If I understand what you're wanting to do, there are a lot of drum synth programs which will convert MIDI to AUDIO. The one I use is Toontrack EZ Drummer and it's fantastic, IMO. The way I work is I take the MIDI track from BIAB/RealBand and copy that over into Sonar, then use EZDrummer as the output for the MIDI drum track. I am sure you could, however, set up RealBand to do the same job, using EZ Drummer as a VST. But the inconvenience of that, IMO, is changing VSTs for other instruments to the drum synth, then back again after the drum audio has been rendered.

the core program of EZD is currently on sale for only $29 on www.sweetwater.com and a few other places. they also have "expansion packs" which are excellent. the Nashville expansion pack is also currently on sale for $39. Nashville is the first expansion pack I always recommend that anyone get - it's more than just "nashville" sound, it can be used in numerous genres.

Thanks, folks.

Perhaps down the road. I should go over to the wish list section in this forum. I'd love to leverage Real Drums for this in addition to current RB/Biab RD functionality. A consistent source of drum sounds would be nice.

Beagle, I saw that sale and was wondering how decent the software was. Can't argue with the price.

I do have a few options with my DAW, but they lean heavily towards more modern sounds that you'd likely hear on a Pop Music radio station. I like to play mostly older stuff.

Hi Ray, maybe you understand this now but just to clarify, the Real Drums are full recordings of a real drummer playing phrases. What you're asking would apply to drum samples. With a sampler you can assign individual midi drum hits to individual drum samples and thereby "convert" a midi drum track to audio. RD's are not like that. The program doesn't slice a RD track down to individual drum hits. I think the smallest division is one bar, midi has nothing to do with it. Think of listening to your favorite band on a CD and set up your player to loop just one bar. That's what a Real Drum track is except the one bar is just one of the possibilities, the program can use up to 8 bars from the RD track according to your settings in Biab or Real Band. This is why on the one hand RD's sound totally real like you have Terry Clarke in the studio with you until you get to a part of the song that has certain specific punches or other song specific drum parts. For those specific parts you can't somehow program a RD track to play those, RD's are prerecorded so what you hear is what you got. You have to use a midi drum track playing through a high quality drum sound module to play those parts. Using good samples it can usually blend in quite well with the basic RD track. I have Jamstix for that and one of the JS kits is called Yamaha Studio Drums and they sound almost exactly like a lot of the RD's probably because those RD's were recorded using Yamaha kits.

Bob

Thanks for the further explanation.

There sure is no shortage of apps out there for doing VI with MIDI instructions. Heck, I might have more than I already know about.