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Today I thought of using RB as a MIDI editor, because it starts up quite fast. Unfortunately, it then blows the time saved in running a longish routine to write chords for the whole tune.
As a beginner with RB,I could find no setting to stop it from doing this. Is there any way to have RB act as an ordinary sequencer to work on MIDI files?
Larry
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How did you try it?
Seems pretty quick here.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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You only need chord entry for the first several "BB" tracks.
All the tracks below, labeled in black, act exactly like PowerTracks and you can load MIDI files into them and play them, edit them etc. without chords being entered on the grid.
Of course, if you want to add a RealTrack, then you need those chords as the guide.
--Mac
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RealBand
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Thanks for replies, fellows.
Opening MIDI files from an "Open With" command, RB naturally plunks them into the first few tracks, where Mac explains that BB tracks (requiring chords) go. There seems no way to change that. Yes, the chord-concoction is entirely quick enough, if you need chords.
I have for several years installed RB only because it's free and not very big. Never even started it, as far as I remember. But I suddenly hoped maybe it might be slicker and faster than Music Creator or Sonar or Mixcraft for making a great many frequent and tiny MIDI touch-ups in a tremendous hurry. Looks unlikely. RB is made for another purpose.
I do wish I had not allowed my ancient copies of pre-audio Power Tracks for Windows to go missing. That was one fast and convenient MIDI sequencer, even on a '386.
Larry
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There is a check box in there somewhere about creating chords if they don't exist, just don't remember where it is.
Maybe in the chords window options area.. not at that computer right now.
It does make RB a little quicker to open.
Just ran and checked and that is where the option is located.
Last edited by rharv; 03/23/10 07:27 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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Quote:
There is a check box in there somewhere about creating chords if they don't exist, just don't remember where it is. Maybe in the chords window options area.. not at that computer right now.
It does make RB a little quicker to open.
Just ran and checked and that is where the option is located.
I didn't know that was there! Thanks for the tip! There are all kinds of easter eggs waiting to be discovered in these programs
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RealBand
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Quote:
Thanks for replies, fellows.
Opening MIDI files from an "Open With" command, RB naturally plunks them into the first few tracks, where Mac explains that BB tracks (requiring chords) go. There seems no way to change that. Yes, the chord-concoction is entirely quick enough, if you need chords.
In Tracks View there are two buttons above the Tracksnames, "BB" and "User".
Hitting "User" will put the "regular" tracks at the top. Then load the MIDI file.
There must also be a global setting there somewhere, for when I simply open my copy of RealBand, which is set not to load anything like the previous song, it automatically comes up in User mode, with the black tracks at the top.
At any rate, I've been using RB exclusively for the past couple of years to do everything that I once did in Powertracks, because it can. An excellent MIDI editor, the same one that is in Powertracks. Your problems are only caused by a need to learn how to deal with the extra auto-accompaniment feature -- or not -- as needed. Help files may be useful here.
--Mac
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Quote:
...check box in there somewhere about creating chords if they don't exist...
Oh, good stuff! I suspected there might be something like that, but It would have taken me longer than I am willing to persevere, to notice it. The box is somewhat ambiguously labeled ("interpret chords"), so I could even have seen it and still not recognized it. Much obliged!
With interpretation turned off, RB does not make new chords for files not previously worked on. But I notice now that files that have been saved with RB retain chords IF they've been previously calculated. So RB does stash its chord information in the MIDI files, anyway, to prevent doing it every time a MIDI file opens.
Larry
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Quote:
There must also be a global setting there somewhere, for when I simply open my copy of RealBand, which is set not to load anything like the previous song, it automatically comes up in User mode, with the black tracks at the top.
Thank you, sir! It is helpful to know that different start-up configurations are possible.
The Power Tracks versions I was talking about , so extra good for MIDI, were brilliant Win95-era versions, with no audio capability yet. They started up like flicking a light switch. After "Audio" was added to their names, all sequencers became relatively sluggish, because of the initialization they had to do.
Larry
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My version also starts without the blue tracks for BiaB tracks. I don't recall doing anything other than using the Track menu item to make all BiaB tracks regular tracks, It seems to have stuck ever since.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Yes, mine too, now that I check. This installation has not been touched by human hands. If I hit the User button, it just says that the MIDI file contains no BiaB tracks, and there's nothing for it to do. It clearly does not insert BiaB tracks on its own.
But it certainly was interpreting chords for ordinary MIDI tracks automatically, until you taught us how to flog it into line.
Larry
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Quote:
With interpretation turned off, RB does not make new chords for files not previously worked on. But I notice now that files that have been saved with RB retain chords IF they've been previously calculated. So RB does stash its chord information in the MIDI files, anyway, to prevent doing it every time a MIDI file opens.
Except that RB does not Save as a .MID file unless you export as .MID.
RB saves as .SEQ format -- and that's where the chord data is coming from.
You have not altered the existing .MID file at all until you export the .SEQ changes as .MID using the right command in RB and overwrite the existing .MID filename. And once you do that, the chord data is not going to be in the MIDI file.
--Mac
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Have to disagree a little. After trying everything 6 ways from Sunday:
1. .MID files open and save directly in Realband, no Import or Export needed.
2. Open a .MID file without chords, make some chords, and then save the file as a .MID with Realband; that file will then re-open with the same chords showing next time. It does not make new ones, and no .seq file is involved. Chords show again, even if you have chord-interpretation turned off, and also the program does not issue the notice that it is making new chords.
3. These persisting chords are invisible to something like Sonar. That sequencer will open that same file normally, then save it again without a fuss.
4. And once saved in Sonar, the chords are still there when it's re-opened again in RB ! (I couldn't guess how that would work. But chords definitely survive even that.)
Anyway, as I thought I had read somewhere some time ago, they do have the chord info embedded into .MID files in a scheme of their own. There are some little-used text provisions in the MIDI standard. I suspect PG have tapped into those to use as a proprietary stash.
These are absolutely not SEQ files keeping the chords. They are .MID files.
Larry
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You are being fooled by the pgmusic chord recognition algorithm. And thus arriving at assumptions as to how those chords got there.
Been there, myself.
With MIDI file, there is no problem of converting audio to frequency, it is merely a matter of examining the note-on data to extrapolate chord names from note names in a stack. Very accurate.
--Mac
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