Originally Posted by MarioD
<...snip...>I have always told my students to learn music theory but don't let it get into the way of making music.
I love that. If I still had students, I'd steal that line.

I think it's important to know theory, at least at the basic level. The rules are rules, and they make sense, but it's nice to break the rules, too. That's where imagination and creativity come in, but without the framework, it's much more difficult to do this. Sure, there will always be great musicians who don't know theory, but they are the exceptions to the rule. Most of us aren't that exceptional.

I don't like RB because of the lack of advanced MIDI editing tools. I can do a lot of things with MIDI on an old Master Tracks Pro app that I cannot do with Real Band. (Of course, there are other things RB can do that MTPro will not.)

There is a wonderful change filter in MTP that when making global changes to a track or song, I can only apply it to specific circumstances.

[Linked Image from nortonmusic.com]

Say, if I want to change just the snare drum on a drum track, and just the 3rd or 4th beat of the measures to perhaps play 5 clock tics behind the beat, it's easy. Highlight the track shift everything 5 beats to the right, but invoke the change filter to only use the snare drum note, on the selected beats, and not disturb the rest of the drums. Without that filter, I'd have to do it one measure at a time.

The filter can be applied to any global change. All the dialog boxes have the option to use the filter, here is one example of many.

[Linked Image from nortonmusic.com]

Click the Use Change Filter box, it takes you to the change filter dialog, and you can make specific edits on a global scale.

Almost any editing tool can be rung through the change filter in MTPro, and that saves me countless hours of time.

So RB, even just for uncommon time signatures, is out of the question for me.

When doing my Band-in-a-Box Fake e-Disks, I'm reluctant to use microchords for 2 reasons, (1) they are not backwards compatible to older versions of the app and (2) sometimes with certain styles they just don't sound right.

I want anybody to be able to use my products, and I want them to be able to change the style to whatever they like.

That's where the BiaB hacks come in.

In some ways the maximum of 4 beats to a cell is a hindrance, but for other things it can be an asset. The creative hacks needed to get around that limitation, also opens the door for the ability to do some things you couldn't do otherwise.

I'm glad BiaB has prioritized back-compatibility, and don't mind the creative hacks needed to get it to work the way I want. I've done 51 fake disks with hundreds of songs in each one, and have never been unable to enter a song. That speaks well for the versatility of this app.

So put on your thinking caps, almost everything is possible.

Notes ♫

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks