Hello:
I recently purchased, & having difficulties getting BIAB 2021 (UltraPAK+ upgrade) & RealBand MIDI to work properly/sound decent.

BIAB 12 came with Virtual Sound Canvas, which seemed to sound great, but I haven't been able to get BIAB 2021 to sound anywhere near as good using Coyote WT or Sforzando... I'm sure it's user error.

First - RealBand, I get an error msg. when I try to use Sforzando: "Your copy of PG Music Inc Band-in-a-Box Sounds is not activated...".

So, how do I "activate" my BIAB sounds??

Second - BIAB (32&64-bit), I get errors pretty-much every time I choose a style with the stylepicker. (File|Load Style from Stylepicker)... RealDrums & RealTracks not found. Now, I didn't install on the C: drive, but all seemed to install properly. I didn't see any separate install for RealDrums & RealTracks.

Does this mean I need to purchase more (then the UltraPAK+) to enable any of the styles using RealDrums &/or RealTracks??

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Thanks in-advance!!

Hi Jon,

Welcome to the forums.

You mention BIAB 2021, is this correct or is it the latest version, BIAB 2022?

Also, did you buy this directly from PG Music? If so, there would have been activation information with your purchase. This may have come in an email. Both Realband and Band In A Box need to be activated after they have been installed.

Out of curiosity, did you install the programs to your computer's hard drive?

Virtual Sound Canvas has not worked with BIAB for many years now. Coyote WT is what PG Music replaced it with. If you go to the link below, Peter Gannon talks about Cakewalk and how to install the freely available VSTi/DXi softsynth, TTS-1. I recommend getting this as it will give you another option for MIDI sounds.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=511593#Post511593

With sforzando, it is not a General MIDI sythesiser (like Coyote WT and TTS-1). This can only be used for single instruments.

Regards,
Noel

plus 1 for the tts1 - it's roland sounds just like the virtual sound canvas. there is a difference between RB 2021 and RB 2022. 2022 gets activated automatically with BIAB but for 2021 (which is still 32 bit) you have to activate it separately - see noel's advice about codes. did you buy from PG? if you didn't you can register your purchase and i think you get an activation code but i'm not sure.

as for your style picker errors i'm pretty sure you as you didn't install on drive C, BIAB and RB are looking in the wrong place for your realtracks and realdrums

i think this is how to do it but as i'm not at my music pc i can't check

Go to your RealTracks/Drums Preferences Button and set it to Custom folder location - i think you'll be able to browse to the drive you selected.

Click Rebuild & Fix in Picker Windows.

Then Realband Options > Preferences > Song Generation > Paths

should find your realtracks and drums

Hi JonC

You can purchase Sound Canvas Va from Roland. It costs £59 (in the UK)

I have attached pictures.
It works great with Biab as long as you use the 64 bit version.

I am using Windows 11 with no problems.

Hope this helps.

George

I found the whole Roland Cloud, where they send you for SoundCanvas VA so confusing and ambiguous that I just walked away.

Does one need a Roland Cloud membership? For what? Is SoundCanvas included or extra? What are all these other things ... would I need them, want them, get them, or what?

It seems like so many music software companies like to throw random information at us with few explanations. It drives me mad.

Hi Noel, all

I just wonder where I find this TTS-1 VST in Cakewalk.
Having installed cakewalk, I find the vstplugins folder empty.
In the Cakewalk Core folder I see several dll files. Is TTS-1 VST/DXI one of those in the screenshot?

Thanks for your advice.
Nothing is shown in VST dialogue that resembles TTS-1.
I am at a loss.

Cheers
Stefan

Here is what is in mine (no TTS-1 either):

You can purchase a lifetime licence for £59 no need to add any extra cloud subscription.

George

I did the same, @Gordon Scott - I'm a music hobbyist, & really not interested in paying for subscriptions. I too, find the whole process vague & quite maddening! This wasn't so dad-blasted complex, 10 years ago.

I'm a video professional, & the same thing has happened with video editing platforms (Avid/Adobe) switching to a subscription model - I find that those subscriptions are "The gift that keeps on giving"!

George,

Thank you for this information. The softsynth looks like it's well worth the money. I remember looking at a hardware version of this a few years ago and tossing up whether to get it. I had no idea that Roland had captured it in VSTi/DXi format.

Regards,
Noel

Hi Paul and Mike,

My TTS-1.dll is in...

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Shared DXi\TTS-1

It's an installation from 2012 so that might not be today's path. What I suggest is to use Microsoft's search function to locate any "TTS-1" (without inverted commas) on your system.

Because the TTS-1 synth is a DXi (and not a VSTi), it should show up automatically in BIAB in the MIDI driver VSTi/DXi choices after BIAB is restarted. Just double-check that BIAB is set to scan the registry for DXi software. (See image below.)

Regards,
Noel

I downloaded the TTS1 recently from Bandlab.
It comes with Bandlab Cakewalk as a free download.
There is a download button on the main page https://www.bandlab.com/products/cakewalk
That will install the bandlab assistant. One has to register an account in Bandlab.
From the bandlab assistant one need to login and from there one can download Cakewalk which includes the TTS1.
On my W11 PC it landed on C:/program/Cakewalk/SharedDXi/TTS-1/TTS1-dll

Then I had to select TTS1 in BIAB from the MIDI audio driver setup in the Syntheziser/soundcard option menue (TTS1 appers in the list of options)

I can't remember if I let TTS1 stay in the Cakewalk folder or if I also copied into some BIAB folder.

Tts1 is a dxi synth
Biab will find it automatically. Look in the drop down menu next to reroute midi to dxi/vst synth

Thanks for getting back, @Noel96! Yep - I purchased BIAB 2022 (NOT 2021, per my Subject) via the PGMusic website, I've activated BIAB, but don't see a way of independently activating RealBand... I assumed that it activated with BIAB.

I installed to a hard drive on my PC, but not C:, an SSD, for fast booting (but kind-of small).
I haven't figured-out how to add images to these posts from a local source (Enter an Image button asks for an URL), but I'll assure that BIAB & RB both have the proper locations entered, for both RealTracks & RealDrums.

I again also did perform another database rebuild, but am still getting an annoying yellow box in the lower right saying saying that the specified RealTracks (& sometimes RealDrums) are not found. There's a pile of folders in both the RealTracks (215 folders) & Drums (134 folders) subfolders, which are under the proper bb folder - same drive. These subfolders break-out into a bunch of .BT1, .WAV & .WMA files in bb|Drums folder - .BT1 & .WMA files in bb|RealTracks folder.

FWIW: I'm newly-retired, so I thought I'd re-acquaint myself with playing music again, after many years without... That's when I discovered that BIAB 12 wasn't going to work-out for my current computer situation... which worked great, back then... I'm getting old, it all seems way too complex now!!

Growing pains, I guess.

Hey Noel, you are correct of course.

Cakewalk by Bandlab has had a web based installer stored on Google Drive +++ HERE +++. The web based installer bypasses the requirement use Bandlab Assistant. After the initial download and installation, Cakewalk by Bandlab can be updated from within the program.

Background:
Bandlab Assistant allowed Cakewalk to be quickly integrated into the Bandlab Technologies umbrella. Bandlab Technologies manages the Bandlab Assistant from Singapore while Cakewalk by Bandlab is based in Boston, MA, USA. Time zone restraints made it difficult to quickly resolve issues. The web based installer is maintained by Cakewalk.

The issues surrounding a high quality virtual sound canvas integrated with BIAB (as it should be) goes back 20+ years and is extremely frustrating. It is inconceivable to think that PG Music do not realize that a solid sound canvas is essential for an app such as this. We have TTS -1 actively supported by Dr Gannon but it must be scrounged from the Bandlab/Cakewalk platform and installed when unnecessary. Forte seemed to die a 32bit death? Sforzando (another web freebie) was added as a feature!! Some styles still require an Amplitube freebie??!! To crown it all PG Music advertise a Download Manager as a highlighted upgrade for 2022 - many software apps by default added that capability to the run of the mill setup process years ago? ... and we still don't get a solid sound canvas for BIAB/RealBand!

i think you are being a little harsh on PG Music as you'll find that synthfont64 is supplied with BIAB - give it a try - as a GM synth its already set up if you select the vst..........i'm not at my music pc to give you the exact file location but if you search for synthfont64.* your pc might find it in the BB directory

Hi Jon, since you're newly retired and been away from music for some time, I'll try to catch you up.

The Sound Canvas VSC is over 30 years old and Roland stopped supporting it years ago which is why there is no 64 bit version. PG has absolutely nolthing to do with it, it's unfair to complain to them about it. Same for the new Roland VST on the Roland Cloud site. Completely owned by Roland, how it's paid for and used is all up to them, not PG.

There are tons of good VST's available but the problem is none of them are free. They're owned by somebody and if PG were to include them they would have to pay some kind of royalty which means they would have to charge you. They're doing the best they can by linking to the old TTS-1 which is still free and is also about 30 years old and then they were able to include Sforzando which is a different kind of midi synth. It uses soundfonts and some are free and some you pay for. There is a user here who posted a soundfont that works ok, if you're interested someone will link it for you.

Here's the thing though about midi. We don't know what you expect or how picky you are. Some people here are fine with the TTS-1 and that's great. For me as a gigging musician for 50 years, it sounds pretty fake and weak to me which is not surprising since it's also very old technology. It will get you by for a quick test to hear if a midi style is what you want but nowhere near good enough for any kind of serious production even to just play for friends. A $150 Casio keyboard you can pick up at Best Buy for a grandchild sounds better than that. Of course that's my opinion, YMMV.

If you really want and need high quality synth sounds then people pay big money for big name instrument VST's. Kontakt, Steinberg, Garritan are just a few. You can start at $300-$500 but it can easily go to thousands. That's what you're looking at if you really want true high quality midi sounds.

Since PG starting producing the Real Tracks/Drums few users even care about midi any more but some do which is why Biab supports it. The poor sound quality of freebie GM softsynths is the reason the RT's were invented in the first place for the large majority of users. The total number of RT's is in the thousands now in every style of music you can think of. Since you've not used Biab for years maybe you're not familiar with the RT's? If so, you may find you don't care about midi any more.

What you may not realize yet is with Biab 2022 PG has created playable Real Tracks That's probably the single best thing they've done since the RT's were invented 12 years ago. The big complaint against the RT's is you cannot make them play a specific riff or bass line or guitar lick to fit a certain song you're trying to put together because they're audio files, not midi. You can now alter what an RT plays by using either the Piano Roll window or Editible Notation. PG just posted new vids showing how it works. Not all RT's can do this yet but they've started with 50 and more will be created going forward.

Catching up with digital audio music production after being away for years can be a challenge but now that you're retired what better time to learn something new? Yes, Biab is way more complex now but so is getting players together, rehearshing them then paying for studio time. Go for it and have some fun!

You mentioned you can't post pictures. You have to use the full Reply window you get by clicking on Reply, not by simply typing in the box at the end of the thread. In that Reply window is File Manager. Click on that and you can Browse to wherever you stored a screenshot. You can do multiple pics at once, when you're done hit Attach. If you hold down the Windows Key and then hit PrintScreen it automatically puts it into a Screenshot folder under Pictures in your Windows Directory. The only gotcha in using the File Manager is the pics don't show up in the Preview, you can only see them after you Submit it.

Bob

You've got it all backwards Roy. I know it sort of "looks" like PG is supporting or is affiliated with all these DXi's and VST's but they have nothing to do with them. For the TTS-1 all Peter is doing is letting everybody know a half decent GM plugin is available at Bandlab. That's it. As for Forte that's another one that came and went and nobody has heard anything about it in at least 10 years. I do know when it first came out all the guy did was find free samples on the web and put them into this simple DXi program he created. And it was only 32 bit. It can be a real challenge to remake a plugin to 64 bit. If there's no money in it, why would someone bother? He sold quite a few of them to us users for $39.95 I think and then as the years went by, no updates, no communication, no nothing. For all I know he died in a car crash.

The Sforzando is basically the same thing just in sfz format. You can find free soundfonts on the web and load them in. That's all Forte did at the time. People think there's some huge market for GM soundsets. 95% of music producers including guys like us sitting at home messing around could care less about GM or General Midi. All it's really used for is for people who send midi files to each other. If one guy used a Roland synth and the other guy uses Yamaha, they're not compatible so GM was created. works fine as far as it goes but GM is very limited. It only has 128 sound patches and maybe a dozen of those are sound effects like hand claps, helicopter, door slam, dog barking, etc. It's for gaming and really simple midi files. A full blown synth like one of my hardware keyboards or something like Kontakt has literally thousands of patches. Want an overdriven guitar, they'll have 20, 30 or even more to choose from. GM gives you a grand total of 1 as in ONE. Same for an acoustic piano, a Rhodes, basses, whatever. I think GM gives you 3 basses, an acoustic, a finger pick and a fretless. That's it.

I'm not knocking anyone, many Biab users only have basic requirements for midi. As long as it sounds decent they don't care about having a choice between three Yamaha models of piano, 3 sizes of Steinway, a couple of Baldwins both full grand and uprights and other makes, 100 different types of guitars including 6 string, 12 string, Dobro's hardbody, semi hollow, from all the manufacturers like Gibson, Gretch, Martin, Fender whatever. These are not just names for show, they actually recorded all those instruments and converted them for use in their proprietary software.

That level of choice is not for everybody and that's fine. If you're one of those then use the TTS-1 or Sforzando, either one could be all you need.

Bob

Good Day John - many users (maybe just me?) sometimes use a mix of Realtracks/Realdrums and MIDI to effect the music creation process. BIAB is music creation software and it should not be necessary for licensed users to scrounge around to obtain a fair quality integrated GM sound. PG still markets and sells MIDI styles and should support the styles with a decent GM sound set. That is merely my opinion as a licensed user - as an example I have not indicated in the post that the acoustic guitar should sound like a 1937 D45 Martin or the acoustic piano like a Steinway or whatever. Those users would then target the Garritan's etc. Just a solid integrated GM sound set would do fine.
Regards
Roy

Bob, I wanted to thank you for your last 2 posts. You spent a huge amount of time writing these. I found them incredibly valuable for orientation, history and distinctions about what features might or might not be valuable for certain users. As a new user of BIAB this was invaluable. It was the RT sound quality that attracted me and encouraged me to buy BIAB. Then as a newbie I have been trying to understand what all the MIDI stuff was about (I have no history of exposure to MIDI in the past other than experiencing the "sound" of it in simple MIDI backing track programs).

So again I want to acknowledge you and thank you for those 2 very interesting and helpful posts. At least for me they were a real contribution and really helped me know where to concentrate! Super cool.

Thanks. This issue with PG providing good midi sounds has been asked since I first started with Biab in 2005. 2005!! Damn...

Anyway, PG is not in the synthesizer business, they're in the music creation software business. When you look at the big name DAW's they don't provide any synths either but they are affiliated with companies that do like Steinberg, Cubase, Pro Tools etc. It's totally up to the user to decide what synths to buy to go along with the DAW software. We used to say in answer to this question that Biab has no sounds of it's own and technically that is still true but when they came out with the Real Tracks/Drums that blurred that line. If you're talking midi only, then it's literally true. The only thing that actually included with Biab is the Sforzando plugin and even then you have to install it. Many don't bother because they have other sources for sounds.

Bob

This is not an illogical opinion it's just that PG is not a synthesizer company. They must "scrounge around" as you said to find something that's free. To give you an idea of how popular GM is they used to sell the Bandstand GM synth by Native Instruments for $100 I think it was but it was discontinued. They also used to sell the Edirol Hypercanvass which was a physical disc in a box and is basically the TTS-1 now, for 50 bucks or something and that was discontinued too. As far as I know now there is no really good quality software GM synth available anywhere.

There is a few hardware synths with good GM sounds and there was one that PG used to sell called the Ketron SD4. Very good sounds but it's a module that you physically connect to your computer and then you have to run individual speaker cables out to your monitoring system. And it cost $500. Ketron has a new one here:

https://www.thomannmusic.com/ketron_sd_1000.htm

$422 is a great price and if the sound quality is the same as the original unit it's really good. You should consider it if you can live with a physical desktop module. The sounds are way better than any of the softwares we're talking about.

IKMutimedia (SampleTank) is software and had or maybe still does have a GM soundset called Sonicsynth but it's not a standalone synth, it's a sound library you install into Sample Tank. You can get an old version of ST for free and then buy that GM soundset but even then you can't just plug it into Biab and you don't have to do anything. You still have to do some configuration for each song you want to use it with. This is why I only heard of a very few people using it.

GM is not popular other than with our little corner of the musical universe. We're not a large enough group to support a whole market so there is nothing else that I know of other than the TTS-1 and Sforzando for free midi sounds and PG does not own either of them. Since they're free they can include Sforzando for you to install with no royalties but obviously Bandlab won't let PG just include the TTS-1, they are willing to let users get it for free but they want you to sign up with them first for obvious reasons. You might decide to buy soimething from them.

Anyther possibility some here like is Steinberg's Halion SE. It has a decent sounding GM bank but you have to do the same thing required by Bandlab. You create an account with Steinberg, jump through a few hoops, get it authorized and then you can download and install it. And you'll be getting friendly emails from Steinberg forever touting all their other paid software. For me since I'm a big geek anyway and Steinberg is one of the biggest music production software companies around, I like seeing what they have but maybe you don't.

Good midi sounds has been a problem for PG for as long as I've been using Biab and I'm sure that's a big reason why the RT's were created. Now you have the ability to use Playable Real Tracks so you can make them do what you want. That doesn't help with the Biab midi styles though, you still need some kind of synth for those and I think PG is running out of options. I understand what you wrote saying you don't need the high end sounds, just a good midi sound set is good enough. The problem is there a big gap between the the freebies and the Ketron. The other software synths don't even offer GM other than that Sample Tank soundbank.

Unless PG wants to create a whole new division of the company and write one themselves the only choices for free are these. You may not understand that sampling physical instruments to create the samples to use in a synth is hugely expensive. The amount of free samples available are extremely limited. There's a big difference between an individual being allowed to download some free samples to put into the Sforzando free player for example and a commercial company asking to do it when they're going to be used to support their paid products.

Here's something that just occurred to me. Since the Playable Real Tracks are somehow tied into the Sforzando which is a midi synth and PG already has this huge library of RT's maybe the plan is over time to use those recordings to create their own GM midi patches and ultimately that will be the default synth for us to use? No idea if that's the plan but it sounds cool.

Bob

Bob, another great post for me. I spent a lot of time trying out all the options for creating MIDI sounds and asked a ton of questions on the forum. It was an interesting journey, but in the end, for my tastes, I didn't like the sounds even though each solution did sound different. Your excellent posts have explained to me why and now I am getting the big picture. Since I do not write or compose music (at this point) and I bought BIAB specifically to make great customizable backing tracks for improvisation practice and guitar technique practice, I have now realized that I can completely ignore MIDI everything for now. That is a wonderful realization on how I can focus down on what I need. So I am just going to leave the Jjazzlab sounds for MIDI in place and stop fussing around. I think for now I will simply set the defaults in my style picker to just give me RTs and nothing else. The playable RTs sound fascinating, but a "for later" feature for me.

So again your incredibly thorough posts helped clarify all of this for me. I don't think I would have gotten here without your contribution.

As for making backing tracks for my practice of all things "guitar", I am having a ball making quick tracks, and changing style to keep interest up and challenge rhythm aspects and they all sound just great through my practice studio monitors and amp sim. What a great tool for my purposes!

Bob brings up a good point and that was GM is slowly fading into the sunset. AFAIK there are no new GM soft or hard synths being produced. The only programs using GM are backing track programs, companies selling covers in MIDI, and educational programs. AFAIK the majority of MIDI users do not use GM. I have some individual sounds that are larger in size then a complete GM set.


If one wants better MIDI sounds one must learn how to add a sound to a track. If one wants that sound to come to life they must learn a few MIDI commands like CCs, Mod Wheel and Pitch Bend. Even sounds from the free Kontakt and SampleTank are better than BiaB's GM. As Bob said there are a ton of free MIDI sounds available and most all are better then BiaB's GM.

Great comments MarioD. BTW I am anxiously waiting for your next signature line joke...

Thank you for the comprehensive recollection/s of the soundfont situation wrt BIAB over the years. This has been my experience as well and it is frustrating. Hopefully the playable reatracks become the solution to the occasions where MIDI parts are handy (especially with covers). Regards, Roy