This covers BB and RB - PG Music Forums

I'm becoming aware that the Real Instruments are totally taking over my hard drive because of two things:

I would propose a rethink on Real Band, Band in a box and Real Instruments. Yes I'm thinking in terms of Real Instrument/Drums synths. We've already got midi which takes almost no space on a hard drive. Why not make guitar, bass, brass and drum synths that would free up 6 tons of hard drive space. Sooner or later we will have to have 10 Terrabyte drives to handle the continuing growth of Real Instruments. My 500 gig is getting pretty full.

Something for the Pgmusic guys to think about.

Yes, good observation about hard drive space. I've already deleted many of the Real Tracks for styles I don't use. They are on the USB hard drive if I need to reload them.

And it's worse in my case, by a factor of about ten, because I use the audiophile version.

But I'm not sure what you're suggesting about using guitar, brass etc synths.

Jeez, Matt! The Audiophile version must demand a 1 terrabyte drive of its own soon, if it doesn't already

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Yes, good observation about hard drive space. I've already deleted many of the Real Tracks for styles I don't use. They are on the USB hard drive if I need to reload them.

And it's worse in my case, by a factor of about ten, because I use the audiophile version.

But I'm not sure what you're suggesting about using guitar, brass etc synths.

I have a sax synth that follows my midi tracks. A small file. Doesn't take up much overhead. Sounds almost as good as a RI sax. I posted a song on the Off Topics forum a month ago using this synth. It's called, "Pickup The Pieces. Give it a close listen and see what you think.

As you can well hear the sax is following a midi track in RB. It isn't stuck with randomization playing. It follows the midi track to the nth. My thinking is this is the way Pgmusic should go with Real Instruments.

The decision to go in the direction of 'realism = wav audio' was unfortunately taken at a time when the midi synth market was beginning to develop into something approaching true realism anyway.

Audio samples for Midi purposes, good ones, neccisarily take up a lot more space than they once did, but no way near what it would take to replace each and every BIAB style with its equivalent real track and real drum counterpart.

it was never a case, or should never have been a case, of neglecting midi as an outworn concept that couldn't be improved upon. There are many things BIAB could do to improve the realism and feel it's midi side starting with better resolution to capture playing nuances.

The fact that it has resolutely refused to do so over the years makes one think that the effort required wouldn't be worth it for PG music in cost-benefit terms. Prove me wrong, please!

Regards

Alan

which sax synth would that be Russ, sounds pretty good on this end.

Rob

I did find this simple guitar synth, but I"m not familiar enough with this type of plugin to know if it's any good or not. Anyone use it? SimulAnalog Guitar Suite"

http://www.simulanalog.org/guitarsuite.htm

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it was never a case, or should never have been a case, of neglecting midi as an outworn concept that couldn't be improved upon. There are many things BIAB could do to improve the realism and feel it's midi side starting with better resolution to capture playing nuances.

The fact that it has resolutely refused to do so over the years makes one think that the effort required wouldn't be worth it for PG music in cost-benefit terms. Prove me wrong, please!

Regards

Alan

I’ve been requesting increased midi resolution for years. 120 PPQ is way to low a resolution these days. 960 PPQ would be much better.

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which sax synth would that be Russ, sounds pretty good on this end.

Rob

I found it on google. I don't remember the site. I just typed in, Free Sax Synth, and let IE do its thing. I found one that sounded good. That's the one you just heard. I really need to start documenting this stuff.

I use DVS free Saxophone by Martin Best. Sounds decent to me

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Why not make guitar, bass, brass and drum synths that would free up 6 tons of hard drive space. Sooner or later we will have to have 10 Terrabyte drives to handle the continuing growth of Real Instruments.

Something for the Pgmusic guys to think about.

I posted a similar idea a few months ago and got slammed.

I greatly prefer the sound of RT vs Midi but the RTs seem very limiting (so far anyway) in their functionality and I don't see it as a long-term technical solution.

There's certainly a place for WAVs and real audio in the creation of computer-assisted music but in 2009 we should be leveraging the power of software technology to create something better.

Slammed?

Just explained why it wouldn't work.

Which is apparent by all the highend MIDI synths out in the world, both hardware and software, that still don't sound like the real McCoy.

--Mac

You stole my post! I have gone full cycle - love real tracks when they work and fit but... midi thru a good external is sometimes a better fit. There are limiations and advantages for both.

Real Track Plusses:
1 Easy to use
2. Many sound great
3. Real drums work at almost any tempo
4. Authentic style playing is at times sensational
5. Adds a truly profesional touch

Real Track Minuses:
1. You lose a large degree of control
2. Sustaining instruments like piano sound choppy due to the pedal effect cutoff when chord changes
3. They sound best at recommended tempos - too often the tempos are not what I want. I sometimes sacrifice my ideal tempo choice and use real tracks because I love Neil's upright bass sound
4.The real drums are great but heavy cymbal crashes played too frequently can ruin a song. No easy way to edit out
5. Many real tracks like organ were recorded with heavy distortion - for me these are not useable

Midi Plusses:
1. Total control for every note played
2.With a good external synth can sound great if the midi input is excellent. Sound quality is dependent on quality of synth
3. Tempos are not a factor
4. With drums each instrument can be controlled and easily edited - kill overdone cymbal crashes!

Midi Minuses:
1. More time consuming especialty with high quality external synths
2. Existing styles generally not as good in terms of playing as many real tracks
3. Many styles don't sound real (but they could)

My solution/hope:
1. PG music develops a hybrid sytem consisting of real tracks plus REAL MIDI sets of styles. This could be done for example on piano by recording audio thru an excellent digital grand and simultaneusly recording the midi. The resulting midi style track could be in some ways better than the digitally recorded real piano track becuase sustain pedal problems etc could be manipulated. The audio could real track would be just as good as ever if a fine digital piano is used.

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My solution/hope:
1. PG music develops a hybrid sytem consisting of real tracks plus REAL MIDI sets of styles. This could be done for example on piano by recording audio thru an excellent digital grand and simultaneusly recording the midi. The resulting midi style track could be in some ways better than the digitally recorded real piano track becuase sustain pedal problems etc could be manipulated. The audio could real track would be just as good as ever if a fine digital piano is used.

What. Are. You. Talking. About??

Unless you have the $3,000 or so killer digital piano synth on your system, that wonderful midi track will still sound like crap through the VSC. Then, the audio track is still an audio track. It still has to get chopped up by the program according to your chords so the sustain will still be cut off so again, what are you trying to say here?

Bob

hi guys,

are we missing the point here - for the small price of some hard drive space we can create music that sounds real and organic rather than stilted and mechanical. It's not that long since all we had were the 'blips' of primitive sound modules and sequencers (hardware only!) that were expensive, unfathomable and unreliable.

Maybe MIDI will make more sense in the future, but for now when I use BIAB, I can create realistic-sounding, varied and exciting music on my PC in a few minutes. Maybe I'm stuck in the past, but that fact still amazes me every time I click on the icon and fire up BIAB!

Sure I could create a list of what it doesn't do that I'd like it to, but experience tells me that one day soon those features will arrive, so I'll spend the waiting-time enjoying what I've got

regards,

Martin

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My solution/hope:
1. PG music develops a hybrid sytem consisting of real tracks plus REAL MIDI sets of styles. This could be done for example on piano by recording audio thru an excellent digital grand and simultaneusly recording the midi. The resulting midi style track could be in some ways better than the digitally recorded real piano track becuase sustain pedal problems etc could be manipulated. The audio could real track would be just as good as ever if a fine digital piano is used.

Your missing something here.

What you are really describing is a common MIDI sampler. That's the hardware box you've already got.

Realtracks sound real because they don't deal with a note-at-a-time situation, instead they deal in breaking up a performance file into small loops by the phrase. There is really no way to break out all the single notes, values, sustains, staccatos, dynamics, etc. from that file to allow you to end up with what a good MIDI sampler, hardware or software, is already doing.

--Mac

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Unless you have the $3,000 or so killer digital piano synth on your system, that wonderful midi track will still sound like crap through the VSC.

You're likely off by an order of magnitude. These day's synths are getting darn close to the real thing at s.th. between $ 300 and $ 400. For a start you might check out -> Pianoteq.

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Unless you have the $3,000 or so killer digital piano synth on your system, that wonderful midi track will still sound like crap through the VSC.

Check these songs out:

Harvey Gerst using the VSC in production work.

Mqtter of fact, someone in that thread asked Harvey what MIDI synth he was using to sound that good. I bet they were shocked to hear that it was none other than the much-maligned VSC.

I've also done some Piano stuff using the VSC in the past, will have to dig it out of the archives and upload it.

But in the "right hands" the VSC can indeed turn in a good performance.

I don't know *any* MIDI output solution, software or hardware, that will sound great by just loading a BB song and playing back with defaults. This is partially due to the default typically being selections of Patches taken from whatever the GM bank in the synth happens to be. Those are usually designed for blending together easily and not so much for overall audio quality.

Preemptive Strike: Someone is sure to come along and point out that it could sound better. Of course it could sound better. You could also say the same for the latest, greatest, most expensive synth/sampler as well. And people often do. MIDI is subjective and musicians think with feelings.

--Mac

Maybe to some extent one of the rethinks that needs to occur for all of us as users is how we integrate BIAB into our computer system. I realize that over the long haul most of us have become accustomed to installing BIAB into c:/bb. Particualry with the audiophile version, a full install on the C drive isn't as practical any longer and it becomes more practical to run off the hard drive that BIAB is now delivered on OR at the very least to access the real drums and real tracks folders on that drive while still running the main program from the C drive.

I'll have to admit that I wasn't real excited about real drums or real tracks when they came out and probably wouldn't have bought into them if they weren't already included with the BIAB update that I was ordering. After using them, and developing my own way of incorporating them into my music, I'm much more excited about them and expect that they will only improve with time as PG music develops ways to address some of the current shortcomings. This is something that was a brand new concept not too very long ago and it has already grown tremendously in a short time.

I'm all for seeing where the future takes us, and I'm willing to adapt to doing things a bit differenly if it leads to a better sounding product.

Did I say that techonology was marching on?

Well, she's been gainin' speed, I think.

Just looked at a new Hitachi SATA 7200rpm drive that has a 32m cache.

TWO TERABYTES

$179.00

--Mac