PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Real Tracks 2 part questions

Part 1)Sorry if this question has been asked before,tried searching but could not get results I was after. How come it's not possible to sample from the live tracks and use the individual notes in a song instead of the pre-made phases.If for example I use Sample Modelings Sax and Trumpet and they are made from sampled instruments why not the real tracks that PG Music makes? Is it really that impossible to do or would it just take to much time and not be financially feasible.
Part 2)Would it be possible to turn loops of real instruments into real tracks? I mean is there a way to save the file and place it for use real tracks to use? Thanks

Two good questions.

The first question has indeed been asked frequently. To make a long answer short, suppose you could sample one note for use in the melody. What would be its attack, duration, timbre, vibrato or volume? I don't think it's as easy as it first appears.

Users do not have the tools and instructions to do your second question at this time. It is a reasonable request, though, as this is possible for RealDrums so one would think it could be for RealTracks. As a practical matter, we cannot read the instruction files for RealTracks; the ones for RealDrums are simple ASCII text. Just a guess, but perhaps PG Music wishes to keep its very successful process proprietary.

(1) already exists -- it's called midi (ha, ha). RealTracks derives its "real" sound by recording a bunch of phrases that take care all of those things that Matt mentioned up above for you. As you get closer and closer to one note, you move closer and closer to what midi does with its use of samples.

Exactly!

Consider this: You already have various MIDI samplers that are made by sample recording separate notes of a real instrument and then you are enabled to assign a note value for each note, assembling that into a performance.

But you also know that MIDI quite often cannot sound realistic.

The PGMusic Realtracks get around that problem by incorporating groups of notes - musical phrases - that were recorded in realtime by live very high quality musicians and the software is enabled to select from those phrases and place them intelligently overtop of your entered chord changes.

Trying to frorce Realtracks to play your desired notes, one at a time, is therefore a self-defeating prospect.

On the other hand, there are quite a few MIDI instruments that can sound realistic enough, the Keyboards, Melodic Percussion Instruments, etc. that can, when presented along with a few Realtracks and the Realdrums, sound very real indeed.

And depending upon your selection of the MIDI synth or sampler involved, you can generate some very convincing work. Even using MIDI guitars in the case of some synths.


--Mac

I too wanted... hoped that BB/RB would be able to do this.....I wanted it to be able to play a melody of my choosing.... but it doesn't exactly do that so I work within it's limitations and my imagination and efforts to get better than the average result from it.

The fact of the matter is that if you render the same real track several different times, lets say 5 times.... you WILL have 5 completely different tracks with many variations between them but also with great similarity between them. Some parts will tend to be nearly identical between the tracks and other areas will be totally different.

Case in point: The Best Christmas http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11971116

It's a song I wrote some time back now.... but in it, I have 3 piano tracks and if I'm not mistaken there are 5 guitar tracks.... both piano and guitar were rendered multiple times from the same real track..... and looking at the screen shot you can see the differences. The piano fills and the guitar fills and solo are constructed with creative editing to achieve the desired result.



hope this helps.... it takes some work but you can get some interesting stuff with some effort.

If you absolutely have to have something that follows your notes.... such as a sax or piano, or anything else.... midi is the way to go, short of getting a live player to play the part for you. There are some really nice (but costly) sampled synths out there which are specific to certain instruments.... simply do a Bing search and you'll find them.
Asking on various recording forum sites can often turn up player with the specialty instrument you seek and who have a decent home studio and most importantly are willing to help for free. Check on the forum sites for all the major DAW manufacturers.

Another song I did: Missing Person http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=11962059 has 3 musicians from 3 different states.... fiddle from Vermont, vocals, guitars and mando (me) from NC, and vocals, bass, guitar, dobro from Georgia.... just ask and people will jump in on a project that interests them. We have never met nor talked on the phone....everything was through the forum and PM, and email.

You can always import the sample (mind you they are quite buried in the BB RT folder - but the samples can be located) into a DAW and do either the volume envelope as GH pictured or even chop the sample down into individual notes if you wanted, remove those you don't and then replace the edited sample back into the BB RT folder. Ensuring the exact same name (including case) is used.

They are, after all, only WMA files and can be manipulated as such. Sonar can export WMA files, as can most other DAW's I would imagine.

Of course you would copy out the original to another location first

Just for the record, the "sample modelling" products are not related to sampling as the operative word. Yes, it was likely (just guessing really) analysis of samples that produced their proprietary methods. But "modelling", as in generating a model algorithmically, is the operative word.

Apparently Sample Modelling modeled many sonic timbre signatures that are as variable as can be, based on the physical changes that happen during an actual sax, trombone or trumpet note or phrase. Then they wrote algorithms to achieve these sound signatures or change processes.

Pianoteq (a 20 meg program, no typical sample library) also has a real time modelling method, but for pianos and other keyboard instruments. MIDI can be used to play these instruments but each accepts other variables from what i could glean from videos. Pianoteq uses adjustments prior to play that create very distinct intruments.

Sample modelling's offerings are more zeroed in on a particular individual horn, and apparently, allow editing of performance data. But they both probably allow controller access during performance. I am not sure exactly how MIDI or proprietary controllers come into play in real time versus on the piano roll editor of these products. Getting a nearly perfect performance, for horns or sax, might require piano roll editing.

Anyway, if realistic instruments were to be had by basic sampling with loops and simple envelopes, these would be the more boring of the bunch (Why u look at me dis way xylophone? I don't mean to insult you xylophone! Marimba, get hold of yourself.). Even the combination of vibrato rate and depth makes it hard for a sampler to approach violin or cello perfectly. Sax and trombone and trumpet are as hard if not a lot harder since the overtones are varying not as would be reproducable by filtering, but radically, and in contrast to a linear envelope, these changes happen as a player blows harder or forms lips in different direction, which he/she can do early or late in the note or phrase. I really don't know with any certainty or precision about this stuff; if i'm wrong please correct me! But its fun for me to think about which is why i put my 2 ¢ in.

I don't work for a virtual musical instrument modelling company.

Curious cat nailed the problem...

You can replicate the notes with ease using a variety of methods.... however, the human feel, the characteristic of the instrument and how it's played.... also known as ARTICULATION ... that, is the hard part of replication with patches and samples.

Band in a Box and Real tracks does a decent job in many respects with this issue.... but when you start chopping things apart and putting them back together.... the result will not have the proper articulation.

I use both Sibelius and Finale and both programs have features that try to emulate a real person playing just like BIAB does with embellishment. Could they not improve on this feature by making say the melody do whatever the instrument that you choose play, be it guitar or piano of a Sax so that the chosen instrument would only have articulations that are meant for that instrument. Like a bend in a guitar or an overblow for a sax. Just wondering

In the case of modelers that augment the function of MIDI for musicians, pianoteq has a great page on there web site that some may find helpful.

Its a list of things that their little program adjusts that you will recognize are not either in the realm of MIDI or the realm of samples:

https://www.pianoteq.com/listen_features

Tonight I bought the stage version of this piano to try out with BIAB. Mainly because I got tired of my east west grand piano, which uses 2 gigs of memory. From the audio examples on this page I can tell I am going to be enthralled with this program, which is only $130.

Here's more explanation of the difference between a sampler and such a modeling program.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTbXnbfymdc

Still wish I could afford sample modelling's offerings but I think its like $800 for everything...