PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here USEING RB WITH YOUR FAV DAW TO CREATE A MUSIC PRODUCTION POWERHOUSE.

A POWERFULL MUSIC PRODUCTION COMBO YOUR FAV DAW AND REALBAND (RB).
(mainly for new pg users.)

this post and ones that follow document why you might consider rb in your workflow with your favorite daw youve used for ages..and i hope to show its not your daw versus rb BUT how the use of both TOGETHER can be of great help to you in music production and be a music production powerhouse....
includeing very nice tricks and tips to help you.
this document is primarily aimed at new PG users who might not be aware of the production power useing both products TOGETHER....your daw your familiar with and rb.
for example ive used realband (rb) many times with reaper doing songs useing the plusses of each.
(and done over 90 songs with the reaper/bb/rb combo.)

what triggered these tips is helping a couple of pg users recently.
let me say music production is often all about tricks...ive learnt over the years.
talking of tricks have a read of my rb tips thread in this tips forum relating to doing drum tricks and modern songs in rb. this will save me lots of retyping....also if your haveing problems useing your pc for music production there are also tips on buying or useing a pc for music production.

before anyone jumps all over me...I GET IT...you have your daw youve used for years and love and you groan at the thought of learning another music app....i groaned years ago when i was useing reaper but then discovered the original pg powertracks (ptw) and its midi power so i ended up useing both reaps and ptw for developing song ideas i could then take into studios to develope further. this saved me a whack of money for studio time.
in summary i dived into powertracks and discovered all sorts of neat things and tricks i could do.
then later i upgraded to bb/rb/reaps combo....
(note i'm not knocking ptw...its a tremendous value imho....choc full of features....i did a ton of songs useing it.)

NOTE...to seasoned pg users...if i miss something...which is easy to do...tell me and i'll revise this topic and attribute it to you.

so lets get to it...

1..think of this concept for a minute. you keep your current daw for all things you like...
BUT augment it with rb as a super duper generator of session musicians for your daw includeing drums.
and there are other features in rb i'll get to in rb to augment your daw....in summary session musician audio and midi tracks to feed into your daw. there are lots of ways to use rb plus your fav daw...but one usefull way starting out is to think of this concept....
...you use rb to generate audio and midi tracks and testing ruff vocals and lyrics and seeing what tempos and keys are best for your song...then..
...you feed your daw with the generated what we used to call 'bed tracks' in studios...ie song skeleton tracks.
...then in your daw you develope your song further eg adding your own instrument tracks...then once happy with the way things are going ...and this has happened to me many times i go...
lets test out some spice to add eg a solo. thus i go back to rb and generate some solos to feed to reaps.
in summary you dont just feed from rb to your fav daw once.
its a constant interplay between your daw and rb...rb creating session musicians and your daw moving chunks of riffs around for example getting rid of the bad riffs and keeping the good.
in summary think of the above concept. this CONSTANT INTERPLAY ...useing the groovy features in your daw and groovy features in rb. ive done this more times than i can remember useing rb and reaps.
now heres a tip for you. to make things easy for you. once you have a basic mix in your fav daw during early stages of song development...one tip is to do a ruff stereo mix in your fav daw and then import into a rb track...and THUS this can be a nice guide as you audition session musicians in rb and generate audio and midi tracks. BUT BIG NOTE...MAKE SURE WHEN YOU DROP THE RUFF MIX FROM YOUR FAV DAW INTO RB THAT START TIME IN RB MATCHES START TIME IN YOUR FAV DAW.
also make sure settings for bpm etc match.

think of it this way...in the old days in big commercial studios they might decide which session musicians they would use on a particular song recording date. so now YOU have this decision making power.
and even in rb have templates with different combos of session musos depending on your music...ie flexibility.
(a tip i dont bother with rb template feature i just name the tracks in rb tracks view and save as seq GENRE+TEMPLATE....eg MOR+TEMPLATE or HARDROCK+TEMPLATE or BALLAD+TEMPLATE...whatever i can call up when creating a new song.
i save these in a special templates dir. these templates are tiny as they contain obviously no tracks at this point.)
for example one day i might be doing a song in the rock genre and another day a ballad or whatever.thus i am able to able to call up my favorite backing band for each different genre i might do....just like people used to do often in big studios.
the benefit is it saves going thru tons of pg content if one is doing just a fast demo so one can test ones vocals and a song idea to see if it works....and what i do often is sing along with the backing to test lyrics phraseing etc etc....before further song development.
(NOTE RB HAS A SCROLLING IN TIME LYRIC VIEW.... in rb tracks i have two small views...one being a small view of the big clock feature and small lyric view. both can be adjusted to size.)

2..heres another tip...once you recieve your pg pak as a first time pg user go thru ALL pg session musos and content to see what you might use as your favorites...make notes etc.
YES IT MIGHT TAKE A WEEK>>>BUT HIGHLY WORTH IT....for several reasons...when i first did that my mind went nuts with new song ideas as i went through all the styles and pg demoes and content.
easily i must have had over 100 new song ideas.
(to those that have songwriters block i suggest when this happens to you start going thru and demoing pg content. i'm never ever short of song ideas...in fact my problem is often lack of time due to my daily life.)
THEN once a year i go thru the new pg content to see any added session musos that i might use.

3..another tip is...just cos your main genre is say country or whatever dont exclude other genres because ive found cross pollinating between genres can elevate a song.
eg if im doing a rock song i just dont listen to rock session musos only but also session musos in other genres. ...NOTE...IF I DONT DO THIS IVE FOUND I MISS SOME SUPERB SOUNDS to elevate a song.
eg a gold nugget of sound from a country style to be used in a rock song.

4..i dont use the bb plugin vst (and users of such please dont jump all over me...) BECAUSE i have way more music production flexibility in rb imho. if the reader doubts me...and to save me typing pages and pages rtfm...lol and read/view support docs and vids for the plugin and rb.
in summary rb gives me huge range of fexiblity and features.

5..before you do anything...lets get organised.. make sure you have laid out your chords in either the bb or
or rb chord sheets....and saved. NOW THIS IS IMPORTANT.
lets take an example useing reaps (but this applies to any daw...)
to save spreading song tracks all over a pc...which ive seen people do many times includeing hunting for traks without finding them...MAKE SURE YOU SET UP A FOLDER IN WINDOWS.
this folder will hold EVERYTHING related to your song including production notes and special settings.
so lets take the case of a song called "i'm rocking to the moon"...IRTM...
my song folder name would consist of SONG NAME + DATE COMMENCED.
eg IRTM+JUNE8+2024. i do this cos i have so many songs done over the years.
AND VERY IMPORTANT MAKE SURE YOUR TEMPO SETTINGS ARE IDENTICAL IN YOUR DAW AND RB. (and also bb if you are useing bb too.)
so in reaps...all your settings would be saved in the IRTM song folder and reaper project settings.
lets take another daw say cubase...rb and cubase will share the same song folder which will contain all
project settings for each plus song tracks youve generated yourself and rb generated session musician tracks.
what i typically do as a song evolves and is saved is use song name plus version plus date.
eg IRTM+V05+JULY2024 in the daw ...V being the project version number..and in rb save the rb project seq with the same name in the SAME DIR as the daw.....ie...once again save to IRTM folder...i cant stress this enough...make sure your song save folder location is identified in your daw and rb.
this will make your life easier....lets continue.

6..you can set up rb many ways to feed session muso tracks and bands to your main daw. ive done this many many times with reaper. lets consider one simple way. once i have my final chord sheet done and saved in a rb seq. (similar to what some daws term a project file)...i then ...and also very importantly i start auditioning pg content.
(NOTE...there is a little trick in case you are importing into rb the bb chord sheet...in rb preferences there is a setting to not generate wavs on importing a bb song....thus for those short on disc space this setting might help. (also please read in rb manual about making bb tracks regular tracks.).

7..YIPPEE GENERATING SESSION MUSICIAN TRACKS TO FEED TO YOUR DAW...in my case lets say i'm useing reaps. when i find a pg session muso i like i drop it into reaps after genning it.
there are various ways...but for simplicity starting out with rb...drag the track no in rb into a reaps track or the daw you use and youll see reaps quickly show the waveform of the track....in rb you can gen both audio and midi tracks for your daw and other tricks to complement and feed your daw.
(think of rb in this case...your out for a nice family meal and a waiter is always at your beck and call...always ready to feed you.)
BUT AGAIN I CAUTION YOU...MAKE SURE THAT ANY TRACKS GENERATED ARE SAVED TO THE SAME SONG DIR AS YOUR MAIN DAW USES....so everything is neat and tidy.
in both reaps and rb i do saves about every half hour just in case to the same song dir.
ANOTHER TIP...make sure for ease of understanding your track layouts match in both rb and your main daw....
(what i do is my track organisation is laid out the same in rb and reaps before i commence recording or genning.).
so lets say in reaps...or your daw...track 19 is named tremelo gtr..then ALSO in rb call track 19 tremelo gtr. an added tip...in reaps...in the track 19 i would also add in the pg instrument id....so in the case of harp..the name would be HARP+2773 <<the pg id....so you dont forget.
in your daw use the same id system ie INSTRUMENT NAME PLUS PG ID.
otherwise its easy to mix up things....in conclusion track name and pg id would match in both reaps and rb.
see what i mean ? ie neat and tidy.

8..now let me address an 'elephant in the room'. wav audio tracks. some people complain about the number of them in a project and disc space used...there is a simple solution to this....
ie after laying out your rough chord arrangement UNTIL you have the final arrange nailed down...
and before starting to feed your daw with session musio tracks genned in rb...
sketch out the song useing midi tracks. this means the rb project file (called a SEQ) thus will be very small
and consume peanuts disc space. i do this often in rb to test out my song lyrics...as well as other neat things
like MATCHING SONG KEY WITH MY VOCS. for example my vocs might not be able to handle one key
so i test out various keys (and tempos) via tests to determine viz the lyrical phraseing what tempo might best
to use. (note you can enter lyrics in rb which will display and match as the song plays back.)

9..LEARNING RB..yes i know its a pain useing another app...but the old saying 'you reap what you sow'
applies. you dont even have to learn a lot starting out. like bb you can create a chord arrangement (or one youve imported from bb) fast and then select a style//session band and just like bb away you go.
its really easy just like pg say in their marketing material.
now there are TWO KEY THINGS TO UNDERSTAND STARTING OUT.
...the rb top menus including the edit menu especially...AND MOST IMPORTANTLY...
...THE RIGHT CLICK WITH MOUSE OVER A TRACK FEATURE. this is uber exciting.
when i first came to rb i was like a kid in a candy store. the session musician generating and other nice features and power excited the heck out of me. FINALLY I HAD CREATIVE POWER.
so IN SUMMARY I BEG YOU...AND PLEAD WITH YOU...lol...really understand the right click over a track rb feature and dont be intimidated by the various menu options.
IMHO THIS IS THE CORE OF WHAT MAKES RB GREAT to use in conjunction with your current daw.
it is extremely powerfull. and after a time working with the menu you will come to understand why i say your daw plus rb can be a music production powerhouse....ie the like ive never seen.
and after a time i hope you agree with me when i say its not one daw versus another...but useing the plusses of each like i do. in my case i use the plusses of rb and the plusses of reaper. ie they complement each other.
and used correctly can be a powerfull music production solution the likes ive never seen.

next time i'll highlight certain tips and tricks...as my wife is doing a fab lunch....
thus please be patient as i have my own songs i am doing.
lots more to come.
(note to anyone please dont derail this thread as the intent is sincerely to help new users...thanks....these are open forums...start your own thread.)


happiness.

om 🇨🇦🇨🇦 🇬🇧🇬🇧