It is possible to have 2 instances of BIAB running independently at the same time and I thought last night that it would be great to be able to have one as the master and the other as a slave so the transport buttons on the master, including generate, control the other instance.

I know Real Band can have many tracks of RTs but I cannot get my head around that program. I am trying but my brain won't let me as I am so used to BIAB's gui.

What do other forumites think?

Alyn

Hmmmm. That's actually got some merit. For those who run out of tracks in BiaB and are unable to use RB, this could be a great solution.
Definitely worthy of looking at.
+1

Alyn, a while ago I suggested that BiaB open up all 16 tracks. Right now 5 are open for RTs/MIDI, 1 for Melody and 1 for soloist. These are the only ones open, all the rest are dedicated. Why not let the user use any track anyway they want. If they want 16 RTs/RDs, 16 tracks of MIDI or 16 tracks of RTs/RDs and MIDI why not let them.

I bring this up because I think we both would like more tracks and as I can not get and/or do not want to get into RB.

YMMV

Actually, Mario, I'm not sure why we need to stop at 16. Sure we could have 16 MIDI tracks, but we should be able to have any number of additional audio tracks (for RealTracks, RealDrums, or your own recorded instruments and vocals).

Like others have mentioned, I think the 7 tracks is a Byte limitation thing, and probably requires a major rework. That single byte of storage probably gets allocated all over the place.

As I mentioned in earlier posts about this, BIAB uses more tracks for behind-the-scenes things than most people realize. This includes tracks for harmony and for guitar strings. It adds up to the MIDI standard limit of 16 quite quickly. Now, if they got a second bank of 16 going...

Very good point John, I agree.

Yes Matt that is my point. If all of these were open we could assign them to meet our needs. Questions like why set assign 6 tracks for a MIDI guitar controller? Why do keyboard and other players need this? Every guitarist with a guitar MIDI controller knows or should know how to set up his controller to a program regardless if that program is BiaB, a DAW or a stand-a-lone sound source.

I believe that PGMusics costumer base is a lot smarter that they them credit. Plus setting up tracks and channels for additional instruments would be a lot easier that using jBridge with 64 bit VSTis.

This is just my views and YMMV.

No wars please. These are just my thought, right or wrong.

PS - unless as Video Tracks states it's in the code. If it is this is just another justification for a complete rewrite IMHO.

Mario -

The six channels for guitar (which you have to select to use, or depending upon certain styles) use a different channel for each string. That way, for example, you can have one string playing with different settings than another string.

This feature was introduced way back in version 10 (not 2010, but version 10 from 2001). The feature description is:

Yes John I know but like I indicated what good is this for anyone other than a MIDI guitar controller? Like I also indicated anyone with a MIDI guitar controller should know how to set it up, regardless of the program they are using. Note that I have a MIDI guitar controller.


Again, just my thoughts, right or wrong.

Exactly John; that's describing part of how it is designed now.

Mario I fully support the request to allow the user to put whatever is desired on each track! Then the original request of this thread, to chain copies of BIAB, would not be needed. And I agree with you also on the sophistication of much of our consumer base (even our "costumer" base, at Halloween).

+1 for whatever works, absolutely.

Afterthought: in some other software, limiting tracks appears to be a marketing function, not a technical one (assuming you have sufficient RAM and storage). The more you pay, the more tracks become available for your use in each version. I would pay for more in BIAB.

The six channels are also used by what BIAB calls "Guitar Styles", styles that use the "guitar macro" to create riffs (no MIDI guitar controller needed). These are the styles in stylepicker that starts with an exclamation point.

Thanx John, I had forgotten about that,

CRS strikes again!

More tracks ? BB will end up becoming a DAW, we wouldn't want that ?
If the VST Sync was working you could easily add more tracks with VSTs like Temper as you just drag the tracks in from the drop station.

A lot of difficulties arise when people buy Biab not realizing there is RB as all the Marketing is all about "BB" so they have spent all their time learning BB and by then it is too late to drive a manual car so they are stuck with only being able to drive an auto.

Wow!! I should have explained a bit more:
On the night I thought of this I had 2 copies of BIAB running at the same time, same song, slightly different chords but both all RTs, and I noticed the arrangement seemed incredibly busy when I pressed play on the top copy. I pressed stop and "the song carried on" as somehow the 2nd copy had also started playing, nearly in time but not quite. I could tell that from the drum track.
The "front" copy had needed to regenerate but I don't remember about the "back" copy.
I have tried to duplicate but with no success of course

I remember reading about the subject mentioned by Mario and this is why I started a new wish as somehow my computer showed that linking 2 BIABs could be done; it worked by accident so maybe it could work by design.


Alyn

In my view you are better off using a separate sequencer, and merging the 2 together, most of mine use all 16 tracks by the time they are done.

Back to the original request: Alyn,I don't understand how your 'accident' could even have happened. Only one window can have focus at one time, so I can't see how the same song could play in time (or close to it). Was the song frozen? Is there an audio track with the same name?

Cheers sonic,
I usually use drag n drop from BIAB to my DAW

Alyn

Matt,


I too do not understand how this happened hence my saying "it worked by accident so maybe it could work by design".

None of the tracks on either instance were frozen and there is no audio track with the same name. The song in focus was named "myname.mgx" and the "out of focus" was called myname2.mgx but hadn't been saved for a while. I had the original BIAB file from last century in the sequencer tracks hence the extension. Both saved in a folder called "myname 2015", on an external 1 tb usb drive. BIAB is fully installed on my 1/2 tb C drive running XP.
I had 2 instances of BIAB open and one instance of Cubase, mme for the BIABs and asio for Cubase and I work like this most of the time except usually just one instance of BIAB. All midi in BIAB is played by the standard built in driver
I have used BIAB since Atari days and was just as amazed as you are, Matt.
I cannot replicate it though.

Another of life's great mysteries.

Alyn

So back to Alyn's original request, and without going through the technicalities and tribulations of the limited number of Tracks in the current version, would a Master/Slave arrangement allowing 2 copies of the program to run "In-Synch" be a good idea?

I think so, but I would imagine it would take fewer computer resources to add tracks to one instance of BIAB, rather than have a second instance running. I suspect the performance would suffer after adding too many RealTracks, however it is done.

totally agree. I have had at least 40 times when I wanted to mix thicker sounding tracks, especially strings, and wished we could sync instances. Computers are fast enough now that we can easily add tracks even from USB interfaces....would love to see 12 tracks of mix in the program!