I realize this must be such a newbie question it was probably asked and answerd in 2008 and I just cannot find it.
I am composing a few songs and I have been exploring the best styles to go with each.

However, while I understand the theory behind realtracks, I always seem to pick a style that is either not available or, at some point 3 of the 4 instruments simply stop playing. From that point on I am lost. Even saving the song before that point doesn't always return me to the base song I saved (as an example, I have a song now with 3 Bass channels, one in melody one in soloist and one in Bass. The first two are empty, but I am unable to make them go away.
Not to mention that invariably, when I go save a song I get a yellow alert sayng "Realtrack #xx is not available". Is there even a log where I can see that in the song, so should I really, really need it I can choose to buy it and not end up with the wrong set? Do I have to take screenshots?

In any case, this is what I would like to do:

1) Display and audition only the Realstyles I own. Yes, I know I can display N/A in front of the ones I don't have. I don't want to see them at all. Should I want to, I'd like the ability to display them but on a regular basis I don't want to see styles I don't own.

2) I'd like the same thing for regular styles. In fact, I am having a hard time displaying regular styles the way I was used to in BIAB 2008. I don't mind MIDI based styles. In fact, except for drums and the odd instrument, eventually I am going to record my own part in Studio One anyway.

3) Drums, realdrums… Let's say I find a style I like but I want the drums to have a bit different rhythm. How do I do that? Again, I love the sound a realdrum, but if I don't own it, it's no good to me, unless PG Music is going to start selling them A La Carte.

I totally see why PG Music puts the not owned RealStyles in among the choices. It's useful for the artist that absolutely needs to have that style and PG music gets to sell a pack.
Unfortunately, I have a budget and while my BIAB is not the bottom of the barrel, I know I am missing a lot of nice styles. Tough luck for me.

While I am on topic, I find the purchasing of add on a bit confusing. I know I can check what I have and what I am missing from the HELP menu.
Apparently I have all the Styles Disks and all the Soloist disks, except that I am constantly getting alerts that say I don't have this or that. At the very least, I'd like to understand the logic behind it.

Thank you so much.

Hopefully this is a starting point:

Thank you. I did find that, and I did set it up the way you have it, but then after choosing a style and saving the song, I got "Style #xx is missing, etc. etc." which I found confusing. Wasn't the entire style that was missing, but one of the instruments.
Is it possible something went wrong in the install?

Also, I had styles from back in 2008 (The last version I purchased. Maybe those are the ones throwing an error?

Thank you though. At least now I know there isn't a secret handshake for that.

Question: How come even after choosing to display only owned RT I still see the majority of tracks with N/A in the list?
Also, each time I try a style of the song I am working on, invariably I get a notice that some RT instrument is missing.

First, when you have the Style Picker window open, do a Rebuild, Slow, Yes.

Second, is this computer running a newer version of BIAB? I ask because in 2018 PG Music changed the location of files, which may account for your 2008 files missing. There is a Cleanup utility you can run that cannot hurt and may help. Look in the Help menu, Utilities, Run Cleanup Routine. Look for a bunch of lines that say File Count 0.

However, RealDrums were introduced in 2008 and RealTracks not until 2009, I think, plus no such thing yet as RealStyles, so that may not matter. But it will still help us if you give us more detail about what you have.

Hello conticreative,

The things proposed by Matt Finley and VideoTrack SHOULD have taken care of this - if it isn't filtering properly still, that is curious.

What exact version of Band-in-a-Box is this? Win or Mac, and what year version? And if you go to your 'About Band-in-a-Box' window, what's the 3 digit number in brackets? This will be the build you are running - maybe there's an update you are due for that would fix this up.

To answer this question specifically, it is because as can be seen in your screenshot, you haven't selected to only show Styles with RealTracks that are found. I.E. it's possible to have a style (.STY) and not necessarily have all of the RealTracks that it calls for. You can, if you want, load in one of these styles and find the best substitute that you DO have. Right-click on the track | Select RealTracks | Find Best Sub...
If you wanted to get all of the RealTracks, then an UltraPAK upgrade is the best route.

I have BIAB 2020 (717) MEGAPACK for Windows that I bought about a month ago. I did own BIAB 2008 and at some point I had purchased a few other things from PG Music, but I have having issue remembering what I had for lunch, who knows what I did in the past 13 years? So I have been trying to have at least one computer (the one I am on now) where only BIAB 2020 is installed (Although I have old stuff saved in a backup external disk, so I hope BIAB doesn't search the whole machine). I have added a few old songs I had from back in the day, but that should not be an issue.

Considering how long it has been since I worked with BIAB, I think I am doing OK as far as output, but the Realtracks, realdrum and loops, while easy to understand concepts, are confusing me in practice when it comes to using them in practice. I always seem to find a style that's a beer short of a six pack.

I just cleared the search, rebuilt all the styles and I took a screenshot of that.



I assume that [RT n/a] is something I don't own? Maybe I am misunderstanding that. Could it mean the style exist just not in RT?

I also noticed there are two menu items that say "Show only styles that are FOUND". Clicking on either only highlights the top one and there is no change in the list (that I can see).

My objective is simply to see the styles (or realTracks?) I own or I may have added/downloaded (if there is such a thing) and not tracks that are not going to work.

I also would like to only see midi styles, but I think I know how to do that. The tools are pretty self explanatory.

I hope the new screenshot helps, but I am ready to admit I could be clueless.

Thank you. I think I am getting closer to a solution. While I love realtracks, short of owning the Audiophile edition, I think it may turn out to be an exercise in futility. Since in my own songs I intend to play many of the parts myself (to various degrees of ability and digital cheating), they are not absolutely necessary.

In fact, I was looking at updating my BIAB collection, but I'll leave that for a separate thread.

The difference in RealTracks between MegaPak and Ultrapak is significant - 500 versus 2900(!). I'm a new BiaB user - a little over a month, and bought the starter kit (aka ProPak) not knowing anything about RealTracks. Within a couple of days I was sold on them so did the upgrade, and haven't regretted it. IMHO their usefullness may depend upon the styles of music you are creating - for me the jazz guitars, bass, and drums are priceless.

I don't think there's a difference in number of RealTracks between Ultrapak and Audiophile, just the higher quality audio files. I've read a mix of opinions on whether that difference can typically be heard.

I do find the upgrade paths a little confusing for someone like me who wants to incrementally upgrade over a period of a month or two - being a new user it takes a while to understand the power here. I went from Pro to UltraPak for the same total cost as if I had purchased Ultrapak initially. But as I understand from talking to the sales chat , if I wanted to upgrade from Ultrapak to Audiophile it would cost $469, versus the $200 difference between what I have and Audiophile.

Yes, my understanding is that this is correct. The content is identical in terms of number of RealTracks and Styles.