Hi guys

I wonder if one of you super users out there can help me get my brain sorted out .or at least my understanding of real tracks and styles.

Midi I have no problems with and have been using since Cakewalk 3 .I have even got my head round the slightly quirky way BIAB uses mid on parts and thru.

I understand that realtracks are Audio recordings of 1 to 8 bars.
What is really puzzling me is if I load an all realtrack style into the project
Lets say (_CBLGDBR,STY Dreamy Ballard W/ Baritone Guitar ) and then bring up the mixer pianos I can play any note on the mixer piano and hear it just like on a midi track
Now I know realtracks don’t use samples so they cant be mapped to the on screen mixer piano so what am I hearing.
Confused with head spinning Help!
Mike

I don't know the answer, but my guess would be that since PGMusic created RealStyles using a MIDI style as the underlying framework (meaning, the RealStyle won't and doesn't need to be anything like the underlying style, but it provided the platform for substituting the MIDI tracks for RealTracks), I suspect what you might be hearing is the underlying MIDI style instruments being played through your default synth.

But I could be wrong.

John's exactly on the money here (no surprise there )

To prove:
- Load a RealTrack
- Turn Off your MIDI device
- Play the mixer piano's
- Nothing.

Hi all

Thank you both for your replies seems to make sense now.
Certainly the test proved this to be the case it is indeed midi I am hearing.

As for the real tracks and styles being based on a midi framework I take you’re your word on that, but can’t imagine how they accomplish basing audio on midi .

Something really clever going on there, I obviously do not fully understand how realtracks / styles are created using Audio recordings, I understand pitch shift and time stretching etc to follow the tempo and chord chart
Just don’t understand this underlying midi and why the audio can be completely different to it.
I’m sure it’s all a very complicated process developed by PG

Thanks for your thoughts on this.
Best regards
Mike

Mike,

The mixer piano keyboard, QWERTY keyboard intelligent play along feature and midi style demo features use a built-in midi player that uses the operating system (pc or Mac) built-in piano midi instrument patch sound. As far as I can tell, the midi notes for these features are not transmitted on any of the sixteen (16) midi channels. The routing for the notes seem to be completely internal to BiaB.

They're not basing audio on MIDI. They are merely overlaying the audio data on top of the MIDI tracks and pushing the output through the Audio port, not the MIDI port. The underlying MIDI has absolutely nothing to do with the sound generated by the RealTrack audio.

Personally, I wish they had implemented RealTracks in BIAB with dedicated audio tracks for each instrument (some number they could determine) and keep all the existing MIDI tracks (so you could use both), but they didn't...

Thanks John

Ah the light dawns thanks for that
I agree with you it would be nice to have audio on audio tracks and midi on midi tracks like in a Daw as you say we could have both then and pick and mix.
My instincts’ told me it was midi I was hearing on the mixer pianos just couldn’t see how, when the track played audio.

All clear now thanks again to all for your input
Mike