PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand Chord Wizard Problem

Here's my problem:

Sometimes after using the Chord Wizard to chart a song (mp3 audio file), when I click "Okay to send to RB" the chord window opens as usual, but the bars will be yellow for say 95 bars but the rest of the song will be gray and the audio file is truncated.

I just did a 115 bar song and RB truncated it at 95 bars. Even if I fiddle with the bar settings and get it to show all 115 bars as yellow, RB has already cut off the end of the audio file for some reason.

Anyone else seeing this?

It doesn't happen all the time. I've been using RealBand 2011 for about a year and I recall it happening when I first started using it, but then the problem seemed to go away. Now it's back.

I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Any thoughts?

before you send the song to the ACW, increase the number of bars in the little text box that says how long the song is.

If your song is longer than that number, it will truncate everything after that bar. After you've gotten the chords and tempo map and gone back to the RB environment, you can reduce the number of bars to what you actually need.

Don't ask how I know this. If you are experiencing uncontrolled rage, let's just say "I understand"


GOT-ME-TOO-O-METER
0___________/_100

Thanks Pat,

I'm over the rage. (lol)

I tried your suggestion of telling RB that the song was 115 bars before clicking the ACW but it still truncated my song. That's when I decided to check the forum to see if anyone else was having the problem.

Maybe I just didn't do it right. I'll keep fiddling with it.

Do you have most recent update for 2011?

Consolidate the track before using ACW

Select the top selection if RB asks about 'bar 1' adjustment after sending back

Hey Guys,

Thanks for the suggestions.

Here's what I've learned so far:

I re-charted a song I did a couple of days ago that was 124 bars long. This time it worked just fine. No truncating the song.

Then I charted a totally different song that was 100 bars long and ACW worked fine like it has been doing 99% of the time.

The problem only seems to occur with certain audio files.

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Pat: I've tried several times to use your method being careful to use the correct box to enter a bar length. (The box just left of the generate button and setting it to 150 bars. Way more than enough.) Each time RB totally ignores my setting and truncates the song. Not sure how you got that trick to work.

rharv: I will try importing the audio file into a track using the tracks window and then switch to the "Chord window" and use ACW to work on the "pre existing audio" option. I have never done it that way, (see below) but it might be a way to solve this problem with audio files that RB doesn't seem to like.

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Just to clarify things:
I'm charting cover tunes from mp3's in totally new (blank) files. I'm starting with no pre-existing tracks. Just clicking "new" to get a blank RB file. Clicking ACW and choosing "Open Audio file" and then selecting my mp3 (or wav file) and letting ACW figure out the chords and correct tempo.

Most of the time this works great. Only a couple of times has it shown this strange behavior.

The reason this is a problem is because (as many of you know) you need the original audio file in sync with your chord chart in order to go through the song and clean up the chords ACW suggests. If the audio file gets truncated, it makes it harder to clean up any funky chord changes that may occur ofter that point.

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My work around ideas so far:

1. Manually import the audio file to a separate track and then line it up with the original truncated audio file. Then mute the truncated file. (I think that's what I did the first time this happened.)

2. Switch to BiaB and try charting the song there. (I haven't tried this yet. But I've never seen the problem working with BiaB.)

3. Try a different audio file of the song you're having trouble with.

Not sure if this is what's happening here, but there are known problems with tempo changes and truncating tracks. The ACW automatically inserts a tempo change, at least in the first bar, even if you do not change the overall tempo the ACW comes up with. When back in the tracks window and regenerating tracks, truncating and other strange things occur, and there is not yet a fix for this.

Terry

Peter says using a new blank track does fix the generating issue with tempo changes.
I found selecting the top selection (in dealing with the first bar adjustment right after 'send to RB' is envoked) has cures some weird issues I had during testing.
I was also told by Jeff Y (who writes RB) that I may need to use Track - Consolidate audio region.

As for Stratcat32's problem, I never use that method; I always open the song in RB first, then go to ACW and use the option to run the song thru the ACW instead of opening a new file.
Maybe a slight change in workflow will solve the issue for you for now.

Interesting; when I had multiple tracks (some very chopped up into sections) I found the first selection to solve the issue I had. My issue was that a couple tracks didn't follow the new tempo map, but using the top selection fixed it.
Your problem is different.

It does indeed sound like this choice is the key, depending on the situation during use.

hmmm... I just went back to the same song I've been experimenting with all day... this time I hilited the track and consolidated the audio region first.

After tempo mapping (actually I didn't adjust any tempos, I just set bar 1 and sent it back to RB) I answered with the first option and it still truncated the audio at the same place it has all day.

All else being the same, choosing the default answer didn't truncate.

I notice you say the 'default' option .. top selection isn't the default here. I have to select it.
Remember this was with a file using more than one audio track, so it may react differently. Like you said previously; "it may vary from file to file for some reason we don't yet know."
I was just offering my experience with it recently.

Yep, needs further observation to decipher

+1 Terry. I use tempo changes a lot for ritard endings, and just altering the BPM by 1 at the start of chorus etc. then back down to make the track 'breathe' a bit. Regen is a hassle to do via the blank track work-around. Hoping it gets fixed ASAP as well.

I hope it get fixed too, it has been around for a couple versions now. Just wanted to make sure the work-around was known for now.