|
Log in to post
|
Print Thread |
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43
Enthusiast
|
OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43 |
Does the sound card I use play a role in determining how good my Real Tracks sound? I have noticed that some tracks, particularly piano tracks, can't be stretched very much before they sound pretty bad. My latest example: I am doing an arrangement of "All of You" as a bossa. After playing around a bit on the keyboard, I decided on 110bpm. There are only 2 bossa piano Real Tracks: 1 @ 140bpm and the other @ 80bpm. Both sound quite bad at 110bpm. With the 140bpm bossa piano, I experimented with the tempo of the song. At about 136bpm, it starting sounding Ok, but it didn't really sound completely "clean" 'till about 138bpm, even though the notes for this track state that the usable range is 120-160. With the 85bpm bossa piano, I had to slow the song all the way down to 85bpm to get a "clean" sound, even though the notes on the track state that the usable range is 80-105. When I say the sound is not "clean", I keep hearing what sounds like echos or ghosts on the piano's notes as they're played. My sound card is a Realtek that is built in to the mother board. I have the audio options set to MME because I don't have any ASIO drivers. Any ideas, anyone?
Andy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 1,616
Expert
|
|
Expert
Joined: May 2007
Posts: 1,616 |
No sound card will help when you're outside the recommended range of the RTs. I've found that often even the outer range gives undesirable sounds. If you must stretch, try to stretch upwards and not downwards. Example at 125, you may find that a 110 RT sounds better than a 140. If you can get the track sounding fine at the recommended tempo, probably nothing is wrong with your soundcard. I don't think ASIO would help in your case unless you're doing some real time recording with an external instrument.
A piano has a very complex sound structure which is probably why you're having problems with it. I don't use the piano RTs because I play keys but have had luck stretching with the Acoustic bass RT.
R
Last edited by Rachael; 09/21/09 01:35 PM.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,792
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,792 |
using the builtin chip is like racing the datona 500 in a prius!
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975
PG Music Staff
|
|
PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975 |
The soundcard wouldn't affect the stretching quality. It depends on various issues, like instrument timbre, stereo/mono (mono stretches better), pitch (low stretches better) and type of playing (percussive is better than legato playing).
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
Use of a better quality soundcard would only let you hear those beat stretch anomalies more clearly...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 8,333
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 8,333 |
Kinda like when I look in the mirror wearin' glasses?
John Conley
Musica est vita
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43
Enthusiast
|
|
OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43 |
I tried experimenting a litle more, and here is what I've found:
1. Real Track #487: Piano, Acoustic, Rythm Jazz Ballad Sw 085 sounds pretty good with bossa bass and drums.
2. Real Track #487 does not have the same stretching problem as Real Track #714: Piano, Acoustic, Rythm Bossa Ev 085. #487 sounds fine when stretched to 110bpm, but #487 sound terrible at that tempo - and virtually any tempo slower or faster than 85bpm.
I think there is something wrong with Real Track #487.
Andy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697 |
There's nothing wrong with it, it's the nature of audio. You can only time stretch so far and like Peter said it also depends on the instrument and frequency range.
Everything in life has tradeoffs. The tradeoff here is the awesome quality of the sound of the RT's but limited tempo's for each one. The only answer is to create more tracks at more tempos and that is happening. BUT, another tradeoff: Storage. A complete library of RT's at all tempo's will probably fill up a terabyte hard drive but they're cheap enough it's worth it. At that point there will have to be some kind of filter system you can program so you're not looking at every RT you have on your system every time you want to use one.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,574
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,574 |
Right now, Peter Gannon has requested our ideas for new piano and acoustic bass Real Tracks over on the Styles Wishlist forum. Here's your chance to specify exact tempos you would like, when stretching doesn't get you there. http://www.pgmusic.com/ubbthreads/showfl...ge=0#Post237826http://www.pgmusic.com/ubbthreads/showfl...ge=0#Post237825
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43
Enthusiast
|
|
OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43 |
My response is specifically to jazzmammal's reply:
You say it'sthe nature of audio, however, Real Track #487 stretches fine from its 085bpm tempo to 110bpm, but Real Track #714 does not. #714 sounds pretty bad at tempos as low as 90bpm. These two tracks are both acoustic piano, and actually sound very similar, except that the pianist's style of playing on #714 is latin with an even ryhthm feel, while #487 is a swing feel. Why would one stretch and not the other, unless there is something wrong with the one that won't stretch?
Andy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697 |
Can't help you there except to say "it's audio". I've done a lot of audio editing using Adobe Audition and it has a highly regarded pitch change or time stretch algo in it and it's not as good as the one PG uses. A lot of people with more experience with this than me have commented on that. You didn't say if you have the pristine Audiophile version of the RT's. Maybe that helps. Most of us use the WMA's and those are compressed.
Just do a google search on audio time stretching and you can find plenty of technical articles about this. It's very tricky and difficult. You'll see that 5, 10 maybe 15% is about it and again it really depends on what frequency range it is. In Audition, I remember one file that I was trying to append to another file only required something like a 3% stretch and it still sounded glitchy. 3% for a 110 bpm file is usually no problem but I couldn't make it work. The track included drum cymbals and it was the high freq's that were glitching.
Someone commented in another thread that Melodyne has a superior way of doing this and maybe PG could adapt that but obviously, Melodyne would charge for the licensing if they choose to make it available at all. That's strictly a business decision, who know's what PG's thinking is on that.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
I loaded one of the two pgmusic demo songs for that Slo Latin Pno style and ran the Tempo up from the original 85-BPM for quite a ways before noting anomalies. The anomalies noted were more of the "playing" variety than being of degraded audio quality, however. Like the cat was overplaying for the tempo, which is the case after some point. Here is an audio example of what I heard at Tempo = 120-BPM, made using the BIAB Render function to Wav file and then converted to mp3 using Audacity and the LAME encoder at 128kbps: Slo_Bossa_Pno714_120-BPM.mp3 Perhaps you have a bad RealTracks file, that might occur. I would have posted a higher bitrate, but wanted something that could stream easily for most users. It doesn't really matter here, the file sounds great in the .wav format anyway. Perhaps you could do the same exact thing at your end, set the demo song to 1 chorus, then set the Tempo to 120, hit Play and then go to the Audio menu and do a render, convert to mp3 or use the Render to mp3 inside BIAB, then post it so we can hear what you're hearing, it might help sort things out? --Mac
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975
PG Music Staff
|
|
PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 15,975 |
Mac
Thanks for the post. Yes, the speedup from 85 to 120 sounds pretty good here. As mentioned, much of the strangeness is of the musical variety, where sped up playing sounds unrealistic.
Bass stretches real well, and the drums are recorded at lots of different tempos, so work well also.
That said, we are recording a 110 tempo bossa, since its such an important style. Then there'll be 85, 110, 140 and 190 (samba). That should do it for bossa...
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,574
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,574 |
Quote:
we are recording a 110 tempo bossa, since its such an important style. Then there'll be 85, 110, 140 and 190 (samba). That should do it for bossa...
Hurray!
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.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 7,697 |
Cool, that a sweet spot for a lot of tunes.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 330
Journeyman
|
|
Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2008
Posts: 330 |
I'm fairly new to Real Tracks, but I've discovered some ways of working with different tempos. I wanted a slow jazz waltz for Tenderly so I used the "expand chord duration by 2" feature in order to use the jazz Real Tracks currently available. Also, I've found that the various jazz pianos also work well with some bossa tunes at various tempos.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,612
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 22,612 |
THAT is how an audio engineer thinks!
Changing the tempo to halftime (or double time) to allow incorporating other realtracks is creative. May not always work due to intended styles, but it is a way to try things.
I've used this trick inside the ACW to make things work out better. Inside the ACW there is also a right-click option to half-time or double-time the tempo. Then I let it rewrite the tempo map.
This type of creative problem solving opens a lot of doors to new possibilities.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43
Enthusiast
|
|
OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Jan 2008
Posts: 43 |
Mac's mp3 sounds fine to me. I have created the same thing on my PC, but I don't have anywhere to post it so that it could be accessed here on the forum. Any suggetions? Mac, could I e-mail it to you so that you vould post it?
Andy
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
|
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
|
|
Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
You've got a PM - Personal Message -- awaiting you Andy.
--Mac
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
XPro & Xtra Styles PAK Sets On Sale Now - Until May 15, 2026!
All of our XPro Styles PAKs and Xtra Styles PAKs are on sale until May 15th, 2026!
It's the perfect time to expand your Band-in-a-Box® style library with XPro and Xtra Styles PAKs. These additional styles for Band-in-a-Box® offer a wide range of genres designed to fit seamlessly into your projects. Each style is professionally arranged and mixed, helping enhance your songs while saving you time.
What are XPro Styles and Xtra Styles PAKs?
XPro Styles PAKs are styles that work with any version (Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition) of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 (or higher). XPro Styles PAKS 1-10 includes 1,000 styles!
Xtra Styles PAKs are styles that work with the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 (or higher). Xtra Styles PAKs 1-21 includes 3,700 styles (and 35 MIDI styles)!
The XPro & Xtra Styles PAKs are not included in any Band-in-a-Box® package.
The XPro Styles PAKs 1-10 are available for only $29 ea (reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Listen to demos and order now! For Mac or for Windows.
The Xtra Styles PAKs 1-21 are available for only $29 ea (reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the Xtra Styles PAK Bundle for only $199 (reg. $349)! Listen to demos and order now! For Mac or for Windows.
Note: XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 19 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version as they require the RealTracks included in the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
Supercharge your Band-in-a-Box today with XPro Styles PAKs and Xtra Styles PAK Sets!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
Whether you're exploring new features, checking out the latest RealTracks or Style PAKs, this is your go-to guide for Band-in-a-Box® 2026.
Check out this forum post for "One Stop Shopping" of our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Videos!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac is Here!
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac is here and it is packed with major new features! There’s a new modern look, a GUI redesign to all areas of the program including toolbars, windows, workflow and more. There’s a Multi-view layout for organizing multiple windows. A standout addition is the powerful AI-Notes feature, which uses AI neural-net technology to transcribe polyphonic audio into MIDI—entire mixes or individual instruments—making it easy to study, view, and play parts from any song. And that’s just the beginning—there are over 100 new features in this exciting release.
Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
Special Offers
Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac and save up to 50% on most upgrade packages during our special offer—available until May 15, 2026. Visit our Band-in-a-Box® packages page to explore all available upgrade options.
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK Add-ons
Our Free Bonus PAK and 49-PAK are loaded with amazing add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is included with most Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac packages, but you can unlock even more—including 20 unreleased RealTracks—by upgrading to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49.
Holiday Weekend Hours
As we hop into the Easter weekend, here are our holiday hours:
April 3 (Good Friday): 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
April 4 (Saturday): Closed
April 5 (Easter Sunday): Closed
April 6 (Easter Monday): Open regular hours
Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
Update to Build 10 of RealBand® 2026 for Windows®!
If you're already using RealBand 2026 for Windows, download build 10 to get all the latest additions and enhancements.
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® users: Build 904 now available!
If you're already using Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®, make sure to grab the latest update! Build 904 is now available for download and includes the newest additions and enhancements from our team.
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® users: Build 1237 is now available!
Already a Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows user? Stay up to date and download the build 1237 to get all the latest additions and enhancements.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forums57
Topics86,223
Posts802,079
Members40,071
| |
Most Online64,515
Apr 8th, 2026
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dansk
Deutsch - Windows
Español
Français - Windows
Italiano - Windows
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Svenskt
русский
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean