PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist The (proposed) All new .., B.I.A.B Audiophile PRO PLUS Edition

+1 for 24 bit Audiophile edition.

I made the wishlist request before but was not able to properly justify the reason as I am more a beginner than professional producer / mixing engineer.

Well over 1000 views now ... :-)

Yep, we're watching with interest. It will largely depend on the actual possibility to even do this. Here's hoping.

Yes, it may not be possible for older RTs. It's totally understandable. But I'd like to reiterate that it would be a highly appreciated option (I'm talking about the 24 bit, separate drums tracks and dry tracks ideas) even if it was available only for recent RTs.

The separate drum tracks would require a significant change in the architecture. Currently, BiaB only 'theoretically' supports 8 tracks, but only one of them is used for drums. I doubt that the drum recordings are multi-track.

See this thread for more info.

You're probably right Videotrack.
However, I can imagine a scenario in which multi-track drums could be used fruitfully without a major change in BIAB's architecture (provided that the drums performance were recorded with multiple mics, which I have no idea of course).
For example, I could compose a song in BIAB and arrange it with 4 or 5 drum tracks (1 per microphone) and then 1 bass, 1 piano and 1 guitar (just to have a general idea of the arrangement). Then I could save the individual drum tracks as wav files to be imported in my DAW. Then I could go back to BIAB, save the same song with a different name, and go back to just a normal 1 stereo drum track, and use the other 7 tracks for other instruments, as we do now (and, again, export as wav files the tracks I need for my DAW project).
In other words, for users that use BIAB in order to export the wav files to be used in a DAW (and these are the kind of pro or semi-pro users who would benefit from multi-mic drums tracks) it doesn't really matter wether you have 8 or 16 tracks in BIAB, cause they're gonna export those tracks anyway to theri DAW. You can always use different versions of the same BIAB song with different instruments.
The real issue is wether the drum tracks were actually recorded with multiple mics. If not ... never mind

Anyway, I think that having 24 bit is more important than the multiple mic drum track option.

You can have multichannel wav or compressed RealDrum files.
In RealBand it will split to separate tracks, in Biab you can just have the mixer or in a tab.
Audacity saves to multichannel wav-compressed.

Jon, I think most of us are in favor if all this could be done as a paid option.

Just background info along the lines of what VideoTrack was saying: BIAB was designed to use 16 tracks. This probably dates back to using one bank in the old MIDI standard, as BIAB was all MIDI until 2007. There are several of these 16 tracks in use, or potentially in use, that most users do not realize take up some of the 16: harmony, guitar strings, control info.

To get more tracks available for our use, several things would have to be the case: One, BIAB would have to add a second bank, presumably of 16. Two, everyone's CPU would have to be up to the task of processing even more tracks of audio. Three, BIAB should likely be 64 bit to ensure it can address enough working RAM, since all RealTracks are loaded into RAM, and 24-bit audio requires somewhat more RAM (and storage space) than 16-bit audio.

Matt,
sure, of course there's probably a ton of technical problems that I completely ignore. I fully realize that, it's just fun to talk about it

Only in this spirit (just to have fun, I know it's pure, baseless speculation on my part ...) it still seems to me that the problems you outline are somehow manageable.

1. in order to implement, in a useful way, multi-mic drum tracks in BIAB, you don't necessarily need more tracks than we have now. We could just use some of the tracks that now are used for instruments. Then export them as wav, go back to the song, change the drums tracks into whatever you need (bass, piano, whatever) and export again. Indeed, I do this already when I need more than 8 different RTs for the same song ... in fact, we can have an infinite number of RT for each song, as long as we export the wavs. Convienent? Of course not. Useful? Oh yes, a lot ...
And, by the way, in RealBand the track limitation is bypassed altogether (RB basically does what I do "by hand" in BIAB ... don't ask me why, I just prefer to work in BIAB. I know it's silly ...).
But the point is, again, that I dont see track number as a real limitation.
To me the real issue is wether drums tracks were actually recorded with several mics. That's where the buck stops. But that's something only the folks at PG know for sure.

2. Yes, 24 bit tracks would take more memory. However, we are not talking gigabytes. A 24bit wav file is 50% larger than a 16 bit, I beleive. A 3 min track is about 45 mb at 24 bit. You need 20 (!) of those to get to just 1 gigabyte. I don't know, I could be wrong, but nowadays that seems manageable even by most older computers running with a 32bit OS. And, by the way, if I do some serious audio work with several tracks in ANY program, not just BIAB, well, I better get at very least a 64bit OS and some good amount of RAM ... there's just no way around it. I can't blame the software companies making DAWs or program like BIAB if I don't have the very minimum tool for the job, right?

Again, I am sure there's a 1000 issues that I am not aware of

I agree with you and that's a good analysis. I do think it's doable as well; I just thought I would mention a few obstacles.

Multitrack drums playing in Biab:

Impressive!

You Know your stuff in BIAB Pipeline....!

Pipeline, can you please explain? Not sure I understand

That's just loading the tracks in Temper VST that was inserted in a midi track.

They just need to fix a few vst sync issues in Biab to get the plugin to work fully same for the ReWire VST.

Temper will adjust to full screen, you can add fx to the tracks.
You can even drag some RealTracks into Temper and have a lot more tracks.

The thing is everyone gets use to BIAB and get attached to using it but then want more and more features then it gets harder and pressed for room that things need to be crammed in to add them to the layout without rewriting a whole new Professional DAW style Pro version... but hey that could very well just be around the corner who knows ??
A version for the regular Joe/Josephine and a 64bit Pro DAW version for those Pro Audioers/Studioers.
Wait n see what Father PG brings in December.

This is the optional download sound bank you get with MusicLab's Guitars:
24-bit 96 kHz high quality dry samples recorded directly from pick-ups let you easily create any desired guitar sound using your favorite amplifier simulator.

Pipeline, that is amazing. Know, if it can work on the Mac version as well.

I'm looking for one for Mac.
You can slave Reaper to BBMac midi sync, Logic needed MTC to work, I think the same with Pro Tools ??, I couldn't find an MTC out plugin for BBMac, still looking.
http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=370219