Chord names are not part of the MIDI spec, so they won't transfer to other DAWs. It works in RealBand, because RealBand can read the BIAB file format, and therefore can pick up the chord names.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA
1. Can I record a high quality guitar solo on the single track supplied - Yes
b. and export it to a DAW? Yes - From the tool bar of tracks across the top of the screen, drag to the Wav in the render quadrant. This will render a wav file of that track that can be opened in a DAW. You can also select the button to Enter DAW Mode, as some DAW's can accept Biab tracks directly.
2. Any DAWS that show the chords being played in real time , Like Biab? I have not done it but recall there was a discussion that some DAW's support functionality to import and display chords. Possibly Cubase and Reaper. Someone else may recall that discussion and point you to it.
If you need to have the chart to read the chords.....
I would recommend printing the chart to paper....Then export the tracks to a proper DAW and record your live guitar in that DAW. Follow along as needed on the charts you printed.
I've used this on occasion but more often, I've printed the charts and emailed them to another musician who was tracking some other instrument part for me. It just makes it really easy on the other folks who may not know the song like I do and don't have the time to learn it well enough to play it by ear.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
All of the above advice sounds correct to me. I would just add that we are getting closer to being able to transfer chord symbols into the DAW by exporting as Music XML. It might even work now if the DAW imports Music XML; I haven't tried it (since my main need is to take the song, with chords, into a dedicated notation program, not a DAW).
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
You get BiaB features and 40 more tracks (instead of one).
Use them for more MIDI or Audio or Realtracks or ... RB lets you take your BiaB song and work in a more DAW like manner while retaining the ability to generate .. really worth knowing how to use even if you end up in another DAW later.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
In Biab save the song as a video like mp4 and the check Scroll Ahead, load the video into a track in your DAW, this will show the chords being played in real time. You can also drag the tracks in from Biab and just turn the sound down on the video track. You can now record any number of tracks, giving your a chord track in you DAW to play to.
There is also a dedicated site for RealBand DAW www.realband.org
In my opinion Realband is not a genuine DAW, by todays standards. As has been mentioned it can be helpful for certain things. However, my experience over many years is that it can produce it's own unique levels of grief.
I'm not sure if this will help you as I only use Reaper as my DAW. After rendering my backing tracks into reaper I manually go into Reaper and insert a marker with each chord change. It's not a chord chart but it's great way to see the changes especially if your soloing. It does take time as you manually have to do it and it also clutters up the screen but you can save a copy of your project with and without the chord markers. Use the chord markers to write and practice then go back to the original to record and continue with the project.
I'm trying to get pg to have an option to export chords to markers in the midi file. See pic has the imported video and BB Chord Output midi with markers that Reaper imports.
You could also have an option in the Acid dialog to Write Chords to BWF bext chunk, this will write the chords as cue points in the exported wav file that DAW's can read and import. Making it easy to see and copy/replace chord bars.
If you use Cubase you can generate a chord track (I usually use a midi piano even if I don't want it in the mix) sometimes you might need to edit the chord track to match. (These simple chords required no editing)
In my opinion Realband is not a genuine DAW, by todays standards. As has been mentioned it can be helpful for certain things. However, my experience over many years is that it can produce it's own unique levels of grief.
Really? Have you been following the Production thread? Here's a quote from Rharv:
Quote:
If they are going to use it for the main theme song (intro and credits) they let you know ahead of time, otherwise it's pretty mush a trust thing. There was a boating show in London/Windsor/Toronto area on Saturday mornings where the theme song used BiaB/RB tracks. I only know because I did the production side and generated/comp'd a few of the tracks. Ed Bulmer (forum member who has been absent lately) gets the writing credit for that one. FWIW, all the production work was done in RB, using various VSTs including Ozone of course.. I still have the seq files on a drive around here somewhere.
Note the sentence in bold. Sounds like a full blown DAW to me.
Hi Bob, I'm not saying Realband is not a usable DAW but whether you think it's a fully functioning/featured DAW depends on what you consider a fully functioning DAW might include these days.
In my opinion (which of course, is all it is) a fully functioning DAW might include:
Transient and Tempo Detection Comping Lanes VCA Faders Channel Strips Track Versions Track Pre-sets Track Visibility Controls Track Grouping & Linking Note Expression, Expression Maps, VST Dynamics Inbuilt Instruments, Effects, Editor The ability to load several very large sample libraries.
I'm not saying that you can't produce good music in Realband, just that a DAW with more functions/features gives you other, maybe better options, and may result in even better sounding music.
For example I like using comping lanes, I like sidechaining, I like grouping my channels as I mix, I like loading numerous VST instruments containing very large sample bases (without the program "choking" and forcing Ctrl, Alt, Delete) I like using A/B comparisons etc....
I'm guessing that if you asked some studio engineers if Realband, compared to their DAW of choice (Pro Tools, Cubase Pro, Studio One etc.), was a fully functioning DAW by the standards of today their answer would probably be no.
All DAWs have their strengths and weaknesses, including Realband, but I maintain that I don't think Realband is a fully featured DAW by today’s standards.
Hi Bob, I'm not saying Realband is not a usable DAW but whether you think it's a fully functioning/featured DAW depends on what you consider a fully functioning DAW might include these days.
In my opinion (which of course, is all it is) a fully functioning DAW might include:
Transient and Tempo Detection Comping Lanes VCA Faders Channel Strips Track Versions Track Pre-sets Track Visibility Controls Track Grouping & Linking Note Expression, Expression Maps, VST Dynamics Inbuilt Instruments, Effects, Editor The ability to load several very large sample libraries.
I'm not saying that you can't produce good music in Realband, just that a DAW with more functions/features gives you other, maybe better options, and may result in even better sounding music.
For example I like using comping lanes, I like sidechaining, I like grouping my channels as I mix, I like loading numerous VST instruments containing very large sample bases (without the program "choking" and forcing Ctrl, Alt, Delete) I like using A/B comparisons etc....
I'm guessing that if you asked some studio engineers if Realband, compared to their DAW of choice (Pro Tools, Cubase Pro, Studio One etc.), was a fully functioning DAW by the standards of today their answer would probably be no.
All DAWs have their strengths and weaknesses, including Realband, but I maintain that I don't think Realband is a fully featured DAW by today’s standards.
+1
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.com Add nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both.
The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
I don't disagree with these points but all of these things depends on who you're talking to, what type of music are they doing, etc. These forums are not full of recording pros. A few sure, but the large majority, no.
I know one thing for sure, digital bits are digital bits. The basic sound quality does not change in the slightest from one DAW to another. Plug in a guitar or keyboard or vocal mic and record some audio into as many DAWs as you want, the raw file will be the same. If you're saying that all of these extras helps you to achieve a better mix, fair enough but bits are bits.
It's been discussed here off and on for years that the PG plugins for EQ, compression etc were written by the same people who now do work for all the big name plugs. All that's missing with the PG plugs is the cool looking graphics and presets. But, if you understand how compressors work, now to use EQ and all that you can get the exact same results from PG plugs as you can get with many other plugs but if you'd rather pay for and use Ozone or T-Racks then RB handles those just fine.
When you talk about loading multiple large sample sets, how many tracks are you working with at the same time? The vast majority of stuff I do is with Biab generated tracks, a few VSTi tracks and my own playing using various keyboards. Yes the big name DAW's have unlimited tracks but for me anyway I've never used even 40 tracks, I think the most was 18 or 20 one time. This is probably where 98% of forum users are at.
I think of this like cars. What's does a car do? Basically it takes you from point A to point B. Is a nice 10 year old Honda Civic good for that? Of course it is. Is a new Mercedes S Class better? It depends. Better than what?
Similar thing here. It's already proven RB is fully capable of producing high quality broadcast ready audio. Yes, comp track folders are cool, better automation is cool so what you're talking about is basically workflow but like a new Benz, it's also about price. My only point is basic sound quality. You can achieve it just as well with RB. But I'll agree maybe not as slick, not as good looking, not as much fun? Oh, and lets not forget the learning curve, Cubase is infamous for being a very complex piece of software. It costs how much again?
RB is free and very easy to learn and use and you can get the results you want. I still say it's a very competitive DAW.
I'm not saying Realband is not a usable DAW but whether you think it's a fully functioning/featured DAW depends on what you consider a fully functioning DAW might include these days.
In my opinion (which of course, is all it is) a fully functioning DAW might include:
Transient and Tempo Detection Comping Lanes VCA Faders Channel Strips Track Versions Track Pre-sets Track Visibility Controls Track Grouping & Linking Note Expression, Expression Maps, VST Dynamics Inbuilt Instruments, Effects, Editor The ability to load several very large sample libraries.
I'm not saying that you can't produce good music in Realband, just that a DAW with more functions/features gives you other, maybe better options, and may result in even better sounding music.
For example I like using comping lanes, I like sidechaining, I like grouping my channels as I mix, I like loading numerous VST instruments containing very large sample bases (without the program "choking" and forcing Ctrl, Alt, Delete) I like using A/B comparisons etc....
I'm guessing that if you asked some studio engineers if Realband, compared to their DAW of choice (Pro Tools, Cubase Pro, Studio One etc.), was a fully functioning DAW by the standards of today their answer would probably be no.
All DAWs have their strengths and weaknesses, including Realband, but I maintain that I don't think Realband is a fully featured DAW by today’s standards.
Hello Beachboy,
Thank you very much for your valuable feedback! We've passed it along to the RealBand developers for their consideration.
Bob, you made some excellent points and I agree with almost all of them. I especially agree with the digital bits are digital bits, PG plugins, your car analogy and your basic sound quality. Realband's sound quality is equal to any high priced DAW. IMHO Realband is far superior to any other DAW in its price range. And as you know I am not a Realband power user and in fact I very rarely use it.
The only points that I want to make are that as you said it depends on what you are recording. I use multiple large sample sets and I never go over 30 tracks; most of my tracks are in the 18-20 range, like you posted. The difference is my MIDI sound sources like Kontakt and Play can have huge sample sets. Plus for instance I like my 1st violins, 2nd violins, other strings, brass (both orchestra and jazz/rock), drums etc on separate tracks. Each track can contain a different large sample set. I know that I can do this in RB but I would have to use jBridge (a work around for not going 64 bit IMO).
I think most other DAW users, like myself, are very comfortable with their DAW. I can work very rapidly in Sonar where I would have to keep looking stuff up in order to use RB. Habits can be a bad thing I guess.
If you work with RTs, live recording, and occasionally add a MIDI track and/or have never used a DAW then RB perfect for you. If you record like I do with large sample sets and are very familiar with your current DAW then RB may not be for you.
PS - an after thought - Are those people whom want RB to be like the high priced DAWs are they willing to pay the same price for it? I doubt it.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
I have no issue with someone who loves their DAW and if these things can be made part of RB without greatly increasing the cost, great. I must say after this new VST improvement anything's possible...
I still don't get the comments about large sample sets though. The whole 32 vs 64 bit thing is Windows use of memory. JBridge works great and solves that problem. All you do is set it and forget it and then no problem with memory allocation therefore no problem with big sample sets. Or am I missing something?
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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