Not exactly Roe vs Wade, but still interesting.

It has to be close to 90% of these posts that refer to BIAB. Am I the only one using Real Band here? What am I missing by using Real Band exclusively? Do they both do the same things as a subset of the other? I mean does BIAB do things RB doesn't and does RB do things BIAB doesn't?

I had someone send me a chart and it was a BIAB chart. 4 of the tracks were MIDI and I don't really use MIDI.

My typical workflow is that I enter chords, pick a style, hit generate, and then start looking for better Real Tracks and quite often generate new Real Drums. Then I generate solos, do my cutting and pasting, add whatever I will add with manual play input, and save to wav files. After that it's over to Pro Tools.

Now, doing those same steps in BIAB, what about the outcome would be different? Are there more styles available in BIAB? More instruments available for Real Track generation? As I watched Floyd's great video, one thing that hit me like a punch was "There's a new interface but I like the old one". How can you use a new version on an old interface? When you put new software on, how can you use just selected parts of the old software?

I guess I have to spend a week looking at BIAB. I have still never even looked at it. I have been on Real Band since day 1.

For me I like BIAB because of the Melodist and Soloist that generate melodies and solos. Since I use Pro Tools, I have no need for RealBand. Styles and RealTracks appear to be the same regardless of BIAB/RB as far as I know.

I have put off trying it for 2 reasons. 1 is that I don't want another learning curve. 2 is that I have reinstalled this thing so many times as I moved it from computer to computer that the serial number now tells me it has been used too many times. Since I have no need for soloist and melodist it seems like a lot of bother to be not any further ahead. So I will continue on with status quo until I can afford to buy 2018. $2030 in my mouth has set me back on a lot of fronts. Not enough for a gofundme. Plus if all my friends would donate 20 bucks, I would have about 40 bucks.... LOL

A significant advantage BIAB offers over RB to your workflow is with Stylepicker. The BIAB Stylepicker has a feature that lets you hear RealStyles and RealTracks play over your chord chart. You can audition dozens of Styles in a short period of time and hear the different RT instruments playing within that style over your chord chart.

Using the BIAB Stylepicker, each style changes how it sounds when played over your chord chart and may not sound anything like the style demo. It can be drastically different. It is a completely different experience that what you are currently hearing using the RB Stylepicker and directly addresses your specific workflow when you start looking for better Real Tracks and quite often generate new Real Drums.

Charlie, here's why I never tried it., When I was first introduced to PC software, someone loaned me an old copy after he upgraded. I also got a sample song to go with it. I loaded it up and listened to it. Then I imported that song into Real Band and during that process the song I heard in Real Band was NOTHING like what I heard in BIAB. Every track regenerated. So in order to avoid the situation where I like what I hear in BIAB and if I move it to Real Band to work more on it (since I am more familiar there) I lose what I liked in the import. Yes, I would import a copy and still have the original, but there is something about the "DAW-ness" of RB that I like.

I'll have to play with this next week.

Hi Eddie

I concur with what Charlie said. Biab is great for quickly getting the bare bones of the chords, tempo and feel (basic rhythm and style) down.

Try out the section of the style picker where you can type in the name of a well known song and get BIAB to show you what styles you could use for this song.

So say I wrote a song that I could imagine Willie Nelson singing. Just type in Willie Nelson and choose a song like the one you have just written and audition all the suggested styles.

Once you have your basic style, chords and tempo down then save as an mgu and open that in RealBand. You can then record your vocals, add tracks, mute tracks, add effects etc in RealBand.

I absolutely love BOTH of these products.

There isn't much of a learning curve in biab for very basic stuff, But don't go down reading the manual route, will drive you crazy.

I find it the best way to lay out the basics of a song, a lot faster to preview styles than RB.

As well I find it more of an entertaining program to use, more fun than RB, so from a songwriting point of view easier to get creative ideas from.

I mainly use RB to generate loads of realtracks then bring them over to Cubase.

Eddie, if you are happy with your RB workflow and you are getting results that you like why change anything?

I don't use RB as I go from BiaB to Studio One Pro (it used to be to Sonar). This works for me so I am not going to change. Note that I work mostly all in MIDI so RB is of no use to me BUT if I worked mostly in RTs and RDs I would use RB for the partial track regeneration feature. YMMV

To me, Eddie's original post isn't so much about changing to BIAB from RB but questioning why there is such a disparity 90% BIAB to 10% RB posts disparity between the programs and what he may be missing by his exclusive use of RB.

Eddie is missing the speed increase of a BIAB generation versus a RB generation of a chord chart.
Eddie is missing the advantages in auditioning styles and realtracks that the BIAB Stylepicker has over the RB Stylepicker
Eddie is missing the speed increase of a BIAB regeneration of chord chart changes over a RB total song regeneration in RB.
Eddie is missing many tools easily accessible in BIAB that are not available on the RB chord chart page or else they are hidden in submenus.

That Eddie lost the original version of a BIAB song he wanted to preserve because opening the BIAB file in RB caused the tracks to regenerate can only happen in RB or Power tracks if it will open a BIAB. I don't have PT and don't know if it will or not. The point is, BIAB tracks must be exported as midi or audio in order for any other DAW other than RB for those tracks to regenerate. Opening any BIAB rendered midi or audio file in RB rather than opening the sgu will preserve the original sound that was rendered from BIAB.

Reading Eddie's comments about his personal workflow indicates to me that he will likely find that starting his projects in BIAB will be worth his time to explore without much of a learning curve because he can use his same process to enter chords in the chord chart that he does in RB.

Since you asked, the only thing RB/DAW gives you versus BIAB\DAW is 1) the ability to regen portions of a Real Track prior to DAW and 2) MultiRiffs.

And regarding why most presumably work in a BIAB\DAW configuration, has been mentioned by Charlie.

You can enter a tune much faster in Biab than RB but you are limited in editing. Move that tune to RB, save as a seq. file & you can edit all the tracks. Not just the melody & soloist....Hank

See, there's the thing I don't know and it bothers me to think that when you open that mgu file in Real Band, it regenerates everything I just spent 2 hours getting right in BIAB. If the style choices are the same in both (are they?) and the Real Tracks are the same in both (are they?) and the Real Drums are the same in both (are they?) then it sounds kind of redundant to start in one and switch to the other. That only applies IF the styles and tracks are not the same in both. If BIAB is somehow more flexible than RB then it's worth a look.

This is why I say I will spend next week working with BIAB and see.

(Though this is the 4th time I installed the software as I got new computers and it now tells me my serial number has been used too many times.)

Eddie, it is not clear to me if you understand you can treat RB the same as every other DAW and open RB and import audio files that have been exported from BIAB rather than have to open a BIAB sgu or mgu file to get those tracks. You can also open a BIAB file to have use of the chord chart populated with the chords of your song, key, tempo and style but still have the ability to import, access and use of the exact copies of the tracks you created in BIAB. It's not a choice of either/or it can one or the other and it can even be both.

As for the serial number issue you've mentioned a couple times now ..
Serial numbers are good for 3 installs on 3 separate systems. If possible, disassociate one of the machines to free up another license. Under 'Help' there is a Utility for this. If that doesn't work, call/chat PGMusic and have them free up the license or authorize another install. I know of both options working.

As for the 'RB regenerates everything' issue; there is a check box in RB config (I think it is under the Prefs-Song Generation tab) that tells RB whether or not to regenerate an MGU file when opened in RB.

Then also notice that when you open a BiaB file in RB, it is likely the file format will cause RB to treat the first 8 tracks or so as BiaB tracks.
They will have blue text in the track name to let you know.

When they are BB tracks, RB tries to act like BiaB and will regenerate all BiaB tracks when Generate is invoked, which takes longer in RB because RB generates everything before starting to play .. whereas BiaB generates just enough to get going, then continues generating behind the scenes as it plays.
So BiaB is faster.

To change this 'BB track' behavior in RB use Tracks-Make all BB tracks regular tracks. Then you are back in familiar RB territory. Only selected parts regenerate. No surprise regenerating.

BiaB = very quick chord/style/tempo creation over RB
RB = better editing/regenerating/tempo control over BiaB
plus RB has more tracks to work with, multiriffs, multiple audio/midi ports, etc.

BiaB is faster for what it does. When you start feeling stifled in BiaB, RB offers some relief.
When you feel stifled in RB move it to whatever you are comfortable with.

They are all just tools.

And 48 tracks to work with!

This, seriously, is a useful list. Are there any more functions for RealBand that using a DAW instead doesn't give you?

Nope. Just the fact that it can generate music.

Harv, the problem with the serial number is that those computers where it was once installed are in pieces and/or long gone. I'll be buying 2018 soon anyway so in the bigger picture it's fine. I don't have to start playing with BIAB right now. I just wanted to ask what the attraction was since so many of you use it over RB.

A lot of the replies included "speed" in some fashion. It is of no consequence to me if it takes 90 seconds to generate music or 5 minutes so that doesn't enter into my equation. I am not under a crunch here because my label is waiting for the next CD.... NOBODY is waiting for my next CD, LOL!!!!

Mainly just started this thread to explore the other side of the software.

We don’t use RB (the Mac version doesn’t have it). We just generate and regen RT/RD tracks and drag them to our DAW where along with a host of Izotope plug-ins we spend most of our production time - a lot comping RTs.. So BiaB essentially constitutes our ready access to studio top level musicians on demand. Janice works up our chord structure with her old Martin box and we dump them into BiaB and then audition RTs very rarely starting with a style. FWIW.

Bud

Eddie,

One answer I'm a little surprised you didn't receive is Band-in-a-Box has been around longer than RealBand so users have grown accustomed to NOT using RealBand.

My theory is some users developed their workflow before RealBand was released. Users became comfortable using specific features within Band-in-a-Box then switching to a DAW as needed. RealBand is bypassed entirely so many Band-in-a-Box users are not aware of the program's capabilities.

If my theory is correct then perhaps this thread will help users better understand RealBand's capabilities.

Jim, that’s exactly right. My workflow to SONAR was established long before RealBand. I never really explored RealBand, so this thread is helpful.

I find generating the "rough" in BIAB then pulling it into Realband if I want to change just a small part of a track using Multiriff before passing the song to Sonar very handy. I tend to export the BIAB song to a .wav if I think it is close to what I want before bringing it up in Realband just in case any regeneration comes out worse. I have found sometimes I use tracks from both BIAB and RealBand in Sonar to finish the song. Maybe using RealBand to alter one or more tracks either by regeneration or using the Multiriff feature.

Tony

I think that 90% number is because the product is called Band In A Box..... and real band is seen as kind of an add-on at no extra cost and essentially people don't explore it's capabilities. You got to admit, there's a ton of features in BB. In fact, I probably don't use more than 20% of the capabilities of both BB & RB. For what I do and how I do it, those things are not needed.

As I've said before I use a 3 step process in my writing.

BiaB is my scratch pad. What I use it for is to find a style and a groove and the key, as well as tempo for the song. I use it knowing that what it produces for me is not necessarily what I'm going to end up with in the final product. It gets me a basic starting point and an idea as to the general direction the song can go. I'd venture to say that 99% of the styles I use in BB are not midi but use real tracks so when I change things, it takes a few seconds to regen the project.

Once I have that done to my satisfaction..... key, tempo, style, and the structure of verses and chorus, I will save it and move to Real Band.

In Real Band..... I let it generate the tracks for the style. I then have a quick listen to see where I'm at. If I like it, I generate the extra tracks BB couldn't and save them to the project and into a folder. I often use the first generation of the tracks. A few times I have used multiple generations of the same track but not often.

I then copy the tracks into Sonar and that's where I do my editing and adding of live tracks. I use Sonar because I know how to do things in it and it's easier for me to work with the live tracks.... punch in/out, splicing and automation.

Anyway... that's my 2 cents. The way I see it is use whatever you want to get the results that make you happy. Nothing else really matters.

Oh, they are not the same age? Never knew that. I think I started with this stuff in maybe 2007 or 2008. I don't remember. The way my memory is now I am close to wearing a bracelet with my address on it. I had to chart out Happy Birthday to have it ready in case I have to play it!

I am probably as low as 10%!

A new song for me starts with my little digital metronome clipped to my shirt as I sat at the keyboard playing, singing "La la la, doo doo doo" to see if I can hit the notes in that key or not, writing down chords on paper. About half the time I will record that into the sequencer of the keyboard and loop it just so I can listen without concentrating on playing. As that part plays, I can then play a second part, be that the bass line, an organ part, strings....

Once I have that thought completed THEN the software input happens. Generate, listen. tweak, generate different drums, different bass... Once that rhythm bed is how I want it I can start really writing. I don't think I have ever done less than 4 different Real Drum tracks, sometimes I actually leave 2 of them stacked. Since you told me about the "Generate Loops" function, which has been there for always and forever and somehow I never even noticed it, I have been thrilled to have tambourine and shakers that play in far better than I can, available. And will now probably use them too much until the new wears off the new toy. That led me to exploring other things I can loop.

The only thing I know for sure about this product is that I barely know anything about this product. Yet, as a testament to the level of quality of PG software, knowing and using just the 10-ish% I know I did a whole CD with it.

That in itself is remarkable if you think about it.

All of that stuff with chord wizard and all that... never even cared. I tried it once and it was SO wrong that I never looked at it again. And as with anything else there grows a frustration level. Like right now I have some plugins I used to use. However, they need jbridge to run. So far, due to getting new computers and such, I have paid 10 bucks for jbridge 3 times, and I am NOT paying for it again, so I guess I will live without those plugins. If I made money with this it would be different, but this is just my hobby when I have days to kill. April will mark 62 years since I started music, and I have;t had a lot of fire for it since the CD a few years ago. Bucket list - checked. On to the next thing.