Originally Posted By: Bob Calver
my apologies Charlie, 'the BIAB wizard' was intended to be a compliment. i realize everyone has different workflows and that BIAB is tremendously powerful and that your expertise is of great value in the forums.

my point was that as soon as you open a wav file in RB you are ready to go - everything you need is there in front of you. and i personally find RB quicker and easier to use in many situations. if the OP wanted full BIAB functionality that's a different matter but all they asked about was adding a vocal track to a wav file and opening the file again in RB didn't seem to waste any effort already expended.

let's hope the OP follows your example in learning how powerful BIAB is, but if they never open RB i think they are missing how well the two programs work together.

sorry if you thought i was being disrespectful.


Oh no Bob, I was not offended or put off by your remarks. Sorry for the misunderstanding because I was a bit excited to hopefully engage you and others because I reached the same conclusion as you; That the task is simple. Only adding a vocal track to a WAV file. You, Herb and others automatically take this task to RealBand or another DAW and I would encourage them to do it in BIAB. You guys say it's easier to do even basic editing in a DAW but you don't say why. You say BIAB is convoluted and complicated. I don't find it to be and it would be good to know your experiences.

Obviously a DAW is more advanced than BIAB audio and there's many cases a DAW is the right tool for a particular project. But I'll offer the reasoning that the advanced features of RB and third party DAWs are overkill for many types of BIAB projects and that remaining within the BIAB program is a better, more efficient, faster and productive workflow than what I believe is unnecessarily rendering and exporting individual tracks from BIAB to RB or another DAW.

Some examples where BIAB is the better option are:
. BIAB Beginners. I'm unaware of any BIAB technique that's more complicated than the process used by many users of creating tracks in BIAB, saving and opening the project in RB to audition and add additional tracks and then exporting that to yet a third DAW for more processing. Even starting in BIAB and exporting individual tracks for basic editing, comping, cross fading, gain staging, fade ins, fade outs, transitions and adding and building additional tracks is needless. All of these tasks can be done in BIAB and all a beginner has to learn is where these techniques are located and how to activate them. Most are done by making selections or checking a box in a drop down menu. That's far easier than learning basic BIAB plus learning another software. BIAB has two Audio Editors and they are very robust and easy to understand and use tools.
. To users that purchase the lower priced packages. Doing tasks in BIAB gives them more bang on the dollar and offsets some of what they lose by not having huge quantities of RealTracks and other content. Even though they have less content, knowing these processes exist and the techniques to use them allows them to create more complex arrangements and make the best use of the BIAB content they have.
. Any basic audio editing. Cut/paste, normalize, trim intros and endings, fade ins and fade outs etc...
. Users that create backing accompaniment tracks. It's easy to create more advanced and complex arrangements and enhance styles with additional instruments, add soloists and add imported audio all within BIAB and have instant feedback to changes in an arrangement plus instantly undo changes, correct poor chord phrasing which are tasks that are quick and seamless to complete in BIAB many times in less time than it takes to render and export tracks or to save a project and have it open and create tracks in RB.
. Songwriting and developing song ideas. It's great as inspiration strikes to test if an particular instrument will work in a song or hear harmonies you create on the fly and get instant feedback and also have instant undo, instant regeneration, fast BIAB style changes and regenerations. Again, BIAB can create and generate songs that are a lot more advanced and complex than just what one gets by selecting a style, inputting chords and hitting play. Even if a song project is moved at some point to a DAW for further processing it makes sense to create a demo in BIAB that may contain a dozen or more tracks and a dozen or more instruments to 'hear' how a production will sound before committing to exporting tracks. It can also save time and is non-intrusive to breaking up the creative thought process.

These are advantages created just from the Audio Channel and Audio Editor in BIAB. A user can expand their productivity and inspirational arranging exponentially from here by learning how to employ or create MultiStyles and use the RealTrack Medly Maker.

A properly constructed song completed using these tools and techniques in BIAB will be indistinguishable from one using similar tools in a DAW. That said, even songs that are intended for more professional use or commercial release will certainly fare better with the advanced features offered by post processing with a DAW but the basic pre-production and developing songs can be done in BIAB without sacrificing or interrupting the inspirational workflow.

BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.