI notes are all more or less in the same range [in fact, they are the same chords repeating throughout the song]. The fact that in some measures they play fine, but in others those same notes are muted makes your point moot.
Maybe you are the noob here. A noob at reading comprehension. Are you just such a big PGMusic fanboy that you believe their products have no bugs?
Unbelievable...
That was fairly rude from someone asking for help.
It wasn't a very helpful answer apparently, but anyway ..
I wish I could help, but I have never experienced this. I do believe there is a two bar difference in the numbering of bars for the two programs. Realband will have -1 as I'm sure you noticed.
The latest update does correct a few other issues that might have been related. (Fixed: In the F5 Bar settings - when you select to Mute "ALL BB Instr." OR the Soloist track in the Bar Settings dialog, ANY RealTrack that you generate conforms to those settings...) I would definately suggest updating and see if it still happens.
I didn't know the mute/unmute from BiaB was a feature that RB would respond to. There are many other ways to accomplish this in RB, but if it is opening and using these from BiaB then maybe you have found a bug. It seems something like this was discussed recently, maybe in the Off-Topic or BiaB sections, hopefully someone with more BiaB experience can chime in.
The combination of problems you had is strange, since I really haven't heard of any of these problems on their own, let alone all happening in one session.
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Are you for real? Maybe you are the noob here. A noob at reading comprehension. Are you just such a big PGMusic fanboy that you believe their products have no bugs?
I guess you don't actually want any help with your problems, then...
rharv, are you saying I am the person that was rude? I was responding to jazzmammel's rude reply to mine. I think not being able to comprehend the issue at hand, and then calling someone a noob is pretty rude.
BTW, here are the steps to reproduce the issue as mentioned in my second point:
Have an RB song with some RealTracks.
1. Select a RT, right-click and select "Generate MIDI Track" and select one of the track types to generate. Notice that you get the warning that you cannot do that, which is expected (are you paying attention jazzmammel? I am clearly saying that this is the expected behavior).
2. Now select and then right-click a MIDI track, and do the same. Notice this time you don't get a warning, and the MIDI data is generated, as expected.
3. Again select a RT, but this time right-click on a MIDI track (while the TR is still selected), and choose "Generate MIDI Track" and select one of the track types. This time you do not get a warning, and the MIDI data is generated on top of the RT track. The RT track is converted to a MIDI track.
This may or may not be by design, but there are issues even if this is supposed to happen:
1. When you right-click on something, it should be selected first, which doesn't happen in this case (this is standard UI behavior).
2. You should be able to Undo this change, but you can't. This leads me to believe that this is not the intended behavior.
3. There doesn't seem to be any way to convert the track back to a RT.
4. Why isn't the same warning there telling you that you can't do the operation since the track contains audio data, like it does when the selected and right-clicked tracks are the same?
Most likely this is a bug where RB gets the selected vs the right-clicked tracks mixed up, doesn't present the "You can't do that dialog", and generates the MIDI data on the track anyway. Or else it is intended, but the Undo is broken.
They call him Flipper, Flipper.............
Sorry I hate to insult the poor dolphin.
Bo Way
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Are you for real? Maybe you are the noob here. A noob at reading comprehension. Are you just such a big PGMusic fanboy that you believe their products have no bugs?
I guess you don't actually want any help with your problems, then...
I'm sorry, I don't understand this. jazmammel was calling me a noob yet the problem was he clearly can't comprehend the problem. I have been doing computer music for more than 15 years, I wrote a bunch of VST plugins (including ones that detects audio pitch and ones that process MIDI events), so I think I know the difference between MIDI and audio at this point. To call me a noob purely because he can't understand the problem seems pretty rude to me.
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They call him Flipper, Flipper.............
Sorry I hate to insult the poor dolphin.
Bo Way
Did you mean "Go Away"? If so, why? I paid a lot of money for RB, and I'll complain about its numerous bugs if I feel like it. I find it strange that people can be so defensive about such a buggy piece of software. Do all of you just pretend like it has no bugs? While my initial post might not have been as diplomatic as it could have been (yet I was not rude at all), the intention was to point these issues out, and hopefully get them resolved so that RB becomes a better product. If that is not acceptable, then I apologize for pointing out that RB might not be perfect. And for being a noob that doesn't know the difference between MIDI and audio.
Is there any possibility that we can get back to the issues I am pointing out here?
The steps as outlined in post #272906 seem to indicate that there are some issues here. Has anyone tried these steps? Can anyone confirm or deny this behavior?
Hi Bitflipper,
I loaded a BIAB song with bar settings into RB and, just like you said, I get the red boxes around those bars. This surprised me because, as far as I was aware, RB does not import BIAB's bar settings. As I understood it, RB - being an audio workstation - simply reads and computes a whole track: volume adjustments for mutes, etc., are then applied to the locations needed. One way to do this it to use the mixer panel and record the slider movement.
Anyway, when I loaded in the BIAB file, the red boxes were located on the correct bars. It might be that when you saved the BIAB file, you didn't use the 2-bar count in. In RB, if you go to "Preferences" and select the "General" tab, you can change the "Default measure offset" to match the BIAB file. This should allow you to match RB with BIAB. I suspect that you might need to reload the file.
Have you had a chance to have a look at the Realband tutorial video? If you are interested, it's called "Introduction to RealBand (Streaming WMV) | .zip download" and is located at...
http://www.pgmusic.com/realbandvideos.htmRegards,
Noel
You still had an audio track (RT) hilighted, so that is the track it got generated on. You said to generate midi track on a highlited track.
This was a good catch, they probably should not allow that (gray out the option) or give a warning. That is not something most of us normally do, as evidenced by the fact it didn't get caught in beta testing.
Maybe they DO want it to be able to do that, and it's just something you have to be careful of.
In the mean time - Don't do that. Change the habit. And send a note to support so they have a clue it needs fixing.
If they can dupe it, it sounds like an easy enough fix. But only if they want to. It may be by design, but just needs a warning added.
Noel,
Thanks for the reply. Yes I have the count-in in BiaB set to 0. But this indicates that there is a problem with the import because RB should take this into account. Also, when you delete measures in RB, you will see that the bar settings are not moved with the other data. Did you try and generate the RB tracks? In my case at least, even though the bar settings initially appeared at the correct measures, they were still generated at the wrong places. Once I deleted some start measures, they appeared at the wrong locations as well as being generated at completely different places from where they visually appeared.
As for the steps outlined in one of my previous posts, did you try those to see if you can reproduce the issue with irrecoverably losing a RealTrack by inadvertently having a RT selected while right-clicking on a MIDI track and generating it? I find it really hard to believe that this is by design.
Thanks for the tip about the video tutorial, I was able to figure out how to edit the bar settings. You have to press F5, which seems to be the only way to get to it which is why I could not find it in any menu or context menu.
Thought about PM'ing, but since you asked in public, rather than PM'ing me, I'll answer here.
I thought your reply to jazzmammal was pretty rude. He used the term 'noob' in passing, making an assumption. I read and re-read his post and don't think it was agressive towards you. Your reply to him was pretty agressive. Jazzmammal may have been a little coky in his assumption, but stepped in to help, I don't think he was ridiculing you, and that comes from years of reading his posts.
So yeah, I was talking to you. Not trying to be rude in return, I did continue and try to help afterall.
What I saw was a request for help, and the first guy that tried was pretty much attacked. I've thought about it and don't think it was 'herd instinct' to protect Jazzmammal, we have a pretty peaceful forum for the most part. That type of response stood out to me. Makes the next guy a little hesitant to help <grin>
I think you did find a couple things that can be improved. The 'undo' error would need to be fixed for sure. The warning about overwriting may be nice idea. However, I'll point out again, you did have an audio track hilighted and told the program to write a midi track on that track. It just did what you said there. I hope you stick around and volunteer for beta next year. These type of things are best discussed during testing so they don't get out.
Those bar markers also need to be either accounted for or ignored.
That was another good catch.
Please do submit these things to support, or at least reference them to this thread. They are attentive to things that need fixing like this.
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You still had an audio track (RT) hilighted, so that is the track it got generated on. You said to generate midi track on a highlited track.
This was a good catch, they probably should not allow that (gray out the option) or give a warning. That is not something most of us normally do, as evidenced by the fact it didn't get caught in beta testing.
Maybe they DO want it to be able to do that, and it's just something you have to be careful of.
In the mean time - Don't do that. Change the habit. And send a note to support so they have a clue it needs fixing.
If they can dupe it, it sounds like an easy enough fix. But only if they want to. It may be by design, but just needs a warning added.
I think this is unintentional behavior because from what I can tell once you have audio data on an audio track you are prevented from converting it to a MIDI track in all other cases. When you first have an audio track selected, in this particular use case it somehow bypasses the usual checks and the track is converted to a MIDI track when it should not have been.
BTW, you can do a right-click in any application. The standard behavior is to first select the item you right-clicked on. If RB wants to deviate from this behavior, it should at least warn the user that they are doing something that is not possible given the selected track. In addition, the reason why I didn't notice the selection didn't change was because the context menu is so big it covered up the tracks. If you right-click close to the left of the track, the tracks are completely covered up by the context menu.
That's a very valid point. Please submit it to support, so they can look at it. Let me know if you aren't going to, I'll do it.
It's worth having them look at. I like every improvement that can be made.
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Thought about PM'ing, but since you asked in public, rather than PM'ing me, I'll answer here.
I thought your reply to jazzmammal was pretty rude. He used the term 'noob' in passing, making an assumption. I read and re-read his post and don't think it was agressive towards you. Your reply to him was pretty agressive. Jazzmammal may have been a little coky in his assumption, but stepped in to help, I don't think he was ridiculing you, and that comes from years of reading his posts.
So yeah, I was talking to you. Not trying to be rude in return, I did continue and try to help afterall.
What I saw was a request for help, and the first guy that tried was pretty much attacked. I've thought about it and don't think it was 'herd instinct' to protect Jazzmammal, we have a pretty peaceful forum for the most part. That type of response stood out to me. Makes the next guy a little hesitant to help <grin>
I think you did find a couple things that can be improved. The 'undo' error would need to be fixed for sure. The warning about overwriting may be nice idea. However, I'll point out again, you did have an audio track hilighted and told the program to write a midi track on that track. It just did what you said there. I hope you stick around and volunteer for beta next year. These type of things are best discussed during testing so they don't get out.
I don't want to keep harping on this, but jazzmammel surely wasn't offering any help, instead he stated all my observations were as intended ("All these points are correct normal functions and are in the manual"). Which it clearly isn't. He also said he understands that these concepts are difficult to understand for a noob like me. So to be honest with you, he wasn't trying to help at all, and anyone that finds legitimate bugs and then gets a response like that will be offended.
I understand your point about the RT being initially selected, and agree that the work-around is simple enough (make sure to first left-click the track you want to modify). My point here is that there are two bugs really: One, the track I right-clicked on should have been selected (as per standard UI conventions), and 2, the usual checks to determine whether the operation is valid was somehow bypassed in this case. These two bugs together results in an irrecoverably lost RT. Not a super big deal because I can recreate a similar RT on an unused track, but then again I could also lose various edits and settings I made to the RT.
I do see your point, and you forgot about the markers not behaving correctly. That's another issue entirely.
The last couple sentences of your post in reply to jazzmammal were what I was referring to in my post immediately following. Sorry if that isn't how you see it (honestly). I thought that was the changing point. Just me though, although I can see it set a couple others off too. Like I said - it's pretty peaceful and helpful here most of the time. I visit other forums that aren't quite as 'polite'. It seemed out of place here, which is why I noticed.
Thanks for hanging in there and pointing this out..
and really; jump in for beta testing when it comes around.
Yes I can see my response was a bit strong. I'm usually also quite calm but those kinds of arrogant responses to valid issues ticks me off. Anyway, enough of that...
I did go ahead and file the issue with the RT being overwritten. I will post another for the markers not moving when deleting measures.
OK, see, that is the problem with forums. Sometimes it is difficult to get someone's true demeanor from reading static text. Now when I read jazzmammal's post again, I see that my initial understanding of his demeanor might have been wrong. It is possible to read his post as if it has a sarcastic undertone (does it?), which is how I initially read it. If you were not being sarcastic, then sorry for my strong response, although I still stand by my point that you did not understand the original problem and immediately assumed I was clueless. One of my pet peeves is if someone tells me I am clueless while the reality is that they don't fully understand the real problem. I may not be a RB expert, but I have been working with MIDI/audio for many many years, in addition to developing software for a living and I think I can recognize a bug when I see one.
cool
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cool
LOL, you were probably responding to my previous post... 
Yep.
I appreciate your diligence in this. Forums can indeed be frustrating.
Thanks
I mean the attitude "go away".
We are a pretty friendly bunch here and not your typical forum. We are like family. Sometimes we disagree but always kiss and make up. Our intention is to help and we will all go the extra mile for you and anyone else. This is a small company and I think most of us here feel we are truly a part of it. Peter Gannon acts that way and makes us feel truly welcome. Don't come in swinging "cause we'll take your head off.
That said I'll look at your post and see what I come up with. I have close to 200 songs down in RB and as of yet have not noted those issues however I will look specifically at them.
Looks like you 2 have it covered.
Just want to add...
I think both RB and BiaB are pretty amazing products, and they do things that still amaze me. For instance the chord detection feature that I have used a few times. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have done some of my own DSP programming (including detecting the pitch of a singer in realtime), so I am aware of the complexities that must exist for something like detecting complete chords and timing info from a song. That is an amazing feat. And the RB generated tracks do sound really good too. I have a friend who is a pretty hardcore, oldschool guitar player and his jaw dropped when I played him a BiaB song (I used BiaB to work on a song idea before I started working on it in my main DAW).
But the reason for my initial post and its annoying undertone has to do with the fact that I just ended a very frustrating session with RB where I tried to do something but these bugs kept interfering. After I finally got close to what I wanted, I lost the RT due to the mentioned bugs earlier. I feel RB and BiaB has the potential to be truly awesome products if the bugs can be brought under control. Also I think most will agree the UI suffers from feature overload, inconsistencies, outdated concepts and years and years of adding features without doing any spring cleaning. Obviously the developers are really smart, judging by some of the powerful features you find throughout both programs (and often those features work really well, like the chord detection - diamonds in the rough if you will), but a complete UI rewrite is required. And maybe an updated development model where unit testing is added (or improved) to test some of these features more thoroughly to get the bug count down.
Also, once again apologies to jazzmammal if I misunderstood the tone of your post. The first time I read it, it really seemed to me that it was sarcastic and mocking me for being a "noob". That post can really be read in different ways.
BTW, I am more than happy to help with beta testing since for some odd reason I always seem to find obscure bugs in applications.
BTW 2, I also filed a bug report for the bar settings not shifting properly when deleting bars in RB.
BitFlipper
please allow me to comment , i hope in a friendly way re the UI.
heres the issue. for me lots of ui's these days are too flashy imho.
some apps seem to use it as a marketing tool.
i'm more intersted in what lies underneath.
now..as you know software engineering, youll also know that
codeing for the pc with a slew of different configs out there is a challenge.
one user might have an old clunky ancient pc while another might
have a i7 with all the toys mate.
for example some people have said to me that the powertraks ui needs an update.
to which i reply...it was prolly designed to even run on old clunker pc's.
the other prob is prolly pg have a large user base thats used to the ui as it is.
so a learning curve might be involved in a redo.
there are those that might say..heck let the user do the ui n customise it anyway he/she sees fit..
but once again...in software engineering there is no free lunch.
to do such means more source code to handle this user flexibility.
ive sen first hand the results of doing such...more bloat is the result mate.
(ps i'm just a user, n got no links to pg cept as a past customer.) .
its the old software engineering catch 22 mate.
the software ballon pops out a problem bulge in one part of the balloon,
which the software engr solves only to be replaced by another prob in another part of the balloon.
There are indeed a few buggy features, but as mentioned by Bitflipper there are features other software can't touch. The ACW chord and beat detection is awesome. The whole realtrack concept is exceptional. Little things like the scrollbar in the edit window can be annoying, but are happily traded off for the other features and results.
It would be nice if they could fix those little things. A couple things you'll hear about often here are the VSTi support for plugins requiring time code and the odd time support of the notation. These have been on the block for a while.
The GUI is indeed dated, soem new color and neater look is due. When I show people the program for the first time they of course comment on the aged look.
However when I show them a couple key features it becomes much less of a topic. Eye-candy traded off for features.
I truly hope you can be involved in testing, good eyes help catch these things before release. It wasn't too long ago we did testing on this version and all of us must have missed those things you found. We caught some stuff, but obviously missed some. Your programming background may help with suggested solutions.
They don't seem too anxious to upgrade the UI, so I'm not expecting that any time soon, but they have surprised us before. That ACW, when I first saw it just amazed me. Being able to get the chords and the tempo map just right was really cool. Then they threw in the coup when the realtracks were released; the reason for the ACW became apparent and its power was multiplied with what it could help you do. I'm glad you like the program overall. I turn to RB quite often, more than most other DAW software I own, and I do have a few.
Being a programmer though you know you should be saving often, always a good idea. I hate losing data I had worked on! So I can relate to your frustration when you posted.
I just came back and read this thread and initially I was going to jump in and maybe say something but it's cool, you sound like a good guy so lets just chalk it up to typical internet forum misunderstandings.
I now have my own problem. I just tried to run Real Band to check your point about generating a midi part on top of an existing Real Track (I would have never thought of that one) and discovered my Ultra Pak hard drive won't work. I haven't used it for a while, been very busy. It runs, I can hear it spinning but it won't light up and my desktop system won't see it, my laptop won't see it and I even ran Easy Recovery Pro and it won't see it either. I didn't copy it to one of my other externals when I first got it like all good noob's should thinking I'll get to it later so how stupid is that? Oh yeah to add insult to injury, for years now I also had everything on my C drive all the downloads, all the beta's and everything else but a couple months ago I deleted it all because with all the new stuff I was running out of space on my C drive, the external hd was running fine, so now I can't run squat. Dead in the water. I distinctly remember thinking you're going to regret this, I haven't backed up the Ultra Pak yet but my system was really running slow and I discovered I only had like 4 gigs free space left and that's barely enough to run Windows. I had over 40 gigs of various beta's and RT's on my C drive, I was jammed up I had to complete a project so I deleted that stuff.
I contacted support, we'll figure something out. Some expert, eh? Man o man o man. How many times have we all said to each other to make backups immediately?
I'm a tax accountant in my day job and every year I have to put stuff off during the first quarter and when tax season is finally over and I can come up for air, I do all the housecleaning both literally and with my computers. I had it all planned to do the updates like the new RT pushes and holds I downloaded but haven't installed yet, copy the hard drive and all that kind of stuff. Oh well.
Bob
Have you tried double plug USB cable?
#2 I've tried and I get a message" can't generate a midi track on an audio track that has data."
# 3 can't reproduce
#1 can't reproduce. I originally had all of my songs in BIAB. When RB came out I loaded them into RB and all the bar settings stayed the same.
Ah yes #3 just came back to me as I was doing a song. I've gotten so used to it I actually forgot that it MAY be a bug and not intended. Once you generate the MIDI part take note that the MIDI channel is 0 . That needs to be changed to something. You also need to select the synth and patch as well even though something is visible in the track view.
Yes I tried using both usb plugs, I can hear it spinning but it won't light up.
Bob
jazzmammal, yea it definitely sounds like the drive went bad. Did support say they had some sort of replacement program for such cases? Maybe you can get a replacement for the cost of the drive plus shipping, or something like that.
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silvertones
#2 I've tried and I get a message" can't generate a midi track on an audio track that has data."
# 3 can't reproduce
#1 can't reproduce. I originally had all of my songs in BIAB. When RB came out I loaded them into RB and all the bar settings stayed the same.
For #2, make sure to first select the RT with a left-mouse click, then use a right-click to bring up the context menu for the MIDI track. Also, I think the RT type should match the MIDI type of track. For instance, left-click on the bass RT. Then right-click on an empty MIDI track and choose to generate the bass track. In my case, the RT will now be converted to a MIDI track with MIDI data.
For #3, I suspect what I was seeing was a symptom of #1. I have BiaB set to 0 count in bars, but RB was set to a bar offset of -2. Maybe this mismatch added to the problem (I think RB should account for differences in offsets when importing). Also, I believe I deleted a few bars in RB that was before some of the bars that contained bar settings (you modify bar settings by selecting a measure in the Chords view and pressing F5). Those bar settings were muting some instruments. So what happens is that the MIDI data is generated on the track, but areas that have been muted in the bar settings were muting the MIDI data (which is the expected behavior I guess). I would probably have caught this except that due to the fact that RB got the bar settings mixed up and applied it to the wrong bars. For instance, a bar setting might be set to mute the piano on bar 10, but internally RB applied this to bar 8 (for example) and at that point the MIDI notes will be muted/unmuted at the wrong locations. So what you see visually and what you hear doesn't match up.
I just tried to repro #2 with a blank project and it is really easy to do:
1. Change track #1 to an Audio track.
2. Select, then right click track #1 and choose "Select and Generate RealTrack".
3. In the dialog, choose any bass style and click on Close. The audio is generated.
4. Left-click on track #1 to select it.
5. Right-click on track #2 and select "generate MIDI track -> Bass".
Notice that track #1 is now converted to a MIDI track and contains MIDI data.
6. Select Edit->Undo.
Notice that the name of track #1 is reverted back to the previous RT value, but the track is still a MIDI track and still contains the MIDI data (iow, the Undo is only done partially). The RT is now lost, and there is no way to get it back to its state prior to step #5.
Also notice that if you right click on a selected RT and choose "generate MIDI track", you will get a warning that it is an invalid operation. This warning is bypassed if the steps are followed above.
OK I can replicate #2 the way you say however it's not something you should ever do except by accident. If I want a MIDI part on track 2 I would first select track 2. Now I'm not saying I agree with the way it works. Windows convention in other programs would automatically select the track whether it's a right click or an intentional left click thus preventing this accident. This is their choice and not a bug.
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I just tried to repro #2 with a blank project and it is really easy to do:
1. Change track #1 to an Audio track.
2. Select, then right click track #1 and choose "Select and Generate RealTrack".
3. In the dialog, choose any bass style and click on Close. The audio is generated.
4. Left-click on track #1 to select it.
5. Right-click on track #2 and select "generate MIDI track -> Bass".
Well, umm, programmers don't need warnings, they have experience in troubleshooting. Just kidding. 
It does indeed generate on the selected track. Which is what I would expect it to do.
And maybe it was intended that actions would be performed on selected tracks.
However, there is a simple solution, if you don't want to select another track.
After generating audio on your track 1 that is still selected, when you want to generate a midi track somewhere below, just right click to the right side of the new track where the track data is going to be, instead of on the left side where the selections are highlighted.
Now, when you right click, the new track for the midi will automatically be selected on the left, and a new midi track will generate with the audio track left in tact.
I haven't programmed in twenty or so years, but as an electronics technician I used logic to troubleshoot. 
Hope this helps some, until RealBand is perfect. Good luck. May the force be with you keywalker. LOL
BlueTurbit, I really don't think this is the intended behavior. I would say the expected behavior should be exactly as if you selected and then right-clicked on a RT and selected generate MIDI data (you get a warning saying the operation is not allowed). Since RB prevents you from changing a RT (with data) into a MIDI track in all other cases, I would definitely see this as a bug. Especially since you cannot undo the change.
The UI designer/implementer has to assume that the user might be able to do things that they did not anticipate. If the user is able to get the program into an unintended state using a slightly different set of steps, then it should be considered a bug. I was bitten by this bug because I assumed RB followed the standard right-click convention and this coupled with the inability to undo made me lose the RT. As I said it is not a really big deal since it is possible to recreate the RT track on an unused track but you will lose edits and settings you made for the RT. Also the work-around is simple so I'll be careful not to make the same mistake again.
Oh and BlueTurbit, thanks for the tip about right-clicking on the data part of the track. I think it would be easier to change my habit to right-click on the data part of the track than it would be to change my habit to first left-click the track to select it (since this is the usual convention and I am just too conditioned to doing it that way).
1. Very little of a communication between humans is verbal. The vast majority is non -verbal thus the constant misunderstandings of the written word, forum or not.
2. The attack mentality however, comes across just fine.
A) I moved my computer, ie shutting it down, and changing floors. It's band in a box vista. I was a noob. Stuff changed. I had to spend 4 hours getting things back right. Error messages, midi not working, unbalanced sounds. I feel for the new users. The machines and soundcards are all different, we have different sound cards, mics, and mixers.
It would be easier to go the Mac only route, then you'd just starve to death on the sales but have almost no frustrations with changing hardware. A lot of good work is being done by many with this software, people I see out playing, but they never visit here, or lurk, and don't complain.
It is rare to see the pit bull in the room, but it's not hard to hear the 'tone' change from "I have these problems and they can't be my fault and I demand an immediate re-write, fix with this stupid buggy software, to "I won't put up with you pro-pgmusic idiots defending a piece of crap."
You catch the fish of your choice with the bait of your choice.
As for me I'm going back to wallowing in self pity for the wife is going to work and I'm home alone again and not feeling so hot...
Of course I demand the evangelicals fix this cancer with prayer, or else. Buggy religion. Can't even extend their own average life span, despite having a pipe lne direct to God.
At least my Mom has an hour a day she's devoting to something other than complaining about he 83 yr. old body shutting down....
I'm going to get a 1/2 coffee 1/2 boost with an ice cube and ruminate. Ruinate. Wish I ate.
Yes John I agree.
I happen to know all 3 were intended this way.
And yes this is a forum were we try to help each other either fix things that are not understood or find work arounds for things that need fixing. Your 3 issues have been addressed and if you don't like the answers go somewhere else to complain if that's what you need to do.
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Of course I demand the evangelicals fix this cancer with prayer, or else. Buggy religion. Can't even extend their own average life span, despite having a pipe lne direct to God.
Praise the Lord, he's feelin' more like his old self again already!
We love you, John.
Get well soon.
--Mac
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1
It is rare to see the pit bull in the room, but it's not hard to hear the 'tone' change from "I have these problems and they can't be my fault and I demand an immediate re-write, fix with this stupid buggy software, to "I won't put up with you pro-pgmusic idiots defending a piece of crap."
You catch the fish of your choice with the bait of your choice.
Well, while I hate to stir the dirt, and picking up on this point is not intended to continue any ill will, I have been reading along and have two cents to add.
First, John, while generally well said, (you do have a way with words), I do believe you misquoted the OP. The actual quote was,"...Are you just such a big PGMusic fanboy that you believe their products have no bugs? "
Now I have to admit I troll a number of forums and this type of rheatoric is not uncommon, however, it certainly is unusual here! As many have said, this forum is indeed a very friendly place. Not to imply there have not been "issues" over the years, but in general a very friendly place. Which is one of the reasons I stick around.
The second reason is that I am apparently one of those "...big PGMusic Fanboys". But here is what the OP needs to appreciate. BIAB and RB are powerful applications. They are not perfect and they do not always work the way one would anticipate. But they do work! And there is nothing out there which can do what they do. This forum is a place to discuss workflow and workarounds (others before me have stated this better). BIAB is the swiss army knife of music applications. You just need to figure out how to use it to accompish your goals, and it ain't easy.
So please tread a little lighter when you are a new guy on the block. Don't react to any single response but wait a little to see the overall climate. Oh and by the way, welcome to the forum.
Dan 
I guess I have gotten jaded by "typical" forum attitudes, hence my defensive nature. Certainly seems over reactive now that the intent is clear to me, so let's just say my initial interpretation of jazzmammal's post was wrong. I am certainly going to try and give posters the benefit of the doubt if their posts can be read in different ways.
Yes, like I said I have been in some of those forums also. This place is different. We all try to check the attitude at the door and come with a clear intention to further develope musically using this fantastic product.
Hi, BitFlipper -
I suspect that Jazzmammal, as did I, looked at your 20-some odd posts on the forum and figured you were a noobie (not necessarilyi with computer music applications, but with PGMusic applications specifically). Don't take that personally; there are times I still feel like a noobie, and I've been using the product for many, many years. I originally took offense at your "PGMusic Fanboy" response (even though not directed to me), because as has been said, we love our PGMusic programs but realize there are some issues. But, it looks like that's now resolved as a simple misunderstanding.
Since we can't directly make changes to the program, we often find workarounds to help people out (and then ask for a specific fix on the wishlist). Maybe the original help offered wasn't the right answer, but sometimes it takes several go-rounds to figure it out. The folks here really do try to help, but we're just users like you are, and our help is based on our own experiences using the product.
So, welcome to the forum, and hopefully you'll be able to start answering questions yourself, and I'm sure you'll still have questions of your own. I still ask questions, because I always seem to learn something new everyday.
Peace...
Hi BitFlipper, you had asked what response I got from support about my hard drive. It took them a bit longer than I thought it should to get back to me but they responded by saying if it truly is bad, they will replace it but suggested I try opening up the case and reseating it, it may have become unplugged internally. They gave me detailed instructions, it seems simple enough. I'll give that a try in a day or two.
Bob
Well, I'd certainly like to see RB 2011 be the version that has "No new features, but over 75 bug fixes!" instead of "Over 50 new features and 82 new bugs."
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over 75 bug fixes
While the bugs and "undocumented features" should be fixed, I'm thinking that isn't going to play very well for new customers, marketing-wise.
OK Bill Melater & BitFlipper the challenge is on. I want you to list 75 bugs that are in fact bugs that can't be dealt via a simple work around. And remember it's not a bug just cause it doesn't work the way you may think it should. I use both programs everyday about 8 hrs a day and I have yet to find something that prevents me from doing what I need to do. I'm over the 200 song mark in RB.
Just to wrap up my hard drive problem, it was the internal plug. When I took out the two small screws, the end cap just fell out with the plug, it wasn't even partly attached to the hard drive. I reattached it and it's good to go.
I agree with the comments about people who think something that may be unusual is actually a bug. To me a true bug is something that is written about in the advertising, also in the manual and it's supposed to do one thing but it doesn't. A true well known bug is the VST tempo matching problem in Power Tracks/Real Band. BitFlippers thing about forcing a midi track on top of an existing Real Track certainly is interesting but it's not an advertised feature that is not working correctly. Sure, there could be a warning "are you sure" balloon but it really is just a user forcing the program to do something that apparently nobody has ever heard of. I can understand him being upset about losing his audio edits though.
Bob
I save ,save ,save before doing anything.
There's also the backups folder inside the RB folder were the program creates backups.
As a side note-
The only way to load the automatically saved backups is to File- Open Backup. They will not show up using simple File-Open routine.
Keep track of your saves, and your saves will keep tracks for you.
To me, it is an opportunity cost thing. Everytime I use BIAB I run into a bug of some sort. But, when I consider all it is doing and the processes it must involve in order to have to work with my pea-brain, in addition to the exceptional staff at PG Music who work to fix as many issues as possible as they become aware of them, it far outweighs the cost of the inconveniences of dealing with the few bugs I run into.
As a customer I am still very, very pleased with this product and the service and support by its manufacturers.
Cheers,
RickeG
Wow, silvertones, 8 hours per day! I want your job. I would love to play around with these toys that much! Of course, I probably would have lost my hair though.
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Of course I demand the evangelicals fix this cancer with prayer, or else. Buggy religion. Can't even extend their own average life span, despite having a pipe lne direct to God.
At least my Mom has an hour a day she's devoting to something other than complaining about he 83 yr. old body shutting down....
So, I'll start with the apology ... Sorry, I can't help myself! Now that that's over with ...
I must say that I was at least encouraged to see that your use of the word, "God" began with a capitol-G. While the evangelical does pray for both of us (and sometimes even when we don't deserve the prayer let alone a Creator who would voluntarily listen to it), it's most fortunate for us that it's not religion that's been prayed 'to'. Frankly, I'll go out on a limb and say that it's THE LISTENER of those prayers that matters, not the pray-ers. I'm afraid my own hopes have never rested well with the latter as I often wondered their true intentions.
Yes ... 'twill be argued 'til the end of days I suppose. But ... The answer to any prayer will ultimately end with either a YES, NO, or a MAYBE. Yes? Agreed? So, it's really not that complicated as I see it ... Most assuredly, I haven't a single degree in a single physco-study, but even my feeble mind can observe on almost any given day that while most can handle an occasional MAYBE, it's just not that easy to handle NO so well (in fact I believe there was once a man in some old book that tried to forewarn mankind of this -- in so many words). And ya' know as I recall it now ... seems the results weren't so different than my life experiences with a certain earthly father I know! Ah, I can hear it like it were yesterday, "But Dad ... Son, I'm not gonna' tell ya' again! I said NO!" And yes, I know ... it's not the most popular, politically-correct version of a creator is it? Ah, but I am told to, "... fear ..." him, am I not?
And as for the next question which ultimately always begins with, "Why ...", I'm guessing we'll just have to be content to wait to find out the answers to it, because again, as dear ole' Dad used to say ... "Because I said so!" Now certainly you must, at the very least, be able to pretend to hear a thunderous voice of a Creator saying, "Because I said so!"
On your final observation, I'm not entirely certain I've met anyone with a pipeline per Se. I can only suggest that there's been times when I was just happy to know that there was ANYONE who claimed to hear so much as a whisper now and then! And I don't mind telling you ... I've begged plenty for my share of whispers! I'd take a pipeline too of course!
Good days to you.
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Keep track of your saves, and your saves will keep tracks for you.
That's the best quote of this thread!