Hi LJ,
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Okay, another "newbie" question here...

I'm getting pretty good at substituting various bass & piano tracks in some of the newer RealTracks styles. But I've run into something that I think should work, and I can't get it to... Suggestions?

Here's what I'm trying to do--I'm trying to take a jazz swing style like _J140_TB "Soft Piano Jazz Quartet", and trying to replace the trombone track on the "Strings" channel with MIDI-strings.

1) Right-Click on the "Strings" radio-button on the top bar; select "Assign RealTracks"
2) In the "Assign RealTracks" window, I select the box to: "Disable RealTracks for this track [force to MIDI]"
3) Back in the window on the BiaB screen on the next bar down, (where the controls are for Volume/Pan/Reverb/etc.), I select patch "#52 Synth Strings 2"
4) I go through the song and where I want the string to come in I set the bars to Sub-Style "B" (green); and use the F5 key to select "Back to Normal" on the "Strings" row under "Instrument Changes" and I select the "#52 Synth Strings 2" on the next column, "Patch changes at this bar"...

It seems that no matter what I do, I can't get the strings to work.

That's because there are no patterns defined for the strings part in that style, either a or b.

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(I also tried the "Make a hybrid style", and tried "borrowing" the strings from the "=BRT_PBG.sty" style and saving it as another stylename... That doesn't seem to work at all. When I try to apply the new hybrid style, it either doesn't work at all (no sound), or it's the style I started with and there are no strings there either.)

I tried this (using the stylemaker) and it works for me. The midi strings are there (in the b substyle) and sounding right along with the RTs in the other parts.

So as regards your later post, I see no inherent limitation on importing midi patterns into a style that invokes Real Tracks.

Patch changes are a separate matter. Not sure they're at issue here, but be sure the patch switches in the Midi Options and Overrides dialogs are set properly, along with any patch settings in the style itself. Not to mention the "save song with patches" dialog. I find the whole business of whether song settings will override global settings with respect to patch changes to be confusing. But if you can get a style hybridized as you want, patch change issues will be resolved with a little experimentation.

The Stylemaker and the Midi Monitor can be daunting, but they can really help analyze what's happening - when using a newly hybridized style, for example.

HTH, Ron