PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Choosing the best realtracks a bit of a chore?

Eddie I think you are really trying to hard to make this confusing. First off you are getting Styles and Real Tracks mixed up.

Realtracks are the componants of making instrument tracks. and there is not 1400 of them.

As far as them having names, these are identifiers, and just part of the whole file, they are also know by things like, guitar accoustic strumming 120, meaning just what it says a accousitc guitar strumming patern at 120 BPM. They also add the name to them so we know the player, and this identifies them with associated styles. A brent track plays nice with a brent style, and it soes not really matter who the brent is, cause after all the brent style is listed under country, and or Rack depending on the tracks associated with them. Filter them by the method that works for you.

As far as styles, yes there are some 1400 or more, and they are named some random stuff. Like tracy, tanya, and garth, and most of the names are of someone who did music in a similar style, like Tracy Byrd, or Tanya Tucker, or Garth. Most are very well know names, not the keyboard plaer from some band that was marginally popular, and maybe one of two of the players went on to have solo careers. These names just give the users a starting point as to what style of music they represent, they also can be filtered by genre, and BPM, and other things. This requires a bit of digging to get a full grasp, but it is not as hard as you make it out to be.

If I want to start a project i start with styles from the basic genre i want. If it is country waltz, i will filter country styles with 3/4 time, or waltz, and it will give me a nice list of just that. I then pick from that group. It also tells me in the corner some of the songs this might lend itself to. Giving me a little more information.

If I want all real Tracks i start there.

It is really not that difficult, once you run through them a few times i kind of find that i could use a few more.

There is always the hybred and style maker functions. All one has to do is take peices of styles they like and put them together. Maybe a piano from country folk, and a strumming from pop rock, and the like, name them what you like.

It is like having a standing tool chest full of great tools. If you do not get familiar with them, you will always be hunting for the right tool.

It seems there is always someone fussin' about how difficult the style picker is, and how confusing the names are. Wow imagine that we did not have these tools! It would be far more difficult to do things. So much is already done for us, and there are so many great tools in the drawers, just look around awhile until they become more familiar.

One thing i try to remember is that this system was built for multiple users, not just me, so i need to learn to adapt to it, and use it for my purpose. Either i do that or spend all my time worrying about how it does not perfectly fit my personal needs.

Like Mom said "Ya want me to chew it for you?!"

As Rob said RTs and Styles are sort of different animals.
In the RT picker are you aware that columns can be sorted like any spread sheet? Have you tried the filter? To me finding a RT is fairly straight forward. Finding a style has been a little tougher that's why we asked for a good filter. have you tried the filter in the style picker?Did you know that in the BIAB style picker you can click on the "EDIT" button and start to build your own Styles list? The original intent was for self created styles however if you use an existing *.sty file the entry will be removed from the PG created list. In your list you can fill in all of the blanks and give it a description that is meaning full to you.In time that's probably the place you'll go. Each time you find something that appeals to you add it to your list.
Open the style picker click on edit then click on help. There's also another easier way however you don't get the beauty of editting the descriptions. If you find a style that you want to remember click on "add Favorite" It'll now add this style to the Favorites category at the top of the style picker. It'll also add an "F" adjacent to the style in the style picker.

And just so you get a feel for where a lot of us started go up to STYLES/Choose from 24 built in styles & choose one. That should get you what you want in a hurry.
To be a little more serious here. I think those of us that grew with the company over the many years are fairly comfortable using most of the features. For a new person the program id probably daunting. Remember PGMusic is not a company on the magnitude of Sony or Adobe when it comes to resources but they are light years ahead of both when it comes to vision. I would not want to see either of these things happen in order to bring the GUI into the 21st century:
1. Sell to one of the big boys
2. Shut down the operation for two years while they rebuild things.

I'll take her just the way she is thank you.

Eddie I think you somewhat suffer from what we older folks do. Loss of identity. You continue to self affirm your worthiness as a computer geek by downing the program. If you have constructive ideas post them on the wish list. If you have questions on how to do something post them.

I clearly remember the day i opened the styles list the first time. I sat there wondering, "what the heck!!!"

Then i started playing around, and soon found out that they made more sense than i gave them credit for. I really do understand what Eddie, and others are going thru. It is tough to get a handle on. But in the end it is very usable. TRy a few filter searches, and poke around and use a few styles that you like, compare a few. Then as suggested rename some, and soon it all seems kind of second nature.

Another approach I use is to create a custom RealStyle, like Mattboss and Mattsamb for bossa and samba, with the common instruments I use in those styles.

Too many books in the library lead me to quit reading.

There is also the favorites button in the stylepicker. If you find a style that you like, click "Add Favorite", and then you can click on the favorites category in the stylepicker to get to your favorites.

Well, I usually get every upgrade of BIB mostly because aside from the new features on every new issue, it is the cheapest way to get the new RT's, even what I mostly use is the jazz stuff, but if you look at the price for each separate set, its a no brainer to upgrade the whole thing, and yes, I don't think there's never enough RT's. I always discover new stuff when going thru the different styles. That it takes time, yes but so does good cooking. Keep 'em coming PGMusic!

Mike B.

Then again to expect to find styles to emulate every performer out there is a bit unrealistic IMHO. I loved your analogy John.

Mike B.

Well the legs and hands might be worse than the hearing loss, at least that does not hurt.

The new drug, synthetic grass, might be the ticket.

So far I've had tartan keleidiscopes I could have change colour at will, stuffed bunnines that talked and were soft, and when I realized I could conjure up what I wanted had a visit from 3 cheerleaders, I then, content, lay my head in her lap and darned if it didn't turn into 8 a.m. and the sun was in my eyes. Not a pom pom in sight.

As a Newbie to BIAB and RB I must admit Eddie1261 makes some good points about the current rather cryptic naming of styles and the need for ones that are simpler and easier to remember as well as offer the needed info to screen them quickly.

While I appreciate the current DOS like cryptocode attempt to relate this info, the visual onslaught of all those caps coupled with the reference to possibly unknown (to me) musicians can boggle the eyes and mind when trying to do a quick scan of the lists.

Perhaps just some variation of the simple, straight forward (in my opinion) RB Real Tracks generation window ,which lists all the Real Track instruments could be used as a model for the Styles Window.
You could list the Styles by Genre and assign each Style a number instead of the cryptocode, though that could still also be listed for those used to them.

The Style Picker widow does have a wealth of information, it's just the Style names which need some tweeking.

Again, as a Newbie, just my humble opinion.
Also thanks to Seeker for the handy Real Track audition hint.

Also finding the new BIAB mixer in 2011.5 very handy for quick mixing and exploring new sounds.

Love the programs,lots to learn from y'all. Keep it up.
Carkins

I wanted to look at "style picker" tonight based on some tips given in the forum posts. I clicked on "filter". It would seem to the uninitiated that "style picker" was some sort of "sorting" mechanism. And I suppose it is, after several years of using BIAB. However, after using it for just a few months.....

NOWHERE on that page did I find a place where I could type in the simple keyword "bossa".

I got 8 pulldowns for stuff like 1/8th or 1/16th notes, for all kinds of other options, but nowhere did I find a simple search box that said "Type what you want me to look for sir, and allow me to find it for you". That's what a search function does. There were about 8 things I could change, but nowhere could I simply type in "bossa". I did find a pulldown that had jazz, rock and country. That again did not give me what I expected to find, a keyword search entry box where I enter a keyword and hit search. It gave me EVERY jazz style. I only wanted bossa. If some simple form of boolean search is in there somewhere then I guess I am just REALLY stupid and can't find it.

I guess computers have spoiled me, as someone suggested earlier. I expect a search in any piece of software to work like any other search, where if need to find a picture of a horse named "horse", I can tap f3 in Windows Explorer, put in "horse*.*" in a search box, and have my computer find everything that has "horse" in it. Just so I don't aggravate myself again tomorrow, does BIAB do that in that simple manner or not? Someone please answer just "yes" or "no" so I don't spend an hour again trying to make that happen.

I am starting to think it's best I just go back to Sonar and struggle with programming drum machines measure by measure, playing parts in over and over to remove the clams.... where demos of songs take 2 weeks rather than 2 hours, but at least I know what I am doing and can spend my time in a productive way rather than reading convoluted help files all day with images that don't match the screens. And I suppose BIAB can do what I am asking for, but once again I say, I do not have years to learn how to efficiently perform a task as rudimentary as quickly locating a style, and no time to audition styles that are badly misnamed. I am trying to get a CD ready by fall. This is late July. I need this thing to do what I need it to do, and easily, so I can get song demos to the band so they can learn them and we can record in 3 weeks to make my October deadline. I don't have time to or want to go through BIAB college to earn a BIAB degree. Twice through college was enough for me.

All I want this thing to do is say "here are all the swing styles", or "here are all the shuffle styles", or "here are all the waltz styles" and put them in a nice, tidy list where every style contains my search string. One hour later, I could not find any place in "style picker" to type in a keyword and do a search by keyword, and I looked at every option in that "Style Picker" panel MANY times with the help subsystem open on the other monitor. It seems like the way to do this, like you do in any web browser (and most software) should be to type ctl+f for "find" and type in your keyword to search for.

What am I missing or not doing?

I also tried to play with a downloaded MIDI file, but I already have a headache without going into how every time I tried to make a tweak to the downloaded midi file to get rid of the god awful tin trumpet playing the lead the whole thing got muted. I just totally gave up on that because that is going to be a 6 week course on soft synths, what is loaded, how do I check what is loaded, how do I load and unload, I have to download new sound card drivers..... in Sonar I loaded the soft synth, told my track to play through it on a specified MIDI channel, and assigned an instrument. 30 seconds.

I agree with the idea of seeing BIAB as an instrument that you must to know if you want to use it properly. I've spend (and enjoyed) many hours hearing styles and demos, just for knowing "where is the right track in case of necessity". On the other hand, not everybody has so much time (or just the will) for this kind of things, the high number of styles and tracks make knowing all of them virtually impossible, and is true (at least in my experience) that the process of choosing the right style can be, on some situations, a long and frustrating task. It wouldn't be the first time that I, kind of irritated, stop working with the program while searching the right style / track just because, altough I know that it's out there, I just can't find it.

IMHO the stylepicker windows need a proper "search" function (a standard feature of any Windows program that shouldn't be so difficult to implement), a flexible way of organizing the tracks at your own way (wich implies drag & drop support, another standard Windows feature) and, maybe, a more descriptive and intuitive way of describing the styles & tracks. Asking for this kind of things is in no way complaining about the program (I really love BIAB, a truly unique program that produces, whitout a question, the best sounding accompaniment tracks in the world), is just asking for somewaht that some of us perceive as something that would improve the program's quality and the user's enjoyment still one step beyond.