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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Yes, Josie, somewhat. The laptops generally have a slower hard drive and throttled-down CPU routines, so they would be worse candidates for eliminating the +/- files.
I'm not as familiar with AMD specs; I use only Intel boards and CPUs, dating back to the days when some music programs only ran on Intel chips. Perhaps someone here like rharv can comment more on how powerful your machine may be, relatively speaking.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Make a backup copy of the original Realtracks folder and then give it a try.
Works fine here, both on laptop and desktop, both older AMD II driven, running XP SP3.
The caveats are there beause there are lots of slower machines out there in the world running XP (or 2000, or...).
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thank you Mac, Matt, and John.
Last edited by Sundance; 12/05/10 01:57 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Expert
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Expert
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In RealTrack Preferences, if the Use +/- RealTracks box is not checked, you are using the new engine. Performance will be equivalent to deleting the +/- file. If no problems, it is 'safe' to delete the +/- files.
Again, make sure you have a backup
R
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks Rachael. That makes it easy to try it out.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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At times if I have "fast generation" checked I'll have dropouts. Not always. I just leave it checked and see what happens. It appears that if you get a style close to the tempo you'll have no issues of course this sort of defeats the purpose somewhat. Nice to use a 120 BPM style on an 85 BPM song.Just uncheck "fast generation"
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Everybody, take another look at Rachael's post, 3 above. This is an elegant and simple way to test whether you should delete the +/- files. I think that box was unchecked by default in the early versions of 2011, and has remained so. Would someone who just purchased 2011 please verify that the box comes unchecked by default?
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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+1 on what Rachael posted.
like Matt says,
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Good eye rachael
Last edited by rharv; 12/05/10 06:24 PM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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The Use +/- RT's was unchecked be default on my new install of BIAB 2011. I do not yet have the Real Tracks (hopefully Wednesday or Thursday, Tuesday would be awesome) but I am deleting the old +/- files away. I've recovered 57GB of space. Now, let's see if they work.  And, yes they do work, very well, even without the new RTs. Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Good, now we know for sure the checkbox is unchecked by default. Thanks, Gary. That means, if everything sounds good, one can erase the +/- files (after making a backup, to be safe).
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Update. So far it all works ok. I followed Rachael's advice and haven't pushed the button yet. The cpu usage meter is quite fascinating. It seems mine varies around low 40's to high 50's when playing a BB file of all realtracks with bpm at 104 and tracks that are native 120.
The odd thing is running Realband when I click on "select and generate real tracks" and the list comes up the cpu meter maxes out - but I believe this has been going on before the upgrade even tho I wasn't watching the cpu meter then.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I recall that Peter Gannon recommended that the CPU% stay under 60%, and if it does, then you can safely erase the +/- files.
I don't know if that means some 100% peaks are OK - your description of "maxes out" - but I doubt it.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Hi Folks,
I'm pretty sure you can try the new stretch feature first. Go to the realtracks settings menu (ctrl + rt icon sax)) and tick both--use speed up generation of realtracks and --high quality tempo/pitch stretching--. Untic --use +/- Realtracks for generation --. Then open an all rt demo and generate it-noting the time it takes. then change the tempo 25 or 30 and generate again. On my machine it takes around two seconds longer on average if I don't go too far from the original tempo.
For example, I loaded Brent Mason RKMDMB2 which took about 8 seconds to start at 120, about 9 seconds at 140 and about 13 seconds at 60. These are all acceptable to me but maybe not to someone else. I'll probably use it this way for awhile and if I don't encounter anything worse than that, one of these days I'll hit the +/- button and erase all the pre-stretched files.
Later,
Jim
I'd be completely happy if I had just one more guitar.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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Quote:
The odd thing is running Realband when I click on "select and generate real tracks" and the list comes up the cpu meter maxes out - but I believe this has been going on before the upgrade even tho I wasn't watching the cpu meter then.
Same here and yes, it's always done that here also. :>)
Jim
I'd be completely happy if I had just one more guitar.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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Quote:
In RealTrack Preferences, if the Use +/- RealTracks box is not checked, you are using the new engine. Performance will be equivalent to deleting the +/- file. If no problems, it is 'safe' to delete the +/- files.
Again, make sure you have a backup
R
OOPS
Looks like I should read a little more before posting. Oh well, maybe someone can use the ctrl + click RT icon tip. (it's from help and who reads that anymore. lol)
Later,
Jim
I'd be completely happy if I had just one more guitar.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I guess I'm dense, but with all the discussion of shrinking real tracks, it's not clear to me as to how, why, and when one needs to "shrink". For example, with hundreds of tunes playing under 2010.5, many of which use real tracks---does that mean that you need to shrink these songs/tracks before loading 2011? Or after? How many steps are involved? Can you have some tracks shrunk and other not? For those who've gotten the new upgrade, is this process explained, or does one have figure it out on their own? I was hoping that installing 2011 would do all of this automatically---for the new tracks and those already installed. I just hate clicking around the program once it's running good. Because I always screw something up.
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I think all of your questions have already been answered in this thread alone, except for the question about "shrinking songs" used in 2010.5. Songs should not be affected.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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If you have plenty of spare Hard Drive capacity, then leave well alone. My working installation uses an internal drive dedicated to RT & RD which was becoming full. Reducing the size of the files has saved some 60 gigs of storage. So far I have experienced no problems using the program. My backup is on my PGMusic external drive which has not been changed in respect of Rt & RD files.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I use RB for live playing but as a point of reference look at my computer specs in my signature.
I could not use BIAB to play live with this computer with the new engine and the +/- files being deleted.With "fast generation" checked playback is VERY unreliable. With it checked I'd drink too much beer while the song generates.My point is if you have a lappy and it's specs are not considerably better then mine be very careful playing live.
One option though is to freeze all your songs.
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