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Joined: Dec 2015
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I'm sure that some already suggested or talked about these ideas before. If so, I apologize.
Here's a couple of ideas (warning: I'm still relatively new to BIAB so I'm not sure these suggestions actually make sense ....)
1. increase the number of tracks in BIAB.
I know that with Real Band you can have an unlimited number of tracks. But maybe I'm not the only one who prefers to work in BIAB rather than Real Band (for a number of reasons, I find it easier to go from BIAB to my DAW rather than using Real band). So, it would be nice to add at least a couple of tracks in BIAB (from the current 7 to 9 or, even better, 10). That would give more flexibility and variety to the arrangement and the styles.
2. Increase the number of "sections" from 2 to 3 (I mean, instead of just A and B, it would be nice to have A, B and C for each track). The advantage, obviously, is to have more variety within a song - indeed, many songs have three different parts in their structure (verse, bridge and chorus). I realize that this would be almost impossible or very difficult for existing realtracks, that's ok, but maybe it could be done for future realtracks? I think this would be especially useful for drums (in fact, many drum tracks already have several variations ... but we can only use 2 in each song ... it would be nice to be able to use more than 2 variations of the same drum track in the song)
Just my two cents. Looking forward to BIAB 2017!!!
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Oct 2008
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Jon, In relation to your second point, a number of styles already have A - D substyles rather than simply the A and B variations. If you go to the BIAB users manual, information about sub-styles, multistyles and part markers begins on page 72. It's well worth having a quick read. Also.... You'll definitely find it a benefit in your song production if you learn how to drive Realband. Like you, I begin in BIAB when I'm writing. I find it more comfortable to work in. Then, when I've pretty much nailed my composition, I move to Realband (RB). After Realband, I save and take my tracks to Reaper (my DAW). The main features that I use in RB are... 1. Multiriff: this allows for generation of up to 7 different variations of a Realtrack (RT). I find this very useful because I usually create a comp'd track from selecting the bits I like from the multiple generations. 2. Realband lets a user generate part of a RT in a selected section of an existing track. For example: if, say, bars 21 and 22 of a track generation are not working, it's possible to highlight those two bars and regenerate just those two bars. A new feature in RB 2016 that I haven't yet played around with too much is the Click track. It's much more sophisticated than a simple click track. I suspect that this could be very useful to you with your instrumental work as it will allow easy matching of your instrumentals with Realtracks. The link below will take you to some links on this Click track feature if you are interested. Click track (link)Lastly, if you're curious about RB, the below link leads to some videos on the software. http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.realband.htmAll the best, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jul 2000
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In relation to your first suggestion, increasing track count in BIAB has been requested for many years and discussed often. I'm reasonably sure what we have now stems from the original 16 MIDI channels. With harmony and individual guitar strings, all 16 are presently in use with certain options. In other words, it isn't random what we have now; there is a reason.
But keep asking. Like you, I prefer to stay within BIAB as long as possible.
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 Wishlist
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Joined: Dec 2000
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A couple of additional points:
RealBand does not have unlimited tracks; it has 48 tracks.
Multistyles actually can support "A" through "X" substyles; however, today there are only a handful of multistyles available that go beyond the "A" and "B" substyles. You can't just select "C", "D", "E" and BIAB knows what to do. They have to be available and already defined substyles. Buy you can easily take existing styles and create your own multi-style by redefining some other existing styles as substyles to the main style. That way, once you have multiple styles defined as belonging to a main style (if you will), you don't have to change styles in the middle of the song, you could just select a new part marker ("C" or "D" or "E" or "F", etc).
As Noel suggested, just search for "multistyle" in the PDF user manual for more information on creating and using multistyles.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Jon, After reading Matt and John above, another thought occurred to me... You might like to have a look at the "Medley" option in Realtracks. While it doesn't give the same control as the individual track that you and Matt mention, the Medley option allows one to assign up to 11 RTs to a single BIAB track.  Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,323
Expert
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Expert
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Hey guys do you really use multistyles in Realband?
As far I have experimented it, when you import a song with a multistyle from BIAB to Realband, Realband don't recognize the multistyle : the original substyles A/B/C/D/E for example are remapped to A/B/A/B/A in Realband.
Reach for excellence
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jul 2000
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Hey guys do you really use multistyles in Realband?
As far I have experimented it, when you import a song with a multistyle from BIAB to Realband, Realband don't recognize the multistyle : the original substyles A/B/C/D/E for example are remapped to A/B/A/B/A in Realband.
Not being a user of RB, no, I did not know that. It would seem RB should be enhanced to correspond with this BIAB feature. Yes, I have created multi styles in BIAB. It's been several years...
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 Wishlist
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Joined: Dec 2015
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Apprentice
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Hey guys, thank you SOOOO MUCH!
I still have A LOT to learn about BIAB and RB ... I've bought the program last december and still I dont know so many of its features apparently. I guess I've been too busy making music ... and that's what BIAB does to you, isn't it? :-)
Anyway, thanks again, I guess I really should learn the program much better before making suggestions :-)
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Dec 2000
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RealBand unfortunately does not support MultiStyles. However, in BIAB, a multistyle is simply a list of linked styles, with the main style following a specific naming convention (the style name ends with the "+" symbol.
So one thing you can do is to open BIAB, load the multistyle, and make note of which additional style files are used for the additional substyles ("C" through "X"). You can then go into RealBand, manually select the appropriate style file, highlight the section that uses that substyle, and regenerate that section.
Yes, it's a PITA, but until RealBand natively supports multistyles, at least you can do it manually.
Note that everything is paired. So "C" and "D" substyles come from "A" and "B" in the referenced style file; "E" and "F" substyles likewise come from "A" and "B" of the referenced style file.
I hope that made sense.
Sounds like a wishlist item is in order, though I'm pretty I've requested this previously. Maybe it's time to bubble it to the top again.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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I guess I really should learn the program much better before making suggestions :-) Not at all. "First" impressions are very valid. Keep the observations coming. If you're not sure about something, you can always ask about it first in the regular BIAB Product forum, (Windows or Mac, as appropriate).
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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You're right Matt, I'll do that.
Thanks again
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PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
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Good suggestion to add multistyles to RealBand. Thanks
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Expert
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Add Multistyles management in RealBand Peter, I Have already written a post requesting this feature three years ago, on oct 11, 2013... see the above link.
Last edited by John-Luke; 09/27/16 05:44 AM.
Reach for excellence
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"(in fact, many drum tracks already have several variations ... but we can only use 2 in each song ... it would be nice to be able to use more than 2 variations of the same drum track in the song)" You can use "F5" key to change Drums/Variations at any bar. You can save a RT as Performance track and move it to the Audio track. With the VST Sync working (nearly fully working) you will be able to load a wav player into a vsti slot and drag extra tracks from BB into it. There is Temper VSTi that you just insert some audio tracks then drag the BB track into it. Still looking for a simple basic vst to do this. You can slave BB to Reaper with the midi clock, but that's not working quit right at the moment. You just right click on Reaper's play button.
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