PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here UNIQUE DRUM AND OTHER TRICKS WITH REALBAND> (RB)....including how to do modern songs.

UNIQUE DRUM AND OTHER TRICKS WITH REALBAND (RB).

On the forums one sees at times various negative comments re rb.
which is sad as it has lots of things going for it.
the purpose of the following is to show many unique aspects of rb viz other music apps in the hope people will delve more into rb rather than possibly just having a cursory look.
Does rb have 'QUIRKS' ?? …yep but rb rewards the user willing to 'dig deep' into its massive number of features.
ive used it and powertracks (ptpro) before it to do lots of songs over many years and STILL i slap myself for not realising it can do a certain xyz.
as i'm human i can't cover all the many many rb tricks in one post..as rb is so deep…so it will prolly take a month or so as i'm doing my own projects.
if ive missed something, as rb is so extensive and in order to keep logical flow please pm me and i'll post the tip in this thread and attribute it to you.
The tricks will start simple and gradually get more complex….all done in rb…which remember is free with bb.
So let's get going.

1..you want a quickie simple drum beat for a quickie song demo…ie what is called guide drums in some studios.

ive seen on the forums comments that pg products can't do 'modern songs aimed at the young generation'....
or "i can't do rap/edm and other modern styles'…etc etc.
I hope to prove this to be incorrect….and how usefull and unique rb can be for users willing to delve.
here's an example in rb….the steps.

..create a new folder and give it a name. <<<this is where youll save your rb song. (SEQ).
(rember to save often).
..now open rb and in track view right click for the looong menu and set a track to midi then.. edit>>midi>>FILL TRACK WITH DRIUM PATTERN.
..you will notice in the dialog box loads of drum pattern (dp) files for loads of styles.
lets select dance dp just as a pattern to demo.
(note if you get an error navigate to drive letter (eg C or D or whatever) that pg pack is on and select.... Realband/mididrums….and select the pattern you want from the looong list displayed.).
..now youll see visually the midi drums for the number of bars you want.
..now depending how your pc is set up you might hear 'cheesy sounds'....and thus go 'this is junk'.
this is because the track isnt set up properly…not rb's fault ...SOOO…let's fix that.
..right click over track and the loooong menu will pop up.
THEN…>>select specific vsti and youll see a list of synths that come with rb/bb by default.
..lets select the new fab SYNTHMASTER !!
and you'll now see the synthmaster name appear on the track.
..now on the synthmaster track click the fx button…up comes the synthmaster display with oodles of settings and about 2000 presets if i remember.
select type drums…and youll see a ton of drum presets displayed including lots of modern drum styles.
the midi on the track will now trigger any preset you want.
even crazy fx like spaceships or special fx for usage in films etc etc….as well as modern drum sounds useful in many modern song styles.
..now press the play button in rb and youll hear your selected midi drum pattern trigger the selected drum preset in SM synth.
..NOW THIS IS KEY…experiment with tempo and presets. for example some presets might sound better at slower tempos…some examples of thousands and thousands…
.set tempo at 30, select preset 12 zero cool or
.set tempo at 35 and preset # 13 futuristic beats or # 60 edm kick or # 61 hip hop.
IN SUMMARY EXPERIMENT WITH SYNTHMASTER SOUNDS VIZ THE BEST TEMPO FOR THEM FOR YOUR SONG.
youll notice all sorts of modern sounds exposed by experimenting with the presets…
(see preset names as a guide.)....now go and discover the modern sounds you can use in your next modern hit song.
(note there are loads of free and paid drum plugins on the net….and sample players etc etc...i encourage also anyone to buy one issue of the inexpensive computer music uk magazine in order to get the 80 plugins…fx and synths and loads of other unique plugins.
see you tube for cm mag demos and be amazed..
and NO i have no links with cmmag in case your wondering...i just feel its one heck of a deal for the cost of a burger or two.)
………………………………………………………………..

for anyone else reading the above the techniques can be used for any music style using the rb drum pattern generator…generating a pattern track and then inserting a plugin.
eg whether your interest is the latin music genre or rock or ballads or jazz... rb's pattern generator can be your friend for guide drums....
(not just drums but for generating thousands and thousands of sounds/fx one can use on many diverse creative projects...eg films....ive had the wackiest fx out of it too....lol.)
ive kept this simple but i encourage you to bone up on various midi tips in the rb manual…rb is very very deep re midi and lots of unique tricks to discover.

(more tips to come as i get time because i'm also doing my own song projects.)

happiness.

om

Good tip. Thanks for posting.

Thanks Charlie…appreciated.
frankly i think pg needs to do a series of vids showing how to do modern songs and different modern beats and styles using rb. (and bb )...and why certain features are unique....so young musos get cranked up doing modern songs useing rb and see its advantages.
(remembering of course a rb user has all the great rt's
and rd's and loops and supertracks at his/her disposal also....ie spoilt for choice plus 256 tracks.)
One issue of course is what one muso might consider as modern, another might not. for example one young muso might be into modern jazz etc but another might not and be cranked up by edm or rap instead. Thus it's a bit of conundrum what pg vids should focus on.
also 'the scene' and 'what's hot' can vary over time depending on what famous artists young musos follow.

if i remember from my exchanges with the talented Jeff…the developer working on rb…
he uses rb for edm songs ?
for anyone reading this...much as i have loved a very very popular well known daw over the years and in fact
was a very early adopter when it came out and feature requestor...i cant do certain things in it i can do in rb.
rb has many unique features that can help you create songs....(as does bb.)


2..more fun with FTWDP.
(fill track with drum pattern….i call FT.)
before i start let me say ive heard it all from people younger than myself....viz…'ive heard pg products are for you old dudes'...'I can't lay down some cool modern beats with rb ive heard '...'You old dudes just use bb/rb to do elevator music'...etc etc and so it goes….lol.
So someone goes off and spends serious money on other music apps they could have put into their kids college fund without realising pg products are very capable of doing 'modern songs'.
remember this old guy was young once. your hair would prolly stand on end if i ever related what we used to get up to in various music groups i sang in over the years…
(aah fun memories…lmao.)....i was a crazee wild rocker in a previous life...lol.
if you're into modern music styles like edm /hip hop/trap/rap/world beats…whatever before going out and getting various hardware gear like 808's or beatboxes or hardware synths costing thousands…save the money…you can do all these modern styles in rb.

at first glance the FT feature seems like its just for quick midi drum beats…but like lots of pg product features if one takes one's time to delve a bit and be creative it will in fact do sooooo much more ... .just some things to think about…
….Ive seen on various songwriter forums over the years ' I'm dry for song ideas'.
not myself..i have TOO MANY song ideas and not enough time often once i fire up pg products…like rb and start even with just the FT for example driving an instrument plugin like synthmaster or another vsti.
Here's some fun things FT can be used for…instead of thinking of FT as just a simple midi drum track guide generator.

..for song ideas..randomly generate dp patterns on tracks from the FT dialog..then instead of selecting drum patches in the plugin like synthmaster (or any other plugin)...select non drum sounds…eg synths or flutes or spacey sounds and modern sounds…whatever patch takes your fancy... I guarantee youll get a ton of song ideas from this including modern rhythmic (non drum) textures, film special fx …and yes if you're into 'old guy stuff'..even that…lmao.
if..like me you cant afford fancy synth hardware costing thousands due to other family responsibilities…really dig into using the FT feature in conjunction with the synth plugins provided free by pg. crikey just using synthmaster alone with FT i get sooo many interesting sounds and song ideas it boggles my mind. It is a cornucopia of song possibilities.
..'laying down slamming modern beats'...remember…midi is just note and control data etc etc…
It's the plug in that converts this computer data to actual sound.
In conclusion, rb isnt producing the sound…it's the plugin that's gotta provide those 'modern sounds.'
SOOO…if you want 'slamming beats'...use plugin patches that get you that.
Remember you can also use free sample player plugins which will play loaded modern sound samples whether you got them free from a magazine like computer music mag.uk…or you made your own…or you got free off the net or paid modern sound sample packs.
In addition pg content includes a zillion sounds spread out in the various styles/rt's/midi supertracks/rd's etc etc you can generate and then isolate and slice and dice and change pitch up or down once isolated.
for example i once created a rain thunder effect by taking a sample I isolated from a rt and then lowered the pitch of ... .all this can be triggered by FT or rb midi generated tracks driving plugins. it's a cornucopia of possibilities.
you could also load your own vocal samples to be driven by FT….
eg let's say you want a modern vocal sample saying something like 'layin down beats'...just record such, and load into a sample player plugin driven by FT at an appropriate tempo.
The skys the limit. …(and this is before we get into some advanced things you can do later on i will detail in this treatise.)


FOR EXAMPLE the other day i was just mucking around with sforzando timewarp patch being driven by a FT created afrobeat at a slow tempo..and it was as modern as all get out.
finally let me say ive just scratched the surface so far of what rb can do.
it all comes down to HOW you USE the tool..in this case rb.
i dont want to irk anyone but i suspect some people that dismiss rb easily after a cursory look might not be aware of the many things one can do with rb and its extensive midi features.

if you're not aware of the many things midi can do for you…spend some time on the net and via your local library books to learn all the many facets of midi.
eg…for midi learning start here …

https://midi.org/

AND/OR google (midi tutorial)....
and a slew of midi tutorial links on the net and you tube will pop up.


(let me say i dont consider myself a midi uber pro…but i do ponder sometimes if a user new to rb and midi who makes negative comments about rb…might in fact be lacking midi knowledge rather than the problem being some failing of rb…)
rb is choc full of features….and is perfectly able to create songs in any song genre including various 'modern song genres'. like any song creation app on the market ya just gotta experiment with midi data driving plugin patches.
remember you have the flexibility of up to 256 tracks in rb ... .as much as i love bb on complex songs needing more tracks than bb i'll turn to rb.


(if i forget…remind me to detail later on how to get fancy drum solos in rb like we used to do live whereby the drummer would start a song with a hip groove/solo/scat or in the middle of a song.)

more to come.
happiness....and now go experiment with RB fill track feature triggering a plugin to generate interesting modern sounding tracks.

om