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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2009
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Hi there folks,
Am I right in thinking that every time I am using a real track eg cowboy soloist lead guitar and I presss play that it will rengenerate that track playing it slightly or a lot differently? Will pressing the replay button play the solo without any change?
If I want to save an exact copy of the real track that I like do I just save it as a wave file with a separate wave file for each track ticked?
many thanks
Paddy
Last edited by pwhack; 03/19/09 04:44 PM.
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2007
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Expert
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Expert
Joined: May 2007
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Replay will do exactly that. Unless you change a chord or something else major, the RealTrack should not regenerate. You will hear what you heard before.
You can save your RealTrack by right clicking on the track button and choose 'Save RealTrack as Wav'
R
Last edited by Rachael; 03/19/09 05:43 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2009
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Thanks for reply Rachael.
Wonder if I can just clear this up with all you good people on here. If I have a style say with all midi on the 5 usual tracks and both a realtrack on the melody and soloist tracks, with the soloist being the lead realtrack, then what is the best way to save the whole song so that I can open it again in biab and I will get the exact rendition for each of the realtracks before I had saved it?
Many thanks
Paddy
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I don't think you can. BIAB always regenerates the tracks when you first press Play. Even Replay regenerates the first time a song is played after loading. Hope I'm wrong and someone knows how to suppress that.
Although I haven't tried it, RealBand should be able to do what you want.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2009
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Thanks Matt for the quick reply. As you have suggested if I understand it correctly, saving all the tracks to wave files them importing it into a sequencer such as cubase is a good workaround.
However I feel even though I am amazed by the realtracks and what they can do, this is definately a big draw back with biab at the moment, i.e if saving an exact copy can't be done.
Surely as with most software application it sould be able to save an exact copy of your work to date?
Pg have done a brilliant job so far and maybe I am asking too much out of such a great program, but if an easy way of saving an exact copy of your work can't be done then maybe it should be high on the wish list.
regards
Paddy
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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Expert
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If you want the same arrangement each time after you hear one you like, try the Freeze function. It essentially renders the song to a Wav file and disables everything so that the next time you hit Play, you'll only hear the Wav. Freeze can be found in the Play menu.
or...
You can Render the tracks you want to keep with the others muted. Once the track is rendered, change the name to match the song name (i.e. Mysong_render.wav -=>Mysong.wav). When BIAB finds a matching .wav, it will play that along with the arrangement.
Rachael
Last edited by Rachael; 03/20/09 12:16 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2003
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Journeyman
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Quote:
Surely as with most software application it sould be able to save an exact copy of your work to date?
As Rachael indicates, freeze can do that. But not the way you want, I think. I agree with the sentiment that there oughta be greater flexibility. Hope it happens, though perhaps PG is reticent since the origin of the program is in the auto-accompaniment realm.
AFAIK, the only way to have audio autoload with an mgu is if it's in a wav file of the same name. It'll go into the audio track. So a suggested workaround - a variant of Rachael's notion: Try muting all non-RT tracks first. Then freeze. Seems to work here on a quick & dirty experiment. Then (in Windows) make a copy of the resultant wav file under a temporary name. Then unfreeze the song (which will erase the original wav file, re-enable the style and unmute the midi). Then rename that temp wav back to the same name as the song. Now it should autoload into the audio track and you can continue working up the midi. [The reason I suggest *copying* the frozen file instead of temporarily renaming it is the latter would leave the mgu in a frozen state without the corresponding audio, and this could screw up the program's bookeeping when you try to unfreeze.]
Not convenient, but perhaps a suitable workaround. Post back if you discover a better way or any other insights. -Ron
EDIT - Rachael's edit alternative is better than my suggestion. I'd forgotten you can render several RTs into one wav on a single shot without using freeze.
Last edited by rkl122; 03/20/09 04:55 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Mar 2009
Posts: 235
Apprentice
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Apprentice
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Well as a rookie to BiaB I can't say much, maybe I need to get used to the way it all works, but for the first few songs I made up to now I, as soon as I am happy with the audio tracks, I save them as wav's and the midi tracks as a midi file, or -if they also sound good- as a wav. Then I import everything in Protools or Cubase and from there I work further. (mixing, editting, recording more instruments/vocals, mastering) As far as I have seen now, I think neither BiaB or realtracks are the instruments for me to handle my mixes and recordings to a final state. Not a problem I think, I am allready very happy that with BiaB I can create fast tracks, not have to program/play everything myself anymore.
I'll be back...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2009
Posts: 137
Apprentice
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OP
Apprentice
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Posts: 137 |
Thanks for all the great replies and the workarounds to deal with what I was asking for.
Maybe Pg will address this in a future update so that we benefit from an easy way to do it and make a great program even better.
thanks again to all
paddy
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,729
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
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Hello Paddy,
As mentioned, freeze is the only way to do it in Band-in-a-Box alone. Although it can of course be done in RealBand - i.e. just open your .MGU file in RealBand, edit and generate tracks until it's the way you want it, then save it as a .SEQ file. When you re-open the file in RealBand, everything will be the exactly the same.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2009
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Hello Andrew,
Thank you very much for your reply and confirming that it can be done in realband.
The reason I would like to achieve the same thing in biab is if I have a soloist realtrack then It would be a nice feature to be able to save it in biab, then open it at a later date. I am not too concerned about the rhythm realtracks as that section won't probably change that much if I have to regenrate it again.
I have added the following post to the biab wishlist and it would be nice if others could lend their support if they too would like it.
Here is my wishlist.
1 Ability to save the loaded rendition of a realtrack (an exact copy of how the instrument is being played) which can be opened again later in biab.
2 for such tracks to be played on the tracks they were assigned to in the first place eg melodist or soloist.
Of course at the end of the day its all up to Pgmusic whether to implement it or not.
thanks
Paddy
Last edited by pwhack; 03/25/09 11:09 AM.
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2005
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Veteran
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Quote:
Here is my wishlist.
1 Ability to save the loaded rendition of a realtrack (an exact copy of how the instrument is being played) which can be opened again later in biab.
2 for such tracks to be played on the tracks they were assigned to in the first place eg melodist or soloist.
Of course at the end of the day its all up to Pgmusic whether to implement it or not.
thanks
Paddy
Impliment what? It is implemented, it's called Real Band. I think you're missing some important points. RB will do everything Biab will do except for the midi soloists and a few other things you're not referring to. Note I said midi soloists. The Real Track soloists are handled by RB just fine except you can generate many different versions of the same RT soloist on separate tracks, cut them up to make one killer solo on another track and then save it. RB gives you 40 tracks to play with plus the original 8 Biab tracks (if you choose to use them as Biab tracks) and you can use every one of them to generate a separate instrument based on every one of the Biab styles and they can be midi or Real Tracks. The only thing is RB won't generate a Biab midi soloist so if you need that create that one track only in Biab and open it in RB to add to the rest. What's the problem?
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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Those of us who use BIAB in live performance understand the request a little better, I think.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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True, but nobody's talking about live performance here. It's always seemed to me that the reason RB was created was to address a lot of these issues with Biab and rather than keep expanding it with more and more enhancements, to merge it with PT and get the best of both worlds. I get the impression from a lot of posts that new people don't use Real Band much because it's a new concept and they don't understand it. They think the best way to do things is to create a song in Biab first and if needed maybe move it into RB so RB just sits there unused. Then problems like this one come up that is really best handled by RB in the first place rather than dealing with all these funky workarounds in Biab. I look at Biab as merely the starting point, RB is where the action is but of course everybody's work flow is different. Certainly for live performance Biab with the Conductor is the way to go.
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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Apprentice
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Quote:
True, but nobody's talking about live performance here. It's always seemed to me that the reason RB was created was to address a lot of these issues with Biab and rather than keep expanding it with more and more enhancements, to merge it with PT and get the best of both worlds. I get the impression from a lot of posts that new people don't use Real Band much because it's a new concept and they don't understand it. They think the best way to do things is to create a song in Biab first and if needed maybe move it into RB so RB just sits there unused. Then problems like this one come up that is really best handled by RB in the first place rather than dealing with all these funky workarounds in Biab. I look at Biab as merely the starting point, RB is where the action is but of course everybody's work flow is different. Certainly for live performance Biab with the Conductor is the way to go.
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks very much for your posts and opinions and also your detailed explanation of how to do this in realband.
Please don't get me wrong, Biab is my favourite all time program, it’s really truly amazing.
For me anyway the ability to save your work to date is an important part of any software program, in fact I can't think of any other one that doesn't do it (maybe others can)
To have to learn another program just to do this seems to me to be a bit much.
But anyway since I really love biab, I guess I can live without this feature.
Thanks again Bob
Paddy
Last edited by pwhack; 03/26/09 02:40 AM.
Paddy McGurk,
Liverpool,
Don't mention the Beatles!!
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RealTrack Solos need not be similar when created in BIAB and RealBand. In the latter the soloist is governed by the chord progressions. In BIAB, if the RealTrack Soloist is selected via the Soloist Panel, then there are a number of options available which can alter the final solo substantially. For example: Solo around the Melody or just use Fills or combinations. When you are happy with the result, Save the Wave file separately for use in RealBand. I don't think there is a way to reload the Wave file back into the Soloist slot when the BIAB song is re-opened. Maybe the Freeze option could help here???
The problem of losing the RealTrack Solo when a song was saved was highlighted during Beta Testing, then it was thought that the solo should be regenerated automatically when the song was reopened. This problem was not resolved.
Lyn
Last edited by LynB; 03/26/09 04:13 AM.
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