As an almost exclusive user of RT's and RD's with the occasional Super Midi Track I'm curious as to other "RT folks" workflow. As a Mac user I don't have RealBand but I do make extensive use of Logic Pro X.

A project I've just finished had grown to a gargantuan file size (as most of mine do) since Logic saves every track you import (or drag in) -- even if you "delete" the track it will remain in a folder until certain procedures are followed. This is OK as you might want to revert to a track you had previously tried. OK...to the point.

This time before deleting the unused files I decided to count the total RealTracks that I had brought into Logic for this project. It turns out that for the guitar rhythm, guitar solo, steel solo and steel rhythm the total was 63. The final versions of these four tracks in my Logic mix were comped from a very few of the 63 that were auditioned. More specifically they were comped up from 11 RealTracks of the 63 auditioned. It was the auditioning of RT's to find the "right" solo or part of a solo or fill or intro or outro that required so many regenerations. FWIW, I think that, for example, a rhythm instrument fill between vocal lines should not just "fill the space," but should also enhance (or at the very least not distract) from the vocal and have a good segue into and out of it's space. The probability of getting that that in only a few regens is nil, at least for me. Also the beginnings and decays of solos are really enhanced by comping...or so I have convinced myself

I may be overdoing it but BiaB offers such an amazing opportunity with RT regens (and comping) to find what works best with your tune. And to have ace players doing it all ices the cake. BTW, one reason that this likely seems tedious is that I prefer to have the tracks within the DAW to audition as I need to volume shape to determine if it "works" with the mix. Toward that end I create a copy of my SGU to use just for generating multiple versions of the same RT to move over to Logic.

OK, I'm assuredly not saying this is the right way to do things at all...just wondering who might be going through a similar procedure??

Bud

Hi Bud, so it's not just me then!
As I can't get my head round RB (I'd love to just buy BB on its own) I will often run several re-gens of the same RT track, saving as a wav each time and sending to my DAW where I can chop them all about to get what I want.
Maybe when RB becomes more user friendly I can try using it - but I want to spend my time making music not trying to fathom some vaguary of RB.
Just my two penn'orth.
Ian

Not to be one trying to mess with perfection, simply an offering of food for thought to streamline out some repetition. These came to my mind as I read your post Bud. First, I can assure you and others on the Mac platform it will be a good day for you if RealBand ever comes to the Mac.

Some suggestions of things you may or may not already do in your workflow..

- If your sgu file stays around 84 measures, you can copy the chord progression three times per file without exceeding the 255 bar limit. Extending your sgu to near the 255 limit will increase the audio you can import into your DAW each time.

- Consider if your sgu is less than 84 bars, to continue to add certain chord changes to 84 bars in order to generate audio fills and turnarounds that you can cut and paste where needed in the song once the audio is in your DAW. These small snippets of audio will be similar to the multi riffs generated in RealBand.

- If you are using more than one lead instrument in your song, for instance, a lead guitar and pedal steel guitar or a Resonator and fiddle, consider placing both instruments on the same track in the 2nd and third renditions of your sgu file. Also consider eliminating instruments you don't need additional regenerations of and replacing those tracks with instruments you do need additional renditions. You can have multiple tracks holding both lead instruments providing you with a lot of snippets of audio to cut and paste rather than having to go through entire regenerated tracks searching for snippets. The suggestion is to create snippets because you need snippets rather than create tracks when you need snippets.

You can come closer to replicating the multi riff feature of RealBand with these techniques.

Hopefully these suggestions will prove useful to you in some manner.

Charlie

Wow... 63 tracks from PG.... I think that the biggest project I ever worked on had around 30 tracks and that was total.

So the work process. I use RB to generate the tracks after I set the details and structure in BB. I export the tracks from RB directly to Sonar.

I have comped a few tracks, most notably the solo in The Best Christmas... that was 5 tracks of RB solo guitar. I started with 2... ran into a brick wall where I didn't like what either gave me so I generated another one.... and so on until I had 5 tracks and a finished to my satisfaction solo.

I'm lazy so I don't like a lot of tracks and I don't like to comp any more than is absolutely necessary. I'll edit before I generate a new track. I will audition the track in RB and delete it there if it doesn't work. I'll generate another and repeat the process.

Hope that sheds some light on how I work.

Janice & Bud & sixchannel (Oh My! ) I do the same thing. The most RT re-gens of a part I have had are 12-13....so wow....

Charlie, Thanks for the tips. And I DO keep trying RB because of tips like this & features that BiaB can not do...I REALLY do. But I just don't like it.. ...I think because I used PowerTracks back in the day, and it just reminds me of a DOS based program too much.....

Thanks Charlie. I should have been more specific as to my process. What I typically do is after getting the basic tracks I will clone the sgu and fill each BiaB track with a single RT. Also I will change the chord song structure where I will get repeated bars of what I'm looking for. My problem is not in finding bars that I like but in finding within them places to cut and splice them where the playing sounds seamless and consists of something a player would actually do. I run things by guitar playing friends to confirm if I have accomplished this. Also I will sometimes comp so that the selected rhythm and solo segments will all be on one track. For some reason this seems to help me at least visually feel like I'm mixing a live band and that is always the sound I'm looking for.

Realband would perhaps help this flow but Logic Pro is a powerful DAW and I've learned my way around it and love the way it works with Ozone, Nectar and Alloy plus the piano sounds are tremendous with the super midi tracks.

Thank you for taking the time to describe what you do. It made me think a lot about my work flow.

Bud

Hey Herb, most of those tracks were drug to the DAW and dropped on several tracks below the one I was working on and it only took a quick glance to see that they didn't have what I was looking for. So it's not as tedious as it seems. And, of course, if I were a guitar player (other than bluegrass rhythm) I would not have to spend nearly as much time

Bud

I love Logic Pro 9, my old Mac Pro won't run newer stuff! A lot of times I drag sections of Biab lead phrases around to fit fill parts I want. Almost never regen anything anymore, I may have an extree low give-a-durn level in my old age. When I hear your music, I think it doesn't need anything, except more of it. I have a cheap Windows comp for Biab & RB, some of the RB stuff is very cool and worth checking out.

Thanks Tommy, yeah I know about that old age thing. I just try to keep the brain exercised by trying to learn all this new technology. Keep the gears turning over.

Bud