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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16 |
I'm kind of a newbie here, and hope this is not too obvious a question.
When I bought BB, I had the impression that every time I hit the play button, BB would generate a new version of a song with different performances on the various instruments.
But with MIDI tracks -- and it seems even more with Real tracks--I very often get identical tracks, no matter how often I click the play button.
I looked a little at the "build your own style" windows and it does seem to allow the style-maker to add several variations to each instrument. I know I could dig into this complex feature, but the reason I bought the software was to get interesting variations on instruments I can't play and have the program do some of the work.
In Real Tracks, are there ANY variations to the performances? Seems like there are a few in the MIDI stuff, but I haven't found any with RT, often, even when I put a new section in a tune
I'm debating on upgrading to 2011.5, but I am concerned I won't get that many useful tracks.
Am I missing something?
Thanks for any help.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 349
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Nov 2010
Posts: 349 |
Also a relative newbie but here's a couple of thoughts. First be sure your tracks aren't Frozen. Click on the blue circular snowflake to see if any are checked. Frozen tracks will stay the same each time you play them. Another idea is to extend your songs with several chorus's as you may find more variations pop up per generation. You could then Freeze the track and use the Drop feature to copy it to Realband or another DAW like Reaper or Audacity. If you run out of tracks in BIAB you could save the song as My SOng 01, then regenerate and save as My Song 02 etc. Then try continuing by using the DAW Drop to get each part you liked from each song into Realband where you can generate and create up to 48 separate tracks. A collection of these dropped tracks may be able to be stitched together to get what you want. Check out a great video tutorial series by Dan where he takes you through his process and does this, very informative: http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.user.htmI'm sure you'll get more and better ideas from the veterans here in the Forum. They've helped me a lot and your input and their's helps PG improve their already amazing product. Plus there's always the Wish List Forum where you can make suggestions. Good luck and have fun learning, Carl
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16 |
Thank you for the reply.
The tracks are not frozen, and I do make the songs seveal chourses long. Some tracks seem to have variations and some literally play the same 2 or 4 bar figure all the way through. The Floyd Cramer piano track is a perfect example. Floyd created his signature piano style bu playing little upper-register tinkly fills. BB's floyd track generated exactly one version of that kind of fill. I took it into sonar and modified about 60% of them to get some sensible variations. Pretty tedious.
And regenerating the song did not improve things.
From the paucity of replies, I have to infer that this is in fact the way BB works, and my initial impression was wrong. Disappointing.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975 |
When I bought BB, I had the impression that every time I hit the play button, BB would generate a new version of a song with different performances on the various instruments.
But with MIDI tracks -- and it seems even more with Real tracks--I very often get identical tracks, no matter how often I click the play button.
==================
BB does generate different tracks each time you press play. If you are looking for completely new instruments, with a different stylistic interpretation, well no, it doesn't do that.
What it does is choose between many similar sounding patterns, or in the case of RealTracks soloists, thousands of different phrases. On a simple level, if there are 10 MIDI patterns available, the chances are 10% that one of them would get repeated at the same time. Keep in mind that some styles are made intentionally to have very similar sounding patterns (dance or techno styles for example). Wheareas jazz styles have lots of variations in the patterns.
Typically about 10-20% of the patterns would be the same pattern at the same time, the rest would be different patterns at different times. With version 2011.5, if you put 2 of the same RealTracks in an arrangement, you will get 0% overlap where they are playing the same pattern at the same time.
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697 |
Are use using the substyle part markers? If you don't know what that is, see the Help file about it.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16 |
Bob:
I do us the "a" and "b" markers, but I guess the substyles are something more than that. I'll look into the it, thank you.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2010
Posts: 16 |
Peter:
Thank you for the reply.
I'm not looking for a whole new instrument. I understand that the tracks in a given style will necessarily be similar. There are two things that don't seem to be working as they should:
1. Some of the tracks generated by BB consist of perhaps 2 or 4 bars that are repeated with no variation at all, for a full song--3 or 4 choruses of 32 bars each, e.g. If I would hear 10 different patterns in the rhythm guitar track of a 4-chorus song, that would be what I would expect, but not what I often (though not always) get.
2. Often, when I hit the play button and expect a different performance, some of the tracks do not change at all. I've brought them into Sonar, laid them up in adjacent tracks and played them, both serially and simultaneously. There are no differences.
As I said, neither 1. nor 2 are the case all the time, but often enough to be frustrating. Since I'm not a guitar player, one of the great benefits I expected from BB was a source of useable rhythm guitar tracks. While I've found a few--especially in RT--many times I can only get one, overly repetitive track.
I can't do this right now, but I will go to the program and try again. If I get more of the same, I'll send you the names of the styles, the changes, the MIDI or audio files, and anything else that might provide a clue.
Thank you again for your suggestions.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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XPro & Xtra Styles PAK Sets On Sale Now - Until May 15, 2026!
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Check out this forum post for "One Stop Shopping" of our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Videos!
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
Update to Build 10 of RealBand® 2026 for Windows®!
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