PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Add-ons and UserTracks for Band-in-a-Box Plenty of issues & shortcomings still to fix (for staff & others interested)

That's a good idea - even though I'm sure that at PG they are well aware of the current issues with th UT features.
Anyway, here's my wishlist:

- allow more flexibility in the timing requirement, as Icelander already stated. I think this is really the most relevant problem, because it really, really limits the quality and the kind of "usable" UTs that we can make. Icelander explained the issue very well, I'm not going to repeat it here. But this is really crucial.

- limit the amount of key transposition. This is also a big issue. Right now you can avoid wild transpositions from the BIAB playback engine, but you have to create 12 keys UTs (and set the BIAB playback to avoid any transposition), which is an enormous waste of time, hard drive space etc (imagine creating 12 keys performances for ALL variations, chords, substyles etc). Instead, if you create, say, a 6 keys UT, the BIAB playback engine should transpose at most by 1 semitone, not more (which would just fine, you dont lose much quality at all if audio is transposed by 1 semitone or two). As far as I can see, this is not what happens now. You get wild transpositions, no matter what. So, the solution could be:
A. make sure that the BIAB playback engine transposes only for the minimum necessary amount of semitones, at any given chord
B. give the user the ability to set the maximum amount of transposition (as a global setting, or as a song setting)

- implement holds, stops etc

I'm still hopeful

Look at the POP style templates posted in 2014 shortly after the UserTracks feature was introduced. You will see that you must make 50 UserTracks to enable the UserTracks to work properly over every available tempo between 50 - 300 BPM. The default is enabled so Band-in-a-Box makes it easy to overlook just how many RealTracks are needed for a guitar part played at different tempos. Take something "common" and "standard" like the Hank series of acoustic guitar rhythm tracks. Look inside the folders and you'll see there are bunches of audio tracks. You'll also notice there are bunches of folders to accomodate tempo changes. There is a lot of audio for just that one series. Same with some of the piano RealTracks. I understand why it takes a lot of audio to create a UserTracks once I look at RealTracks more closely.

RealTracks has an option so RealTracks automatically substitute when tempos change. Is that true of UserTracks? Don't know. Do we still need 50 UserTracks to cover all available tempos since élastique Pro by zplane has been upgraded to V3.1.11? Don't know.

Truthfully, the main use I've found for UserTracks is to fulfill a musical arrangement need specific to a song project. For example you want a specific guitar riff to play. Within that constraint a UserTracks works fine but outside of that song many people likely will not find the UserTracks very useful.

I think that, much like Bob Norton and his MIDI styles, were UserTracks to work mostly the same as RealTracks (and yes, it should take more than one minute and one take to create quality UserTracks) with holds and shots and ending and multiple chords and tempos, then that opens up a market for semi-pro players to create additional commercial-grade content for BIAB. But until all the issues are resolved, it's going to be perceived as a novelty and folks won't invest the time in creating that content.

The MIDI stylemaker (even with it's shortfalls) is pretty stable and mature and has a lot of capability for the average user to make really nice styles in the same quality as PGMusic provided styles. I think an overhaul to the StyleMaker user interface is in order, but it does work and it works well if you know what you're doing.

The same should be true of the UserTracks process.

My $0.02 worth.

Jim
it's true that if you want to create a good quality UT you need to record a lot of audio. That's out of the question. Also, tempo is not really the problem with UTs. The problem, as I see it, is that:

1) even if you create A LOT of audio, in many case the UT will still sound bad, when changing chords, because of the extreme timing precision requirement that Icelander was talking about. Now, for some UTs this is not too much of a problem (when you don't have legato between chords, for example - I did create some UTs that sound absolutely perfect!!). But for (many) other kinds of UTs this problem makes it almost impossible to have them sound good, no matter how much audio you record, no matter how precise you try to be. Anyway, on this issue Icelander is much more competent than me and I think he explained it already very well

2) the other problem is also not about the tempo, but about key transposition. If during playback you set the song so that key transposition is allowed, with UTs you get some weird transpositions that don't seem to make musical (or logical) sense. If I have a recorded audio with the C major chord, and BIAB needs to play a Db major chord, I would want BIAB to transpose my C chord by 1 semitone, which would be totally fine. Instead, what happens is that I hear transpositions of MANY semitones (so for example not from C to Db, but from G to Db, or so ... I'm just guessing here), which is not only sounds really bad, but it's also unnecessary, since BIAB can use my readily available C major to be transposed into Db!
So, at the moment, there's only one solution to this problem: to record a 12 keys UT, and forbid key transposition with the song setting parameter during playback. Which is ok, it does lead to good results, but it's VERY inefficient. Why not allow the user to control the maximum number of semitones that BIAB transposes during playback instead? It would be a much more efficient way to manage the issue. In this way, I could record audio not to (unnecessarily) cover all keys, but to make a better UT with more variations etc.

Jford,
I totally agree with you. I think that PG will address this, eventually. I don't see why not, really. But BIAB is a very complex program and I guess that UTs are not a top priority. I think it's understandable. Maybe many users don't care about UTs, I dont know. I guess time will tell.

The simple answer to this rhetorical question is: Because it's redundant, since what he was basically proposing falls under what the function is already supposed to be able to do!
And specifically requesting for a function to actually work is not something any of us should ever have to make around here, for any function

I have to agree and I'd even argue that as things are right now, by using the Stylemaker approach coupled with some decent sound plugins, you're far more likely to get dependable results.

I just spotted this in the midst of your li'l "essay" there and thought I'd clarify: The answer to that question is No.
See, the Tempo swapping RT's are all listed and clearly defined (e.g. at what tempo one should take over from another) in a specific file, for which there's no equivalent assigned to Usetracks (nor can we apply any of its very confusing 'UT settings' to define our own ourselves). As for the stretching engine, that one does work on Usetracks (as it does with any audio file used in the program), but you would still want to create specific UT for each given tempo range (like I've done with my EleFfred sets for example), if your goal is to be able to confidently use it over a very wide tempo spectrum.

Eddie,

Thanks for the clarification.

I propose a good starting point is for PG Music would be to add an explanation for each setting in the UserTracks Development Settings screen. The explanation should be added to both the Band-in-a-Box and RealBand user manuals. I can't find it in either 2017 version.

That's been one of my annual wishlist requests since 2014.

Mr Gannon,
thank you, that would be surely very useful.
However, I have a feeling that it wouldn't solve the problems that have been highlighted in this thread, but I could be wrong of course - for example, the "beat / bar markers" section in the settings is still "mysterious" to me so, I don't know .. maybe knowing how to use this setting would help in decreasing the artifacts that are heard when chords change in UTs with "legato-like" performances? I'm not sure. Anyway, explaining these settings would certainly be a very welcome help, and at least it would help us to have a better picture about what are the areas in which the "UT engine" needs improvements, and to clarify what users can and cannot do with UTs at the moment.
Thank you for listening!

Hello to all please excuse me, I do not speak English so I use a translator.
Could Peter Gannon tell us if the usertrack problems mentioned above are likely to be solved in 2018, thanks for the response and good music to all.

Jim: >>> I propose a good starting point is for PG Music would be to add an explanation for each setting in the UserTracks Development Settings screen

Jim,
Yes, thats a good idea. We should get to that in Jan. 2018.

Balbuena: >>> Hello to all please excuse me, I do not speak English so I use a translator.
Could Peter Gannon tell us if the usertrack problems mentioned above are likely to be solved in 2018, thanks for the response and good music to all.

Balbuena,

Hopefully we can address many of them.

Peter

Hear hear!

Oh, and if this is indeed happening, then by all means please make sure to provide some video clips to go with, especially for the obscurely named UT "Development" section - and with audible examples of what changing those many confusing parameters actually sound like when checked/unchecked (very important!). That whole section is in my view the very heart of UT (or perhaps the 'brain' is more fitting) and the essential key to creating a UT product worth the effort in the first place.

p.s. I guess my 'rant' wasn't quite as finished as I thought after all

I was Very Excited when User Tracks were first added to BIAB. But then, based on the issues with them I have just assumed they had been abandoned by PGM. Does this thread mean they are going to be finished and fully implemented? It has always been a great idea.

bumpety bumpety bump ..... this rough & rocky UT road definitely needs (and deserves) to be overhauled.

Eddie,

Unfortunately RealTracks holds and shots require special handling. In Windows holds are contained in sub folders under X:\bb\library\Holds, Holds_340, Holds_352 or Holds_375. I'm not sure where shots are stored. Because of that limitation I disagree with you that it is a reasonable assumption that UserTracks should already be able to support shots and holds. Nice if UserTracks could from the beginning? Yes!

One way PG Music could help users to manage shots and holds would be for the user to create UserTracks sub folders named shots and holds and then place songfile \ audio file pairs within their respective folders.

Another way would be for PG Music to add shot and hold checkbox identifiers on the UserTracks Development Bar Screen.

However, there is some good news to report. The 2019 Band-in-a-Box Help file now includes a description for each of the options on the UserTracks Development Bar Screen. Also, earlier releases include a feature where the Audio Edit Window allows the user to set a marker that tells Band-in-a-Box (and RealBand?) the location where an audio riff begins.

+1

The RT Holds/shots are stored here
X:\bb\RealTracks\Library\Holds\
X:\bb\RealTracks\Direct Input\Library\Holds\

they have them there as it is a common Library and and different RealTrack use the same hold/shots files, this feature was added later to RealTracks they were recorded by PG on a same/similar guitar as the artist used to record the RealTracks.
With UserTracks they are all different user instruments so you can't share a common Library.
So yeah, include them in a sub folder if that would help the code.

I haven't found anything like this in the downloadable manual, nor the online one. But maybe that's not what you're thinking of, if you could clarify or point me in the right direction?

Btw, if you're just thinking of the yellow pop up help tags text, then don't bother as those don't actually explain anything of any use to anyone

I don't know if UserTracks should be classed as Abandonware ??
I wanted to try swapping a RealTrack with a user track like here
Home Made Flamenco Realtracks

I thought I could do it with this one Guitar, Acoustic, Strumming AcRockBright Ev 120.zip as it has A B parts, holds and you could change the hold number to your usertrack holds, as you can copy the holds folder, rename the hold files and replace the audio with yours, see
Good Ear Needed

I got Holds-67 to work as a new custom hold by renaming all the wav to SH867x.wav and renaming the references in Holds_867.xm2 then I set the RealTrack to that hold in Soloist > Soloist Maker Edit > More and it all seemed to work.
The holds have something along these lines: C Cm C7 CMaj7 Cm7 Cm7b5 Csus4 C7sus Caug Cm7#5

Sounds about right to me, yup
I certainly know I'm not making them anymore (haven't for quite a while now) until the team shows some inclination of intent in doing the necessary improvements.
As for the rest of your latest post on this, it just further shows the potential is still very much there... which only makes the whole thing that much sadder to reflect on.

Personally I'm just not bothered anymore, got other things more worthy of my aggravation I'm sure

I don't know if you use Reaper but you can create them with REATRAK https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=212645