I have often experienced problems with the save process in RealBand, but this time it really has tipped me over.

I have imported an SGU file from BIAB with the aim of creating extra track prior to moving on to Ableton. Having added my new tracks and tweeked them I am ready for the selective transfer to Ableton.

Only now I seem to be experiencing problems when I try to save the RealBand project as an SEQ file.

As soon as I get the the basic song generated in RealBand I save it as an SEQ file. RealBaqnd does not save the file with the SEQ extension, it requires me to add this (which I often forget). But anyway, that's another issue. Once I've saved my seq file I can now start to add and audition new tracks, creating midi tracks using other styles etc.

I save after each new track is added, but after a couple of tracks when I click on Save, the song is saved and audio rendered then I get an error message telling me that there is an error in renaming the <file>.TMP to <file>.seq. I can't see what this problem is.

Any help please before I ditch RealBand for good.

Thanks

Where is your Realband Temp folder?

Are you running as Admin (sounds like it may be a permissions issue)?
Are you using the feature to 'Make all BB tracks regular tracks' in the Track right-click path?
This speeds up saving in my experience.

To me it sounds like whatever user you are logged in as when you run RB may not have access/permissions to modify the temp audio directory.

Also, there is a newer checkbox in the Prefs-File area to make the default file Save format as Seq.
I don't recall having to add the extension, are you able to view other file extensions in your Save/Open dialogues?

rharv, thank you very much for your considered and detailed reply. Here is how I work with RealBand that has given me rise to so many issues.

1.
I am running as Admin. Both BIAB and RB start up that way. I've always done this since the early days, I can't even remember why I needed to do this in the first place.

2.
Yes, I am using the feature to 'Make all BB tracks regular tracks'. I've been doing this for a while also, although I'm not entirely sure of the advantages (or at least what I lose by choosing this option).

3.
My temp audio folder was in my Windows Profile area for which I should have full permissions, but I modified this path to that of a TEMP folder in the RealBand folder (although this made no difference to the problems I have been having)

4.
The preference to save files in the SEQ format is selected in my preferences and this has been the case long before the time of my present issues. I've never been able to save a file RealBand as a SEQ file without explicitly including the extension (SEQ). I have remarked on this problem in the past and I got the same response that you gave me. So something is amiss for me.


One thing I did think of was that the file paths to my songs might be too long perhaps. So I changed to a folder at the root of the drive and this is my process with a brand new SGU file in this new (empty) folder.

1.
Having created the song in BIAB and save this as an SGU in this new empty folder.
Closed BIAB

2. Open RB
I open the SGU file that was saved in 1 and the tracks are all generated OK
Audition the song in RealBand and all good (in the sense that it worked, not the character of the song - lol).
I save the file which opens the Save dialogue. The dialogue box shows the name of the SGU file but with no extension, but the Save As file type is listed as SEQ. When I OK in these circumstances I get a message box asking me about choosing Melody and Soloist tracks. This is new to me, it used to just save with no extension. In this message box the Melody Track is set to BB Melody (MIDI) and the Soloist track is set to BB Soloist (MIDI). I have no idea what I am being asked for here so I click OK anyway and I'm given a yellow warning that audio is not saved to SGU and MGU files.
I now look in the source folder and I see that the file has been save as an SGU! It must have taken the name from the title of the original song rather than its filename because that is the name it has now been save as. At least it hasn't overwritten my original SGU.

I delete this recently save SGU file and start again.
Open the SGU file in RB and generate
Save again, but this time append the SEQ extension and click OK.
Now the seq file is saved as expected and all goes well.

Now I change to a different style so that I can add a new midi drum truck (I have done this many times prior to this update)
The new midi track is generated and I like the result.
Now I simply save the song. It does save as an SEQ but I get this error that I made my original post about. This error states that:

Error renaming Grace.SGU.TMP to Grace.SGU.seq

I look in the folder and I note that the TMP file is there OK (not in the TEMP folder where I thought RB was set to hold it). I wonder why it can't rename it. Is it because the there is another SEQ file of the same name there? Surely it should just have deleted it!

I test my theory. I feel safe in simply deleting the original seq file because I have the original SGU to fall back on.
Now I change the TMP extension to SEQ.

Back to RB and select New to clear the existing stuff.
Now I open the newly renamed TMP that is now an SEQ and, what do you know, I have the song as I was expecting it without all this messing about. I audition the song and all is OK.

So, I must have a setting somewhere that is telling RB not to overwrite a file that already has the same name.


At least now I have tracked down the problem (and learnt a few things on the way). Now I just need to find out how I can fix it.

Sorry I've used all this verbiage.

Any further help would be great.

Thanks

Just my 2 cents, I never have to specify the extension, RB always saves as SEQ for me. So there is something going on in your installation that I cannot duplicate. Sorry no answers, but a definite, I can't make it do it.

Yeah,
this seems like an issue unique to jonel.
I'll try to escalate it to dev, but it still sounds like *some kind* of permissions issue to me. Errors renaming a file (or changing it) are often permissions related in my experience.

Are your security settings above normal?
Maybe it's actually Windows trying to protect against a program renaming a TMP file .. or your antivirus.
Are you online at the time?

I'm running out of ideas, in case it isn't obvious. Since nobody else seems to have the issue, and can't replicate it, it becomes much harder to solve.

OK, it does seem that I am the only one suffering this issue and I also agree that it does look like a permissions problem. So I tried another few things:

1.
I re-checked that I was operating with Admin permissions and that RB itself was running 'as administrator'. Both are in the affirmative.

2.
I copied my song folder on to a USB device formatted as FAT32 so that I could at least ignore the permission. I loaded the SGU file and then saved. The save was supposed to default to SEQ but I'm asked about the Melody and Soloist tracks. I just OK to this and the file is saved, but there is no extension on the file, but it looks the size of the SEQ file so I tried to re-load it. Because there is no extension the file is not listed in the open dialog. I open the folder in Windows and manually add the extension. Now I can see the extension and open it. Yes, this is the tracks of the song I'd saved.I save this again and I see the components being saved, but once again I get the error regarding the inability of RB to overwrite the existing SEQ with the newly generated TMP file.
Someone mentioned about the possibility of my anti-virus so I disable it, removed the SEQ and TMP files, re-generated and saved. It's still the same.
I also opened up Event Viewer to look at Security, Application and System Logs, but no entries related to permissions failures.

3.
Now I move to my laptop, I install my 2021 version and set it up. I've now gone from Windows 10 to Windows 7 and I repeat all of item 2) with the same result, including the use of the FAT32 USB drive.

So basically I'm really getting nowhere, but at least I can work around the problem by deleting the old SEQ file before I save, a bit inconvenient but it works.

I have to say that the inability of RB to remove the old SEQ before it changes the newly saved TMP to an SEQ has only arisen since the 2021 version was installed.

But the requirement to actually enter the extension when saving for the first time as an SEQ after loading as an SGU has, in my recollection, always been the case.

Since no one else is suffering from this issue then something must be wrong on my side so I will now try to discover the problem. But I do thank all you good people who have given me suggestions for moving forward.

I wish I could be more help but I just can't seem to duplicate what you are seeing.

Just a thought;
When Realband saves, it first makes a backup in your backup folder.

Is this possibly where the permissions issue lies?
Does this folder have the proper permissions?

It should be a folder named RBBackup on whatever drive you are opening/saving the file to.

Look in that folder and see what the most recent modified date is for any BKS files .. did it create the backup before attempting to overwrite the existing file?

And a very good thought too. Although it only partially gets me forward. I deleted all the files from the backup folder and then I made a SEQ file save. The save was successful in that no errors were generated. I looked in the backup folder and the backup was now present and the new SEQ file was also was also available.

I now go and save the SEQ file again, RB goes through the process of saving and then, at the end of the progress bar, the error message regarding TMP and SEQ was generated. I looked in the backup folder and only the previous backup file was present - which is what you suspected.

So I delete the backup file from the folder and then save the SEQ again. This time the save is error free and the backup file is now in its folder and the new SEQ file is also present.

I now go back to RB and disable the SEQ backup feature. Now I can save SEQs until the cows come home with no errors. I'm quite happy with this as long as I remember that backups are not being made.

So I'm not sure why this might be the case, I certainly can't find any settings that would help.

Thanks for the steer in that direction though.

Is Windows set to show file extension ?
It sounds like it's something to do the extension.
This is what I get below if I don't add .SEQ to the file name it still saves it with .SEQ
This is in the 64bit version.

Hi Pipeline,
Yes it does that with me as well. It shows that the file type being saved is SEQ but only the filename appears in the upper box with no extension. I know this doesn't mean that it will not actually be saved as an SEQ. In my case if I follow through with this action then the file is saved with no extension at all and so is not listed in the available file types when I come to try and open it again. Also, if I do this the first time after loading an SGU file then I am also asked for Melody and Soloist track details and I don't really know what it's asking me so I just OK it.

If it's asking for Melody and Soloist track it is saving as SGU.
The version I'm using is 2021 (1) 64bit.
Have you tried the BBPlugin in Ableton ?

I suspected that this was the case. Yes, I have tried the BBPlugin, but that's it,

I have moved quite a bit forward now. I have ascertained that the problem IS connected with my Backup folder. It appears that RB fails to store a backup after the first backup file is stored in the folder. My songs are on a different drive to the RealBand folder so the backups are stored at a folder on the root of the song drive.

When I looked in this folder there were clusters of 5 backups, all nicely sequentially numbered. My preferences allows for 5 backups which I assume is the default value. So the system has been working. Listing these backups by date descending I noticed that the only clusters of sequential files were those just prior to my installation of the 2021 version of BB/RB.

This concurs with my experience of the particular issue that I posted about in the first instance. So, what is happening as far as I can see is this:

I save the SEQ file for the first time generated from my SGU. A backup is stored in the backup folder and original SEQ file can now be replaced by the TMP that represents the current saved SEQ.

When I save again, even without modifications, RB tries to store the SEQ as the next sequential backup but is failing to do that. As a result the original SEQ file is not deleted and the TMP file remains in the songs folder. As a workaround I can delete the SEQ and simply rename the extension of the TMP file to SEQ.

But the workaround is quite inconvenient so I went to preferences and reduced the maximum number of backups to just 1. RB is quite happy now because it always moves the last backup to the Recycle bin and I've always got a current backup in the backup folder. I can live with that, but I just wonder that I am the only one suffering from this problem.

It's definitely not a permissions problem because I did the same thing on my laptop using a FAT32 USB as a song and backup folder with exactly the same results. In any case the backup system was working normally prior to the installation of 2021.

The BBPlugin basically works the same way as RealBand but in the DAW of your choice.
RealBand has C:\RealBand\Data\bbw2_64.exe
that is just Band In A Box running silently in the background that generates up the tracks into RealBand's temp folder.

The BBPlugin works the same way and has bbw4_64.exe running silently in the background generating the tracks up into C:\bb\BBPlugin\SavedTracks.
So you should be able to accomplish all you need using the BBPlugin in Ableton if that's your goto DAW.
There are just so many features been added to the Plugin to let you do all you need right there in your DAW.
I think to get away from stress and frustration it is well worth looking deeper into the BBPlugin.

I've just had a look at the plugin in Ableton. It certainly looks impressive but there is nothing I can find in 2021 Manual that explains it in any detail. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough.

It's pretty simple, there is a VST Page link for at the top of this page that has videos etc..
Here's a few basic pics:

more..

Thanks Pipeline,
I have had a closer look and I agree, this is very convenient to use and even does Session View in Live which is fantastic because I tried recently to emulate this behaviour.
One thing that I find missing, although that me musing it, is the following excellent feature in RealBand.

When I have imported my song into RealBand from BiaB I like to add a further number of RealTrack and Midi tracks based on styles different from the original style from BiaB. I can do this easily in RealBand and, when it is saved as an SEQ, I can go back and regenerate the tracks individually or as a group and RealBand remembers all the styles used.

So, its fiddly compared to having it all in the DAW but much more flexible. I'm assuming the plugin is intended to bypass RealBand completely.

Yes it will bypass RealBand if you have your own DAW you to prefer to work in thus cutting out the stress.
You can do all you described in the BBPlugin.
You can load as many BBPlugins in your DAW as you like,
each can have it's own style, and you can have a lot more than 48 tracks.
You can even have a BBPlugin for each song section by clicking the little arrow under the Sync button and set it to the bar you want it to start sync play on, you would also remove the Lead-In or Ending or both depending on the song section. This will also give you more than 255 bars.
There is an issue with the current version that is cutting part of the last beat off when Ending is un-checked, but that should be fixed in the next release hopefully.

Now that does look like something I want to get to know. But you seem to imply that I can use the plugin actually in RealBand. Or am I misunderstanding.

Also, with such a vast range of features, which is there nothing in the manual?

If you use RealBand you are limited to 48 tracks,
if you use the BBPlugin in your DAW you can have as many RT/RD/Midi/SMT/Loops/UserTracks as you like simply by adding another instance of the BBPlugin.
You can use the BBPlugin in RealBand to give more tracks BUT the whole idea is to get out of RealBand into your DAW you love.

The pics above are the manual, it has not got all these menus like Biab RealBand, what you see that's is all there is to it.
File > open SGU > Generate button up the top, solo mute any tracks.
If you have tracks in Ableton when you hit play the BBPlugin tracks will play along in sync.
Once the track/s you like are dragged into Ableton you can mute the track or un sync the BBPlugin or generate up another style.

If you open the file \bb\Demos\MIDI Styles Demos\Styles00\ZZJAZZ.MG1 into RealBand, do you have the same problem when saving this file as .SEQ?

I went at the task of loading 2 copies of the plugin on their respective tracks and this was successful. I loaded the song on to the first copy and all OK. When I try this with the second copy (the one in which I will change the style) then it takes forever and doesn't finish. I tried installing the plugin on one track, loading the song and then duplicating the track. This was OK but song wasn't there, when I tried to looadit it, again, took forever with no success.

So I decided to try this with Reaper and got the same result.

So I can find a good use for this certainly, but it's back to RealBand for the other stuff like style variations within a song.

Thanks for all your help.

Hi Andrew,
This works perfectly with regard to how it used to work. I don't put the extension on and it does save it as an SEQ WITH the extension appended. No errors; with the SEQ saved on the same drive as the RealBand folder the RBBackup folder in the RealBand folder gets all the backups sequentially to the limit allowed and the oldest file flushed to Recycle.
Saving on another drive does the same but the backups are stored on a local RBBackup folder at the root of that drive.

I now go back to my original song and load the SGU file as created by BB. Generate all the tracks and then click Save. I navigate to the folder where I saved that previous successful file. I don't enter an extension so I am asked for Melody and Soloist details and I click OK and it saves as an SGU, despite the fact that the dialog says saving as type SEQ.

I go back and save again, but this time I append the SEQ extension and it works just fine.

Back to RealBand and one more save, this also works fine

Another save and I get the error and the TMP will not overwrite the SEQ.

The first SEQ save didn't backup the SEQ because there was nothing to back up

The second save made a backup in RBBackup and replaced the SEQ file with the TMP

The third save tried to backup the old SEQ but for some reason couldn't and so would not replace the SEQ file with the temp.

So what is the difference between these two types?

If I'm understanding correctly, you do not experience the saving problem when you load the demo song I suggested. Can you please attach or link to an .SGU or .MGU file that you have the problem with? There may be some specific characteristic of it that is exposing this problem. You can attach it using the "File Manager".

Hi Andrew,
That is indeed the case. The file that you told me to load did not cause any problems whatsoever, but this files (any quite a few others) does.

There is an issue with the current version not closing bbw4 in the background.
So until that is fixed, here is a solution:
if you have www.autohotkey.com already installed just run the .ahk script if not you can use the compiled exe, just go to tab 2.
You can also go to you Task Manager > Details tab and end task the bbw4_64.exe
Just close bbw4 after or before you select an action then it will free it up for the other instance.
I have reported this so hopefully there should be a fix soon.

Make sure you save regularly so if you forget to close and in stalls you can go back.

* remove the .mp4 from BB Quick Menu & Mixer-64.zip.mp4 and unzip

Thanks pipleline. The plugin looks good and I've decided to tackle it. One thing though, In RealBand, when a RealTrack has a RealChart I can get RealBand to generate some midi for the RealTrack also. Although this midi is not meant specifically to drive an instrument, it does often contain some useful stuff that can be used in DAW tracks. I'm not sure that the plugin can make use of the 'Chart' data in this way. Is that the case?

Yes, if the instrument/drum has a RealChart you will see it on the right, just drag n drop.

Excellent, so if I can get your workaround on multiple tracks then I'm in a position to ditch RealBand.

Hello jonel,



Thank you for the sample file, and there is an easy fix.

The problem is that your filename has .SGU in it. While a period is valid in Windows filenames, I would suggest using a different character like _ or - as a separator, and reserve the period for the file extension.

If you save that file as is, RealBand assumes you want to save it as an .SGU (Band-in-a-Box song file), and that's why you get the dialog that allows you to choose your Melody, Soloist, and Audio tracks. And indeed, the song IS saved as an .SGU file. So just remove the .

Fantastic. Thank you very much Andrew

Actually this solves the entire problem. This debacle all started when I tried to organise my songs the way I normally organise my files in Windows, by prepending the filename or folder with a number. Of course I got used to the fact that Windows ignores any period other than the final one when it looks at a filename. So if I have '3.Mysong.SGU' then Windows simply ignores that first period (or any other period included in the name).

Realband is not that agnostic to the period though. After loading '3.MySong.SGU' and generating tracks; when I come to save this as an SEQ (without specifying the extension) then RealBand already assumes the file name will be '3.MySong'. Because of the period it assumes that the extension is .MySong and saves it as an SEQ with no file extension. When I come to save this a second time I'm told that there is an unknown file extension and won't save it until I put an extension on it.

But one particularly puzzling issue occurred when, for some reason I ended up with a SGU filename that looked like this '3.MySong.SGU (includes midi).SGU'. I'm not sure how I ended up with a filename like that, but I did.

It was Andrew at PG Music who spotted this issue and steered me toward understanding the problem. When I loaded a song with this particular file name and then attempted to save it as an SEQ (without extension) the RealBand assumed I was saving 3.MySong.SGU and prompted me to include Soloist and Melody details.

The biggest problem was that RealBand would not save my SEQ after a first save. I'm sure the developers will be able to explain this easily. After my first save as an SEQ, on the subsequent save RealBand gave me an error message saying that it could not save a second time because it couldn't convert the newly generated TMP file into an SEQ.

The forum gave some good responses that were mainly related to permissions for the folder. But the first save was OK. I also tried running from a FAT32 USB drive where RB created its own RBBackup folder. The behaviour was exactly the same. But I noticed that when there was an error with the SEQ that there was also a TMP file with the same name as the previously saved SEQ file. I reasoned that this must be the TMP file that RB can't convert to an SEQ. So I deleted the SEQ renamed the TMP to SEQ and voila - it was OK.

It was Andrew from PG Music who pointed me to perhaps an issue with the backup system. I noticed there was always just one backup of a song, even though my Preferences allowed for 5. If I deleted this file and saved the SEQ file then all worked OK, but of course on the next save it failed again.
My workaround for this was to set the maximum backups to 1 so that the existing backup file was moved to the recycle bin on each SEQ save. This worked fine.
That was when it hit me, it was not just the .SGU, it was ANY '.' in the filename other than the extension that was getting RB's knickers in a twist. So I came in this morning and attacked all the file names and removed all '.'s except for the extensions. Now all RBs save behaviour is working is working as promulgated in the manual.

Talking of the manual, well I'm sure there will be umpteen references not to use '.' in filenames and I note that PG Music don't do this on their files.

So, when it comes down to it it's probably my fault anyway.

But nice to be able to move on.

Thanks everybody for the help and particularly Andrew at PG Music.