I work full time and I seldom have the opportunity to sit down with my music and really work on it. Hopefully that will change when I retire in a few years.

So I admit, I am not a constant user of Band In A Box or Real Band. Still, it is incredibly frustrating to try and do two very basic functions and neither works as described.

First, I tried generating RealBand tracks from a simple chord progression. I used the style called British Invasion Medium. I generated the RealBand tracks, and got only drums and bass. No guitar, and no message as to what happened. I use this same style in Band in A Box, and there is a guitar part.

Ignoring that minor setback, I decided to work with the tracks that I got. I figured I would just imporvise some live recording later. So to practice my live guitar, I decided to use the LOOP feature in RealBand playback. I turned on Looping, and after the first pass through the 8 bar chord progression, the marker returns to the beginning just fine, but there is no sound. Looping plays the passage once and then there is silence.

After about 4 hours of trying to diagnose both these issues, I gave up and watched basketball. Based on all the raves I see in this forum, apparently most people are satisfied.

My personal experience has not been as good. Anyone have any ideas as to why the RealBand playback looper only generates sound on the first pass? I am a geezer at age 66. Sometimes I think I should just go back to my trusty guitar amp, and analog tape deck, and 20 year old drum machine..

Greetings anojette99!

Do you mind telling us a little more about your computer and which Band-in-a-Box package you have?

Is your computer running Windows 7, 8, 8.1 or 10? How much ram does the computer have?

Do you have the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK or Audiophile Band-in-a-Box package?

What release, 2019 or earlier?

As Jim has mentioned, knowing what version you have is important to helping you solve the problem.

Also, did you use any settings such as shots, holds, pushes, etc.?

Lastly, if you could go to the link below and follow the directions on how to create and to post an image of your computer's desktop with BIAB open and the chord progression you were using, we'll all be able to see it and it will help us get an idea of what might be happening.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=472139#Post472139

Regards,
Noel

in RealBand, open the StylePicker, select British Invasion Medium, load the Demo Song, generate and play. The Style has two guitar parts and they should generate with the demo song.

Don't feel lonely. I have also noticed that RB does things that don't make sense. Or, sometimes a function works and other times it doesn't.

That said, the people on the forum are really good with these programs. If you give them the info they request, they can usually help.

Also, one forum member has posted about having RB revert to default by
deleting two files. I think that was David Snyder, and he said he was helped by Kent at PG. David says RB works much better for him since he did that. You can get the names of those files from him or from Kent.

2b

Off the top of my head the files would be Realband.ini and RB.CFG

I prefer renaming them rather than deleting them, then Realband recreates these configuration files when restarted.
By renaming them instead you can always rename them back in case of issues.

Following up on what Rharv said, some years ago, in 2012 actually, another forum member, Silvertones, put together a ".bat" file that would automatically reset RealBand to its default settings. That file is here:

Here's the link: http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=357193&site_id=1

Another forum, Pipeline, detailed the actual coding lines of that file with a "copy" line added. Here is his post:
______________________

you can add a copy command to that bat file also, I keep working backups of them with all the custom settings in, in another folder "Config Backup", so you don't have to go through all the settings again each time it crashes.
If you want a full reset just use the del lines.
You can also right click Reset RealBand.bat Run as administrator if you have problems.

del "c:\RealBand\RB.CFG"
del "c:\RealBand\RealBand.INI"
copy "c:\RealBand\Config Backup\RB.CFG" "c:\RealBand\RB.CFG"
copy "c:\RealBand\Config Backup\RealBand.INI" "c:\RealBand\RealBand.INI"
PAUSE
________________________

Hope this helps.

Jeff

I still use it.

probably still watching the game.....

You don't have to do that anymore. That function is under OPTIONS.

Also, if you just delete those 2 files, Real Band writes them new after you restart the program. All those steps are frankly redundant. If you copy your old configurations, you are not resetting to original. You are reverting to YOUR last configuration, not PGs, and if your last configuration was the issue, you are copying files that were the problem. In server land that is called back-revving. When you load ver x.y and it flops, you back rev to ver x.x to go back a step.

Here is my cribsheet that I use for Biab but I assume it's the same for RB

https://www.youtube.com/user/pgmusicinc
This is just a product promotion video but it has kids in it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbPCmnohyhE&list=PL4C70FC9DF781ECDA
Hot Keys
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EoF1BFZSzY&list=PL4C70FC9DF781ECDA
Bar changes,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKq3migNl1E
The Soloist Overview
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfSS4iH5irI
Auto Harmonies
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.packages.htm
The various packages available. You have to talk to them about what you do with it. It goes on sale for half price at the end of the year during Christmas time. But since that time passed the sale is off. You might talk to them and see if they'll give you the Christmas discount.
https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htm
Band in a box video's Their video page

https://www.pgmusic.com/videos.realband.htm
Generating chords from a bar or a beat in RB