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Auto Regeneration in Preferences | Song Generation was checked. In BIAB the following was saved: 1. Piano Soloist Floyd Kramer harmony 2. 1 Frozen RD 3. 3 Frozen RTs 4. Saved Song with Patches and Harmonies In RealBand the following happened on Opening the MGU - I tried this three times with same results. 1. The piano harmony track never transitioned to RB 2. Piano Soloist arrived. 3. The RTs showed up as follows: Two of them - one on Guitar and one on Strings - showed up in the Tracks window as RealGuitar:0 J_SWING and RealStrings:0 J_SWING What's with J_Swing?? The Style sheet was =WORK_ES 4. The 32d RT showed as RealMelody 1511, Pedal Steel etc . . . as I would have expected of the other two. 5. RD was RealDrums-NASHVILLE2BEAT^. Where did the Soloist Harmony go? Why the J_SWING designation? Any Ideas, anyone?  Ian
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Thanks Dan I did miss that - something has sure stressed the software out. Do you remember much difference between 2011 and 2011.5. Trying to rollback before the new "engine" would be difficult because the BIAB and RB upgrades go hand in hand. Think what I might do is save everything in BIAB as audio files including the midi stuff - at least until this uncertainty gets worked out - it's not as if the problems are consistent. I suppose if RB's chord sheet offered some of the benefits of BIAB's then a lot of annoyances could be circumvented. Workaround time. 
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I am still v2011, and yes the answer is "WORKFLOW"
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The harmonist feature of BIAB is not implemented in RealBand; RealBand doesn't read information from BIAB harmonist files and that's why it didn't come over. You need to "hard" save your harmonies to either the melody or soloist track in BIAB if you want to move them to RB.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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HI John -
That was the first time I had tried harmony since I switched to RB from PT 12 which of course always did it.
I wonder if the recent PT will do it - it won't do RTs but if I needed midi harmony in an SEQ file then PT 12 or maybe 2011 would be the way to get the Midi OR
another option . . . save the 2011.5 BIAB MGU as a plain .MID and import into RB and/or PT.
I'll check it out tomorrow. Workflow - midi to MID and RTs to WAVs until this is rectified with an upgrade.
Cheers - Ian
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Hey Everyone - if you haven't tried it yet, the Midi harmonies and all midi tracks will be present if you convert your MGU to a MID file on disk and open it in RB
Then if you've saved your RT tracks from BIAB, you will be able to import them separately into RB as well.
The part markers from BIAB also end up in RB from the MID file.
Sounds like a workaround.
Ian
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Yes, it will write out the harmonies to a MIDI file (from BIAB), but neither PT nor RB have the harmonist engine, so it can't re-create the harmonies as BIAB would. The reason it worked in PTPA is because you created the MIDI file first (since PTPA doesn't - well didn't used to - open MGU files directly). It will in the current version, but will only read the chord grid and the melody and soloist tracks - it can't recreate the other tracks like RealBand can.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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What you say is true about PT, John.
But you still can create the harmony to the Midi Melody and Soloist in BIAB - save the file as a MID and then import it into a "new" SEQ in RB and or PT. The harmony will appear as a separate MIDI track.
Then whatever Audio WAVs you've saved from BIAB can be imported into the "new" SEQ with the Midi and Harmony.
So it's doable . . . could be easier if BIAB was altered so that the harmonist tracks were saved.
Ian
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I was about to post your solution in the other thread when I saw this thread. This is just me of course but I've always thought of RB as a DAW, not as another version of Biab. I've always imported midi files first into RB then added audio tracks or generated RT's or Biab midi parts. If you turn your head around a bit and simply think of RB as a DAW first, then this question never comes up because you never think about opening up a Biab song directly in RB. I just don't think like that. RB is a very good DAW, you first open a midi file and everything is there as you discovered, then you can import all the individual audio tracks you need and this is from whatever source, Biab, CD's, your own singing/playing, tracks from other songs etc.
Bob
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Back in the 90s, that is how I worked with BIAB and PT - created and refined as far as I could with BIAB, then saved the file as a MID, then imported to PT and saved as SEQ. Then recorded any audio in PT.
I liked the simplicity of PT. Then came RTs and I started in with RB. For my work I find that RB is a fine DAW.
I like that RB opens SGU and MGU, just not that the harmony doesn't make the transition - still I can go back to the old ways until things get ironed out. Still a one button transition to RB is a great idea, if everything a person has worked on makes it into RB.
So Bob - importing the MID is better for me because I use XG daughtercard, and need to add an XG header in RB to every one of my midi tracks if I want to use some of the XG sounds and not software synth. The header also allows me 4 controllers (71,72,73,74) to alter aspects of the XG sounds. It would be my advantage to go back to the way you mention.
Cheers - Ian
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I can open a BiaB file directly in RB, and it has always worked for me. I will say that i have only done that maybe a dozen times, cause i usually start my songs in RB now. But i can go to the BiaB demo folder and open those files in Rb with no pain.
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
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Rob
My complaint was that I had a harmony (Floyd Kramer) for a midi piano soloist in BIAB. File saved in BIAB.
Opened in RB as an MGU file - all RTs and Midi tracks opened EXCEPT the midi harmony track. Gone.
Seems the only way to get the harmony over to RB from BIAB is by a midi file - although I haven't tried to save the soloist harmony track as a wave file. I'd better give it a look.
Ian
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So far what I have taken from this conversation is that I need to open my song in BIAB, freeze all the tracks, save the song, THEN open it in RB?
One of my songs opens PERFECTLY with pedal steel right now and if it regenerates and I lose that open I will jump out of my 2nd floor window.
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In RB use 'Tracks- change all BB tracks to regular tracks' command. Then it should be safe. You'd have to select it and generate over it to lose it then. That only applies if the track is one of the different color ones in the top 8-10 tracks. Those are designated as 'BB tracks' and will regenerate if you click the 'generate' button in the middle of the screen. Changing them to normal tracks is suppose to prevent this.
That generate button in the center section (just above tracks window) generates all the BB tracks. Sometimes I wish we could minimize that whole middle section to get it out of the way.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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I am again getting lost in the information flood with people talking much about their MIDI tracks. Well obviously I know what MIDI tracks are, but I have never used a MIDI track in RB and likely will not, so should I just ignore that part of the discussion? I use MIDI all over the place to control this from that or those from the other, but not in RB or BIAB so I think that part of this just doesn't apply to me.
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When you open a BiaB song in RB, some tracks are going to be BB tracks (including some MIDI). They are at the top of the track list and will be a different color than the rest of the regular tracks. If you hit the 'generate' button they will get regenerated. The discussion was about opening BiaB files, and you said you wanted to make sure you didn't lose specific parts. So you might want to pay attention to that tidbit. Easy procedure and protects the parts from accidental regeneration. Not just MIDI, but realtracks can be BB tracks too. Change BB tracks to regular tracks.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Eddie Definitely What Bob says here: If you manage to get your BIAB work to RealBand unchanged (freeze protected), then change BB Tracks to Regular tracks and then save the RB SEQ file. This then means that you can also remove all of the non-functioning midi tracks. The other thing Eddie - when you freeze a track in BB - also right click the track and save it as an audio wav. So if something happens to the frozen track, you can later import the saved wav into RB as a backup. I seem to recall you saying that you open your BB MGU files more than once - each time you open RB?? Only open them once in RB, and then save to an RB SEQ. Each time you open an MGU in RB, you run the risk of a disaster so only do it again if you the SEQ is damaged. Bob - I too wish the middle section could be toggled off or severely reduced like the BIAB Mixer - we could use the space.  Ian
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Okay when I open a BIAB song, all of the top 8 come up as MIDI tracks with bizarre little pictures on them and are pretty much worthless to me so I delete all 8. That's what I am trying to avoid. Those 8 worthless tracks. Freezing all the tracks in BIAB will avoid that?
This last one really scared me. I ended up with a song that sounded nothing like the original and it was 447 bars long. Pink Floyd fan or not, it was like 116 bars when it started....
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Yes they are tenacious aren't they. And even if you have a Frozen RT in one those midi tracks in BB, the empty track is still there in RB when you import the BB File and the frozen track moves to its own. Freezing all of the tracks will NOT avoid all of that. Freezing just gives the chance to have the RT track you worked on, transition to RB as you heard it. Look at them as reserved parking spots. I'm afraid I don't know where the switch for those midi tracks. I use the Classics Track window. Clearer to see what I've got going. Ian
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