I believe the answer is YES! when using Band-in-a-Box. Band-in-a-Box will play the beginning of a song file while still continuing to build the remainder of the song file as a background file. That means Band-in-a-Box is performing many background tasks while playing the song.

While the song is playing, Band-in-a-Box is also having to perform a lot of file reads to access the RealTrack files and then assemble the snippets to be played. This is repeated for each RealTrack and RealDrum instrument track.

You can change this behavior in BiaB for Windows by pressing Ctrl-E (or selecting "Options" and then "Preferences ..." in the menu), the "RealTracks" button (# 1 in the screenshot below)and then removing the default check marks for "speed up generation of RealTracks" and "High Quality Tempo/Pitch Stretching" as shown in # 2 of the screenshot.

Attached Files (Click to download or enlarge) (Only available when you are logged in)
Cntrl-E.jpg (230.02 KB, 20 downloads)

Jim Fogle - 2024 BiaB (1111) RB (5) Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home