I made the wishlist request before but was not able to properly justify the reason as I am more a beginner than professional producer / mixing engineer.
Yes, it may not be possible for older RTs. It's totally understandable. But I'd like to reiterate that it would be a highly appreciated option (I'm talking about the 24 bit, separate drums tracks and dry tracks ideas) even if it was available only for recent RTs.
The separate drum tracks would require a significant change in the architecture. Currently, BiaB only 'theoretically' supports 8 tracks, but only one of them is used for drums. I doubt that the drum recordings are multi-track.
You're probably right Videotrack. However, I can imagine a scenario in which multi-track drums could be used fruitfully without a major change in BIAB's architecture (provided that the drums performance were recorded with multiple mics, which I have no idea of course). For example, I could compose a song in BIAB and arrange it with 4 or 5 drum tracks (1 per microphone) and then 1 bass, 1 piano and 1 guitar (just to have a general idea of the arrangement). Then I could save the individual drum tracks as wav files to be imported in my DAW. Then I could go back to BIAB, save the same song with a different name, and go back to just a normal 1 stereo drum track, and use the other 7 tracks for other instruments, as we do now (and, again, export as wav files the tracks I need for my DAW project). In other words, for users that use BIAB in order to export the wav files to be used in a DAW (and these are the kind of pro or semi-pro users who would benefit from multi-mic drums tracks) it doesn't really matter wether you have 8 or 16 tracks in BIAB, cause they're gonna export those tracks anyway to theri DAW. You can always use different versions of the same BIAB song with different instruments. The real issue is wether the drum tracks were actually recorded with multiple mics. If not ... never mind
Anyway, I think that having 24 bit is more important than the multiple mic drum track option.
You can have multichannel wav or compressed RealDrum files. In RealBand it will split to separate tracks, in Biab you can just have the mixer or in a tab. Audacity saves to multichannel wav-compressed.
Jon, I think most of us are in favor if all this could be done as a paid option.
Just background info along the lines of what VideoTrack was saying: BIAB was designed to use 16 tracks. This probably dates back to using one bank in the old MIDI standard, as BIAB was all MIDI until 2007. There are several of these 16 tracks in use, or potentially in use, that most users do not realize take up some of the 16: harmony, guitar strings, control info.
To get more tracks available for our use, several things would have to be the case: One, BIAB would have to add a second bank, presumably of 16. Two, everyone's CPU would have to be up to the task of processing even more tracks of audio. Three, BIAB should likely be 64 bit to ensure it can address enough working RAM, since all RealTracks are loaded into RAM, and 24-bit audio requires somewhat more RAM (and storage space) than 16-bit audio.
BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
Matt, sure, of course there's probably a ton of technical problems that I completely ignore. I fully realize that, it's just fun to talk about it
Only in this spirit (just to have fun, I know it's pure, baseless speculation on my part ...) it still seems to me that the problems you outline are somehow manageable.
1. in order to implement, in a useful way, multi-mic drum tracks in BIAB, you don't necessarily need more tracks than we have now. We could just use some of the tracks that now are used for instruments. Then export them as wav, go back to the song, change the drums tracks into whatever you need (bass, piano, whatever) and export again. Indeed, I do this already when I need more than 8 different RTs for the same song ... in fact, we can have an infinite number of RT for each song, as long as we export the wavs. Convienent? Of course not. Useful? Oh yes, a lot ... And, by the way, in RealBand the track limitation is bypassed altogether (RB basically does what I do "by hand" in BIAB ... don't ask me why, I just prefer to work in BIAB. I know it's silly ...). But the point is, again, that I dont see track number as a real limitation. To me the real issue is wether drums tracks were actually recorded with several mics. That's where the buck stops. But that's something only the folks at PG know for sure.
2. Yes, 24 bit tracks would take more memory. However, we are not talking gigabytes. A 24bit wav file is 50% larger than a 16 bit, I beleive. A 3 min track is about 45 mb at 24 bit. You need 20 (!) of those to get to just 1 gigabyte. I don't know, I could be wrong, but nowadays that seems manageable even by most older computers running with a 32bit OS. And, by the way, if I do some serious audio work with several tracks in ANY program, not just BIAB, well, I better get at very least a 64bit OS and some good amount of RAM ... there's just no way around it. I can't blame the software companies making DAWs or program like BIAB if I don't have the very minimum tool for the job, right?
Again, I am sure there's a 1000 issues that I am not aware of
Temper will adjust to full screen, you can add fx to the tracks. You can even drag some RealTracks into Temper and have a lot more tracks.
The thing is everyone gets use to BIAB and get attached to using it but then want more and more features then it gets harder and pressed for room that things need to be crammed in to add them to the layout without rewriting a whole new Professional DAW style Pro version... but hey that could very well just be around the corner who knows ?? A version for the regular Joe/Josephine and a 64bit Pro DAW version for those Pro Audioers/Studioers. Wait n see what Father PG brings in December.
This is the optional download sound bank you get with MusicLab's Guitars: 24-bit 96 kHz high quality dry samples recorded directly from pick-ups let you easily create any desired guitar sound using your favorite amplifier simulator.
Convenient Ways to Listen to Band-in-a-Box® Songs Created by Program Users!
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Video: Enhanced Melodists in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows®!
We've enhanced the Melodists feature included in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows!
Access the Melodist feature by pressing F7 in the program to open the new MultiPicker Library and locate the [Melodist] tab.
You can now generate a melody on any track in the program - very handy! Plus, you select how much of the melody you want generated - specify a range, or apply it to the whole track.
This new panel offers built-in specific support for the Reaper® DAW API allowing direct transfer of Band-in-a-Box® files to/from Reaper® tracks!
When you run the Plugin from Reaper®, there is a panel to set the following options:
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-Start Below Selected Track: This allows you to place the Plugin tracks below the destination Reaper track.
-Overwrite Reaper Track: You can overwrite previous content on the destination Reaper track.
-Move to Project Folder: With this option, you can move the Plugin tracks to the Reaper project folder.
-Send Reaper Instructions Enable this option to send the Reaper Instructions instead of rendering audio tracks, which is faster.
-Render Audio & Instructions: Enable this option to generate audio files and the Reaper instructions.
-Send Tracks After Generating: This allows the Plugin to automatically send tracks to Reaper after generating.
-Send Audio for MIDI Track: Enable this option to send rendered audio for MIDI tracks.
-Send RealCharts with Audio: If this option is enabled, Enable this option to send RealCharts with audio.
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