I should get my 2015 upgrade soon. After it is installed, I will buy some new RealTracks. I will purchased RealTracks that provide rhythm for Irish tunes. The instrument I play is fiddle. Here are the styles I like playing, in order of preference - (1) double jigs (2) hornpipes (3) reels (4) polkas (5) other jigs

About a half dozen RealTracks are advertised as being for Irish music. I would appreciate reading forum members recommendations and suggestions. None of the available "Irish" RTs seem to have the desired combination of instruments. I think I will have to create a "custom" RT using instruments from different RTs. Am I wrong in thinking this ? I have read requests for more RTs that contain instrument combinations commonly used in Irish bands, and played in the same manner.

I think your information will be of interest to other BIAB users playing this type of music. Hopefully, your responses will help me choose the best RealTracks for my situation.

Thanks in advance for you responses,

Dick Hauser

Hello Dick .. as mainly fiddle player into old time country, irish trad and cajun trad i always find that general programs using midi are just suitable for a guide track.

With BIAB's current on board realtrack thing you're one step ahead, and sometimes a really useful thing pops out. Especially with the help & soul of a real musician captured there. It might not always be exactly what you need, but when you don't want to spend tons of time and dough with musicians and studios, BIAB is number one.

In final folk music recordings i sometimes used bluegrass banjo tracks, sometimes even slowed down and pitched, or a mandolin rhythm. Even used a bodhran pitched and stretched in a different musical context. Or a pedal steel as i don't know a live player around here. As for irish stuff and bluegrass within BIAB i wouldn't always call the found styles there as such, and the generated music just that, but that's personal. As for Irish music the recorded bouzouki and bodhran in BIAB are not my thing really; f.i. i once had the luck to play with Johnny McDonagh in ireland, and he's simply the most versatile player around: Youtube link: De Dannan ([video:youtube]http://youtu.be/tGrA_8_t4to[/video])

You'll need time to find the right thing for your piece of music, especially if you want the result in a certain context. BIAB is a very diverse and general tool that sounds great. IMO most interesting for musicians into jazz, pop, rock, especially country, and bossa etc. Electric guitar work recorded there nearly perfect. Thus maybe not so much for acoustic folkies like me. Like there's no nice trad cajun grooving style in BIAB.

As tool for composing for film, video or songwriting i found BIAB a great weapon when you need to do a fast dirty and cheap job, or to get an idea for an arrangement in a lot of possible styles. Don't forget it's great leadsheet printing facilities: i found a lot of use for that when you have rehearsals and studio work interacting with live musicians. Or for teaching irish fiddle as sometimes in my case.

PS - Realtracks maybe due errors and the way the system works IMO are less suitable when you play with timing settings within a song, like an occasional 5/4 or 2/4 bar in a 4/4 piece of music. If you intent to publish your music on CD etc, the audiophile .WAV realtracks are a lot better than the cheaper .WMA ones. I think PGmusic still has the x-mas offer for the whole caboose at a very fair price until half January, you might be cheaper off buying the whole caboose in one packet right now. - F

Have a look through all the UserTracks pages http://www.realband.org/guitars.html they are manly VI's at the moment.
We just need some more UserTrack creators, especially Fiddlers

Hi Solidrock. Quite a few good ones here ! Keep up these workz ! One remark: Some wavs are really submerged in too much reverb, built into the wav as downloaded. Might be OK if used straight away in RB or BIAB, but for me less interesting for use in a context like an other sequencer with my own reverb settings etc. Found that sometimes with BIAB realtracks too BTW.

A Q: is there an FTP link or html page etc with all the zips directly accessible? Individual downloads and trying them out takes quite a bit of time for me. - F

They would be best recorded DI as you can add any FX you like after, but you can't take away reverb or overdrive. Same with the VI's don't add anymore FX.

I was going to put direct dropbox or server links but there might be info and feedback on the forum post so that's where most go.
Give me some Irish or Cajun Fiddle any day.

Here's some Real Irish Tracks:

SR

A couple of great clips there, Wow!