PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum BIAB 2020 Songwriter - Do I start with "Band In a Box" or "Real Band"?

Hi everyone,

New BIAB 2020 user here - I'm a songwriter who has a bunch of song arrangements that I want to get programmed in and converted to these amazing Real Tracks that BIAB has.

With some time off work and the lockdown in place I finally have some time to dedicate to really learning this tool - for example how to program/sequence the intro's/verse/middle 8's/outro's of a song.

One thing that confused me after the install is that there are two programs and sets of Instructions, one for Band in a Box and one for Real Band, so I'm wondering:

1. Which one of these tools should I learn to use first?

2. What's the best way to learn the in's and outs of these tools - my plan at the moment is to just plough through the instruction manual but if there's better guides somewhere else feel free to let me know!

Thanks,
David

I'm far from an expert with this deep program but I'll chime in with my process/understanding of it all when I'm writing a new song:

1) I learned BIAB first...get my chord structure/arrangement nailed down.
Maybe do a few re-generations from there, pick the one that I like best and freeze the tracks.
2) Then I open the same (saved) BIAB file in Real Band. From there I'll do further re-generations on specific tracks...IE: lead instruments. I may want to change to sax vs. guitar for a solo.
For great tutorials, go here:
https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm

I re-iterate...I've not mastered either application and even after 1/2 dozen years I still feel like a neophyte.

So...listen to others who know far more than myself.
I do know this...if it weren't for BIAB I'd still have 6 original songs sitting in my "Incomplete songs" folder.
I'm very happy to have this application even though the learning curve can feel steep.

Hope that helps...good luck with your music endeavors.

Carry on....

Hi, David.

(my opinion - others may differ)

Learn BIAB.

Just jump in. Start entering the chords to your song.
I suggest the first thing you do is set the # of choruses to 1. That way your song will be linear and you won't have to figure out how to use repeats and "how do I do a bridge?" etc. You can set the # of measures to 100 for starters. Add (or delete) more later.
(A "chorus" in BIAB is what you probably think of as a verse and a chorus - it's more a jazz term).

Once you get a few chords in (like a verse and a chorus), find a style that sounds good for your song. There will likely be dozens - or hundreds - that work. It doesn't have to be perfect - just "close". Later, you may find that you know what instruments you want a song to have and you can select those individually (for most of my productions, I "build the band" myself)

Then finish entering the rest of your song.

If you think of something that you want to happen (in the music) BIAB can likely do it. If you can't figure it out intuitively, look it up in the manual...OR just come to the forum and ask. We've all been there. Most of the time you will get an answer quickly.

Trying to "learn it all" before you start is a good way to never getting around to doing anything.

Learn as you go. Questions? Post in the Beginner's forum. You might want to add a signature to your profile that says which version of BIAB you have and what operating system you use - so folks won't have to ask - the answer can be slightly different depending on your environment.

Jump in!

Good luck!

fj

If I think of other things, I'll just add them.

Like...

Put a Part Marker at the beginning of each section - verse, chorus, bridge...

It makes it easier to "see" you structure.
Start with A part markers for your verses and B part markers for your choruses.
Avoid putting a part marker on every new line (new users often do this) - it will make you drums too busy. You can add more later if you want those drum rolls in places.. But to start, keep it simple.

All good information above.

Start with BiaB. If you find that you need to go to a DAW to continue working, migrating your existing BiaB material into RealBand is quite straightforward.

I just had a thought...

You might want to watch the "Birth Of A Song" video in the Showcase forum.

In it, I go through a quick "how to" for setting up a song in BIAB. (You can skip through the writing-of-the-song part (there are times given in the thread of where to find things).

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=454428#Post454428

Hi David,

The question that has to be answered IMHO is are you going to be doing some audio recording? That is are you going to sing? Or play an instrument? Or both?

If not, or if you are going to do only one audio track, then start with BiaB.

But if you are going to do two or more audio tracks, like sing and play an instrument or play two or more instruments, then start with RealBand. If you want to do multiple tracks, say sing a number of times so you can cut and paste them together, then RealBand again is what to use.

So what I would recommend is determined on what you plan to do.

Davis,

Welcome to Band-in-a-Box (BiaB), RealBand (RB) and to the PG Music forum. My suggestion is to become familiar with both programs. The strengths of each program complement each other. Each program approaches song file creation from a different perspective.

Band-in-a-Box is all about song arrangement and structure. The structured chord view dominates. It is good for figuring out key, tempo, number of verses, what style to use and try out ideas. You have an idea and get it down fast before it escapes. I relate Band-in-a-Box to a painter brushing broad strokes on a blank canvas. The painter stands back to get an overall feel for the effect of each brushstroke but doesn't worry about the fine details at this point. Band-in-a-Box is not the best tool for fine details. Band-in-a-Box likes to regenerate and you can't perform partial track regeneration.

RealBand is all about track management and details. The tracks on a timeline view dominates. You can cut, copy, paste, delete and move highlighted sections of a track. Partial track regeneration is possible. Multiple regeneration variations (up to seven!) of a partial track are possible. Up to 48 tracks can be used.

There are users that use strictly Band-in-a-Box, other users that rely strictly on RealBand but most use a combination of the two programs as well as a third party DAW like Cakewalk, Reaper, Studio One or Mixcraft. What you use and how you use it mostly depends on the workflow you want to develop and what your final goal is.

I suggest to learn BIAB first. In your first post you state you're a songwriter wanting to get accompaniment tracks and arrangements for your original songs. BIAB is an accompaniment program and RealBand is a production program. Neither program is confined to those single disciplines however, they lean heavily toward those respective genres.

For writing and arranging, your accompaniment tracks do not have to be demo perfect. BIAB does an excellent job of doing a lot of the heavy lifting production work that is normally done in a DAW, automatically in the background allowing you to focus on songwriting and arranging. These include the tasks of mixing, cross-fades, adding and removing additional instruments and while not automatic, rough panning and volume automation. The same PG Music DX plug-ins available in RealBand are also available in BIAB. BIAB can use VST's.

A very powerful songwriting/arranging feature in BIAB is that although it appears there are only seven channels plus a single audio channel in the BIAB Mixer, things are not as they appear. Each of the first seven channels can have up to 10 instruments placed on the track. These various instruments can be manipulated to how many bars they play, how they are controlled to change between instruments, whether they play independently of each other or play together simultaneously. They can be individually automated per instrument (not the whole track) to panning and volume automation. (This is a new feature only available in the 2020 release.) Without any further manipulation, this feature allows for a BIAB project to produce 70 instruments on 7 tracks.

Regarding the Audio Channel, although it's a single channel, it can be used over and over numerous times within a project. Audio tracks can be converted and moved to another channel with just two clicks and free the Audio Channel for another recording. This process converts the audio into an Artist Performance Track.

Artist Performance Tracks are the wild card or secret sauce if you will of BIAB. Artist Performance Tracks can literally be anything you need or want them to be. Artist Performance Tracks allow BIAB to function as a digital multi track recorder. This means you can create sub-mixes of mixer channels, Bounce tracks, and move tracks back and forth between the channels. APT's can be created from a single MIDI instrument track, single MIDI Super Track, RealTrack, Audio Track or any combination of these instruments. A single Mixer Channel or multiple Mixer Channels comprised of 10 instruments can be converted to an APT. For instance, five Mixer Channels, each channel containing 10 instruments and these channels can be a mixture of MIDI and MIDI Super Tracks and RealTracks that can be rendered and sub-mixed into a single APT Freeing four channels to record 40 more instruments. The BIAB algorithm searching the audio to use for the instruments is reading ahead and 'sees' the coming change of instruments and intelligently chooses appropriate phrasings between the two instruments. It's a very clean transition.

There's nearly unlimited variations to how the Medley instruments of a channel can be configured. The ten instruments do not actually have to be 10 different instruments. They do have to be the same type of instrument, meaning a channel can only have one type - RealTrack, MIDI Super Track or MIDI on the track but the actual instrument or MIDI patch can be any of the thousands of instruments contained in the BIAB program. An example: I often use two instruments on two tracks alternating between the two tracks changing both panning and volume automation, varying effects on the instrument and also creating a wide stereo field that I render to a stereo APT freeing one channel for further recording. Alternating the two instruments 10 times per track equates to 20 instruments.

You should be able to see at this point that arrangements of extreme complexity can be composed and generated very quickly within the BIAB program all without having to utilize other programs. You are also able to focus on your songwriting and arrangement, all the while freely experimenting with a wide variety and mixture of instruments, rather than production. The bouncing and merging of tracks all occurs in the digital domain of your PC so when you render a track, there's no degradation of the audio.

Hi David,

There's lots of good advice above.

My approach would be to learn BIAB first because there is a whole heap more video clips around. The below links are the PG Music Help videos.

BIAB
https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm

Realband
https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.realband.htm

While each program has lots of similarities, there are also many differences.

Once you have a couple of songs assembled in BIAB, I then suggest opening one of the them in Realband and spending a day coming to terms with how RB works. It offers some unique features that make it a valuable tool in the song-production tool-chest. (For example: more control over audio harmonies, simultaneous multiple generations of a single Realtracks, etc.) Realband is definitely worth learning.

My song-assembly process is...

1. create the song (BIAB)

2. audition Realtracks and nail the backing (BIAB)

3. take the backing tracks to Reaper (DAW)

4. identify suitable soloist Realtracks (RB)

5. use Multiriff to generate multiple instances of the soloist (RB)

6. take soloist Realtracks to Reaper and, using copy and paste, create a compiled single soloist Realtracks by piecing together the best bits of the multiple soloist Realtracks (DAW)

7. record vocal in Reaper (DAW)

8. if auto-generated harmony is needed, take the single vocal from Reaper into the song in Realband and generate the harmony using the song's chord structure in Realband (RB)

9. take the harmony tracks to Reaper (DAW)

10. add effects and mix the tracks to create the best output (DAW)

Realband is also makes it very easy to create loops.

Lastly, if you want to work with MIDI files from the internet (etc.), RB is superior to BIAB for this.

Hope this helps,
Noel