PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Simple explanation of realtrack and realdrums?

I have BB 2008.5 megapack and thinking of upgrading to either the new pro or megapack. I am trying to understand what comes in the new megapack, and due to my poor understanding of reatracks and realdrums, I am not sure what they mean when they say, for example, "70 realtracks in 19 bands and realdrums sets 1 to 6". How do styles/realtracks/realdrums relate to each other, and to the "sets" they sell of them. Is it that only some styles use realtracks, and realdrums, but you can substitute realdrums in old styles (but not realtracks)?

In the old megapack install, I seem to have styles disks up to 77 (all of them?).

Also, in my old megapack I have

- realtracks1.exe
- realtracks2a.exe
- realtracks2b.exe
- realtracks3.exe
- realtracks4.exe
- realtracks5.exe
- realtracks6a.exe
- realtracks6b.exe

- realdrums1-6.exe
- realdrums4.exe
- realdrums11.exe
- realdrums14.exe
- realdrums20.exe

Seems like I might not be getting much more (maybe even less drums) in the new megapack?

Check with PG Customer support for the exact Real Tracks in Mega Pak. I believe you will get 70 of them.
There are over 600 Real Tracks with the Ultra Plus Pak and that includes all of them.

Trax

Hi Dazz,

The RealTracks and RealDrums that come with the MegaPAK are listed here: http://www.pgmusic.com/megarealcombos.win.htm

Your old MegaPak came with more RealDrums, but they'll still work with your 2011 version, so nothing to worry about there.

You can add any RealTrack or RealDrum to any tune, no matter which style you're using.

Please let us know if anything else isn't clear.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

Hi Dazz,

You already have Realdrums sets 1 - 6 (plus extra sets 11, 14, 20).

Below is a link that will help explain the phrase "19 bands" that PG Music have used. (I accessed this by scrolling down the packages page and clicking on "Megapak RealCombos".)

http://www.pgmusic.com/megarealcombos.win.htm

When I started with BIAB in 2006, I bought the Megapak because I didn't want to outlay too much money on something that mightn't work as good as they say. Once I started using the program, though, I discovered BIAB was brilliant. The very next opportunity that I had, I upgraded to get everything. Since then, I have simply kept "topping up" new additions with the extremely reasonable upgrades that PG Music offer throughout the year. I mention the above because, if your finances permit, upgrading to the UltraPlusPak with everything would be a huge step up from what you have. The full complement of Realtracks is nothing short of breath-taking!

All the best,
Noel

P.S. I see that Kent beat me!

Maybe this is key to my confusion. I can apply any style to a song I have created, but how to I add a realtrack. The only place I have found seems to be in global preferences, not just for the song.

I did find an override for the realdrums in the styles chooser dialog, but not realtracks.


I looked at the link, and that gives me a lot more info, thanks. How does the track/band grouping relate to the sets you sell, and the sets I already have?

You're going off on the wrong "track" Dazz. You can put any RT/RD in any song using any style. The RT's are completely independent of the style and that's what confuses people. Midi styles are set, what you hear is what you have. You can't take a midi guitar part from one style and plug it into another style without going through some hoops by creating your own hybrid style. With RT's however you can do that easily. You right click on the instrument you want to change in the menu bar that runs along the top of Biab. Say it's Guitar. You see choices when you right click, one choice is "Add/Remove Real Tracks". Click that and it opens a window that shows you all the RT's in your system. The cool thing here is you're not limited to just Guitars. You can put any RT you want in there and it doesn't depend on the style either. Literally you could start with a country waltz midi style and put a heavy metal bass on the Strings track, a blues B3 on the Guitar track and a Hip Hop Sax solo in the Piano track. The only track that stays with the instrument is the drums so maybe you put a jazz RD on the Drum track. What's left from your original country waltz midi style? Nothing but the tempo and key sig. This combo of RT's would probably sound pretty bad but who knows you may be onto something...The point is you can mix the RT's any way you want including in the middle of the song. 2010.5 allows you to plug in different RT's on a bar by bar basis. You combine that with 5 instrument parts and you could use 10, 30, 50 different RT's in one song. Basically no limits.

Considering what I just explained you can see that the PG Real Track Styles are merely suggestions. You can start with a RT style and then mix and match there too until you get to point there's nothing left of the original RT style.

As cool as this is, move it into Real Band where you have 48 tracks to play with but you can still use different RT/RD's on each track and still put more than one RT on any single track and the possibilities are endless. Plus in RB you can create multiple midi parts from different styles along with the RT's. Can't do that in Biab.

Bob

OK, I never suspected you could do THAT!

Say, is there any way to speed up the regeneration of the realtracks? It doesn't even seem to cache them - it regenerates them every time you press the play button, even if no changes have been made.

Thanks for the tips, I will probably use Realband more when I get the new version - the one I have is fairly basic with respect to the BB functions.

Each time you hit Play, the RTs will regenerate unless Frozen. There is a checkbox in RT Prefs to 'Speed up generation of RTs'. I don't know what the default is but if you have a reasonable fast machine, this really helps. I have a 2 year old laptop and the songs begin within a few seconds with 2 RTs. It works by generating the RTs in the background while the song is playing.

I assume that if you decompress the RT WMA files to WAV, that will help a little but not nearly as much as the Speed up generation option I mentioned.

R

Hi Dazz,

As you have mentioned the "Play" button regenerates the song. If, however, you use "Replay" (the button next to the play button), the song will play without regenerating. Also, I usually double-left-click on the first bar to engage replay rather than regenerate.

Regards,
Noel

That speed up option must be in newer versions (I have 2008.5 until I upgrade).

I went to Options>preferences clicked the 'realtracks' button, and the dialog that appears doesn't seem to have that option. It does, however,have an 'install' button that decompresses to wav files (trying that now).

Hey thanks. There are so many things to learn in this program!

Dazz, decompressing will speed things up a tiny bit, but it will take up a huge amount of hard drive space - maybe 10 times what it takes now.

If you upgrade to version 2011, you will get the new format RealTracks that take up far less space (like about 1/3), and the speed-up options mentioned. Plus, you can reduce the size of your current RealTracks files. And, the sound will be better.

Yes, thanks. Upgrade is planned soon, just deciding which package

One last thing: The upgrade will also include the NEW elastique Pro V2 sound engine as well. That is what generates the Real Tracks now. It allows for using a much wider tempo value with the generation process and it is both faster and smoother sounding.

Trax