There are over 30 new features and enhancements in Band-in-a-Box 2010.5, plus many RealTracks updates.

  • The StylePicker now has a filter to show/hide Real or MIDI styles. So if you only want to see MIDI styles, or if you only want to see styles that use some/all RealTracks, you can set this.


  • If you like the current mix (of volumes, panning, reverb), and you want this applied as a default for all songs, you can now set this by Right clicking on the Combo radio control. Choose "Make Current Mix the Default", "Load Default Mix" or "Reset Mix (to factory defaults)".


  • RealTracks naturally occurring pushes are enhanced in many styles. This requires updating the ST2/XT2 files, and these are included in the 2010.5 update.


  • When rendering, you can now add a dB amount to the whole mix, so that the mix will be louder or softer. There is automatic "peak-limiting" added, so that the music will not distort if you set it too high.


  • Styles can now be made that are set to use Half-Time and Double-Time RealTracks. For example, you can make a Jazz Ballad style (tempo 65) that uses a Sax Soloist at tempo 140 (playing double time).


  • If Band-in-a-Box cannot find your RealTracks folder or your Drums folder, a yellow hint message appears at bootup to alert you to that, and tells you how to fix it: "Note: You have RealTracks installed, but none are found in your RealTracks folder. You should point to your correct RealTracks folder in Prefs-RealTracks Settings."


  • RealTracks Pushes are now played a little quieter (2 dB quieter), so that they don’t stand out as much.


  • For RealTracks, many Jazz comping styles now play triads (instead of 7ths) when simple triads are entered, instead of "jazzing them up" to 7ths chords (e.g. Guitar: Freddie, Wes Piano: Some Jazz. All Stride, Rehearsal). If you prefer this "the old way", where triads are automatically "jazzed up" when comping using Jazz RealTracks, then you can set the Prefs-Realtracks settings option to force 7ths for triads.

  • Enhancements for entering songs quickly: Typing special words, instead of chord names, will make the following settings:

    begin <enter> sets the begin of the chorus to the current bar
    end <enter> sets the end of the song to the current bar
    chorusend <enter> sets the end of the song chorus to the current bar
    tkc <enter> sets key signature to c, tkbb would set it to bb
    trc <enter> transposes song to key of C
    t125 <enter> sets tempo to 125


  • Enhancements for playing songs from the chordsheet

    <spacebar> or double click on ending bar (or a bar in the tag), and it will play from the ending (or tag). This only applies to the chordsheet, since notation windows always play from the ending or tag already.
    Right Click on ChordSheet (or notation) to quickly set Chorus Begin, Chorus End, or Song Ending


  • Real Drums button now has a menu (like RealTracks picker button) to choose RD Prefs or RD Picker. Ctrl-Click or Shift-Click to choose the Prefs or Picker directly.


  • The Auto-generated song memo now says if Real Drums come from the song or style


  • A message now appears if a frozen track is loaded, but the required RealTracks or RealDrums folders do not exist.


  • Frozen tracks now start playing faster if played again.


  • In the RealTracks picker, the columns for Set # and Holds # sort is improved.


  • Important change: The default for the tempo swapping feature for RealTracks is now true. It used to be false. Tempo-swapping is a nice feature that will automatically substitute a similar RealTracks that is recorded at a tempo closer to the current tempo. For example, if you load a ballad style, with a RealTracks piano at a tempo of 60, and then speed the song up to 200, BB’s tempo-swapping feature will choose a RealTracks piano that is closer to 200, likely one that is 190. Prefs-RealTracks to disable this feature.


  • Band-in-a-Box will keep on generating RealTracks even if some wav files are missing.


  • Fixed: Chord Options Update button updates the chordsheet, clear all works better.


  • Changed: File-New gets volumes of 127, instead of 90.


  • Fixed: Spurious message about better realtracks available when half-time realtracks were used.


  • Fixed: Copying melody when regions overlapped was losing some notes


  • Fixed: Frozen tracks were playing louder, when Play pressed again.


There have been a large number of RealTracks updates since the release of 2010. These include:

  • Almost all RealTracks now have improved 4-bar endings.

  • Less common and previously unavailable chords have been added.

  • Better audio quality and stretching on some styles.

  • All known bugs have been addressed.



Click here to go to the Macintosh RealTracks updates page. There is a RealTracks 1-82 update and a RealDrums 1-29 update (these two include all updates since the release of RealTracks for Macintosh).

For more details about the Band-in-a-Box 2010.5 update see our Band-in-a-Box updates page.

Andrew
PG Music Inc.