I think I've either misunderstood how to generate RealTracks from an existing song in RealBand or something has changed since I upgraded to 2020. I have opened an existing song MGU BB file into RealBand 2020. The song generates its tracks as normal and the song plays just fine. However, when I attempt to select a portion of a new track and the Generate RealTrack on the selected portion I get a display that I have no RealTracks to choose from. The display is attached. I thought perhaps it was that RB did not have access to the RealTracks folder, but this is OK. I have had this working under previous RealBand versions so maybe something is wrong in my setup.
On a related issue, when I try generate a midi track, I am told that the selected instrument is not available in the current style. Does the instrument have to be in the current style? I though that it was simply the chordsheet that was used in conjunction with any style that generated new track section.
Thank for the information on Rebuilding the list. That did the track although I'm not entirely sure why. To rebuild the list I had to select the current style in order to get access to the Rebuild button. The list did contain a large number of styles. Anyway, it did the trick and it worked as I had assumed it would from previous work.
With regard to midi track generation. I selected a region of a midi track and then Generate Midi and selected Guitar from the list. No style list was provided but I got a message that Guitar was not available in the current style. That was correct of course because the current style was RealTeracks. I thought that I could select a midi style in the same way I chose a RealStyle! If I select a new style with a Guitar part in it then this will work, but I don't want to select a change of style for the song. But I guess the clue to what I'm doing is that there is not an option to Select and Generate Midi. I am obviously misunderstanding something here.
In order to generate midi you need to call up a stuyle that has the midi instrument you want.An easy way to do this is go to the style picker and ise the filter to only show midi styles. To generate a rt you don't need a style just use the generate/realtracks and the whole list of RTs comes up and you wade through until you find what you want.
The track I was attempting to generate midi for was definitely a midi track (I think this causes a different error message if this is attempted) Here is where my confusion lies. If I Select and Generate a RealTrack I get the choice of RealTracks from the list that is offered. The selected RealTrack is then used in conjunction with the chordsheet to give me my audio section for that track.
Now, I get the idea that my midi can be generated in the same way. So, on a midi track I define a region and then select Generate Midi. This time I do not get to choose a style from which the part can be chosen. It seems to expect to get the part from the current style. This means having to load this style. I get it to work that way (so long as the part is in the selected style), but it is not how I would have expected it to work. Hopefully I am wrong. I suppose the clue is in the fact that it is Generate Midi rather than Select and Generate Midi.
This is one of the clunky parts of RB and I brought this up many moons ago. Way too confusing. Why? First this process needs to be explained clearly and it most certainly is not. Then it's what John just said. You have to call up a midi style that has the instrument you want in it. BUT how do you know which style you want? First you have to go into the Stylemaker, filter for the style category then actually look at the descriptions of a midi style to see if your instrument is even in it. Then, how do you have any idea that just because a style has a midi instrument you want by the name it sounds like what you might want? You have to audition the whole style which can help somewhat but I just want to hear the instrument I'm looking for not listen to a demo of an entire stile. You wind up basically blindly picking midi styles just by the titles and hoping. No way to audition just the instrument you want like you can with an RT.
My suggestion at the time was to create audio snippits of all the different midi styles broken down by instrument to create the exact same list as we have with the RT's. Want a funky midi guitar part? Or a nice background midi organ part? Click on "Choose midi instrument" scroll the list and find funky guitars or ballad organs and double click on one and it plays a demo with or without a band just like the RT demos. If you like it then you select it as the instrument for that track. And, of course we all know the sound quality of that part still depends on the synth you have which could be different than the synth PG used to demo it but at least you have an idea what it sounds like.
Would that be an incredible amount work? Absolutely. Could that be a big selling feature? Absolutely.
Thank you very much for explaining the situation with this feature of RB. I have to say it is one aspect of RB that drew me to going back to using it but I couldn't understand the how RB could do this job with RealTracks and not then use a similar process for working with Midi. As you say, this would be a fantastic selling feature because the resulting midi can be exposed to such a wide range of synths and midi effects (which is really what I was looking for).
So, once having auditioned a suitable style that contains the part I am looking for, I now have to load this style in order to generate the part. But now I have to keep track of the original style and any other parts that I might use if I require any of these for re-generation. This is perhaps not too big a problem and where the Comments feature would really come in handy.
This is where it's so confusing for people, you're not generating the style itself like we do in Biab, just the instrument part you want from that style. You first select the style, then set up the track as midi, then staying in the same window you selected the track type (midi) select the synth, then the patch like electric piano. Now you need to set up the area of the track itself. For me I used to mess around with just certain sections of a track but now I just Select All and let it generate the entire track because you never know what you're going to get. I may get something good in another part of the track I didn't think of.
Anyway, the last thing is right click on the track, click on Generate and then Generate Midi and voila! There's your part. The problem I have with this is it's only now that you can hear that part in isolation, realize you don't like it and have to do this whole thing again in order to audition different versions of your instrument from different styles. That's so bloody awkward and time consuming I gave up messing with it. We really need what I described earlier, a way to isolate style elements by instrument category just like with the RT's.
Ha, a further enhancement I just thought of. If they were to do that they could also render the midi parts to audio and create new RT's with them by using any one of the killer and expensive synths they have. Now we would have a choice, keep the part midi so we can edit it using our own synth or use it as an RT. How cool would that be? That would be true integration of the huge library of midi styles with the RT's.
Back in 2018 Callie of PG Music created a post touting the Stylepicker enhancements in Realband 2018. One of the enhancements allows for the soloing of any instrument within a style. Unfortunately, this feature never existed. It was pointed out in this thread but PG never responded:
Callie's list of new enhancements for 2018 doesn't say anything about soloing individual parts of style. This is what it says:
Mixer-like control allows style customization within the Stylepicker. This shows what tracks are used in the highlighted style in the list, and color-codes them according to the track types (MIDI/RealTracks/MIDI SuperTracks). There is also a menu button on each track, which allows you to change the instrument, disable/enable the track, or perform other track actions.
The rest of the What's New list is all about searching, copying, rebuilding etc the Stylepicker.
This is what I mean about confusing. The first half of this is talking about the Stylepicker only and it's correct, that's exactly what it looks like right now, I just checked my RB 2020. The second part talks about a menu button on each track. Now, you are no longer in the Stylepicker. It's not a menu button but it means you can double left click OR right click (why both?) in the Track Name area to the left of the track and a menu pops up that does all these things she writes about including soloing the track but this is AFTER you've exited the Stylepicker and ONLY if you use the Load Song Demo function I'll get to next.
Normally, if you want to audition a style you hit the green Play arrow in the bottom right of the Stylepicker and you hear the style. This plays all the instruments and you're trying to hear one part of the style in a mix you have no control over.
If you use the Load Song Demo function it exits Stylepicker and opens a new project and you see the style displayed in Track View like any other song. And yes, now you can control the mix or solo each individual track. However, you've just been kicked out of the song you were working on. Maybe you hear a part that might work but it's not playing in your actual song project. In order to test it you go to File Open and reopen your original song project. You then go through the process to generate it and don't like it? You have to go back into the Stylepicker, audition more styles, select one to test by using Load Song Demo, get kicked out of your project again, listen to the whole style, isolate, mute, solo parts etc. Very clunky.
I wrote about all of this in detail during the testing some years ago. This was probably around the time they started working on the Biab 64 bit version and the plugin and had no time to work on RB. I also put this in the Wishlist but I could do it again I guess.
I think you'll find that the menu function Callie describes does exist in BIAB and it does indeed allow you to solo an instrument. This menu function has never existed in the Stylepicker when accessed by Realband.
Bob, you give a very good explanation of what I needed and I was relieved to know that my feeling of 'chunkiness' was not just my own lack of knowledge RB. It was also nice to realise the difference between 'Generate' in BIAB and RB. I had not been using the 'Generate' button at all. Each track (or part) had been generated individually from the selected style.
In this case then, say I generate a part of Track x with Style 1 and another part of Track x with Style 2. Because, in each case, I have had to load the related style into RB, if I go back to the part generated with Style 1, will I have to load Style 1 again to Regenerate that part? Will it remember the part the Style that generated it? I'm thinking not, so that means recording the styles for each part.
But cxp has pointed out that you CAN solo the instruments of a style if you use StylePicker in BIAB, so if my chord sheet is loaded into BIAB then I can at least audition the instruments in a more structured approach. I have done this now and it really is great. The Stylepicker looks the same as RB but the window showing the instruments contains buttons that allow me to solo a specific instrument. Now I can test that solo with my actual chords. And whats more, I can, while it is playing the song, select another song and play again and the new instrument will play again. This is still a bit clunky, but boy, its light years better than having to tackle it from RB. It just means that both BIAB and RB open at the same time.
"Will it remember the part the Style that generated it?" Normally just in the track name. You will normally get enough info from the name RB uses to find the style again, plus it will be in the Generate - Generate Favorites list if generated recently.
Last edited by rharv; 05/03/2001:36 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
BIAB and RB are some of the most UN logical programs i worked with. Confusing user functions at least. But BIAB is still my favorite for experimenting when writing a song .. It dives me nuts at times too. They're not just peanuts i tell ya'.
I have only done this a few times and it goes back to how i used to add extra midi tracks to a powertracks seq file after exporting from BIAB.
create the song in BIAB and save it. export as a midi file, open in PT and save as a seq file. close it.
what i used to do in PT was go back to the BIAB original and audition several styles (which in BIAB is easy and fast and even allows you to solo the instrument), find one with the new or extra instrument i liked and export to clipboard as a midi file then close the BIAB original without saving to preserve the original arrangement. open in PT from the clipboard, copy the track i wanted, close the midi file from the clipboard without saving and then open the original PT seq file and paste the new part in.
i think the same process would work in RB but i haven't tried it. and the original BIAB file would open without the export to clipboard i used to have to do with PT although i'd still use the midi clipboard option for the new part as I wouldn't want a raft of saved redundant files. i see BIAB and RB as steps that work together. in this case i'd go back to BIAB rather than work in RB.
once you have the midi info you can still change patches - HiQ strings for GM strings etc but its a way of getting new midi tracks into a seq file which i find less clunky by auditioning in BIAB rather than guessing in RB.
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Look Ma! More MIDI 13: Country & Americana
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Artist Performance Set 17: Songs with Vocals 7
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