I'm just starting to play around some with the Real Band that came with my copy of BiaB 2017. It is the latest build, d/l'd automagically from PG's website.
I'm assuming this problem is just something I'm not aware of, but then I ask myself, why should this problem even arise? Here's the deal. I'm trying out some tunes I wrote in BiaB -- just chord progressions at this point. And I'm attempting to try out various styles to see which I like best. Just to load the BiaB tunes I had to indicate the BiaB song format.
What is happening is the style and instruments are stuck on those I originally selected in Biab. Is there some reason why Real Band won't select a different style and set of instruments? That seems screwy to me, but that's the working theory I have at the moment.
If this is the case, what's the workaround? I haven't been able to find one yet.
In RealBand, unlike BIAB, you have to explicitly regenerate the arrangement when you change styles or select different RealTracks.
Realband gives you the ability to regenerate the entire "BIAB-portion" of your song (the blue tracks), or individual tracks, or even down to a highlighted region on a particular track. It doesn't know what you want to do until you tell it what to do. Which is unlike BIAB, where you make a change and everything is automatically regenerated (except for frozen tracks).
That's the general nature of any DAW - you have to tell it what you want to do with the content you have.
Look for the generate button to see some of your options.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Like John mentioned; RB acts different. Otherwise why have both? This is a plus to some, a minus to others. I like it because the default behavior is much more like a DAW. Users familiar with BiaB can get confused (why isn't it simple like BiaB?)
One thing to watch for is that you have selected a region of at least one track. Or you can select that region of multiple tracks.
There are ways to set RB to act more like BiaB (and regenerate sections more automagically) but that is not the default behavior, nor the intended behavior.
RB wants you to select the section you want to regenerate, then select the style (normally here I use right-click - track - regenerate then select the style) .. but others user flows will vary.
It is very powerful once you get the gist of the workflow that works best for you.
If I get the dea of what you are trying to accomplish; I opened the Memphis style SGU file in RB (opened a BiaB style file) called MEMPHS1.sgu I then went to the stylepicker and changed the styles Then I used the 'Generate - Generate all BB tracks' option shown below. Seemed to have worked.
Is this what you are after?
Mind you, RB will regenerate all tracks before playing (unlike BiaB which generates some of the tracks and then starts playing while it finishes generating, so RB will take a few seconds longer) but it does regenerate in the new style .. at least here it does
Last edited by rharv; 09/19/1702:26 PM.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Thanks guys. Yeah, I have to get it into my mindset that Real Band is basically a DAW. Now that can be very handy once I develop some skills with it. Is it powerful enough to replace PreSonus Studio One 3 or Cakewalk Sonar Platinum? I dunno, but it would sure be nice if it did -- it would be a lot easier to migrate BiaB tunes over to a DAW environment, I'm thinking.
I can appreciate the enhanced control y'all mention. This is the sort of thing I can really appreciate because I've had to do it in the past. I was using Cakewalk's old Pro Audio (forerunner to Sonar) back then.
Thanks for the video tips. The problem I've found with the videos is, if I'm looking for info for a specific control or command, it isn't much fun having to slog through a whole library of videos to find the one or two lines I need to get me unstuck. But for general knowledge increase, they can't be beat.
Sonar and Studio One can't generate RealTracks or even MIDI-based styles using on your entered chord progression. So while they may be much more powerful in other areas, this is one major thing they can't do. Lots of folks, however, use RealBand to create the tracks for their song, then bring those tracks over into Sonar or Studio One to finish up. It doesn't need to be one or the other.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Hey John, yeah I've done this with BiaB tunes and Cakewalk Pro Audio on a couple of CDs of music I wrote. I generated some nice rhythm tracks in BiaB and then exported them as midi files, then imported them into Pro Audio and incorporated the tracks into the music mix. It ended up working very well. So yeah, I can see myself doing this again if I need to.
But I was just thinking that, if I didn't have to and kept it within RB, it would be several steps fewer I'd have to take to complete a piece of music.
Well, sure you can do all of it in RealBand. Lots of folks here do just that. Most plugins work fine in RealBand; it's just understanding the RealBand workflow to get good results. I've got all the other DAWs, but do most of my work to include the finished product using RealBand. You can hear some of music at the web site in my signature line. I'm not claiming it's great production value, but most people listening have enjoyed it.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
Hey John, just listened to several of your songs. You've managed a good mix, near as I can tell. I like your instruments. Are they some of the BiaB available selections, or have you gotten them from elsewhere? I especially like the horn and sax arrangements you've done, although they all sound good.
I have used a mix of instruments, some MIDI, some RealTracks. Most of the MIDI instruments were rendered using the Ketron SD-2 (alas, my unit is not working properly now). I also use Kontakt Instruments (I have Komplete Ultimate 11). I think I have also used kthe TTS-1 synth and Steinberg Halion VSTi synth. Depending on which songs you listened to, some of the styles and instruments were not actually BIAB, but were a direct record from my Kurzweil Mark 10 Digital Piano (which is pushing about 25 years old now).
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
John, I know how that goes. Sometimes It's hard to let go of a good synth. I have an old Yamaha PSR500 I bought back in 1992 that I still use because of its big Hammond and Rhodes sounds. And of course I'm still using my Roland GR-30 guitar synth that I bought new back in about 2001, but the tech is probably easily pushing 20 years now. Still works a treat.
I have a project that I need to get busy with soon, though. When I first started recording my CDs, I was using a Soundblaster card that was probably already getting old back in 2001. It had a couple of synths on the chip. One of those synths had this remarkable sound produced by one of its instruments that I haven't heard or been able to duplicate anywhere else. I have several old Soundblaster cards, though, and I don't recall which one it is. I even have at least one ISA SB card. Geez, hope it isn't that one. Anyway, I'm thinking about putting together a separate machine with an old motherboard and maybe even Win98 just so I can run that card. And then maybe I can take samples of it or something? Save the samples and use its sounds that way? I'm not real clear on how to do that sort of thing.
You can hear it on this tune -- both melody and bass:
I've still got my disks for Reality (upon which I believe the Reality soundfont was later based) which had pretty good sounds in its day. Unfortunately, the engine that drove it could not be upgraded easily when Microsoft went from Windows 98 to Windows XP, so it languished. The developers kept promising a new version, but it never materialized and they went in a different direction. I'll have to go back when I have some time and try it out again using a Windows 98 Virtual Machine to see if it works and see what sounds it gives me. I guess I could install one of the very early versions of BIAB to drive it (I've got every version since version 8, back when it was 16-bit).
By the way, I like the song. It has a pretty cool sound to it.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 2x2TB, 1x4TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 2x1.5TB, 2x2TB, 1x4TB SATA
I even have at least one ISA SB card. Geez, hope it isn't that one.
I have an old Roland ISA card I like for the synth (RAP10) .. and spent a little time finding a machine with an ISA slot that runs on XP. I lucked out.
That machine can never be exposed to the internet, but I figure it's still worth having. It is currently wrapped and stored for now (been moving things around), but I still look at it and smile occasionally. It's possible to find them, but I can't vouch for how long it'll last.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
I've still got my disks for Reality (upon which I believe the Reality soundfont was later based) which had pretty good sounds in its day. Unfortunately, the engine that drove it could not be upgraded easily when Microsoft went from Windows 98 to Windows XP, so it languished. The developers kept promising a new version, but it never materialized and they went in a different direction. I'll have to go back when I have some time and try it out again using a Windows 98 Virtual Machine to see if it works and see what sounds it gives me. I guess I could install one of the very early versions of BIAB to drive it (I've got every version since version 8, back when it was 16-bit).
By the way, I like the song. It has a pretty cool sound to it.
Thanks. So perhaps you can see why I want to resurrect that instrument.
Soundfonts -- that's it. I'd forgotten about that forgotten technology. Maybe I could do something with them. As I dimly recall, one (or more) of the disks that came with one (or more) of my SB cards had routines on them showing how to create Soundfonts. Something else I'll have to investigate.
Ah, a Win98 virtual machine! That would be the ticket. My original Win98 disk has a small but deep divot in it and it errors out now when I try to install Win98 from it. But a virtual Win98 machine would work. Something else to dig into.
The earliest version of BiaB I have, I dunno what version it is. Almost 20 years ago, I was talking with a friend of mine, who is no longer with us, about the formidable task of attempting to learn a whole bunch of the old standards. He tossed me a CD and said, "use this." It was in a jewel case, and all it said on the outside of the case, in handwritten letters, was "Band in a Box, Windows 95." I asked him what it was and his words were, in effect, "It's what you need, use it." I guess he also supplied me with some of the tunes too, or told me where on the 'net to find them.
So I'll admit it. It was a bootleg copy that got me started with BiaB, then not too long after I bought my own license, then I was in the upgrade path. Oh, and it worked great for learning a whole bunch of Real Book tunes. I still have it around here somewhere, but I don't recall the version.
rharv, you've given me an idea. I've never thrown away any old motherboards. Or their RAM. I'll have to dig through them and see if any might have an ISA slot without being AT boards. I don't even have any AT keyboards that work anymore. So if I can find an ATX board with an ISA slot, I'll be set. That is, if the old ISA SB card(s) I have have the synth I'm looking for. But if they're pre-PNP I might just be toast. I don't remember any of those settings you used to have to indicate just to get the card to work.
+++ HERE +++ is a link to a recent post linking to a free, multi-operating system software tool for creating Soundfonts. The software tool is called Polyphone.
If you don't want to go bouncing around forum posts, +++ HERE +++ is a link to the Polyphone website.
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Handy flash drive tip: Always try plugging in a USB device the wrong way first? If your flash drive (or other USB plug) doesn't have a symbol to indicate which way is up, look for the side with a seam on the metal connector (it only has a line across one side) - that's the side that either faces down or to the left, depending on your port placement.
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A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
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