This explains a lot that has confused me about some of your posts Rockstar and I may add something to another one you did recently.
I am a gentle soul at heart, and would not wish to hurt a fly, but some posts around here are starting to get annoying and someone has to say something. I guess I will go.
The dates of 2019 and such don't quite add up in my head to match what you are saying. Did you mean 2009, or maybe 2001??
I have long suspected that some "contributors" here do not really own or use the product.
Not trying to be sarcastic, but why are you here, exactly?? To lend your superior insights into a product you do not use? To edify us simpletons? To tell us why we should not be here? It really makes no sense. Have you ever noticed this is called the PG Music/BIAB forum??
Are there no other forums out there where you can go and provide some links to the treasure trove of incredible music you have played and recorded by NOT using BIAB?
Really, I promise I am not being sarcastic.
I honestly am profoundly confused, as I am with many of the anonymous secret posters who I suspect have never left a fingerprint on a BIAB hard drive.
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
I am here because I still wish the best for PG. Because PTPA was my first DAW and there are still a couple of forumites here from back in the 90’s that are like my favorite professors from the good old days. Most of the people I have collaborated with from these forums have passed on literally or figuratively. But that doesn’t take away from the feeling of home I still have visiting these forums. Maybe that makes sense to you, maybe it doesn’t.
I do find the title of the thread amusing / confusing. There really isn’t ‘competition’ for either BIAB nor RealBand. It appears that most users here agree; that it takes a different product to complement either of these whether it’s Reaper or some other DAW. But there really isn’t competition for either as a generative band from a chord chart and style input standpoint. There have been some attempts but for all intents and purposes these products from PG Music stand alone in their field.
well the other day i was really happy with rb. i was trying to isolate a certain drum sound from a drum set,,,,so i used a midi trak that i had genned for an organ, and instead plugged in a drum plug in and got what i wanted . there is a trik to exposing more drum sounds in a drum set ...by using rb's transpose feature.etc. another trik with rb is to use slower tempos to gen real drums and isolate the rd drum hits...which can then be used in a free sample player via triggering.etc..
also in this excellent thread rharv makes a great point bout fractional tempos etc...
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.)
You can also route EZDrummer or FREE MT Power DrumKit sends out to individual tracks in RealBand with reastream-standalone in KV Element *Make sure you have EXT in the top left ON to send sync and copy a piece of an empty audio item to the end of the tracks to enable the FX to be active on the tracks. Full Screen
heres a couple of further triks/tips/ideas i'll pass on re realband. 1. the acw. what i'm doing right now is transferring a bunch of songs originally recorded on semi pro multitrack tape into realband. and doing a "tarting up job" on them. luckily i digitised the tape stereo masters awhile back. heres the tip. in the acw i set the bar lines manually...its work. then send to rb the tempo map. THEN IN RB PLAY i set to 75 or 50 percent and adjudicate whether i set the bar lines correctly in the acw main screen. ie checking visually in traks view. sometimes i have to go back to the acw main screen and reset some bar markers and thus amend the tempo map. what is interesting is this method shows how much drift there was on the old tape multitraks. i like that rb deals with fractional tempos. 2. individual drum hits.. a way i've had getting individual drum hits from rd's.. is to slow the trak down in rb, find the hit or hits i like and exporting out to a win folder where ive built up a drum hits library. if one is carefull re artifacts etc one can get interesting results. the above will suffice, cos i cant afford the outlay like the big studios do on big sample libs. finally you can load the samples into a sample player. for midi triggering. i would advise to go thru every single rd. theres lots to discover...and you might find you might not need another commercial drum package if your willing to do deep dives into the rd library.
best om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 11/29/2106:13 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.)
To Save time on getting RD samples, open the source WMA or WAV file, go to the end of the file. There are sometimes single hits from the drums for just such a purpose .. helps to make it quicker/cleaner if they are there.
Last edited by rharv; 11/29/2111:17 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Sorry folks. I don't use RB for anything. I find it not a suitable DAW for the music that I do. If everything I did was BIAB I would probably use it but because a lot of my music is commercial loop based and I have tons of vocal tracks and busses I find RB lacking in supporting effectively the plug-ins. Also I find sample editing and cutting cumbersome in RB and when I tried to do Acid wav editing (change the key of the wav) I could not find a way to do this in RB. Not the DAW for me. I think that PG also realizes this which is why they came up with the DAW integration tools. Again, if all music was BIAB then it's probably OK. For mixing across different platforms it's just flat out not a solution for me.
I LOVE RealBand! I wish they would fix the VST save issue, which is highly annoying, but other than that I love it. I mix in Cakewalk with about 897 VSTs last time I counted but I record in RB, as I said. To each his own it looks like.
I can see I am all alone though (except for Muso) so I will let this go!!!!
Just reading this thread and thought I would throw in my 2 cents. You are definitely NOT the odd one out. I absolutely love realband. I use it on every song. I don’t use any other daw. I also do not understand why people don’t even give it much of a try before dismissing it.
for those of us that grew up with PowerTracks, RB is simple and easy to use. as for changing key it's easy and straightforward but if you are used to another DAW by all means stick to it.
Joanne. glad you commented. i was beginning to doubt my sanity...lol. lets step back a mo'. and be appreciative of what we have today. it used to cost megabuks // millions to put a studio together in the old days. now for a couple of k spent wisely with a good usb interface, bb//rb//reaps//mics//speakers//refurb computer//ssd//etc etc...your only limited by your audio engineering skills and skills as a songwriter. if my songs suck then i'm to blame not the gear.
even starting off with the 90 buk pro pak on pen drive.. you get realband free. throw in some freebie vsti plug ins and say spitfire orch lib...and away you go. great songs can result.
i think the prob is one only realises how good rb is IF one is willing to plumb its depths.
anyhow..thats my perspective.
merry xmas to all. om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 12/03/2102:32 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.)
I LOVE RealBand! I wish they would fix the VST save issue, which is highly annoying, but other than that I love it. I mix in Cakewalk with about 897 VSTs last time I counted but I record in RB, as I said. To each his own it looks like.
I can see I am all alone though (except for Muso) so I will let this go!!!!
Just reading this thread and thought I would throw in my 2 cents. You are definitely NOT the odd one out. I absolutely love realband. I use it on every song. I don’t use any other daw. I also do not understand why people don’t even give it much of a try before dismissing it.
I'm sure you all know my opinion on this already, but I'll restate it. You can use any DAW you want. The end raw tracks will not be any different using RB/PT than using Reaper or ProTools or whatever. The interface does the audio/digital conversion, not the DAW. It's all about personal preference in the tools. RB can be used in very successful recordings just as any other DAW can. I've used it for CD's that sold well and for TV material. In the end, nobody cared what DAW I used.
If you grew up with (and KNOW) Sonar/Cakewalk then use that (or Reaper or whatever). Reaper was a HUGE learning curve to me, but I got use to it eventually, I imagine it is the same with RB for some. The main difference is the workflow, so use whatever you want. It's another tool. But I wouldn't dismiss it without at least seeing what it can do, even if it seems a little clunky at first. There are still some things RB does that other DAWs do not, at least not without additional plugins etc .. to me generating additional content in RB is still better than using the plugin, or at least more comfortable, but that's just me.
I'm not going to try to talk you into using it, but I think you do yourself a disservice by not spending a little time looking at it, once you have it.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
RE. REALBAND 2022. well i'm both disappointed and disheartened by the 2022 rb upgrade....heres why. 1.it seems to me its like 'lets throw a few bones to hard core rb users'. ive given up posting wishes in the wish list (same with biab..). cos i feel posting wishes is a big waste of time. 2.imho pg have had a MASSIVE golden opportunity to do some really really nice things for rb users, but chose not to do so. why , i dont know. a window of opportunity as it were that could have really vaulted the rb product forward in a major fashion instead of the 'very slow incremental bits n bobs' approach. as a result, and as a very very long time pg supporter and user i've decided to vote with my wallet and not spend large this year. let me say the biab upgrades impress me, but not the rb ones...much more could have been done imho.
merry xmas om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 12/06/2101:28 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.)
The new "all the same" tracks and the addition of automation to BiaB suggests to me that they may be working towards making BiaB the new RB.
Whether I'm right, whether that's a good idea, how it would be received by RB users are then all significant questions.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful. AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11 BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software. Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts .
agreed the new 'all the same tracks' goes a long way to making BIAB a lot more flexible but the transparency of RB still makes it the natural place for me to go when the song has been roughed out in BIAB.
With the RB tracks window you can see everything at the same time
Lost in the sea of replies: Is there any actual competition for RealBand? I submit there is nothing like it on the market. I don’t believe there is any other product out there that uses chord change information and audio tracks to generate backing tracks.
The statements in this thread are mostly about DAW usage and features but this major distinction of the generative modus of Real Band and BIAB put them in an entirely different category than DAW software
This is not a reason to buy, so don't take it as such.
Assume PGMusic has a finite amount of programmers/time. Every year they try hard to please everybody, but let's face it .. RB is the Mixed Veggies part of the income pie, and BiaB is the rest of the plate, including meat and potatoes.
I can only surmise that they dedicated a lot of time on (and created an impressive new version of) BiaB this year. What I am stumbling along to say is; we have seen some pretty cool features added to RB mid-year before, and my gut says when the rush of the new release settles down is when they can give RB more time. But I'm not speaking for PGMusic here, just observation and hunch.
The ability to send 'realtime' timing instructions to the VST/VSTis that use it (EZDrummer, Jamstix etc) is one such surprise update released mid-year. Pipeline & I had asked for it in previous years and were a little disappointed, then boom mid-year it was just added in with an update.
I do like some of the new Realband features this year, such as ability to assign the RBBackup folder in particular. Now I always know where my backups are and it is easier to manage. Previously it was always on whatever drive you ran RB from. What if I don't remember the last time I worked on a song was with what version of RB and on which drive? Now I know I can go to X:RBBackup .. X being whatever drive I want.
So having 4 drives, with various RB/PT installs .. and then the various external drives from over the years .. I had RBBackup folders all over the network it seemed.
.. sometimes for me something as little as this feature, that helps so much, makes me smile. Most users would read it and go eh. To me it was a biggie, since I use RB so much.
FWIW this is another thing I've asked for in previous years and it finally happened, so hang in there, yours may still happen
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Rharv. (respect to you.) RE. "hang in there". dont mind me, maybe i'm gettin too demanding/gnarly as i age. lol. its just that after many years on the market i feel the rb product could be way way further ahead. opportunities lost etc etc to dominate the daw market.
mind you, to be frank , looking at all daws these days , nothing much cranks me up. even reaps that i love like i love rb, i worry will it get too bloated. as now the whole world is piling in. in a previous life working for a tech company i musta issued a ton of cya memos to snr mgt , that we needed to move much faster in development of new tech. nobody listened, so you can guess the result.
i hope that maybe mid year 2022 we might see more groovy new features for rb. i just dont wanna be in the old folks home many years hence, and still yearning for certain features..lol. cos ive still got a ton of songs in me. too many in fact.
merry xmas. om
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 12/08/2104:31 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.)
You've made several very clear and important points.
I'm still concerned about what others say about RB crashing and being a memory hog,
But I will give RB a try because it sounds like it may be perfect for what I will be doing...mostly creating simple arrangements with backing tracks consisting of maybe 4 or 5 tracks.
I'm still concerned about what others say about RB crashing and being a memory hog
I haven't experienced that in a long long time. What version of RB do you currently have?
Sure, the interface could use an update (it looks old school) but it performs quite well for my needs (which has included commercial production and TV). If your needs are 'creating simple arrangements with backing tracks consisting of maybe 4 or 5 tracks' it should be fine.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
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We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
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Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
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