I work with Band-in-a-Box 2018 and REAPER and I’m wondering if the 2020 VST DAW plugin will output MIDI into my REAPER tracks. PG Music's tutorial video shows the VST generating audio only; I want it to generate MIDI for REAPER. Can it do this?

By the way, I'm posting here because thus far neither PG Music's online chat nor e-mail support appears to know the answer. I tried 1-866-983-2474, but when I called I got a recorded message saying that PG Music no longer offers phone support.

Thanks.

The answer is yes. But it will use its GM for sound when auditioning a track. You have to drag and drop into your DAW to hear your better sounding synth.

One of my requests for the VSTi is for it to be able to attach each MIDI track to a DAW track. That way you can hear your BiaB tracks being played by your DAW sounds and not the included GM.

Thanks MarioD. I currently use BnB 2018 to export MIDI to a file, which I then import into REAPER, but that's time-consuming, especially when I'm frequently updating the BnB file. I guess I'm hoping the VST will expedite this process.

Hi Mario, the plugin should output midi to the track its on so if you place a synth after the biab plugin on the same track, you should be able to hear that midi file played through your synth. Hope this helps!

I would love to see a video on that process.

I'll second that.

Since when? Or is the operative word “should”. Will check this out in the morning. Fingers-crossed

OK, I tried and failed (v2.6.8). It will take a better man than I to get this working the way it "should". Good luck.

Hi

I don’t have Reaper, but I do use Bandlabs Cakewalk.
Not certain that this is what you want to do but it works fine for me.

First I open Cakewalk on a new blank project.
This is set up to use my Coolsoft Virtual Synth and a Yamaha xg sound font for midi.
Next inset BIAB Daw as a soft synth
Open an existing BIAB MGU (all midi style and melody).in the Daw.
Important: GENERATE the song
The midi tracks for all the style and melody should now show in the Daw (bright yellow).
Now I can drag each midi track to Cakewalk and it will put them on a midi track for me. Depending on your Daw you may have to make empty midi tracks to drag to.

Now the song plays as midi via my Coolsoft synth in Cakewalk.

Have fun
Mike

I'm a song writer wannabe and Band-in-a-Box 2018 is an invaluable creative tool. I use it primary to generate rhythm, drums and bass line ideas for my songs. The style choices are really great!

Again, when I find BnB solution I like, I export it as MIDI, or sometimes XML, and then import that into REAPER. I then need to assign instruments and whatnot to the BnB MIDI tracks. My primary interest in BnB 2020 is the VST and whether that will streamline my workflow. While the audio quality of the RealTracks is astounding, I prefer to work with MIDI tracks which I can edit post-BnB.

HI

Well I’m not certain that you will gain much from the Daw (shock horror!)
To my mind for what you want to do, get midi tracks from Biab into any daw the drop box in Biab top left should suffice I would have thought.
Ducking for cover.
Mike

Mike, that is not what Adar said. We can drag the midi from the VST to a separate track and apply any sound in Reaper, but he said


That don't work here, or at least I don't know how to make it work that way.

I can't make it work either!

Adar, in all due respect I don't think we are talking about the same thing. What I would love to see is to play a song from the VSTi and have the sounds generated from my DAW tracks, i.e. not from the included VSTi GM sounds. I would like the VSTi to work as a MIDI input device, much like a MIDI keyboard controller. This way I could work with the VSTi and hear exactly what the instrument would sound like prior to dragging and dropping the MIDI track into my DAW. If I could render the track from MIDI to audio without dragging and dropping the tracks would even be a better situation.

If this is what you mean would you please give this ol' phart some step by step instructions on how to do this. For the record I use Studio One Pro as my DAW.

Yes sir, MarioD. Thank you.

Video: Playback Audio/MIDI Tracks from Plugin

The Plugin did not originally sync play the tracks in it, I had to push to get that implemented.
Also on that point, if the DAW cursor goes past 255 bars with the BiabVST in Reaper it will freeze and crash.
To be able to go beyond 255 bar limit in a song you need an option in the BiabVST so when the DAW ppqpos gets to 1020 (bar 256) @ 4/4 or 765 @ 3/4 the output ppqpos will start count @ 8 for 4/4 or @ 6 for 3/4
this will allow for the 2 bar count-in in the BiabVST
so after it plays bar 255 in the first instance it will start play of bar 1 in the second instance with the rest of the song (that has this option checked). You could even add 255 to the bar numbers in instance 2

This will solve the problem also with Adobe Audition that sends the sync (ppqpos) 3 beats out.



To make this easier I posted a mock up of how the Plugin needs to be with solo & mute buttons, send midi channel select and (down the track) be able to add a vst within the plugin for midi tracks same as was just implemented in VSTSynthFont by Ken (whom by the way offered to do the GUI mixer programming for the Plugin) because Trygve "Leo" Larsen suggested it would be a good idea to be able to select a vsti as well as a soundfont for midi channels.
I used the VSTSynthFont mixer as a rough example of how you can fit easy obvious things on a track that any user will understand without all the worldwide confusion of the last year with the Plugin, I was the one that had to explain the complicated method of syncing, muting and soloing tracks to other uses and it was hard enough for me to work it out as it is.

It would be absolutely great if someone else could come up with fixes, ideas, implementations and improvements then I could really get away and have a long holiday as I have given out too much of my life for the last decade.
http://www.synthfont.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?p=1272#p1272

Is this the answer??

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=593412#Post593412

It would be really useful to have some video tutorial examples for this - say ( hint) for Cubase and Ableton ?

When I want to hear midi in Reaper I normally place an instrument like Cakewalk's 'TTS-1 DXi' after the plugin on the same track and then midi output from the plugin is picked up by that instrument. Pipeline showed yet another way that this could be achieved in Reaper. Thank you Pipeline for providing a video demonstrating how to send midi to virtual instruments. Hope this helps!