PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Confusing question on why the devs decided to have utility tracks?

OK, Why are there utility tracks when the chord window or the 'Current bar' setting editor can't mute them?

The ONLY tracks that can be muted are the default 5 instrument tracks as well as the melody, soloist and audio tracks using the current bar editor (F5).

I tried using the '_REBEL.STY' style and it uses utility #1 for it's solo guitar, but I can't do anything with it either via the chord sheet or the (F5) function. So my question is, why have the utility tracks if they can't be controlled either via the chord sheet or (F5)?

What I want to do is to mute everything on bar 1 (for a 2 bar intro) except the solo for an intro, then on bar 2 have the drums and the solo playing leading into the start of the song where all tracks, except the solo is playing, unfortunately, this wasn't thought out when those utility tracks were included.

There might be something with that particular style.
Try testing by opening any other style and placing a couple of tracks on Utility tracks > use F5 to mute / unmute all, or partial.
Works for me...

You should be able to mute the Guitar on Utility Track 1. The Bar Settings includes a combo-menu that allows you to select specific functions for any of the utility tracks:

Sorry, I have forgotten more than I remember about "all tracks being the same". But chatGPT says this... is it wrong?

In Band-in-a-Box (BIAB), the F5 key brings up the Bar Settings dialog, where you can control various things like tempo changes, key changes, and muting/unmuting tracks at specific bars.
However, as of current BIAB versions, the F5 Bar Settings dialog does not directly allow you to mute or unmute Utility Tracks—only the standard tracks (Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, Soloist) are included in that interface.

To work with Utility Tracks:
You need to manually mute/unmute them using the Mixer.
Or use the Tracks window, where you can automate volume/mute changes if you’re using a DAW or exporting MIDI/audio.
There isn’t currently a bar-by-bar control over Utility Tracks through the F5 dialog.

I just opened BIAB current 2025. Before I could fully test it, I found needed to run a RTFS. Then I found I needed to Rebuild the Styles. Then I opened a RT Style and copied the RT Guitar track to Utility 1. Then I muted Utility 1, on and off, in F5. All worked fine.

ChatGPT is out of date on this one!

Audio Track is correct and testing muting UtilityTracks work fine on my system.

It's not mentioned but in addition to the Mute command using Bar Settings (F5), the user must also set the Chorus, beginning bar (Mute) and ending bar (Return to Normal).

In the attached screen shot, the Mute for Track Utility #1 is set to begin on Bar 2 and Return to Normal at Bar 4 as indicated by the red Underlines at the respective bars.

Answering just this part, they were added a while back to increase the number of available tracks, but then they had many differences from the 'standard' tracks.

PGM are, or at least have been, working towards "all tracks are equal", but they're not fully there yet and things sometimes move rather slowly.

What year/version of BIAB are you using? The ability to control Utility Tracks in the Bar Settings window was added in the 2024 version.

ChatGPT is often wrong (or out of date) and should not be considered a reliable source of information for anything.

I'm using BIAB version 2023 build 1010 and as can be seen from this screenshot Guitar 4 is using utility #1, and F5 does not show anywhere to control utility tracks.

Unfortunately, prior to 2024, the Bar Settings did not include the functionality to mute / unmute Utility tracks.

Utility tracks are largely 'a work in progress', and I understand that the company is continuing to work towards 'all tracks are equal'. I think that's getting close, but we're maybe no quite there yet.

Well at least that (2023 version) explains it.
To address OP "why the devs decided to have utility tracks?"
Well, short answer, it's better to have them than not. I believe you still can (in 2023) use node volume automation to mute/unmute tracks at particular bars.
Better yet, support progress of a smaller company and get the updates which includes the mutes for Utility tracks at F5 and much more. You are on patch 1010, current is 1128.

PG are doing a great job of escaping the limitations of the original BIAB program which dates back to DOS and floppies - and they retain backward compatibility. Not all the fucntional upgrades are as elegant as one might like but all credit to PG as they upgrade the program. "why the devs decided to have utility tracks?" is easily answered. it was the first step on a process of improving capabilities which is still ongoing. hence the need to upgrade as new versions are released and support PG.

Utility tracks are great in that you can add loads of different instruments to them, where as in the past I often had to do the basics in Biab and then open Realband to add more instrumental tracks, not so any more, its easy to complete an entire project within Biab alone.

musiclover.
(and for any lurkers that dont know about rb and might consider it.)

just my opinions but...re 'all tracks are equal'.,

1..even tho i love the 'concept' of the new bb tracks view there are a plethora of things i can do in rb tracks view (and rb bars view) in comparison that i cant do in bb.
so many in fact i would be typing pages of info and just dont have the time. (also rb bars view is very useful for moving chunks of midi bars around.)
2..i still view bb as i have always done (until features in bb tracks view are added.)
just like we used to do in studios.
ie bb for quickly getting the song idea down (when i get a song idea at
3am and im groggy from sleep...lol.) eg a architect planning out a house
and then rb for actually building the darn house.
i still find if i try to do it all in bb i miss a load of usefull rb features.
3..one major problem i see re rb is because its so deep re features that many people dont have the time to delve into it.
which is a shame as us long time users of rb realise its depth of features and tricks certainly compared to any music app ive seen on the market.
(i keep on trying other daws but keep on coming back to rb.)
4..in the last couple of years pg have added further new features to rb
(yay !! lol.) that bb just doesnt have....eg comping.

and i could go on as i said.
in summary dont think of it as bb versus rb...i think of the benefits of useing both together. because both have their plusses and minuses.

as ive mentioned to pg several times over the last few years rb could slay the daw market if various cosmetic graphic changes were made to it to pretty it up plus a few other features i would like to see and things to clean up.
for any lurkers who know nothing about rb and maybe considering these great pg products which have enabled so many of us to create our songs just compare the bb and rb manuals to see first hand the plusses and minuses of each to save me typing a ton of pages.

(note in RB ...ALL THE 256 TRACKS ARE ACTUALLY EQUAL...lol.)
compared to rb i find useing bb utility tracks more time consuming frankly.
and i sometimes get frustrated when i want to do editing.

also frankly my big criticism is i wish years and years ago pg had have been more aggressive developing rb instead of this yearly trickling out of added features.
(ie been more aggressive like the reaper developers over the years which ive used since reaps was introduced...but use less these days due to added rb features.)

so...if one truly wants 'all tracks to be equal' imho rb is the better solution.

just my 2 cents.

happiness

om

The reason for utility tracks came from us users wanting more that the original 5 user tracks (bass, piano, drums, guitar, and strings) and 11 dedicated tracks. Utility tracks were a good idea but with a half baked introduction. They are slowly becoming more like the original user tracks.

Ah, there we go. The 2024 version added the feature you're looking for, so the 2023 version won't have the ability to control Utility Tracks in the F5 window.

Also, build 1010 is a little out of date - we have a build 1013 available here: https://www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm#1013

Keep in mind that this update does not add the functionality you're looking for, however it does fix a number of bugs.

Musaholic Studio,

Even though the 2023 version of BIAB does not have F5 settings for the Utility tracks, according to 2023's manual, Audio Edit will work on the Utility tracks. This means that you can use Volume Envelopes on Utility Track 1 to control the instrumental sound coming in and out of the mix. Volume node automation offers much more control than F5 and is well worth learning how to use. The video below discusses it beginning at timestamp 51:18.


Regards,
--Noel

Thank you Noel, I completely forgot to suggest that! Indeed, using Volume Automation is generally much better sounding than using the F5 dialog, especially for things like soloists.

We actually have a dedicated tutorial for it here, made by yours truly:

MusaholicStudios,

Another way to achieve your goal is to continue to use the F5 settings, but select the "RealTrack" button to open the RealTracks Picker and then select RealTrack # 1152, Silence. When you're ready for the regular instrument to resume, use the F5 "RealTrack" button to switch to the regular instrument.

In live play----after playing a song with utility tracks, the next song, with no utility tracks, should only show the default mixer and not the utility tracks that are not in use on that song.