The tracks labeled "Silence" in the multi styles are only silent some of the time. I can't figure out the source of the RT sounds for these tracks. This is probably easy but I can't find it in the Help file. Example below. Thanks!

These are likely multistyles or other songs with style changes.
THe "silence" just refers to the start of the track being silent, likely because the first style used doesnt use that track, but later styles do use that track.

As Dr. Gannon noted, a multistyle can have different instruments at different times on a track. You select the style in use with part markers. Part markers A & B will use the first style instrument selections while subsequent part marker pairs load a new style with new instruments.

Let us know what multistyle you used and we can identify the other instruments on the Silence tracks.

Thanks for the quick response, Peter! Yes, these are multistyles and the "silence" tracks are not used on the first style. So I get why they are labeled "silence". But, if possible, I'd like to know what realtrack each "silence" track plays when they ARE used. Here's why

My BiaB tracks end up in a DAW where I have to manually name them. For most tracks I can see both the RT number and the name of the RT on the waveform when I drag them over. For "silence" tracks I don't see anything as helpful.

THANKS again!

Jim, thanks for the response! The multistyle in the example is _LOST+, but I'm looking for a general approach to directly accessing the RT name/number so I can efficiently name my DAW stems. "Regular" tracks include the RT number and name when I drag them to the DAW; "silence" tracks do not.

This might be in the "too hard" bucket.

General approach to access MultiStyle RT names and numbers:

General information:

_Lost+ MultiStyle has four variations and likely 5 or six additional instruments and changes.

To access the additional Styles included in the _Lost+ style, there are 4 of them. You can highlight each and review the differences, additions and instrument deletions one by one.
_Lost1.sty
_Lost2.sty
_Lost3.sty
_Lost4.sty

and there are additional style instruments included onto some of the Utility Tracks of these styles.

To list these styles, enter _Lost.sty into the search Bar filter box

Once you've selected one of the numbered styles, you will also need to select the small pull-down arrow beside the first visible Utility Track to see which ones have content.

Entering + into the search bar filter box will filter a search for all PG developed MultiStyles of which there are hundreds.

Hope this helps.

Charlie, this is spot on, and I appreciate the reply! Even though I can do this, or go to the multistyle (or demo song) memo field description, or even just listen to the track and use my ears, was hoping there MIGHT be a way to tell what RT instrument is on each multistyle track by just looking at the "silence" track fields in the multistyle differently. But it appears that information is no longer visible in the mixer view or in the dragged/dropped track .WAV files. Not a complaint, was just interested in working through these multistyles a bit faster if I was missing something. I learn something here every day, whether I post of not.

Right click on any part Marker and the letter associated with a Part Marker will display the associated Style (ie:_Lost3.Sty, etc ) and provide details of the instrumentation connected with each particular style.

Charlie, yes, this is useful but it still won't tell me, for example, which of the four identically labeled "silence" tracks are the added electric guitar tracks, which are the pad, etc. Looks like I have to figure it out by listening to each track, which seems a bit clunky but doable.

THANK YOU, again!

Have been thinking about this a bit and have a thought. Wouldn't it be more useful if each MultiStyle displayed the FULL instrument range and not only the range for the first style? In other words, the _Lost+ style would look like this:

Now THAT's a good question if more than one instrument is mapped to a track. On the _LOST+ multistyle used in my example each of the four subordinate styles (_LOST1 through _LOST4) preserve a unique track for each instrument. Looking at a couple more multistyle examples, this APPEARS to be a general rule for multityles but may not be.

LOST is a perfect name for this arrangement, cause thats what I find myself trying to follow along. But carry on.

Ha! I get it. I've possibly overplayed this windmill.

Short story is that a 10 track multistyle like _LOST+ that has 4 of 10 tracks labeled "silence" does not enable an easy understanding what is being played when the 4 "silence" tracks are not silent.

<< Short story is that a 10 track Multistyle like _LOST+ that has 4 of 10 tracks labeled "silence" does not enable an easy understanding what is being played when the 4 "silence" tracks are not silent. >>

Lost+ is the master style of a MultiStyle that consists of 4 additional sub-styles so there are 5 total individual styles, each a complete Style itself; Lost+, Lost1, Lost2, Lost3, and Lost4. Lost1,2,3,and 4 are normal styles until they are included into a master MultiStyle. Any of the numbered styles can be selected and examined to see the instruments contained in the style.

For instance, Lost3 has 5 guitars and a Silence Track. There are two sub-styles (a and b) and if Lost3 is loaded and played as an independent Style, the Silence Track is the sole instrument for both sub-styles a and b. No audio is generated for that track unless it is included into MultiStyle Lost+.

Charlie, I do completely understand how MultiStyles work, and the role of the substyles. I'm simply disappointed at the amount of work it takes to extract which instruments are on 40% of the tracks (in this example). If the MultiStyle is hard wired to only reflect the a/b substyle, then PGM should make the a/b substyle a "kitchen sink" style, in this case _LOST3 plus the solo guitar in _LOST4. Then all ten tracks will be properly labeled for all 8 substyles (or 10 with the "kitchen sink").

Thanks AGAIN for the assist!

Hi everyone. I came here by searching, "what is the SILENCE track in Band In A Box" to try to understand if I need it when importing the BIAB files into my DAW. I read this whole thread and it was confusing. I don't see any audio information at all in the SILENCE track so I can't see why I need it. So, I guess my conclusion is that it is not needed for my DAW and I can safely delete it.

In a multistyle, some of the instruments are often not used in the first two (A-B) substyles and so show up labeled "silent" when you use the style. However, those instruments are used and are NOT silent when other substyles (C-D, etc) are used.

In thinking about what you said regarding the (A-B) (C-D) substyles I loaded my song file and noticed that it had 8 substyles available to me. I didn't even realize that it had more than the usual (A-B). I changed some of the substyles to include C, D, E, F, G and then exported the WAV files into my DAW and this time the SILENCE tracks do indeed contain some audio. Thank you for explaining it so that I could understand what is going on.

Happy to help. If you read through this thread there's a way to figure out exactly what instruments are on which "silence" tracks, but it takes some work...

When I exported the WAV files into my DAW the SILENCE tracks were easy to see where the audio was located and then upon playing them I was able to identify what instruments they were and label them accordingly. That worked for me and was easy and quick.

Ha! Using your ears is always the best way.

But if you want to know EXACTLY which RealTracks are used, you need to look at the instrument listing for the individual RealStyles that make up that MultiStyle. It's easy to find them when you sort the StylePicker by name. It would be EASIER to find them if BiaB made the first substyle in a MultiStyle an "all instruments" substyle. Then there would be no "Silence" tracks when you load the MultiStyle.

Happy playing!