I have BIAB and Real Band 2018, using a Behringer UMC204 audio interface with Windows 10. I was sequencing a song that I created in BIAB and wanted to add more tracks, so I selected RB. Everything was going fine until, about 2 hours in, after muting/unmuting various tracks, I came upon a problem where the play/mute button shows red and has a dot in the middle of it. It will not revert to play no matter what I do. Is this normal? What can I do to solve this problem?

Hello John F,

I must admit I'm having trouble understanding what transport button you're calling the "play/mute" button. When I click on my RealBand 2019 build 3 play button the song file plays until another transport button is pressed and it has nothing to do with muting as far as I know. So I'll start by asking are you talking about the button I have marked in red in the screen shot?

Your issue reads like either the program or the song file has become seriously corrupted. However, RealBand performs backups automatically so all your work is likely not lost!

There are several steps I would try but, no matter what, the first step is to save what you have under a different name.

1) Close and reopen the program. When the program is empty, how does the play/mute button look? If it is still wonky the program likely needs to be reset.

2) Load the last file saved. Is the play/mute button wonky? If so the file is corrupted and you will need to try a back up file. Click on File > New to clear out the wonky file then click on File > "Open Special" > "Open Backup File" and load the last known good file. Does it work? Keep going between New and Back ups until you find a back up that works.

How to rest RealBand? Options > Reset To Default Settings.

Try turning the Solo button off.

I'm referring to the button on the track. It toggles between Play and Mute. The button right below it is the Solo button. Tapping the Solo button doesn't work either.

John F,

Thanks for clarifying which button you mean.

Your second post indicates rharv's suggestion for the track solo button doesn't work. Have you tried the troubleshooting steps I suggested in my original post? If so, what were the results?

The Solo Tracks button I pointed to in my image is different than the Solo button in the track controls area.

Check the one above the Track names as I alluded to. This is the one I was suggesting, not the Solo button in the track controls area.

I think they are different ways of doing similar things.

Using the Solo Tracks button at the top means whatever track(s) are highlighted will be what you are hearing.
This makes the Mute button become the dot you mentioned also, but only for applicable not selected tracks. At least that's how it works here, but I've changed the colors and the images for these buttons so my screen shots may not appear exactly like yours.

The Solo button on the controls area lets you solo multiple tracks without selecting (highlighting them). It doesn't seem to change the Mute button to a dot as much as the first way I described (the Solo Tracks button at top). Seems trivial at first, but it is a very different way of performing similar tasks, and the resulting behavior may be a bit different.

Again, I've tinkered with my graphics for the RB interface so your version will look a little different than mine, and I suppose it's possible when tinkering with these I may have inadvertently change how some behave, but that's how it works here for me currently.

Another Image showing the top Solo Tracks button and what it changes as far as these buttons. Much different than the result of using the Solo button in the track controls area .. using this method, it doesn't matter which tracks are selected. But if you are going to do a Cut or other Edit on multiple tracks, the Solo Tracks method is much better. Just depends on the end goal/need really.

When I use the track control area Solo button, the only way I can get a track to show the dot and not allow changes if is some other track somewhere is Solo'd, but I'd think you'd notice that audibly if that was the case.

Hi John,

In addition to rharv's and Jim's suggestions, if this is only affecting a single track, something else that might be worth trying is...

1. click on the problem track and press CTRL+A on the keyboard to select the track

2. press CTRL+C to copy and set the cursor to the beginning of bar -1

3. click on a blank track, and press CTRL+V to paste

4. delete the original track


The above will copy the data on the faulty track without copying the mute/unmute play state.

I've just experimented around and it seems that if one uses "Edit | Track | Duplicate" to create a second track, the mute/unmute play state is also copied from the parent track.

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: Can You Imagine? (remix)

Jim you don't get it cause it's not normal. The the TRACK MUTE is RED with an M if you mute the track the button turns GREEN with a P. Thus M=mute P=playI can't reproduce the op's issue though.