Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Then I'm way wrong to answer. I've used the program since the early 1990s and always with as much as they offered.

But I will say, the RealTracks are only limited in three ways I can think of:

1. the audio quality is 16 bit/44.1 K otherwise known as CD quality
2. there may not be a RealTrack that exactly matches the style you way (but you can request they make one)
3. your imagination

Anyone else?



4-Realtracks are not as easily modified as MIDI. You can cut and paste Realtracks to get what you want and many here are experts that will help. On the plus side you can get everything you need in one package, i.e. BiaB.

5-MIDI can easily be modified. Take a piano track and change the sound to organ, flutes, synths, what ever you have. MIDI tracks fill follow tempo, key changes and octaves with no artifacts. You can easily change one or two notes in a chord and you can not do that with Rrealtracks. The downside is that you must not only learn how to use MIDI but also the cost of really good sounding MIDI sound sources can be quite high.

BiaB does come with a GM MIDI sound source but it is not very good. It also comes with a non GM sound source in Sampletank 2.5 which is much better sounding but must be set up properly in BiaB. You can get better GM sounding MIDI sound sources for around $50 or you can get some free soundfonts and a soundfont player, also free, but again you must set that up in BiaB also.

If I were in your shoes I would get the Realtracks. Then later you can mess around with the MIDI side of BiaB with what comes with the package.

Note that I almost always use MIDI in my songs and I am biased toward MIDI but in your case I would choose Realtracks.

Also note that BiaB comes with a DAW, Realband, so you do not have to invest money in one. In fact I would learn Realband while you are learning BiaB. There are some things that Realband can do the BiaB can't.

I get most of my exercise these days from shaking my head in disbelief.


64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware