PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows how to sync Cubase, Band in a box?

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John Conley,

I understand your general point of view. Why "sync" capability . . . ??

For users with "studio-in-my-computer" set up, in a room with computer speakers or low end monitors, "sync" capability is probably not needed.

The "sync" capability is how a music software "plays nice" with the rest of the world. Commercial studio owners, engineers and producers are creatures of habit. This is true for a small commercial project studio like mine or a much larger studios catering to large record labels. It doesn't matter if the DAW is Pro Tools on a Mac or Cubase on a PC. I can take my laptop and my BIAB on the Audiofile HD to ANY studio and I can "play nice" with whats there. All I need is some digital input into the studio system.

Please understand that at a commercial level, only the raw instrument tracks without effects or dynamics are needed. Effects and dynamic processing is one of the many tools used in the mixing process. This is why I take the instrument track from BIAB into DAW separately. This is where "sync capability" is desirable. If BIAB was sync capable, I just have to solo 2 instruments, pan one full left and the other full right, arm my DAW to record, press play on BIAB and the DAW will record "in sync". It doesn't matter if the DAW is Pro Tools on a Mac or a stand alone DAW like my Roland VS2480.

As I said, we are creatures of habit. Mixing on my DAW makes everything in my studio available for use during mixing. If an engineer is a Pro Tools user, he is going to mix on Pro Tools. If he is a Cubase user, he is going to mix on Cubase.

The point is, BIAB with Real Tracks and Real Drums have evolved into a very commercially usable software. The ability to "sync" with existing set up is a must if BIAB is going to be embraced in the commercial environment.

I am very excited that guitar Real Tracks have Direct Input recording in 2012. This gives studio owners more creative choices. Now I can use the various guitar effects modules and patches I have. After I have the DI track in my DAW, I can digitally insert my Digi Tech multi effects pedal during mix ! VERY COOL !

When mixing, there is a reason why I have 16 stereo multi-effects and dynamics on each channel available. Not to mention some effects units from Lexicon, TC Electronics, Roland etc.

Its time for BIAB to come out of the closet and join the rest of the audio world.

Ed

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I so agree with you o wise-one Yoder

Let me add one word that should be shouted from the rooftops - EXPERIMENTATION !!!!!!!!

The whole point of using software to create music is that it is meant to aid experimentation. We can tweak stuff.

As you rightly say, BIAB is now something that can really help the music producer , arranger or person working on ideas in a fluid fashion.

Even if one is only using BIAB to try out chord change and style ideas - and then intends to replace it all with real session musicians or hand-crafted MIDI tracks in a "proper" DAW - BIAB can be great to try out ideas.

But since one cannot work on melodic MIDI parts easily inside BIAB ( at least not on the MAC - and the MAC is pretty much de rigeur in most studio setups )
and since RealBand is a different beast, and actually makes it HARDER to quickly try out different arrangement ideas than BIAB does,

this really does beg for a means to SYNC BIAB to a sequencer, and THAT way round - with BIAB being a SLAVE and not just master.


Incidentally - with the demise of BANDSTAND, I have finally found a viable solution that uses the old NI Bandstand sample set along with NI Kontakt.



For this one needs to have at least 8GB of RAM - and 16GB would be better.

IFor this you need to use the ABLETON 64 bit beta. Also to be running OSX Lion or upwards. The 64 bit mode of Logic will not work. ( There is an issue with saving such large Kontakt Multis. )


What I do is create 5 * Kontakt 127 instrument banks, one for each of the five MIDI channels that BIAB sends MIDI on.

Then into four of the banks I put the 127 BANDSTAND GM Kontakt instruments - in GM PC order of course. And Into one bank i put the 8 or so GM Drum kits and assign this to channel 10.

Now of course if you have better grand pianos etc in your Kontakt sample library than the ones that come with BANDSTAND all the better. I for example use the Grand Piano that comes with Kontakt 5.

Set each instrument bank to receive from the appropriate MIDI channel and then assign each bank to a seperate set of stereo outs.

In ableton you then need to configure a single track for the Kontakt plugin. Add five separate MIDI tracks to send MIDI to the master Kontakt track. Also record enable all five MIDI tracks so they receive MIDI from the virtual BIAB MIDI outputs.

Doing all this replicates some if not all of the true GM2 functionality of the great BANDSTAND.

Im tempted to buy the new Steinberg Halion Sonic but it seems to me this ain't quite there yet.

FINALLY -

I really wish we could have a basic Piano Roll style editor feature in BIAB for the Mac - just for ONE track - the melody. So we can easily work on developing a tune - the melody ALONGSIDE ones ideas for the chord changes.

And NO - i do NOT want to have to switch to RealBand just to do this simple thing.