I'm currently using BiaB 2017, but I've also done this in 2019 and there's no real difference, I've found.

Okay, I'm not exactly exporting the tracks. I'm using the "Save Special" option to save MIDI tracks as MIDI files and RealTracks as WAV files.

I've tried it two different ways -- well, with audio at least. I've tried dragging the instrument to the DragDrop box and translating it to a WAV file, and I've also tried Saving Special with a RT by Soloing that track before doing the Save Special.

What happens is -- and this happens when Saving MIDI also if there are any RealTracks in the song -- EVERY RealTrack is processed, even though only one is saved. With MIDI, every track is processed and when I bring the MIDI file into Cakewalk, all MIDI tracks are imported, although only the one I'd soloed has MIDI data. When Saving Special with MIDI, also if the song as RealTrack drums, a drum track is generated, although I think it's empty (if memory serves).

What I'd like to do is just translate over the actual tracks I want to translate over without having to wait for all this unnecessary processing to take place.

How do you do it?

Hi Michael,

The quickest way that I've found to save a wav file is...

1. Open the song.

2. Do not generate any tracks.

3. In the mixer, right-click on the instrument name of the track you want to save.

4. Select "Track Actions" and then select "Save As WAV".

When I just tried the above, my track saved in 8 seconds. I do have a reasonably fast computer, too.

By comparison, if I generate the whole song, and then go through steps 3 and 4 above, my save time is 23/24 seconds. This save time also seems to be independent of track freezing.

Having discovered that it's quicker to save a WAV on a newly opened song and before generating the song, I always use this approach now.


Alternatively...

If you open the song in Realband, it takes a minute or two to generate the whole song. To save the tracks, though, all it involves is to...

1. Select the track.

2. Press CTRL+A to select the whole track.

3. Click on the "Export WAV" icon on the top left of the row of icons.

This takes just the snap of the fingers to save... no generation occurs.

To save a MIDI using Realband, I CTRL+A to select the entire midi track and then use "Render | Save track to file"

With a single selection, it's also possible in Realband to save all tracks to individual WAV and MIDI files as determined by their native format.

I hope that some of the information contained within is useful!
Noel

• one of my songs: The Way Of The World (Life’s Carousel)

Hey Noel, thanks for the feedback. Seems like your tips are always helpful.

Okay, so now I know how to quickly save an audio track to a WAV file. But when it comes to saving a MIDI track where a RealTrack is present, there's that bottleneck I run into. I almost never use RealBand, but I guess it might be worth it with the time saved. I don't suppose there's a way to bypass this restriction in BiaB?

Michael,

Did you try dragging the MIDI across from the track (on the top, horizontal row of tracks) to the MID quadrant of the BIAB dropbox?

This is exactly the same process as dragging the MIDI notation for Realtracks that I mentioned in a recent post to you.

When doing the above, the individual track is all that is saved. Once this is done, I right-click on the dropbox, enter the \bb\dragdrop folder, rename the track to something appropriate and then drag it to my DAW.

Regards,
Noel