Hi all, This is for the newbies like me. I find precious little on actual mixing with RealBand. Sure, there are newer videos that cover newer features, but I've found nothing comprehensive, including the manual. Until now! While these videos Part 1 and 2 are quite old, and cover PowerTracks specifically, everything applies to RealBand. They took me forever to stumble upon them. Here is Part 1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lY1J9DZd2y8
I always find the RealBand videos from 2-5 to be particularly helpful for me when I was learning the program, also the audio effects feature I found particularly helpful when wanting to do any dynamic processing.
Can one of you gents describe what you do during your mixdowns? I have everything exactly as I like it (levels, pans, plugins, nodes, etc.) and other than recording a fade-out via mixer moves I think I'm done. Do you delete your countdown at this stage and render to WAV? Or, do you render as is, reopen the WAV, delete the countdown and record the fade-out at this later stage, and master the WAV? Any advice much appreciated. Thanks guys!
Let me say first off that I do all of my recording and mixing in Realband and think it is a great product. Years ago, I had trouble getting the gain I needed in Realband for the finished file. I probably gave up too soon but found wavepad was quick and easy to apply the finishing touches. It also lets me open many files simultaneously for comparison. I use this feature when establishing the order of songs for a CD as it is easy to change the order of wav files to create the flow of the album.
Del, thanks, I have Audacity. What are the primary reasons for moving out of RB at this point? Thanks all!
Warren,
Side note from the discussion. Audacity has a REALLY GOOD SOUNDING automated fade. It is listed under the "Effects" menu tab as "Studio Fade Out". You'll have to scroll way down the the effects list to find it.
I know you're wanting to stay in RealBand as much as possible but I think you'll find the "Studio Fade Out" effect will give you the fade you've been looking for. You can either export all the wave forms out of RealBand into Audacity and use the "Shift" key to apply the "Studio Fade Out" effect to all the tracks at the same time or export a mixed stereo stem from RealBand into Audacity and apply the "Studio Fade Out" effect to the stem; whichever works better for you.
Also if you apply the "Studio Fade Out" effect to each individual track you can change the start fade time location for each track to have individual instruments fade out differently over time.
To answer the same question you asked Del I believe in using the tool that works best for you. I've used Audacity since before I obtained Band-in-a-Box and RealBand. The program has a few features I am very comfortable using and can achieve consistent results. The "Studio Fade Out" effect in Audacity is one example of a task where the effect obtains better results than I can.
Thanks Jim, I recall that now! I watched a couple of decent mastering videos on YouTube, and saw that the Amplify effect and a couple of others could make the final stages easier. Thanks again! BTW, this first tune is sounding really good, thanks for all the help you gave me previously Jim (and Charlie too).
Jim et al, Completely stumped, and worried. Only a few hours since my reply to Jim, and things have gone awry w/ RB! I was just about to render and get into Audacity w/ this first tune, after putting finishing touches in RB.
The first thing I noticed was when rendering via merge audio/plugins, I can hear the track sped up/weird. I'm fairly sure that's not normal behavior? The rendered WAV has some subtle clicks in it. When the SEQ is played within RB, the time bar now goes past the tune end and keeps going. Sometimes during playback in RB, I get a click. Abnormal behaviors that didn't happen earlier today.
I've traced everything to RB. Could it have gotten corrupted? Of course I've rebooted, moved files to SSDs off of mechanical drives, checked the entire Windows/audio interface/output devices, and RB is acting odd. Even loading BKS files from a day or two ago when everything was stable is doing the same thing. I increase the buffer size of the ASIO driver panel to 512 and even 1024. Help!!
There are several possibilities. You may need to consolidate audio edits from each track into a continuous waveform, the song project file may be corrupted or you maybe experiencing an issue sometimes present with RealBand releases 5 to 7.
One at a time, highlight all of each track you've edited using Cntrl + A. Right click on the track panel to bring up the track sub-menu, select "Track" (the selection just below click track) and "Consolidate Audio Region ...". This command joins all the audio on the track into one continuous audio waveform.
If you've saved your project periodically under different names you can try loading an earlier version.
Try rolling back from RealBand version 5, 6 or 7 by applying the patch for version 4.
Warren, I think the weird speed up sound you are hearing is a setting within Realband that drove me nuts for a couple of days before I figured out what it was.
To get rid of this annoying sound when rendering: Click on options, preferences, then select the Audio tab. Click on the 'Drivers' button on the Audio tab. Uncheck 'Output always on' box. This box was always unchecked until a few versions ago when they made it checked by default.
SOLVED!!! With some help from Kent @ PGM. Before he replied, I DID roll back to the Build 4 patch. The cursor not stopping at song end immediately rectified. Del, I didn't uncheck that Output Always On because it sounds like it's what you'd want for a MIDI track? Anyway, Kent had me look in MIDI/Devices to see if 'Reroute MIDI playback to default DXi/VSTi Synth' was checked (similar/same Del?), and it was- not sure if that's what he would have suggested as I've not heard back yet, but while I was in there, I could tell that the MIDI MS GS WS vs. MS MIDI Mapper dialog was messed up- IOW, I could not select MIDI Mapper and move it to the top as it had been, and as I'd quit the dialog, I'd get warning messages about MS GS WS not being a good choice. I finally was able to select MIDI Mapper, and the issue went away! More importantly, I got a perfect WAV rendered. Now, just now, when I went to look at your suggestion, I realized that through all of my experimenting, rolling back, and unplugging everything, that my ASIO audio driver switched to MME (probably when I disconnected the Focusrite), and I had to change that back- odd that things had continued to play though with output going to my audio interface, into which my speakers are connected when MME was selected. What a freaking day, but it's solved, the song is saved!! Thanks guys!
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