the three phases i think were described by robert heinlein. phase one - the machine works but in a very clunky and inefficient way. phase 2 is where they build on bits and modifications that are designed to stop the clunkiness - a big flywheel to smooth out rough running for example. phase three is a streamlined, simple, better engineered version without the extra bits that just works as it should have done to start with.

strikes me BIAB is at phase 2. bits added to meet the wish list of extra mixer channels and so on. the slew of patches this time and bugs that need fixing is longer this year than i can ever remember. it seems it's getting harder to handle the bits built on.

BIAB will never reach phase three. it's not a DAW. it's an auto accompaniment program. a recent post by simon on aux sends in the mixer sums it up. you generate a BIAB track and then finish in a DAW. i use RB and it does everything the add on bits that BIAB keeps coming out with to add DAW functions do.

not everyone likes RB but it seems most of us use BIAB then finish off in a DAW.

i love BIAB and RB. pg music has great staff and a good support team and forums are informative and helpful.

i just wonder if BIAB would be better if PG concentrated on the auto accompaniment element and met some of the wish list requirements like breaking free of 3/4 and 2/4 time signatures, requested RealTracks etc instead of building on clunky bits to turn BIAB into a DAW.

after all, RB comes free with BIAB, and Reaper and Cakewalk are free too. maybe phase three has been with us all along? BIAB plus DAW not BIAB plus bolt ons.

however, after the rant i am going to upgrade to 2021 as soon as the patches seem to slow down.

I once asked about why people have stuck to BIAB and not moved to RB. The overwhelming answer was "Because we started before there was RB and don't want to change."

That was a "SMDH" moment for me and I didn't continue in the conversation. My take on that would have irritated too many. And I do enough of that with my often deliberate provocative comments. I try to make people think and potentially open their minds to new things. "What I do works" is NOT an acceptable lifestyle to me. Your brain will die if you don't keep trying to expand it.

I don't want to get caught up in this one other to remind folks Reaper is NOT free!

Reaper is free to try then either you need to pay for it or quit using it. On the other hand Cakewalk By Bandlab is FREE, and is full-featured and one of the very first DAWs for PC ever, Tracktion version 7, I think version 7, is also free.


Larry

This was not the only answer you got, just the most frequent one. There are other reasons. No need to lump everyone into the same group.

I have often thought that PG Music should just add a tab to BIAB that opens up the RealBand track view for all those that have an aversion to using RealBand. That would have done everything the new utility tracks do and more. Sometimes being responsive to customers (especially just the most vocal) just amounts to "letting the inmates run the asylum". It seems like a waste of precious resources to just allow another way to do what we already have the ability to do.

With that said, I will also jump on the upgrade soon. Just as I always have. Occasionally it's good to remember that this forum does not represent the BIAB user universe. It is a very small very special subset of users and an echo chamber for those users only.

sorry - reaper should cost but i know that all that is reported is a nag screen after the trial period that does not affect function

i don't use it but if i did would feel honour bound to pay

This touches on something that I have wondered for 10 years. To see BIAB and RB contained in the same package, you could easily assume that they are complimentary softwares. They are not. They are 2 completely different applications. Would I would love to see if that once an OG (or NG) BIAB user finishes a song, that song could open in RB EXACTLY as BIAB generated it. I have not tried, because I have never run BIAB because with it not being a true DAW my brain has decided it is the lesser of the two. I have watched some tutorial videos and that little mixer that pops up seems silly to me, being a DAW guy. The SGU vs SEQ thing I don't really know about other than to know that they are not directly importable without being reinterpreted. Which of course takes what the songwriter is quite happy with and changes it to something he maybe ISN'T happy with. It should be possible to just bring that BIAB song into RB just to add the4 DAW accessibility but not change one note of it. Now, many people would know that when they finish writing "MYNEWSONG" in BIAB and DO want to send it to RB to make a copy, and import "COPYOFMYNEWSONG" into RB so they can A/B the two. Most don't know to do that.

BIAB and RB are both good at what they do. Just different. While I WOULD like to see the DAW side of things enhanced they aren't likely to do things just because ONE user wants it. (Apparently the cutoff is 3....)

You're letting your snarky side come out there Eddie! LOL

Eddie misses the mark on both sides and unless he is joking, his “3” remark is actually harmful. People need to know that PG Music responds to the suggestions it can and agrees with, even when only one person proposes the change. And I’ve already explained that the three people who prominently advocated for cut-time support had a valid music theory argument that opens the product up for use by many who play genres where they would have dismissed BIAB in the past.

Eddie isn't joking Matt. I'm relatively sure he's p*ssed that we had a legitimate problem addressed.

That doesn't justify disparaging comments about a very good company like PG Music.

Bob, I don't care that they addressed your problem. Good for you to see your comfort level enhanced.

The point is that I, another extremely small minority (of 1), have what TO ME is a major problem and they will not address it. I lost track of how many times I have asked to have 1/4 note and 1/2 note triplets addressed. Just as in the case of your issue, where once it is fixed it may benefit more than just the three primary players in that subject thread. When triplets become an option, perhaps more users would incorporate them in their writing. I can only say that I have a damn good song on hold that can't be programmed in Real Band as it is. I explained in detail what the suggested workaround would take, and nobody is even sure if that workaround would work. I want to be able to select a measure, be able to hay "I want 1/2 note triplets in this measure", and have the drum accents follow the beats of those triplets. I may be the only one who cares, and if so I don't expect it be addressed. Not for one guy. As to your problem, I read all those threads and it appeared to be 3 people who were upset about that notation thing. But that they fixed. Shouldn't we all be given the same courtesy when we make GOOD suggestions?

If you want to call that being p*ssed, have at it. I just want my problem fixed.

Maybe it can be done with 2021, because, damn you self imposed peer pressure, I just ordered it.

Eddie, yes, you should be able to get this fixed if I'm understanding your problem correctly. Is it notation or sound, or both, that is a problem?

Does a concise and respectful request exist for the change you want? [I do not use RealBand nor read the RealBand threads.] I would be happy to go there and support your request if it makes sense.

I am not a fan of Realband because it just does not compare to a modern, full-featured DAW. BUT, you make a great point here. I was willing to use RB in spite of my DAW preferences until I realized much of my work done in BIAB, such as bar settings and frozen tracks, just gets tossed when I load the song in RB! Realband should be able to open a BIAB song and apply everything I set up in BIAB.

Wait? What? J3 and I agree on something? Isn't that one of the signs of the apocalypse? LOL!!

Isn't that frustrating when you get it JUST so and then everything gets lost in translation? Kind of like painting a room with JUST the right color and then it dries 3 shades darker, so you have to paint again.

I put that into the Real Band Wish List forum. It is both rhythmic and sonic in this context, because where I need the pulses in the measure to fall gets both a chord accent and a drum hit. At some point a song example will come to me that has what I need but as usual, when put on the spot to think of one I am coming up empty.

This thread is the wish list post.

Thanks for the problem description Eddie.

What you are requesting in that post isn't triplets, so I'm confused.

REALLY??? What would you call that? You are way better on notation than I am.

Let me state it here once more so I know you get what I said.

I need beats here where it's bolded.

ONE and two AND three and FOUR and

If not half note triplets, what? Is this already possible, please tell me how, because I have never been able to make it work.

If not me, who? If not now, when?

What you have written is a chord on beat one, a push of an eighth note before beat three, and a chord on beat four. This is a classic driving rhythm such as in Don't Rain on My Parade, performed by Barbra Streisand. Is that the sound you hear?

Not quite the same context. I am going to go upstairs in a little while and manually enter a few reps of what I want and post them. It is one of those things where I am trying to explain what "red" is to someone who can't see.

Agreed. How about posting a song that has what you want? It may indeed be that you want half note triplets, and not what you described.

ps the rhythm as you wrote it would be only in the first, third, and fifth measures of the song I mentioned.

The thing I am trying to do is for an intro and the end of chorus in a song I have almost all the way written. I just can't make that exact groove thing happen.

Bob C.
"it's an auto accompaniment program."
Indeed. And do most arrangers (physical or software) offer at least 16 tracks? YES, absolutely. Adding those tracks to BIAB is a big (huge!) deal. Even now, at early release stage, these extra tracks are very useful! Hopefully soon they will fully work with Midi, (that will surely will make Mario happy). No, I do not want BIAB to become a DAW.

I also believe your #3 is a bit too dark. There are still a couple of BIG items in the wishlist, but only a couple. Most other requests seem to be achievable. I do agree with you that things got to be fixed and streamlined more aggressively. Mostly I am talking about features and functions that are already in place.

I wasn't here for long, but even I can see significant improvements. I am very glad PG team is surviving as business in this ridiculous, widely unexpected, horrible time of pandemic and bringing us something positive. People spend more for haircuts than most PG updates cost (1/2 price at this time). I feel that updating is worth every cent, even if I will not end up using 85% of released content and program features.

"however, after the rant i am going to upgrade to 2021 as soon as the patches seem to slow down"

Eddie, now that I heard your example of the rhythm (via email) and it's not triplets, it should be very easy to fix your song. If you post the song here, I'll be happy to help.

That would be really cool if you could do that for Eddie. I hope you're successful.

It's really nice of you to offer to do that.

MATT FIXED THE PROBLEM!!!!!

I was programming the timing all wrong, putting the caret in the wrong place! I can finally write this song. And send it off to Sarah Buxton, who will sing it, record it, put it on an album, and win a Grammy for song of the year!!! Which of course gets me a statue too for writing it!

All because of Matt!!

Thanks man.

Congratulations Eddie!

Thanks Matt.

What do I win?

(Kidding)

Time to mark your request resolved.

You got a thank you and a compliment from ME of, all people!!

That is more rare than a unicorn skateboarding on a triple rainbow.

You’re welcome Eddie. Would you consider acknowledging that there was nothing wrong with the program? This is for others who read these posts.

Absolutely. I was doing it wrong. I didn't know where to put the caret. Matt showed me.

I've written styles for a few auto-accompaniment programs and BiaB is and always has been the best. It has the most musical output.

I've never used it as an end-all app though. After finishing all I can do with BiaB, I export the file and import it to a DAW. Two different apps for two different functions.

I think every computer musician needs 3 apps, (1_ a DAW that also has good MIDI capabilities (2) Band-in-a-Box (3) A music notation app.

These 3 do what they do better than the others and complement each other.

Insights and incites by Notes

I agree.

I would add a basic knowledge of computers. You really have to be a "geek" to use musician's programs like the above three to get the most out of them. YMMV

I would also add a high quality interface. A good interface will include good software so the ASIO driver that services your interface should handshake flawlessly. I have always had a problem philosophically with "one size fits all" stuff like ASIO4All. My ASIO driver for my Focusrite comes with the Focusrite. Most MIDI problems I have ever had were ID10T errors.

I revisited this thread as it seems we are six weeks since the 2021 BIAB version was launched and people are still reporting new bugs. as it gets more complicated the more opportunities for bugs. i still think the perfect combination for most of us is BIAB and the DAW of our choice. can't think of any wish list requests that won't meet. and PG could concentrate on the auto accompaniment issues like time signatures if they didn't try to add bolts ons to a program that is trying to move further away from its basic function. see Note Norton's post above - BIAB is an amazing auto accompaniment program. concentrate on that.

however, i have upgraded and i'm delighted but i personally don't use a lot of the new functions. i use RealBand the way others use other DAWs to do the heavy editing and polishing.

maybe PG is just responding to its customer base but some of the long term auto accompaniment feature fixes requested might be just as good a way to meet customer demand.

still, great product and great people at PG Music.

For a long time, I've always wished that a new release might be provided that just focused more on resolving known existing issues, rather than leaving those known bugs within the system and always producing a further 'x' number of new features, thus only adding to the known number of existing issues.

Others might take the direction that fixing known bugs won't attract new customers, but I also think that new customers would prefer to know how the program is being improved by resolving known issues.

I would prefer to work with an operating system that was 'bug-free', rather than always dodging problems because the operating system had known issues on certain functions. Few could argue that philosophy.

agreed videotrack but i'm not sure the 'improvements' attract new customers. BIAB is already an amazing program. utility tracks for example seem to be a response to existing users who want BIAB to offer DAW-like capabilities.

'any time signature, any key, thousands of hours of top session musicians playing just what you want' seems to me more powerful than 'now with a few extra tracks'

Videotrack,
makes sense... but I do not fully agree with statement:
"producing a further 'x' number of new features"
It is more like "XX" features, where it in theory, bearing in mind resources, should be "X" features. I would gladly settle for 2-3 BIG new yearly features which are thoroughly tested (even if they have little use for me personally) and the rest going to bug/issue fixes.

Bob,
"users who want BIAB to offer DAW-like capabilities."
Wrong! More like: Users who want BIAB to have capabilities of most arrangers that had been released in last 20 years (and whole bunch before that). And we are 1/2+ way there. No cry baby stuff!

Topic reminded me of a joke...
The sign at computer repair shop:
Theory - is when you know everything, but nothing works.
Practice- is when everything works, but nobody knows why.
Only HERE, we incorporate theory and practice - Nothing works and nobody knows why!

In this case, 'X' is merely an unknown quantity. Like an unknown quantity of a mixture of 'new features' and associated 'operational issues' .
But I get your point

a quote from another post by Shane............

I don't want any 7th's or anything like that in the song. I'm simply trying to form a song with straight A - D - E chords. No matter what style I choose (currently using "Swabbie autoharp folk waltz") BIAB is adding in what sounds like a 7th on some parts especially toward the end of the song and it doesn't work with a song like that. It's like it's forcing a blues feel on the song so to speak?

it appears that the problem happens when Shane changes key from A to B.

Andrew's reply was.............

The reason that this is happening is a combination of these two things (A) Band-in-a-Box generates the file based on the original key of your song. (B) RealTracks artists play what is natural for them to play for a chord in that style of music, so seeing a B chord in the key of A, many RealTracks will play the b7.

Andrew went on to say..........

It would definitely be a desirable feature for it to be able to follow key changes within the song for RT generation. Another useful feature would be an F5 bar setting to treat major/minor as I chord and/or the ability to force the chord to a triad. These features currently aren't present.


I think this is the kind of fix needed to keep BIAB as the go to software for auto accompaniment. Adding extras which seem to break many current functionalities seems counter productive when the basic function can be improved. And its over two weeks since we got the latest patch so fixing bugs is obviously taking a long time due to the added complications of the 'new features'.

Rant over. I still love BIAB and the marvel of RealTracks.

That's all true Bob but the perceived flaw to the RealTrack is due to it being recorded audio and not the recorder that's flawed. The flaw is applicable to every program that utilizes recorded audio and not limited to BIAB. The same issue would exist in any software program using that recorded audio.

Thus, the solution to correct the errant chords will also be the same. Which is the same as it was 60 plus years ago - record the correct chord and punch it in where ever necessary. In essence, that's Andrew's solution offered by producing additional audio (Key 2) that plays the correct chord or inversion and makes it available to replace the specific incorrect or undesired audio. Audio engineering 101.

The fix needed to keep BIAB as the go to software for auto accompaniment is to produce the desired audio either by recording additional audio material and programming the software to search for it, recognize and assimilate it into the Chord Chart or to artificially manipulate it to do the same.

not sure that's entirely true Charlie. the OP says the problem only occurs with a key change from A to B. if i understand Andrew correctly what he's saying is BIAB generates the whole song as if it were still in the key of A. If the OP starts the song in B the RealTrack works fine. the problem wouldn't exist if BIAB was 'able to follow key changes within the song for RT generation' as Andrew puts it.

the recorded material is fine - no need for extra recordings - just BIAB can't always cope with key changes for RT generation.

I don't believe you're understanding Andrew exactly correct or at least differently than I do. I think he's addressing two different elements. 1. The actual Realtrack audio data recorded and 2. The BIAB generated audio track derived from the assimilated RealTrack data track. They share a common name but are not the same.

In point (A) - Andrew is apparently referring to the BIAB generation of non musical audio data derived from recorded audio data contained in the RealTrack Folder for compiling it into musical phrases that match the settings of the chosen style and user programming into the Chord Sheet.

In point (B) - Andrew is directly referring to the audio material recorded by the RealTrack artist session musician playing "what is natural for them to play for a chord in that style of music, so seeing a B chord in the key of A, many RealTracks will play the b7.when recording the audio for that RealTrack."

A RealTrack residing on a BIAB Mixer Track is a virtual track that does not contain any audio but contains data that BIAB compiles from the User's chord chart, Style, Tempo, feel, key signature and other data to search the RealTrack folder and data base to assimilate and compile musical phrases appropriate for the song.

A RealTrack residing in the RealTrack Folder is a finite amount of recorded audio by a session musician that's composed in pre-determined, non musical snippets of varying numbers of bars compiled into assorted chord progressions, riffs, turn arounds, intro's, endings, transitions and melodies.

When and where the problem occured for the OP having this problem is irrelevant and the recorded material, the BIAB generated track that should follow the user's inputted chords as entered, is not fine. It's not fine because the RealTrack data the PGMusic session musician when he recorded the audio data for that particular RealTrack playing in his/her natural manner chorded a B7 rather than a B so the BIAB algorithm isn't properly following the changes within the song because the proper data is not there and the BIAB algorithms are not creating a 'new' but proper chord.

Andrew doesn't provide an answer to whether the two desirable features are possible or not but does provide an equivalent age old solution method to record the correct chords from within the BIAB program. BIAB can't cope with the actual recorded audio data if it's not there or there's no procedure in place to transpose/ time stretch/ pitch change existing audio.

BIAB can easily create the correct audio and punch in that correct audio in the necessary locations.

As a guitarist I can quite easily see why a player seeing a B in the key of A would see it as a B7. However, if the whole song is in B the seventh isn't used - just the straight B major. If the recorded lick didn't exist then Andrew's idea of freezing the tracks wouldn't work. Its the key change BIAB doesn't seem to cope with not the key of B itself.

Well, 2 things stuck out there.

Even if your surmission (if the whole song is in B) is true, the fact is that the song ISN'T in B so I don't know on what you based that surmission. And, if the song WAS in B and your surmission was true, doesn't logic say that if a song in A plays a B7 that a song in B would play a C#7?

This sounds to me like the opposition to that 7th chord coming from a bunch of prerecorded snippets is akin to eating already baked cookies and saying "Take out the cinnamon".

i think there's some confusion here. this references a post where the OP generated a song in the key of A and then changed the key to B near the end. The chords that should have been B major played as B7.

according to a post by Andrew, if the song is generated in the key of A, and a change of key to B made at a bar close to the end of the song, BIAB still thinks its in the key of A and the RealTracks play the B chord as a seventh - like a guitarist playing a D7 in the key of C which is quite common as a link to the dominant chord of G. the RealTracks are doing exactly what a live guitarist would do faced with a B chord in the key of A - play a B7.

the question is can BIAB play a B major chord and not a B7? Yes it can if you generate the whole song in the key of B. The RealTracks play a proper B chord. The issue is that BIAB doesn't cope with the key change if it's done at a bar.

The advice to the OP is to generate one version in A and another in B and merge the two.

That makes good sense Bob. Once it is generated, it is generated. Moving the key moved the generated parts up 2 semitones and doesn't regenerate. Putting a coat of paint on a car doesn't change the engine from a 283 to a 327.