Sorry for the large post, but I think it is necessary to understand where I am coming from.

I see the future of BB in the plugin and the content delivered. Seamless integration with DAWs is the key for success and content is where the money can be earned. Regarding integration - I work a lot with Melodyne Studio and really appreciate the comfort of the ARA integration with my DAW(s). BB's unique selling point is the creation of additional tracks and variation of styles. Tools like RealBand may be good as a quick start for beginners, but I doubt it will be able to compete with already established DAWs over time - unless somebody wants to invest a huge amount of money and effort in development. I personally wouldn't do so.
From my own experience and the colleagues I know, most users stick with their favourite DAW as long as they can - once they have found a decent one.

----------

My main work scenario, Band in a Box should support:

In my DAW I already have an audio jam track of a band rehearsal, without a constant tempo (but tempo markers). Maybe I already have some vocal melody, a midi drum track and some guitar tracks along with it. I want to create a proper song from that, bringing some structure to it, creating additional parts/bridges and further instruments. Band in a Box shall help me doing so.

Stage 1 - Preparation:

So my first challenge is to make BB aware of what is already there and what I likely want to keep. Intuitively I would try to copy and paste those tracks to the related BB tracks - to the VST plugin or the standalone version - either as midi file or audio file. When using the VST plugin, I would expect that it has automatically taken over the project tempo from the DAW or giving me the chance to import some tempo map.
- So far I have not found a way to import multiple audio files
- The project tempo from the DAW is not taken over by the plugin
- I couldn't import any midi file from my DAW project folder to any of the plugin tracks

Here my first level of frustration starts. From what I understood from the tutorials so far, I have to import one of the audio tracks only. As I can't import a midi chord track, I have to create the chord sheet and tempo changes in BB manually or try to use the ACW function. The tempo detection there is ok. The chord detection in ACW didn't deliver satisfying results to me yet. Means a lot of manual correction work again before storing the result as a raw song idea.

Stage 2 - The creative part

Usually I already have some idea what I would like to try out on the song. As an (extreme) example that may not make much sense: Adding some funky slap bass plus some gypsy style guitar along with a country style fiddle and some synth pad. Usually I already have some midi drum file from Toontrack's SD3 as a rhythmic basis, but that doesn't seem to help me much with BB.

Here I reach my second level of frustration. I can select a style from the style picker and BB will create some nice song for me. But it sounds like a typical song of this style/genre would sound like.
- No mix of styles
- little influence on instruments used with the predefined style (I could change the sound on midi tracks, but the playing style of the original instrument remains)

Don't get me wrong, but the whole reminds me a bit of instant soup (which nevertheless may taste good). But I want to create something different. Probably I could search for the various instruments and styles, switch the styles for the song sequentially and bring single tracks back into my DAW after each generation. But that will become pretty time consuming and requires a lot of patience. I am also a bit afraid that the results won't be as good as they could be, as in such a case BB won't have any idea about the tracks used in my song and their melodic interaction.

Stage 3 - Refining the song, arranging and mixing

Most of this job I will do in my DAW. There I have all the comfortable mixing and editing functions and I am used to the workflow. Although the RealTracks sound good and I might keep some of them, in most cases I will prefer a midi file to work with. I have tons of good sounding VST instruments available and tweaking around with sounds, tempo changes and melodic corrections is a lot easier using midi. So getting midi tracks from BB is cruical for me. In some cases I might be able to convert a RealTrack to midi myself, but if possible, I would like to avoid that additional step.


Summary of my desired improvements:
- when adding the BB plugin in the DAW, the plugin should automatically take over the project tempo from the DAW, as other plugins do.
- I want to be able to import/drop an audio or midi file from the DAW clipboard to any of the predefined mixer tracks in the BB plugin or standalone version.
- A CW function on a midi track should make chord recognition a lot easier for BB, helping me to fill the chord sheet without retyping everything.
- An instrument and style selection per track would be wonderful (if not explicitly choosen, the overall song style can still be used as default)
- Midi files available for all RealTracks, that could be brought back into my DAW.

Maybe some of my desired improvements already exist in BB and I just couldn't find them yet. In this case I have watched the wrong tutorials so far.

-----

After having said all that, I discovered that RealBand might be able to solve some of the subjects above. But after some first enthusiasm, trying out and reading another manual - it seems to to be another dead end. I haven't found any way to sync RealBand with my DAW. I am stuck, getting confused and frustration starts again...

Maybe I should rather practise with my real instruments instead of playing with the computer.

[size:8pt]BiaB2023 Plus, Win11, AMD 8-core, 32GByte RAM, RME Fireface UFX, Samplitude ProX8, REAPER 7, Melodyne 5 Studio, Toontrack SD3, iZotope MP4, NI Komplete 12, Korg Collection, etc.