If I disable Real Drums and Real Tracks under Preferences and then load a 2023 or similar Style, should it appear under Tracks in midi format, or a mixture of Midi and Audio tracks once generated???

Hi Fitzy,

In all my years of using BIAB, I have never once used with or played with that option in the preferences.

In the early days of Realtracks (if I recall correctly), Realtracks styles had an underlying MIDI style. I'm not sure that that's the case these days. The MIDI tracks are not a MIDI version of the Realtracks, if that is what you are looking for. Maybe if you could explain what you would like to accomplish, users on her might be able to help.

Regards,
--Noel


★ my latest song: The Best Gift Of All (Thank You, Mama) – vocals by Synthesizer V

To my understanding many Real Tracks have a MIDI counterpart.

Sounds like this would be a simple answer. If you do not use RealDrums or Real Tracks, than all you will see in the Tracks View is MIDI. The "Style" has nothing to do with it.

Or am I wrong?

I see two possible issues raised here, although I'm not sure about the original question. One is the ease of erasing a RealDrum track to make a MIDI drum track. Another is that many RealDrums have notation for educational purposes that is not intended to be used for sound.

Like Noel, I never considered disabling RealTracks and RealDrums. I don't even know how to do it.

Fitzy, could you ask your question in another way, or provide more detail?

I tested several demos and the answer varies with the different Styles. Disable both RD's and RT's and the Style still shows the RT/RD instrument but nothing gets generated. When Erase Track is used and hitting the play button and nothing is generated. Hit generate/play button and the midi pattern is returned and generated.

Erase a RT and the instrument is removed and nothing gets loaded or generated but the option to erase RT is followed by erase midi data. Responding no to erase midi data and a midi instrument is assigned and the midi data plays. If there's no Real Chart generated, it's usually a piano assigned and the midi piano plays.

So the answer to the OP question is if a RealTracks Style is loaded, the RT's load but do not generate. RealDrums may load and play a midi drum. Unless other options are applied forcing something to play, the only sound generated is the drums track. There may be exceptions because the Style reacts differently if no Chords are entered than if chords have been entered onto the chord chart.

There is almost always a midi drum track hidden behind the RealDrums.
I've used this technique for years.
After exporting the RealDrums to my DAW Project.
I'll disable them in the RealDrums Dialog, and then export the Midi Drums into the same DAW Project.
Mixing them together after editing the Midi, can really enhance the Project Drum sound.
It works great for "fat kicks & snares... also can add extra color, sparkle, and extra percussion voices...

Probably off topic, but I do find underlined MIDI (not only for drums as mentioned by bloc-head) at times very useful. When you save project as "Midi" file, it saves it with Midi track charts, that you can deal with as bloc-head mentioned, or revoice them (non drum tracks) with something completely different to make arrangement more interesting.

I wish this part of BIAB was better explained and workflow made easier.

To augment Charlie's answer the RT MIDI comes after the RT has been generated, thus without the RTs being activated you will get nothing, been there - done that. Note that I have used the RT MIDI many times in my songs.

RDs are the same however I have found the RD MIDI to be useless in the styles I have used thus far. I will either use the RD track, use some third party drums, usually MIDI drum grooves, and/or rewrite the RD MIDI. YMMV.

Note that I am using the latest 2023 version of BiaB.

I hope this helps.

I started a New Project. Disabled RT and RD. Generate and play song. It only creates Midi drums track. Nothing for the other instruments. Now if I experiment further and switch off auto replace midi with RT and load the style, press Generate only the Midi drums is loaded. If I enable RT and Generate it creates the audio tracks which is expected and a midi Drum track. If I switch off RT and Generate again the audio tracks don't disappear so why? After all that is what Generate is supposed to do? If I do the same with the RD and switch it on the midi turns to an audio file automatically. If I switch off RD then the Audio changes to midi which is what I would expect. So, it appears that its only working correctly for Drum tracks? Is this a bug or by design?

This is by design, but you can still hear the MIDI part if you want using "Copy/Move Tracks" and copying the part to a Utility track -- as long as the part has RealCharts. RealCharts are the MIDI transcription of the RealTracks part. The MIDI part is not normally intended to be heard, because it is a transcription, not what was actually played by the musician (unless MIDI pickups were used) so the timing is typically a bit off. It can still be heard if you copy it to a MIDI track, or if you export the tracks.

All Drums have RealCharts, and many but not 100% of the RealTracks have them as well. You can tell if a track has RealCharts if the name of the track has a green underline. (If it is a bass or guitar part and has a FULL underline that means it also has accurate tab charts). There is also a Chart column in the MultiPicker (RealTracks) that tells you.

I tested this with the style demo song for _B140_TB.STY (randomly chosen) The Piano part is Piano, Acoustic, Rhythm Bossa Ev 140 and has RealChart. I went to Edit | Copy/Move Tracks and selected the Piano track as the source track, and Utility track 1 as the target. The results with this style are pretty good - the notes seem very accurate and the timing is good. This would be a good option if there is a particular VST you want to use to get a specific sound, or you want to edit specific notes, or something along those lines.

Thanks very much for the answer Andrew.