I think RealBand still has a place in my heart, I think Jeff may be a bit worn out from it and not young and enthusiastic anymore like I got from it Yes you are right there about the backups that would be it. That's the thing as it's using destructive editing it needs to make hard copies that can build up to a huge amount of hard drive space. Where as non destructive editing uses and keeps the original files intact. This is Reaper's file size as it's all reference data:
Pipeline. what irks me frankly is, i put a lot of thought into posting rb wishes, without even one being implemented. i mean that wonderfull enhanced bars view graphic you did for me being one example. further it amazes me also that my fellow rb users dont support the need for it.
for readers not up on what i'm talking about see my thread aimed at jeff 'please sir can i have more bars view'. i feel like oliver in the film of the same name.
what further irks me is , realband could be really fab with some small targeted features. maybe its that lots of pg users dont care cos they have used another daw for ages, and dont want to learn a new one like rb. dunno. sigh..at least some mac users realise rb's value as a daw. otherwise wouldnt be asking for a mac version.
best om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 10/19/2102:31 PM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
With the vertical track scrolling I move the mouse wheel up/down a few times then go and get a cup of coffee when I come back it's still going up and down by it's self with the cpu usage on 95%. Do you need to have all 48 tracks in there when you don't use them ? maybe if you have an Add Track, Delete Track so you don't need it to scroll so many tracks and all the track bmp images, maybe do away with the bmp track images ? Be able to drag a track up/down to change it's position.
Same issue here. In 2021, when software performs this poorly, I simply delete it without further consideration (and I suspect most new users have the same reaction.)
" i feel like oliver in the film of the same name." LOL that's what I used to say !
RB wasn't popular like Biab because Biab generated the tracks quickly and RB is slow like the BiabVST as it uses the same method. IF..,IF it had the Instant Gen/Play how I described above it would be a whole new ball game and more popular no waiting and loosing that moment of creativity through frustration ! and I think also if the tracks window was rehashed to work smoothly without all the bmp's with unused tracks and use non destructive editing, it would have to be a game changer !! but as I said Jeff could very well be laying on that warm beach in Hawaii right now and who could blame him.
These are the destructive FX that will change the audio for good, these can be all applied as non destructive realtime FX, this way you can modify them at any time you like and it will leave the original wav file intact, they are applied during playback and render. No wav's files need to be written as back up, just the project file. Fade In Fade Out Gain Pitch Shift that can all be done directly on the audio item. When it's playing back the RT/RD files direct from source it will use dllelastiquePro.dll this will pitch shift or tempo stretch any of the source files in realtime playback. So it's not creating any new wav files, you down mix your song direct to stereo wav mp3 etc.. Only if you drag render export any track it will do the same and render all the realtrack section of the source files together into a new wav.
This shows the RealTrack source file that's being played, it shows the position and length on the track, It shows the start position of the chord in the source RealTrack file, it shows any playback rate or pitch adjustment.
Here's a demo of how the Play Direct works. The Chords Playlist.m3u is in the mp3 folder, you can drag it into Notepad to read. The media player plays the section back the same way RB will just by reading the text playlist but will play those section's from the time position start within the RT files. Giving you Instant Gen/Play in RealBand. remove .mp4 CoolPlayer+Portable.zip.mp4
You can drag the items in the playlist up/down to rearrange.
I tried taking some of the track bmp images out but there are so many of them. If you can get rid of all the bpm's as they look like ones from the DOS days, it may work soother.
Pipeline. 1. in both reaps and rb i use vst and vsti plug ins non destruct. plus i'll use the pg dx plugs and reaps js etc (pity i cant use js in other daws. only reaplugs.) plus the computer music mag collection i have. 80 free fx plus instrument plug ins. i got enough plug ins. and i believe useing plugs sparsely. not useing 50 plugs in a song. i might export some genned rt's eg solos from rb into my fav trick...a reaps folder on seperate traks within the reaps folder. then on the top folder trak maybe a plug in. i truly believe if you feel you cant do a great song with pg's dx plugs plus reaps reaplugs collection and js collection, ....you should re-evaluate your song approach. i feel many people go too hog wild on plug ins. 2. just yesterday i was useing both rb and reaps to do a new song. sometimes i go from reaps into rb. eg rough out a song to a clik in reaps. do a stereo mix i import into rb...then useing the bb or rb chord sheet as a base, start gernning midi and audio traks. i dont look at it as rb vs reaps, but useing the featurers i like in each.
what i find HIGHLY AMUSEING is folks quoting reaps at me lol...possibly not realising i was one of an early tranche of reaps users at v0.99 ....feeding back all sorts of feature ideas ealy on, that reaps users enjoy today. in summary there are things i love bout reaps, but there are also things i love bout rb TOO.
ps pipeline, that sandboxie idea is kinda cute... as well as running powertraks with rb for a second instance. if i get time i'll pull up my old ptraks and see if it runs at same time as rb. which brings up an interesting point...running rb as a plug in , in ptraks...lol.
in conclusion pipe i dont think its reaps vs rb, but availing oneself of the features of each. to quote a big old studio bloke who taught me a lot... 'i use all available tools in a studio at my disposal,... to do the best for the song'.
hey pipe , lol...heres a challenge ! find a way for me to use reaps built in js plugs in rb.
greatest respect. i use minimal plugs old muso
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 10/21/2104:21 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
If they implemented the above suggestion in RB I would be using it over Reaper, as it's all doable and needs updating from 90's thinking now that it's 64bit, don't you think ? You would then not get users coming here with negative feedback. We can learn from Reaper that RB CAN be improved, it's all entirety possible ! No one has promoted RealBand over the years more than me, It is very difficult to get features and improvements implemented (It's that very issue that drove me to Reaper and ReaTrak scripting, and the same reason the BiabVST come about) BECAUSE Biab generates RealTracks quicker so it's more popular and the energy don't go into RealBand, BUT having the Instant Gen/Play and non destructive editing.......
I'm another one who uses RB all the time for the reasons described above. I think the comments from the few in this thread who thinks it's crap is based on the fact they never used it enough to get familiar with it. The common refrain I've heard from people who say that boils down to crashes and sugglishness. Many times over the years I've challenged them to post examples of these issues and treat them like a beta test. If there's a crash, document exactly what you were doing when the crash occured and then post it so we can test it and fix it. What was the response? Crickets. I pushed and pushed and never got them to post anything. This goes back over 10 years now.
Saying RB is sluggish is more difficult because what exactly is sluggishness? Again I had asked people to at least describe what exactly happened. In detail. Again I got nothing in response. IMHO if all you're doing is trashing the program with these comments without trying to be helpful by posting whatever problem your having so we can try to fix it, that makes you nothing but a troll.
One point that was made earlier is the crashing every 60 minutes thing. That's true and I've posted about that many times. If I'm doing a lot of midi editing in the piano roll window or audio editing in that window and it goes on for 45 minutes to an hour the program will start doing strange random things and eventually it will lock up and you're forced to do a hard close and reopen. You could lose what you hadn't already saved because a forced close doesn't give you the opportunity to do a save.
The solution I figured out is to recognize that issue and do normal close/reopen before it locks up and it's good for another hour or so. An example of that is if I'm doing midi edits and it's going great but suddenly I'll move a section of midi notes but they don't paste correctly or some notes changed. I'll see that, look at my watch and go oh yeah, it's been almost an hour so I'll save, close and reopen. Should I have to do that? No. That is a glitch with the program and it is reproducible but the problem is a developer has to spend that time with edits before it shows up and I'm assuming they don't have the time for that.
One possible cause of people thinking RB is sluggish is years ago I was using the old Adobe Audition for audio editing. It was great and very fast. But it did something at the end when you went to save your project and move on to something else. It did a "flushing temp files" thing with questions about if I wanted to keep them or not. This went on for 15 to 20 minutes in some cases. RB doesn't do that but the audio edits are not as fast as Audition was.
I surmised the reason was RB was creating and deleting temp files in real time as you're doing the edits while Audition was letting those temp files just pile up in the temp directory thus making the edits seem almost instant but then you had to go through this long delete process after you're done with it. That could be the reason RB seems sluggish with edits. It's a case of "pay me now or pay me later" sort of thing. Or, this could have nothing to do with anything, I'm not a programmer.
Pipeline, I really like some of your suggestions and appreciate your continued efforts with them. I agree most of these things look like they should be fairly easy to implement and it's the reason I said when the VST was first created they should have put all that effort into updating RB instead of creating that stupid thing. When the VST first came out it was a dogs breakfast and stayed that way for two years.
like Bob above I use RB quite happily. as i've said before i've never come cross anything i can't do (except use vst3 plugins and some izotope plugins but pipeline has sorted that for me!).
whenever i come across a new problem, its usually solvable by reading the manual, experimenting hands on or asking on the forum.
and i've never found it crashes and now on the new improved pc its a lot faster.
i just wonder how many people have never tried it. and that's a shame.
One point that was made earlier is the crashing every 60 minutes thing. That's true and I've posted about that many times...the program will start doing strange random things and eventually it will lock up and you're forced to do a hard close and reopen. You could lose what you hadn't already saved because a forced close doesn't give you the opportunity to do a save. The solution I figured out is to recognize that issue and do normal close/reopen before it locks up and it's good for another hour or so. ... look at my watch and go oh yeah, it's been almost an hour so I'll save, close and reopen. Should I have to do that? No. That is a glitch with the program and it is reproducible but the problem is a developer has to spend that time with edits before it shows up and I'm assuming they don't have the time for that. Bob
Bob, This is something I didn't know about and, frankly, it's unacceptable. Not in terms of convenience but in terms of workflow, potential loss of work etc. At the very least there ought to have been written into it a progressive, automatic background save function. you've explained a lot about what is good with RB but the above glitch, and the failure to address it, would be a deal breaker for almost anyone coming to the program for the 1st time. Your praise is damning indeed.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
I'm another one who uses RB all the time for the reasons described above. I think the comments from the few in this thread who thinks it's crap is based on the fact they never used it enough to get familiar with it. The common refrain I've heard from people who say that boils down to crashes and sugglishness. Many times over the years I've challenged them to post examples of these issues and treat them like a beta test. If there's a crash, document exactly what you were doing when the crash occured and then post it so we can test it and fix it. What was the response? Crickets. I pushed and pushed and never got them to post anything. This goes back over 10 years now.
Saying RB is sluggish is more difficult because what exactly is sluggishness? Again I had asked people to at least describe what exactly happened. In detail. Again I got nothing in response. IMHO if all you're doing is trashing the program with these comments without trying to be helpful by posting whatever problem your having so we can try to fix it, that makes you nothing but a troll.
One point that was made earlier is the crashing every 60 minutes thing. That's true and I've posted about that many times. If I'm doing a lot of midi editing in the piano roll window or audio editing in that window and it goes on for 45 minutes to an hour the program will start doing strange random things and eventually it will lock up and you're forced to do a hard close and reopen. You could lose what you hadn't already saved because a forced close doesn't give you the opportunity to do a save.
The solution I figured out is to recognize that issue and do normal close/reopen before it locks up and it's good for another hour or so. An example of that is if I'm doing midi edits and it's going great but suddenly I'll move a section of midi notes but they don't paste correctly or some notes changed. I'll see that, look at my watch and go oh yeah, it's been almost an hour so I'll save, close and reopen. Should I have to do that? No. That is a glitch with the program and it is reproducible but the problem is a developer has to spend that time with edits before it shows up and I'm assuming they don't have the time for that.
One possible cause of people thinking RB is sluggish is years ago I was using the old Adobe Audition for audio editing. It was great and very fast. But it did something at the end when you went to save your project and move on to something else. It did a "flushing temp files" thing with questions about if I wanted to keep them or not. This went on for 15 to 20 minutes in some cases. RB doesn't do that but the audio edits are not as fast as Audition was.
I surmised the reason was RB was creating and deleting temp files in real time as you're doing the edits while Audition was letting those temp files just pile up in the temp directory thus making the edits seem almost instant but then you had to go through this long delete process after you're done with it. That could be the reason RB seems sluggish with edits. It's a case of "pay me now or pay me later" sort of thing. Or, this could have nothing to do with anything, I'm not a programmer.
Pipeline, I really like some of your suggestions and appreciate your continued efforts with them. I agree most of these things look like they should be fairly easy to implement and it's the reason I said when the VST was first created they should have put all that effort into updating RB instead of creating that stupid thing. When the VST first came out it was a dogs breakfast and stayed that way for two years.
Bob
jazzmammal: Realband works just fine and if you complain you are a troll.
also jazzmammal: Realband crashes every 60 minutes.
as the starter of this thread, please allow me the following comments....hopefully noone will jump all over me...lol..cos i prefer friendly debate and banter.
1. if people have gripes , then i'm glad i started this thread. lets get them out in the open. then hopefully they will be addressed by the developers/coders. i only want the rb product to improve and remain a viable leading daw. i DO think we should give kudos to pg as to the fact they allow such open debate and gripes on these forums. this is one aspect of the company that has always impressed me. 2. as ive stated before my combo for doing songs is biab//realband(rb) and reaps from reaper.fm. if you notice going back years on the reaper forums... various posts saying things like 'sssh dont tell anyone the secret song creation weapon of useing reaps with pg products'....and other comments in this vein. ie the 3 together is a mighty powerfull daw //song creation solution. each one with its plusses and minusses. that is not to say that other daws arent great these days. frankly they are all good i feel. i just like the reaps//bb//rb combo cos for my needs the combo fits the bill. 3. lets talk quirks for a moment. yes rb has quirks,... but so does lots of software. full disclosure like some other pg users , in my time ive worked on some pretty hefty IT projects. so i know first hand the pain devs go through bringing advanced software products to market. particularly given the quirks of OS's and underlying hardware architectures. thus i ask myself ...would my creative life be worse if rb wasnt in it ? thats the bottom line for me. and my answer is YES my creativity would be negatively impacted if i didnt use rb , quirks and all. as to crashes. i'm a back up nut. i back up and save every 10 mins or so. i havent experienced the hourly problem. as to sluggishness ....sometime find a mate with an i9 or threadripper or even a older xeon refurb desktop stuffed with 32 gigs ram, and fast ssd's. thats been uptimised for daw work..then run the bb//rb//reaper combo with a great low latency usb sound interface. ( in the rb forum is a list of interfaces users like.) for daw work these days i recommend a processor with at least a 10,000 rateing. particularly if running a fancy daw includeing useing high cpu useage plug ins.
anyhoo..those are my comments. let me say i consider rharv as the guru on rb. i would be interested if he might comment if rb is sluggish on his amd ryzen system.
peace out. AND HAPPINESS TO ALL USERS IRRESPECTIVE OF WHAT YOU USE. i like rb (and reaps and biab.)
om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 10/31/2103:01 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
RB runs fine here. I do not have the 'crash every hour' issue (I'd be complaining like crazy if I did), but I realize that doesn't mean other people don't. FWIW I run RB different than average users, just like my other DAWs I use one drive for Reading and a different one for Writing (Temp Audio Directory), not sure if that has anything to do with it.
/I am not the guru, though I was a member of simpletonguru back in the day
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
I have given lots of ideas that would improve RB immensely. With Reaper I can create scripts to improve things to work with Biab/BBPlugin and upload the next day BUT I can't do that with RealBand as I don't know Delphi and I don't have the code. If I did I would have a constant open Beta development forum like this and this. There should be an continuous open Beta rather than dumping the new version Dec 1st and Dec Jan is the open Beta Testing and fixing period:
Originally Posted By: musiclover
Just a wish here that biab 2021 will be able to play biab 22 realtracks when the new version is released. This isn't the case at the moment with current versions and it would greatly help everyone who wants to retain a stable version of the program (biab 21) while the bug fixing takes place in the new 22 version.
This thread feels like a weird flashback to 20 years ago
What drove me away 20 years ago was the very long delay to add VST/VSTi support and the GUI.
I was a heavy PG PowerTracks Pro Audio user.
Never bought BIAB, but was intrigued for at least a decade.
December of 2019 I bought the BIAB mid level non audiophile pack. Installed the lot. Both BIAB and RB, I think.
In the 15 years in between I finally gave up on trying to get electric bass samples and VSTi to suffice and I bought one. Play quite passably now. Same with guitars. I have gotten much better in 20 years.
Anyways, I fired up that BIAB exactly once. Massively disorganized GUI. I simply don’t have the time budget to devote to it. I can get decently passable demos with the freebie iOS Music Memos. Good enough that I can use them when I sit down to record it better in my DAW. All parts except drums. I have settled with EZDRUMMER and get my stuff done way faster that way than if I was still sifting for styles for hours.
I can see where if it the only product used, it could be awesome for someone starting with it as their home DAW environment. Learning more than one DAW as it seems most in this thread are doing just gives me a headache.
I should not have made the everything pack purchase. But I bought it with some prize money from a company Christmas party.
If I had made that purchase of BIAB 20 years ago, I’m not sure I would have really learned as much guitar and bass as I have and my enjoyment as a musician and songwriter may have gone an entirely different way.
Last edited by rockstar_not; 10/31/2105:26 PM. Reason: Spelling
Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: VST3 Plugin Support
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® now includes support for VST3 plugins, alongside VST and AU. Use them with MIDI or audio tracks for even more creative possibilities in your music production.
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Macs®: VST3 Plugin Support
Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: Using VST3 Plugins
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