I have several instruments in my song, guitars, drums, pianos, etc. And in the Mixer Window they are presented in an unordered chaotic mix along with unused Utility and Melody instruments probably because I created/chose them in that sequence or they defaulted to that position in the list. I find that when you control them in the Bar Settings window that this same unordered listing is shown; the 2 displays seem to be linked making it clumbsy to work with in both places.

Is there a way to control how these instruments are ordered?
Something like Guitar 1, Guitar 2, Guitar 3, Drums 1, Drums 2, Drums 3 . . . would be much easier to work with compared to what I now have.

If this is not possible in BiaB 2022 (Windows) is there interest to put this on the Wishlist for future versions?

On a more broad note for the experts, is it easier on your workflow to just export each of the instruments/Real Tracks from BiaB and import them into your DAW to control their volumes there? I use Studio One Artist.

Thanks.

I don't believe that it's currently possible. I also recall it having been mentioned somewhere previously, but you are welcome to put a Wishlist suggestion. I would certainly support it.

you would get a +1 from me for the naming of each track but I would add that said name would carry over to your DAW.

Personally I prefer to move all of the tracks over to my DAW, Studio One Pro 5, and do all of my work there. I get out of BiaB as soon as I can but remember that is only my workflow. Others here do most all of their work in BiaB.

I can understand someone coming up with your original inquiry but the above is what I would recommend.
Importing the BIAB waves into your DAW is ultimately the next step anyway and you can sort tracks as you please.

Hope that helps....have a great day.

Thanks AudioTrack, it's nice to know that I'm not missing something very basic and that my question is not totally dumb.

Thanks for the reply Mario.
Up to this point I try to stay inside BiaB for as long as possible mainly because I can label each section of my song for Intro, Verse 1, Chorus 1, etc. This, along with seeing the grid gives me important visual cues as to the structure of my song as I'm developing it.

But maybe Studio One can also give these visuals and I just need to learn them?

At some point I usually create a chord sheet in MS Word with the sections clearly defined and if required, with notes that tell me and others I may work with when various instruments are in or out and other important info.

I wonder if there is a video, (ideally for me) that shows smart workflows beginning with BiaB, moving to Studio One and bouncing back one or more times? I'm sure my process can be improved.

Thanks 1966,
Maybe it's time for me to dig deeper into Studio One.

Yes that option is included in Studio One Artist, see picture.



Here is my workflow:
1-Get the basics down in BiaB
2-Set up drag and drop
3-go to DAW mode (note that I have BiaB with MME drivers and Studio One Pro in ASIO driver so I can work with both simultaneously)
4-Move all tracks to Studio One. (I do all of my final work in my DAW. The only thing I do in BiaB is to set up the basics, i.e. chords, style, pushes, pulls, etc)
5-If needed put BiaB back to normal mode (I always keep BiaB open until I get all of the tracks I want into my DAW)
6-Repeat steps 2,3 and 4

Note I have tried the utility tracks and the VST version and was not very happy with them so I went back to my original workflow. When time permits I will experiment with those options again.

Again this is just my workflow so it may or may not work for you.

Not to 'rock the boat' (or capsize it - Yep, I've done that before) the request was: could BiaB allow a user to reorder the tracks.

Lots of great and helpful suggestions on how to workaround this limitation by migrating and using other external tools in other DAWS. But ultimately the answer to the O/P is that BiaB cannot currently do this, and hopefully there would be support that it should be an integrated function without the need to migrate and continue working with an external tool just to achieve this.

I don't quite follow what the red arrow is pointing to in regards to the visual cues. Is it that the tracks are visible?

FWIW, I personally now prefer to keep the first 7 tracks with their functional/default names, whilst a few of them remain a bit special, particularly Melody and Soloist.

No boat rocking from what I see:)
The heart of my question is how smooth a workflow can I achieve with BiaB. I'm hesitant to request this in the Wishlist forum because (from my limited perspective) the solution would require a huge programming effort by PG Music.

From my perspective only, it would be nice if the BiaB Mixer Window should be flexible enough to list at the top only the instruments actually used in your song and for you to be able to drag any instrument to any position on that list. Additionally, there seems to be a limit of how many instruments/RTs that can be operated on when you go into the Bar Settings; I think the number is 8. Once you exceed 8 instruments you have to use the Audio Edit window. So to unify all this into one central window would seem a big programming re-write.

Meanwhile, as Mario points out, and I have observed myself, you can import/drag your individual tracks into your DAW and operate on them there. Of course, my DAW doesn't have the excellent spreadsheet-like grid that BiaB has but it does work and forces me to use my ears more than my eyes which is not a bad thing.

To broaden this topic, one question for PG Music is what do they want BiaB to be? If the answer is a music creation tool and a full-blown, fully featured DAW, or a music creation tool 2nd to none which it is now. FWIW, I'm happy with either.

Here of a picture of where it is in Pro:

What happens when you enable "Auto show / hide tracks" in the mixer settings?

I'm still not understanding.
If you are pointing to the "+", I have that in my version and it just adds a new track, not provide visual cues as BiaB does.

Hmmm, I was unaware of this setting (as I am with dozens of others).
This almost gets me where I'd like to be. When checked it eliminates all the unused Utility tracks and increases the font size of the remaining ones which is good but it allows "Thru" and "Melody" (which in my case are not being used) to remain. But the bigger point is that it still does not allow your tracks to be sequenced from top to bottom so that they're organized as you want.

This is turning out to be no biggie as I'm getting more proficient in dragging my tracks into Studio One and operating on them there in what they call "Automation".

Thanks Jim.

My bad as I assumed that you knew the other steps. Here is another picture that explains it better....I hope. Just remember this is for the Pro version so yours may be totally different, I don't know as I do not have your version.

you could simply move everything over the RealBand. You'll find that part markers give you the navigation tools you need and you'll still have the ability to generate RealTracks, midi tracks and midi supertracks. moving and ordering tracks is simplicity itself.

I for one find RealBand much more transparent and easy to work with. And its free if you have BIAB for windows!

I agree, just open the BiaB file in RB.
You can then have the Grid lines and a lot of other tools similar to Biab, including still being able to Generate, renaming tracks as desired, etc etc

I prefer to Make all BiaB tracks regular tracks (it is under the Tracks options) so they behave more like a DAW, but you can also leave them so they all generate when you click Generate.

It'll take a little learning but is a logical step between BiaB and DAW (if DAW is even needed at that point)

Bob, rharv, thanks for the input but in general Studio One is working out very nicely for me.
Plus I gave RealBand a good "college try" and spent hours trying to get it to work, never really was successful.

This thread from February is just a small part of the effort several of us expended.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=702498&page=1

Well if you have a solution, run with it!
Just trying to help (as always)

Thanks Mario, is your last screen shot showing the visual cues I was asking about, or is it showing how to produce the visual cues? My version of Studio One is not as strong as yours.

It is the visual cues showing how I get to add the markers to Studio One Pro. Your version may or may not be different. If it is different then you will have to hit the manual as I do not have your version.

I hope this helps and good luck.

as long as studio 1 is working for you but having read the original thread i'm surprised.

i plug an electric guitar into my behringer uphoria usb interface, select the uphoria asio driver and rb records 'straight out of the box'

I finally understand what you are saying; I suspected there was a communication disconnect. When I referred to the visual cues in Biab being a very nice feature I was referring to the spreadsheet-like grid and the moving cursor from cell to cell in that grid. However, you are referring to markers in S1. I don't believe S1 has visual cues similar to what BiaB has.

But I do appreciate yours and others responses. FWIW I'm gravitating to your approach of getting into S1 as soon as possible in my workflow. In other words, use BiaB for what it is strong in and use S1 for its strengths.

Thanks Bob, I too plug my bass and keyboard and occasionally my drum machine into my Tascam Interface and record them in S1 . . . this works very well.

OK you want to line up drum 1, drum2, etc correct?

If that is the case you can do that in Studio One but labeling the tracks and moving those tracks into position. My last picture had guitar, guitar 2, strings 1, strings 2, etc tracks labeled as such. I could have put them in order. Is that what you are looking for?

I created a +++ request +++ in the Band-in-a-Box Wishlist forum section to suggest PG Music add a "move track" command to the F7 Track Settings and Actions window.

This command would combine initiating several tasks into one command to make moving tracks easier than it presently is while also minimizing the potential to lose or corrupt track data during a move.

Please feel free to add to the discussion or support the request.

Thanks for continuing to help Mario, your and others interest and inputs really are appreciated . . . but we are still not communicating. I know S1 allows you to reorder your tracks but BiaB doesn't; at least not fully per my understanding.

Jim Fogle submitted the wish list request. I will comment there.

I know you can't reorder then in BiaB. I was just trying to show you that you can do that in your DAW. However you already knew that so sorry for the redundancy.

It would be interesting to know more about your workflow and the need for a specific order of instruments.

First: Instruments can be re-ordered using the move/copy command and their labels customized.

Second: If it's a processing issue, multiple instruments can be placed onto any single track and perform as a bus with up to 4 effects processing all of the instruments while having panning and volume control over each individual instrument. For Example, in BIAB, there can be two (or more) acoustic guitars occupying the same Mixer Channel and playing simultaneously, panned hard left and right and their volume levels adjusted to balance the mix. Both guitars would share the same high pass filter, reverb and eq settings.

Third: I don't follow that the Bar Settings order sequence being exactly the same as the Mixer 8 Legacy Tracks order is clumsy or confusing.

I know the labels can be customized but not that their positions can be moved in the Mixer Window.
Can you show how?

Here are screen shots

I may be wrong, but I'm thinking that the O/P wanted to rearrange the track order by dragging a track up/down to a new location, like this:

AudioTrack,

You maybe right; in fact I'd say you most likely are since he expressed as much in a wishlist post but ... drag and drop is not presently supported in Band-in-a-Box.

Since drag and drop is not currently supported the next logical step is for someone to create a BiaB wishlist request for the program to support drag and drop of tracks in the audio mixer.

I made a +++ wishlist request +++ for a "Move Track To" command to be added to the F7 Track Settings and Actions window. While not the same as BassThumper's original request the end result should be similar.

If anyone desires to create a wishlist request for PG Music to add drag and drop capability to the audio mixer I would support the request. I would also hope to discuss expectations for how drag and drop would differentiate between moving track names and track data without the possibility of incurring the loss of track data.

Thanks you for the info Charlie, you made me aware of Copy Special, but it fails to do what I am seeking.

I selected Edit, Copy Special and Copy/Move Tracks. I then selected Melody as my Source Track and Utility #7 as the Destination Track and hit OK.

It did not move the Melody track to the Utility #7 position.
In fact, as near as I can tell it did nothing at all.

AudioTrack, you are not wrong at all. You understand exactly what I want; to move any given track to any position in the list.

Thanks for the input Jim. My intincts in being timid to submit a wish list were spot on. You pointed out that drag and drop is not supported in BiaB; I had no idea that this was the case; I learned that from you.

This need/wish/request seems to be mushrooming.

Thanks for supporting the logical advancement of this request.