PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Generating more than 7 tracks from BIB

I came across a newsletter several months ago claiming that BIB could generate more than the standard 7 tracks plus the audio track for a total of 14 tracks. To my recollection, this generation of more than 7 tracks was accomplished in conjunction with the BIB VST DAW Plugin and had nothing to do with the fact that once in your DAW, additional tracks may be added within the DAW; however, I have not been able to find this feature after going through the manual and several videos. Has anyone else seen or heard about this generation of 14 tracks specifically within BIB?

Welcome to the forum.

I recall user Pipeline posted something about this. I'll look for it. I think, as you do, it involves the DAW Plugin for BIAB.

Yes. Welcome to the forum.

This question was asked in another thread a week ago. The preferred answer in that thread is to move your project over to RealBand. It is designed and intended to perform DAW functions such as having additional channels available. The new Vst also addresses the issue where multi riffs of a track now can be generated in BIAB and possibly used to create additional entire tracks.

But it's possible to do it in BIAB and you can choose to create these additional channels in BIAB or if you think it's better, faster and more convenient, to move your project over to RealBand.

Here are some examples that you may find useful to continue your project in BIAB and have more than 7 instruments or more than 7 Mixer Channels. Especially if you're experimenting, auditioning and exploring which can all be situations that the BIAB project may be discarded and is not intended as a serious piece of work.

For more than 7 instruments loaded into the BIAB 7 Channel Mixer:

. Each BIAB Mixer Channel can have up to 10 instruments assigned to it simultaneously.
. These instruments can be assigned to play as a replacement instrument or to be summed and all play simultaneously.
. PGMusic staff have created Styles containing Medleys to showcase and use in projects. Search the StylePicker filtered for Medleys.
. The Medley features was updated and expanded in the 2020 release of Windows BIAB. Now individual instruments can be panned and volume automated separately on each track.
. New Medley combinations were created and added to the Styles database.
. This provides a total of 70 instruments populating the 7 Mixer Channels with a single Audio Channel still available.

For more than 7 Mixer Channels (Tracks):

BIAB emulates the multi track recording process really well when used to record on the single Audio Track and also if used to bounce a Style of 5-6 tracks down to a stereo audio file. BIAB only has one Audio Track (Channel) but that one channel for Audio recording can be used multiple times.

. To bounce a Style just render and export the song to an audio file.
. Import that audio file back onto the Audio Track,
. Convert the audio to a Performance Track and
. Move the Performance Track to any of the channels.

This render is a stereo mix of the song style providing all the remaining tracks to be available to be replaced with different additional instruments or even different Styles.

This process can be repeated multiple times because Performance Tracks can also be rendered out to a stereo audio file mix, imported and replace the now exported mix and this mix can replace existing single Performance Tracks that have been bounced down to a mix. BIAB can produce a song with dozens of instruments onto dozens of tracks.

Another method to use the Audio Track for multiple takes is almost hidden:

. Select the Record Audio Button from the Transport Toolbar, in the window that opens, there's a check box beside the wording, Overdub underlying audio.
. Checking that box allows recording another take of audio without overwriting the existing recorded audio and BIAB applies a preset mix of the multiple takes.

This process can be applied multiple times so perhaps if you're recording a vocal, using this technique and process, you can double your vocal, record harmonies, backing vocals or even play an instrument to add to the track. The BIAB preset mix does a good job with the mix and it's done digitally so there's no noticeable degradation of the sound.

But to repeat; the preferred and recommended method is to open your saved BIAB project in RealBand which was designed for an easier method to accomplish these tasks with the artist retaining more control over the process.