I have a lot of cover songs in midi. I've loaded a few and have messed around on changing some of the tracks to real tracks. Does anyone know of a tutorial on this process?

Welcome to the forum.

RealTracks cannot be used to play exact MIDI parts, if that's what you are asking.

RealTracks are pre-recorded snippets of audio performed by actual accomplished players. They follow the chords you enter into BIAB and can be made to obey certain rhythms, but will not play an imported MIDI part.

You can use your MIDI on the Melody and Soloist tracks. The other tracks can have either MIDI or RealTracks (or loops) but will be regenerated (the arrangement changed) each time you press Gen/Play.

If you want to use MIDI on tracks other than Melody and Soloist, you CAN alter those tracks but remember to freeze them.

Or - are you asking how to select a RealTrack to play on what is now a MIDI track (knowing it will make up its own part)?

This is probably way too much information at this point; write back when you need help. Just remember the nature of audio (RealTracks) is quite different from MIDI. Each has its advantages and disadvantages.

If you open the midi file in Realband you can add a VST Instrument to each track.
You can use SampleTank, Kontakt or any other virtual instrument.
There are plenty of free VST Instruments if you google.

Try using the Hi-Q midi synth patches. (Right click on each instrument for a drop-down menu to find them).
They will be nearly as good as the real tracks in most instances.

MIDI is not audio, and audio is not MIDI.

MIDI is a set of instructions to play a MIDI enabled instrument (like a hardware or software synthesizer or sampler).

MIDI can be entered either manually with a computer keyboard and/or mouse or played into a sequencer or DAW in real time. I prefer the latter method.

When you play back a MIDI file on your computer it plays using the MIDI synth you select. It could be the software synth provided by your computer, a soft synth plug-in, or an external synth. In any case it will reproduce the original performance, but using your MIDI instrument.

I have plenty of synths, and the same voice (patch) does not sound the same on any of the two synths. Why? MIDI contains no sound data, it just tells the synth what to play. The synth is the instrument.

It's like playing something on an acoustic guitar, and playing the exact same thing on an electric. The music is the same, but the tone is different.

So the MIDI information on two different synths can be like that.

If you want to record the output of your chosen synth, and turn the MIDI information into an audio track, you can, there are plenty of tutorials on this. You could use most DAWs to perform this trick.

If you want to turn a MIDI track into a Real Track, that's a different subject all together, and as far as I know, it cannot be done.

Insights and incites by Notes

Actually it can be done, it's called using a sampler. A sampler will use samples played by a real player in a studio same as the Real Track musicians with one huge difference.

Here's where noobs get confused. That musician who's recording for a sampler is only playing one note at a time. The Real Tracks musicians are playing phrases not just single notes. That means the RT's sound much more realistic because there's no midi involved, you're hearing recorded phrases done by the best in the business. The downside to that is you cannot tell a RT what to play, what they laid down in the studio is what you get.

That means even if you use the best midi synth or sampler in the world it still will not sound as good as a Real Track. Individual notes could sound the same but you're still simply triggering single notes. If you created a midi track to play the same notes as a Real Track you're still missing all the "live player in a studio" nuances coming from the RT recording because it's full phrases not single notes.

Bob

Bob is correct, to a point.

Depending on your synth and synth controller you can play phrases, chords, and plenty of nuances like pitch bend, volume changes, distortion, flutter tongue, legato, slurs, trills, mordents, sforzando, and so on. A good synth will change the tone of the instrument with the force played (most instruments getting brighter as they play louder). I have a sax patch that will actually allow the synth to change the vowel sound from ooh to aah the way a sax player does by changing the shape of his/her mouth.

A MIDI synth can get every bit as expressive as a live performer, but it will still be a synth creating the voice.

That's neither a plus or a minus. Some synths have great voices, others cheesy voices.

Some synths can respond to all 128 continuous controllers (those are the ones that allow the player to express nuances) and some only a limited number.

The question that comes to mind is why do you want to change a MIDI track into a Real Track anyway? It will sound the same using the synth as a real track as it did as a MIDI track.

MIDI and Audio are both useful tools, they both have their strong points and both have their weaknesses.

Insights and incites by Notes

You're correct Notes, I just didn't want to get into that much detail because this is a Biab forum and presumably the OP is looking for a Biab generated part.

The good synths that can be very expressive do NOT work with Biab because Biab doesn't use those very specific CC's that can change the sound. You can use the sound library of the best synth/sampler in the world as a Biab plugin but the generated part will still sound static because all those different levels of expression that the synth is capable of producing are missing.

This is a whole complex subject that we could spend days writing about.

Bob