PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production Video: Recording DAWLESS with BIAB

Yeah, some of us cut our teeth on Powertracks back when Dr T and early Cakewalk were really the only other options.
None were really unique back then.

Graphics & VST3 support are the main things holding RB back at this point, in my opinion.

I haven't tried RB in several years. Last time I did I found it to be extremely sluggish and just very cumbersome to use. I honestly cannot understand why anyone would choose it when there are free and low cost DAWs that are modern in their design and functionality. And before someone says "Yeah but RB is the only DAW that can use RealTracks" lemme just say that was a big disappointment to me too! I always freeze my tracks in BIAB once I am happy with them and the first thing I found was RB doesn't even recognize frozen tracks so you get to start the process of regenerating your tracks all over again. But the main issue I had was how ancient the GUI looks and how sluggish the software is. My recommendation to any new BIAB user would be to don't waste your time with RB; just get a real DAW and your investment in learning it won't be wasted.

J3.

i'll address freezing in a sec.
firstly some intro comments...written with the utmost respect.

1..when i first came to rb from other daws i didnt want to like it.
just human nature...i was comfortable and knowledgeable with the music apps
i was useing. i sighed 'oh i gotta learn something new'.
however once i got into rb i started to appreciate its many features.
crikey after many years of use i still have 'i didnt know i could do that moments'.
Rob upthread used the word 'familiarity' and i think this is the nub of it.
2..i would ask anyone on these forums to realise the possible result of knocking
a pg product or aspect on open forums...viz...
lurking on these forums are probably potential new users for these products we take for granted.
there is a danger of them running away and thus pg loses revenue.
lost revenue maybe means they cant introduce new features and upgrade old ones as fast as they would like and meet our wishlist suggestions.
(eg upgradeing/fixing some old bb legacy features that have been requested by us long term users or maybe upgradeing the plugin or adding functionality like vst3 and many other things in the wishlists).
in summary i really wish that people would focus more on the positives of what pg has given us in their apps.
haveing worked for more than a few tech companies let me say its a darn big challenge keeping a diverse user base happy.
do bb and rb have 'quirks' ? sure...but so do various music apps i recently tested out.
but at the same time let us realise the positives please.
like rob i couldnt have created over 90 songs without pg products.
imho pg are to be admired for allowing such open forums.

now to your rb points...i hope these are of help should you wish to try out rb again at some point.

1..freezing.
rb should be treated like any daw music app.
for example once ive frozen a track in bb i just drag the track into a reaper track or any other music app that allows drag/drop. and its the same with rb. drag the track into a rb track.
ive done it many times.
2..there is a setting in rb preferences to NOT generate tracks automatically.
SO load in the bb song file and instead of generating tracks which might not match.
do the old drag/drop from bb frozen tracks.
ie we are treating rb like any other daw in this instance.
this way the tracks in rb should match the bb frozen tracks.
(of course alternatively you could use the old methods when useing different daws/music apps and export the tracks from bb and import to rb.)
3..long generation times.
to save me lots of retyping please read in the tips forum how to get a song down fast in rb.
let me say one could name any daw on the market and if it was doing also auto accompany and everything that entails at the programming level i would think the same long generation times would apply.
it is a truism that trying to gen loads of tracks on a pc will take lots of time which will vary depending on pc configuration possible and age of pc.
which is why my new pc that only cost a few hundred bucks has a ryzen processor plus latest m.2 storage technology to help speed things up a bit.
if you notice (well on my pc anyway) track genning in bb is really fast.
a blink of an eye here. BUT if you notice once you want to drop a track into another daw still a rendering process has to occur which, on a slow old pc might take a little time.

honestly J3 i'm not trying to be an 'A'.
look at the huge numbers of songs pg users have put in the showcase forum even though the products might have various 'quirks'. this is the bottom line i suggest. ive heard sooo many great songs in the showcase. thus there is so much to be thankfull for re pg products having allowed a diverse world user base to accomplish as song creators.
i wish you only the best.

happiness.

om

justanoldmuso, thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I guess I'm more of the mind that critical feedback is useful on a public forum like this. So I occasionally share my opinion. I praise BIAB RealTracks to the high heavens so I think that's a fair trade. And it makes potential new customers see a balanced opinion rather than a fanboy one. I really hated that when I first bought BIAB 12 or so years ago. If you made even the slightest critique you could expect to be quickly shut down by hardcore PGM fans. It has gotten a lot better here doen through the years.

As for trying RealBand again, I just did because it has been several years and you took the time to write your opinion. And, it almost immediately crashed. Before it crashed I was scrolling tracks on the left and noticed it would not keep up and would keep scrolling long after I had stopped. So, I was prepared to report only that! Then I wondered if I had the latest version. The GUI still looked pretty bad to me. So I checked and it seems I had 2020 installed (even though I installed everything when I purchased 2024!)

After I installed the 2024 update it looks a LOT better at a glance. I didn't stay with it very long because it wants to be activated with a serial number and I cannot for the life of me locate any serial number other than the BIAB # which will not work for activating RB. I checked the emails I was sent after ordering. I checked the My Products page and it only lists a SN for BIAB. I checked the Available Downloads screen for my 2024 order. Nowhere can I locate the SN.

I guess I'll contact PGM during business hours and get a SN to try it with. (I know I can use it for 30 days without activating but one step at a time!)

J3.

re activating/serial no.

this has happened to me. in my case i guess cos i sandbox my production pc.
i use a second pc for the net.
it was all cleared up once i contacted pg.

btw...fair comment re 'fanboy'. and a balanced perspective, good point.

as to your pc and i wont push these at you...but if your inclined in pg tips section are lots of tips re...
1..optimising an existing pc and assessing its suitability for music production (as well as buying a new pc for music production. )
2..rb specific and various other tips.

just a ps and some stats to compare.
on my ry pc win boots from cold in a few secs as does 2024 bb and rb.
note a usefull little feature in rb is action>>test audio performance.
this will return a stat on no of tracks. i halve it to allow reserves of pc resources.
so in my case for you to compare...depending on the weather...lol...rb reports over 180 or even 200 tracks plus capability....
it doesnt matter for me as i only do 30 to 40 tracks in a song with a smattering of low resource plugins.anyway (like all the songs in my sig.).
BUT ive seen it too many times whereby a pc is loaded up with high resource useage plugins and tons of tracks. thus everything goes pear shaped.

one thing i like in reaps is very detailed at track level reporting on plugin resource useage. there is a global indicator in rb. but when i'm useing rb i have a nifty utility provided by amd whereby i can see useage before and after loading a new plugin...also of course win task mgr.

just some ideas...and hth.
ps if you want a less 'cluttered' cleaner look in rb >> in rb tracks view CTRL T.
pps...if you post back what rb reports as a max no of tracks i'll comment further.

we are all different eh ? for some people rb floats their boat for others maybe not.
its up to the user. all i might suggest is i suspect some people might walk away from rb after a cursory look. it DOES have a learning cycle as its so deep. so i advise just spending some time each week with it assessing how to use it. note...there is a nifty 'tip of the day' feature that helps.

happiness.

om