PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist Bar to Bar Regeneration

Videotrack, yes! Thank you!
"protection mechanism"

Selected bar freeze, in theory is a more universal tool than just protection mechanism for generated bar-by-bar parts.

It can protect these "favorite" bars or any other bars. Or even holding 95% of composition solid and leaving 5% liquid.

Please forgive me, I am not trying to hijack this thread, I just strongly believe those two things Bar-by-bar generation and selected bar freeze should go together.

Isn't that what i said here

I suppose you could just freeze the whole track/s then when you select the Regenerate Selected Bar/s button it will pop a window up with:
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This will un-freeze the selected section of selected track/s and re-generate with a new section.
Enter start bar[13 ] end bar[16] (will get automatically if selected)
Select Track/s
[  ] All Tracks Selected Bars
[  ] RealBass 684: Bass, Electric, PopHalfNotesSync Ev 120
[  ] RealDrums-RockHardEven8^1-HiHat,Ride
[●] RealPiano 522: Guitar, Acoustic, Fingerpicking Ev 120
[  ] RealGuitar 1119: Guitar, 12-String Acoustic, Strumming Ev
[●] RealStrings 408: Guitar, Resonator, Background Allis Ev 1

OK Cancel
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If they are going to have issues generating up 7 new track sections maybe they can call on bbw4 and get the data from that then overwrite the bar/s with the new data ?

Even though I'm a programmer, I tend not to get entangled in recommending how someone might program something. The good folks at PG Music have often produced something better than what we envisioned. And I think the concept, of giving BIAB the ability (as in RealBand) to regenerate less than the whole track(s), is clear enough.

Matt, I more or less agree, but the operation of the new multi-riff feature in 2020 has not been well received by many users, and I think much of the discussion here consists of genuine thoughts on how it could be improved to operate satisfactorily. But yes, I also concede that the thread has been sidetracked a few times along the way.

No doubt, the developers will identify the level of detail required.

Yes, that's what I could have said better. I just don't want to limit the developers - they may figure out something way superior!

Pipeline,
makes sense now, Thank you for visual representation! (looks way better than my finger art )

Matt,
The problem with PG is that they might have the best ideas ever, and they might be good programmers, but they are poor designers. This is pretty obvious to new user as well as good number of seasoned users (I do not even want to go into the specifics, these are well known issues) Even if you discard 80% of requests of this forum section, there are still plenty of fantastic ideas, that people are handing out to developers in a very altruistic way. And that is a good thing... which is sadly not acknowledged by them

Back to the topic. Was thinking about this for some time. This would be my preferred workflow:

1)Click on the track mixer: Bass or Guitar or Piano etc., or the "dot/track" selection on the top. That action will select specific track to be regenerated. Also to have option (shift/control?) to select 2 or more tracks at once.

2)Select bars that you want to regenerate

3)Right Click->regenerate selected + preview result (one click operation).

Want different re-generation, repeat #3.
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I preffer "bar freeze" as a separate function, because it should be available at any time in any place, for any reason (not specifically crafted for to bar-to-bar) of the composition.
When you perform your re-generation (above), bars would still remain selected. Right click again --> Apply Glue. Bars affected by this "freeze" would be colored different hue or pattern to show that they were altered by freeze. To "UnGlue" you would select these "Glued" bars again, right click --> UnGlue.


This is a "wishlist", just sharing my thoughts on preferred workflow.

Definitely agree.

They will know better than anyone here where the 'gotchas' are, and how to correctly handle them.

"they will know better than anyone here where the 'gotchas'"

"they may figure out something way superior!"

I do not agree with these statements.

So far: ergonomics, workflow, GUI design, scattered functions, deep menus... I would say between 8-12 years behind what they should be by now. DO THEY REALLY KNOW BETTER?

I think this is exactly what is keeping progress in slow gear at PG. Where is a dose of healthy critique? Seems like PG is tight knit company and this is wonderful (really!), however they badly need someone who understands design and workflow ideas of 20 years deep into 21st century. Maybe even for a short gig to coach people at the wheel. There is so much art in the RT's/RD's + logical concepts of arranging, it would truly be a shame if company trips on design and half working features.

To me, this bar-to-bar regeneration / bar freeze / section freeze and associated workflow are HUGE items in BIAB. That is what emotion is all about

P.S. Please do not get me wrong. I am not saying all this to reflect negativity. I am saying this because I care about the future of BIAB.

If I had the source code, I could possibly identify why something needed to be done a particular way to avoid creating other issues. I don't have the source code. They do. Therefore they will know better than anyone here how to implement to avoid other problems, AKA 'gotchas'.

We can request certain functionality, and make recommendations on presentation and delivery mechanisms. That's fine. But surely we can't tell them how to actually implement them internally. That is my understanding of the meaning of the two points above.

We all want improvements to the product. We can only tell them what we want them to develop, not how they must develop them.

I also do NOT agree with these statements based on everything I have seen in every new version since 2012!


I would say they are much further behind than 8-12 years. They almost certainly have legacy code that is 20+ years old. The GUI feels quite dated and every time I have to dive deep into convoluted dialog windows I am reminded of Windows 3.1.


Their work on RealTracks and the overall ability of BIAB to generate backing tracks is nothing short of amazing! Brilliant! Like nothing ever done! But the dated GUI and the introduction of features that are not stable (like VST) or unpopular (like VideoTracks) or never fully finished (like UserTracks) are glaring deficiencies in this awesome product.


I agree wholeheartedly! Those of us who criticize BIAB do not do it to be negative. We do it because we ABSOLUTELY LOVE this product and want it to be as great as RealTracks are!

And on a side note, recently PGM has been deleting some of my posts. I assume this is because they are deemed to be too negative toward BIAB and PGM. So I expect my response here may be deleted as well. Oh well, tis a shame they cannot/will not see that we love BIAB and would love to see it going in a positive direction that would benefit PGM as well as us users!

+1
that's why I'm here, we go off from time to time because we care about it.

<<< The good folks at PG Music have often produced something better than what we envisioned. And I think the concept, of giving BIAB the ability (as in RealBand) to regenerate less than the whole track(s), is clear enough. >>>

I suggest they have produced something better and it's something that overcomes self-imposed limitations in the suggestions made here that have not been acknowledged or addressed. It was implemented several years ago and enhanced over the last two version releases.

It's not mentioned in this thread. I've not seen the method described or discussed as being used in a User Showcase BIAB song release. It's use may be so common one doesn't even think to mention it. However, there is no indication who may or may not be aware.

There is a finite limit to the possible different regeneration's with bar-to-bar regeneration / bar freeze / section freeze over specified chord changes of a single RealTrack. I think this limitation is recognized by BIAB/RB staff in the number of multi riffs when the technique is used and is set at 7 in both programs. Because the recorded audio of a single RealTrack is limited to that single instrument RealTrack and is a finite recording, at some point over any specific chord progression, the audio clips will begin to repeat. Seven may be a number that assures no repeats.

With RealTracks, there will always be a finite limit of usable audio clips for any bar-to-bar regeneration / bar freeze / section freeze over specified chord changes. But BIAB programmers provided a tool years ago to greatly expand the quantity of audio to select regeneration material from.

Most should agree that more material to choose from will produce more variety and uniqueness to your custom tracks thus a better quality selection.

There are many instances of RealTrack session musicians recording multiple RealTracks using the same instrument and many times, even the same tone. A situation where a RealTrack is recorded at different bpm's can result in more usable material to select for a bar to bar regeneration. Assuming 80% of 125 bpm RT is not usable in a song set to a 65 bpm tempo due to artifacts, that's still a 20% increase in usable material for your track. Session artists may use the same instrument but play a different rhythm pattern or a different style. The session artist may use a slightly different tone but the same instrument, or play a different instrument that will work with similar instruments. Different session artists using different instruments may also be interchangeable between individual RT's in short audio clips that's regenerated.

But real life results are most times much better than the above example. The recorded audio of most RealTrack instruments are usable across many different styles. With over 3,100 hours and more than 2,900 instruments, the StylePicker and RealTrack Picker becomes a Google type search engine of pristine, studio quality audio to use in one's project.

Here's a recent example of this feature I used on a recent project. I auditioned a RT I liked but wanted regenerations to improve the track.

I used the StylePicker filtered to the session artist and the StylePicker listed 67 styles for that artist using 8 different RealTracks. 67 Styles tells me this particular artist and guitar instrument should be quite usable in many different song types and variations.

These eight RealTracks all use the same guitar and the bpm's ranged from 65 - 100. So I'm working with 8 RealTracks by the Same artist using the same guitar at tempo's that should work well without too many artifacts....

The eight RealTracks were a mixture of soloist's and rhythm patterns.
The eight RealTracks were both even feel and swing feel.

Over my particular chord progression, I obtained usable rhythm patterns in swing and even feel and also usable audio clips mixing the two feels together.
Over my particular chord progression, I obtained usable solos in swing and even feel and also usable audio clips mixing the two feels together.

Using the Medley Feature in the RealTrack Picker that allows up to 10 instrument changes per Mixer Channel, I obtained dozens of variations of all eight instruments being used in my specific song's chord progression yielding dozens of combinations between the eight instruments to copy/paste and combine together different clips and have the greatest possible variations of 'multi riffs' from a single render of the song. Each track from the Mixer is available to export to audio and imported a DAW or RB and one has more variety in a single render of a BIAB chord chart than hours of single RT Multi Riffs from each individual RT would have produced.

Over the last two version releases, PGMusic has added a button selection to provide easy access to an artist search. They've enhanced the Medley Feature adding panning and volume automation between the different instruments occupying the same track to level out volume differences in the recorded audio tracks and allow obvious panning variations. They've added Medley RealTracks to the existing number previously released.

They created 'thickening' to display some of the power these features have contained all along.

My Wishlist item is I'd like to see some of you experiment with these tools and features and let the forum know the results and your thoughts.

We always strive to be responsive to user requests. For example, the biggest request we got was to make a 64 bit version, which was a big project and is done now. (Windows and Mac). Second biggest was to make lots of great RealTracks which we’ve also done. We redid much of the interface in 2015, and brought the Mac version up to par with the Windows one. FYI, much of the code is cross platform now (e.g. identical toolbars, chords window, notation, leadhseet, guitar, audio window, all content etc,)

Many of the requested “bar to bar regeneration” features above exist in RealBand, with features that meet and exceed the specs above. It is significant that some of the people asking for that feature haven’t even tried RealBand. It doesn’t need to become your main DAW, it could just be used to create a ”bar to bar regeneration” RealTracks track which you could drag to your DAW”. For example, in RealBand, you can select a precise region of audio and regenerate a realtracks for that. Now this is precise and much better than just bar to bar. And you can customize the results to combine different riffs etc. using Multiriffs.
Lots of our users make great songs start to finish in RealBand and post their final results in the User Showcase.

That’s not to say that we won’t add bar to bar regeneration for all tracks to BIAB. It’s a good idea and on the todo list.

Once the Drag from Plugin to Audio track and sync play is fixed in the current Biab, it can be done with the Plugin until you get to the bar to bar in the ToDoList, it will preview all the riffs in place by deleting those bars out the audio track, when you found the one you like Drag it in:

Here's a video demo, the sync works if you play from the very start, but the Drag n Drop is not working yet.

Watch Video Demo

Peter,
thank you for entering discussion!

It is all about the workflow I believe at least half of us (users) do not use RB for various reasons. There are a handful of avid supporters of RB, but seems most use BIAB. (A 2-3 month pole as a sticky on the forum can shine some light on this)

I hope BIAB will become the future / centerpiece of PG software. Like Kontakt, Halion and several other big products. A stand alone and VST. Beautiful and simple combination. I doubt new kids will need anything else for the purpose of working with RTs as DAWs are at their peak now.

As some members noted, RB should be supported as legacy product and resources should be shifted in areas that need to be addressed ASAP. I agree with this approach.

Thank you Peter!

Many thanks from one who can appreciate all the work that must have been put into these tasks.

Masi

Here's a tutorial using 2 instances of Biab
Tutorial How to Bar to Bar Regeneration

I'm really glad this is being discussed... this is exactly what I have wanted from the start!!!



Yes, yes, yes!! This is precisely what we need to fine-tune the performances to our liking.



But Peter... RealBand is not available for Mac users and if I am not mistaken, it was said that RealBand was not going to be made available to Mac users.

If you can't make a RealBand version for Mac users (which would be more useful to me than the DAW plugin), then it would be EVEN BETTER to have these bar to bar regeneration features available in the main BIAB application. This would be a major product improvement, imo.