PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows programming language upgrade delphi to c++ [CONFIRMED]

I fail to see the need of having BIAB as a VST.

Can somebody explain me WHY exactly is a great, desirable feature to have?

Pretty please?

You could use BiaB track generating in other DAWs.
Imagine if Reaper could generate BiaB Realtracks .. or Sonar, or ProTools or whatever.

!!!!!:D !!!!!

Do we "need" to have Band-in-a-Box? Is there a "need" to have RealTracks? Is there a "need" to have a tv? Is there a "need" to have ____________ (fill in the blank with whatever you like/want that someone else might not like/want!) It ain't about "need"!

When I am president of the BIAB VSTi fan club, long-time BIAB users who love the interface and functionality will be able to keep it! But for others who want to use the latest, greatest software, GUI, 64-bit, DAW of choice, etc. the new VSTi version will be great for them! (I just realized I may have doomed my idea with that association in this forum!!!)

There is an enormous market for virtual instruments to add in to my DAW and help me create amazing music. I own lots of these libraries such as Kontakt and others. But in most cases the instrument samples are note by note and while that provides great flexibility and control, I also have to play everything on a MIDI controller to get them into my DAW. Some of them include patterns that get close to what RealTracks offers and I like those a lot.

For me, and I suspect lots of others, I have zero interest in many of the things BIAB does. I will never ever use it live and will not even use it to produce complete backing tracks. Mainly that is because I have a DAW that I much prefer to use (and there are LOTS of people out there who have a preferred DAW and will not be changing that!) I am not going to use the built-in metronome or any of the other gadgets.

But those RealTracks! Oh My God...those RealTracks! A pirate's dream. A king's ransom. A maiden's knight in shining armor. Well, the RealTracks are nothing short of amazing! And they blow everything else in the virtual instrument arena out of the water! Hands down. End of story. Slam the door. It it fits it ships!

Having the ability to drop the RealTracks engine into my DAW would be the best thing since sliced bread! And this would indeed be a Killer Product! Can you imagine the excitement among the millions of music producers who could now add RealTracks to their productions directly in their DAW of choice

The only downside is a whole lot of people could start producing music that is as cool as what we BIAB users are producing! Wait...I have changed my mind! Let's cancel the whole VSTi idea before I lose my edge!

I have done a bit more searching and found this http://www.energy-xt.com/index.php?id=0115 works like how I suggested but using rewire.

ReWire VST works as a standard VST instruments and can load all versions of Reason (32-bit and 64-bit) on PC and Mac OS X. Want to use Reason inside energyXT, MPC, Maschine or any other VST DAW/sequencer, then ReWire VST is for you.

The vst can work in a similar way - just needs to use the c:\realband\data\bbw2.exe like real band does to bring the tracks into the daw instead.

any ideas or suggestions will help.

It could very well be due for a total rewrite as I have files in the bb root going all the way back to 07/24/1991 5:47PM 8.3 DOS names

C'mon, let's be pragmatic. There's always room for improvement, but I don't think a single file date of July 24 1991 means the entire system was last written/developed/improved in the 1990's.

Maybe it means that it's fantastic in it's backwards compatibility (!)

It goes without saying that your intentions are all good, no doubt. All things need constant attention & upgrading. But sorry; that's just not a realistic example. I too want to see continual improvement. But let's start with where we are now, not where we were then, yes?

Trev

sorry "files" in the bb root going all the way back to 07/24/1991 5:47PM "8.3" "1995,1996,1997,1998,1999 - - -
where we are now is still using 8.3 - I remember be limited to working in 8.3 file names back in the dos days trying to squeeze all the different company names and areas into 8 characters
I think it would be a good thing not a bad thing
it might be just that old notion fear of change

Sometimes I look at this thread and think is this really the biab windows forum, the subject would seem more at home on a computer programming forum. Of course your view may differ.

I think there has been a vast improvement in the biab GUI over the past few years, it has come along in leaps and bounds, and now is a lot easier to use.

Just look at the 2013 GUI and does anyone want to go back to this?

Who cares what programming language is used.

a long time back somewhere in the forums here I remember watching a video someone made of a whole new band in a box with a totally quantum leap interface that was totally user ajustable - I think that combined with new 64 bit programming would be fantastic.
It's just good to see new ideas and new ways of doing things being suggested - sure most would just rather just sit back and not get involved or come up with any new ways and just hope for some good things at the end of another year.

It's always new ideas that we first imagine that bring about change - let's face it that guy that first imagined that the world was round would have coped a pretty hard time - I think some were even scorned, jailed or executed.

I might be just 5-10 years too soon - I could always come back in 5 n try again when there is a collective shift in consciousness.

Hope this helps.

** again I did suggest to keep the old 32 bit delphi for those long term users from back in 07/24/1991 5:47PM

Hi, sounds cool. I had a look. Was it this one?

My sentiments exactly! Thanks for that post!

just trying out RapidComposer http://www.musicdevelopments.com/rapidcomposer.html it is a standalone and a vsti - the vst RapidComposer_x64.dll (400k) is just used to connect the daw to the RapidComposer_x64.exe (9meg) that starts up when the vst is loaded. BBW.exe is only 8meg so a vst version would be a must to lay tracks down straight in your daw.. though the syncing problem would have to be fixed, like that rewire vst didn't work http://www.energy-xt.com/index.php?id=0115

So even if we had biab as a vst,

1 would we have to load a biab vst for every track?

2 And if so load and edit each instance of the vst (realtracks etc) separately for each track?

If so seems a rather long winded and way about way of doing things, might just be a lot handier just to do everything in biab or rb, and then render to .WAV and import into the DAW.

What I am saying though it might be a nice feature to have could be more trouble than its worth.

Musiclover

Sigh.
No matter how good, it'll never happen

horse - dead - beat - still? (not yet? OK)

Larry

rather than saying no that's way too hard it'll never happen - get your thinking caps on and come up with some ideas how it can be done - if Peter came on here asking you for ideas on how to do it you would be straight in there - we would not say oh no Peter forget it that's way too hard Doc.
The original post was about programming language but you guys said that would never happen as it's way too hard to do, don't rock the boat.
Why not make a list of what is possible and what is not and pin it to the top of the forum, that way anyone coming here with "crazy ideas" will be cut off quick smart and sent on their merry way never to return again - how dare they ! Men on the moon, off to the insane asylum for you mister !.

Come on you Guys, I know you have it in you, I'm sure each one can come come up with an idea, don't be embarrassed it won't sound silly, come on do it for ol' pipeline

I have owned RapidComposer for over a year and it is a very impressive tool! In a lot of ways it does what BIAB does but strictly with MIDI and VSTis. And in some ways it does a lot more! PG would do well to study some of the features RC provides and bring those into BIAB. Things like huge libraries of riffs...automatic suggestions for chords that might typically follow the last one...huge library of chord progressions as well as a chord progression generator...stand-alone and VST versions...32-bit and 64-bit...and so on! The RC interface seems a bit quirky to me but is still a much more modern one.

Of course, nothing compares to the end result I can get quickly with RealTracks! So I see these two tools, BIAB and RC, as two important tools in my songwriting toolbox! I would now never be without either one!

It may be that some of us think of BIAB rather one-dimensionally. If you think of it as a performance tool, a chord detector, a training aid and all of the other myriad of features new and old that occupy (litter?) the complex menu and toolbar, then I'd have to agree with you that this should never be converted to a VSTi!

BUT, if you view BIAB, as I do, as simply a shell I have to struggle with to get to those SWEET RealTracks, then having a RealTracks VSTi would be a godsend! I would venture to guess the vast majority of modern music producers work inside their DAW and prefer NOT to have to leave it to use external software on their tracks! Imagine what a pain it would be if your favorite VSTs/VSTis required you to output your tracks, process them inside their own proprietary software, then export and bring them back into your DAW!! There is a very BIG reason for the whole plugin concept...we want to work in a unified environment to the greatest degree possible!

So, imagine a new product from PG called RealTracks VSTi where you mainly get two things...a huge RealTracks library and an engine to manage them (select, stretch, tempo adjust, etc.)! This new product would leave out maybe 75% of the BIAB "features" like a metronome or jukebox and leave out most/all of the MIDI-specific features!

My feeling is such a product would be a killer, best-of-NAMM type deal! Every music producer and every wannabe music producer would be the target market for such a product! I am even a little nervous that PG might actually do this some day and let the rest of the music world know what a great thing we have here!

And before anyone says "just use RealBand" I won't bother to list the reasons why I will not do that but let me just state the very simplest one...what if every plug-in you use, every compressor, every EQ, every reverb required you to use a DAW designed for that plug? That would get old pretty quick, right?