I am using Real Tracks as a main component of work I am doing in my home studio for serious musical purposes in order to try and compete with people out there who have access to huge budgets and expensive studios and to try and sound as good or better than them.
For me, the audiophile choice is a no brainer and I can tell the difference instantly.
I am also an obsessive compulsive perfectionist, so when I hear audiophile's quality, I am stuck with it. I am blending the tracks with tracks I record myself with my own guitars and other instruments, and if I don't use audiophile, there is a noticeable difference between the tracks I record myself and the others. I want everything to sound thick, and rich and gorgeous like a bunch of musicians just left the room, so I am totally sold 100 percent on audiophile.
There is nothing else for me to say. My version is really short: audiophile.
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
At the time I wrote this, you were just releasing BIAB 2017. Some readers suggested making this a sticky. Perhaps it would be helpful to reconsider doing that as you get closer to December and what we hope will be BIAB 2018.
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.
My understanding is the Mac version has MP4 lossy audio files and AIFF lossless audio files while the PC version has wma lossy files and WAV lossless audio files.
Both WAV and AIFF files contain the same uncompressed PCM audio content. The AIFF file format was created by Apple to also contain metadata like album cover graphics in iTunes whereas WAV files do not.
One thing that is bouncing around in different forums repetitively that I wish pro users could put to bed forever on some post or location somewhere on this board or website is whether Real Tracks (particularly audiophile) are like "recording" or "recording studio quality" or "can you have a million dollar recording studio" using Real Tracks.
The answer from me and many other pro users is YES, YES, YES, YES and YES, and one more time YES.
Plus, let's think about cost and the value of having the patience to learn how to really use Real Tracks and learn how to mix and master with them in a DAW.
The AVERAGE rate around here in the south for a reasonable "album" production song with a few studio musicians is about $2,000 PER SONG. I see artists shell out 20 grand for an album all the time--a few guitars, some vocals, drums, etc.
20 grand. Just like that.
I swear to heaven there are people on this forum who can take Real Tracks and Real Drums and add their own vocals and instrumentation and mixing and mastering skills in a good home studio and they sound better than stuff coming out of studios.
Because Real Tracks are just that: REAL TRACKS. Especially audiophile. Wav form tracks perfectly played. Pretty much what you would get in a studio after 8 hours if your people know how to play.
And YES, for the 100th time you can make an album with Band in a Box tracks.
Just wanted to see if I could point that out for the 101th time if Matt's post is going to become a sticky.
BIAB is not just a practice tool anymore.
YOU CAN MAKE AN ALBUM WITH IT AND IT DOES NOT COST 20 GRAND.
< YES, for the 100th time you can make an album with Band in a Box tracks. >
David, that is the exactly the point of question two < "can you have a million dollar recording studio" using Real Tracks? > in another thread of the forum I started.
I'm thinking use of RealTracks is more common in commercial releases today than most realize.
If I were to hire the session musician that performs on a RealTrack I select and use on an original composition, the track that same musician would generate 'live' in a studio for me for that same original song, would be very similar to the track generated by BIAB. If the RealTrack is an acoustic strumming rhythm guitar, the same player, playing the same song in the same key, tempo and chord progression should sound similar. But the setup to record the same player, playing the same song with the same instrument, mic, studio, studio equipment, mics, etc will come at a much greater cost that likely exceeds one's investment in buying any version of BIAB. I can't think of any circumstance other than pure chance where a complete drum kit can be recorded live in most home studios sounding better than a studio recorded Real Track by a top session drummer.
BIAB tracks are no less real than a MIDI track recorded in a multi million dollar studio. No less real than a comped lead vocal. No less real than an instrument recorded on the west coast and the track sent to a studio on the east cost project. A real track is no less real in any recording project than a sample or loop.
There is no break in the recording chain of a Realtrack from its initial recording through the song creation in BIAB to the point of rendering the track to audio. Perhaps the difference in quality of a $99 interface DAC and a $6,500 commercial DAC affects the rendered product but that would be taken into consideration if a Real Track was desired by a producer to be included in a mainstream commercial release.
I have been using Band in a Box since easily sometime in the last millennium, but it was only last December (2018) that I finally splurged and purchased the audiophile version.
And I have to say, it sounds amazing!
Or does it? While playing back some songs I had written early in the year, I noticed some apparent artifacts in the strummed guitars and one or two cymbal crashes. I am reluctant to re-render at this stage, as the tunes are just about where I want them to be in terms of arrangement.
Still, I am curious to know if the tracks I have currently rendered are truly using the audiophile .wav files. Is there a way to confirm?
Dunbar7376 / Tom Marvan
Last edited by dunbar7376; 08/28/1812:52 PM.
Tom Marvan Dunbar7376 San Diego, CA
Band in A Box Audiophile 2025
MSI GE66 10SFS 15.6" Laptop (Model GE66048) Intel Core i7 10th Gen i7-10750H 2.6ghz 32GB DDR4 RAM 2666mhz 8GB GDDR6 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 1920x1080 Full HD LED 2x1TB NVMe SSD PCI
Hi Tom. If you have installed the audiophile version correctly over your old version, BIAB is unquestionably using the .WAV files. If nothing else, they load a bit faster. BIAB first looks for .WAV files and only when they are not found does it load and uncompress a compressed file.
What you are hearing is likely from another reason. For example, are you at a tempo considerably different from the recommended tempo for that RealTrack?
Did you try turning off Fast Generation for that song in Options, RealTracks?
Do you have a Mac or PC? What are the specs? Or, perhaps easier, is your single-core Geekbench score over around 1500?
It is true, those are two out of the three sounds most likely to show artifacts of stretching pitch or tempo (along with sustained acoustic piano). If you lower or raise the key by a half or whole step, do you still hear anything wrong?
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.
"If you have installed the audiophile version correctly..." That's the $64,000 question!
In fact, in anticipation of the audiophile purchase, I bought a fresh new laptop last November and removed as much bloatware as possible, so that a fresh version of BinaBox could be installed.
My (then) new laptop was an HP Spectre X360 4K Ultra HD 15.6" touchscreen, with a core i7 8th CPU, 512GB solid state drive, 16GB RAM, Nvidia dedicated 2GB GDDR5 video, and Windows 10. At some point I plan to take advantage of the thunderbolt port for recording.
Typically I do select realtracks close to the tempo song (with some rare exceptions, with the few examples appearing to be bass instruments, not victims of artefacts, at least that my ear can hear).
I do have "speed up generation of real tracks" enabled. I will experiment and turn that off, but the specs of my machine should presumably be able to handle it. When I regenerate a song, the artefacts tend to go away on a new rendering, as they sometimes when I go up or down half a step.
I did a quick search in my bb directory and noticed that, under the realtracks directory, there are wma and BT1 files. There are absolutely no *.wav files anywhere on my computer (well, 3 or 4 songs ripped from a CD, but not in any bb directory).
I may owe someone $64,000. I don't think I did a full audiophile install. It was quite a process moving old files, getting the drivers to work etc., so I don't recall the install protocol I followed. I will dig out the shipped audiophile hard drive and compare the bb files there with those on my hard drive. I may have been reluctant to do a full install as my drive, although fast, is only 500GB new.
Thank you for your help!
Tom Marvan.
Tom Marvan Dunbar7376 San Diego, CA
Band in A Box Audiophile 2025
MSI GE66 10SFS 15.6" Laptop (Model GE66048) Intel Core i7 10th Gen i7-10750H 2.6ghz 32GB DDR4 RAM 2666mhz 8GB GDDR6 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 1920x1080 Full HD LED 2x1TB NVMe SSD PCI
Tom, in a correct installation there will be both a WMA file and a WAV file for each sound, in the same folder. So I think you’ve answered your own question. PG Music Support could help you sort it out, but it does make sense that you did not install the audiophile version files to your laptop. That internal drive is not big enough; the audiophile version takes up about three times the size of your one drive! On a laptop with less than a 2 TB drive (and that’s almost all of them), you have to do the minimal install of BIAB but then be sure the RealTracks and RealDrums point to the external drive supplied by PG Music (and keep that plugged in). This setting is found in Options, Preferences, RealTracks (and same for RealDrums) where you select a Custom Folder.
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.
Thank you, Matt. I think I have all that I need to step up to the next level of audio quality!
Well, with one clarification: it looks like I need to contact support to assist in a proper install. A simple redirect of the RealTracks and RealDrums to the external drive is not enough?
Tom.
Tom Marvan Dunbar7376 San Diego, CA
Band in A Box Audiophile 2025
MSI GE66 10SFS 15.6" Laptop (Model GE66048) Intel Core i7 10th Gen i7-10750H 2.6ghz 32GB DDR4 RAM 2666mhz 8GB GDDR6 NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER 1920x1080 Full HD LED 2x1TB NVMe SSD PCI
Yes, since the program was already installed, a simple redirect to the files on the external drive is all that's needed (in the two places mentioned). Try it.
And now you have an easy way to compare the two types of sound.
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.
In addition to Matt's very thorough advice, have a look under "Options | Prefereneces | Realtracks" and you'll see a setting for "Tempo/Pitch stretching quality" in the right column of settings.... make sure that this is set to 'High' as shown on the image below. If I recall correctly, I think it sets to 'Medium' by default.
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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Join Tobin as he takes you on a tour of the new user interface in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®! This modern GUI redesign offers a sleek new look with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, and a smoother workflow. The brand-new side toolbar puts track selection, the MultiPicker Library, and other essential tools right at your fingertips. Plus, our upgraded Multi-View lets you layer multiple windows without overlap, giving you a highly flexible workspace. Many windows—including Tracks, Piano Roll, and more—have been redesigned for improved usability and a cleaner, more intuitive interface, and more!
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