Just to be clear, RB is not 'just like BiaB' in how it works.
It was a DAW that PGMusic added some BiaB features to. It will generate a whole song, like BiaB does using a BiaB song and style (if desired), however RB needs to generate the whole song before playing, so you may sit there a minute if you regenerate all tracks. BB generates a little of the song and starts playing while still generating in the background. Why doesn't RB do this? Simple; the generate feature was added to RB (not native) and RB also has to account for dozens of other tracks, maybe tracks with lots of edits or FX, where BB doesn't have to do that. So the linear song needs to exist for RB to begin playback.
More info: When you open a BB file in RB you get 8 BB tracks. Those 8 tracks are classed as BiaB tracks in order to have this BB style generating functionality. You can easily turn that off and work on one at a time by 'Making BB tracks regular tracks'. Then using Generate only affects the selected track or region. Or you can leave them as BB tracks and regenerate the whole song when you hit Generate (like in BB). But again, RB will generate the whole song before starting playback. This makes BB much faster for some basic song structure/style experimentation tasks.
But anyway, you not only get more than 255 bars (it's pretty much limitless, depending on what your computer can handle). You also are not limited to 8 tracks like BiaB. Got a song you like, and want to keep the full BB song and add even more tracks? No problem. Instead of 8 tracks you have 48. Each one can be Audio, MIDI, Realtracks, Realdrums, or whatever.
Looking forward to seeing you in the Realband forum soon.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Well, Bob, after spending the last two days using RB and trying to find out the cause of a track generation issue at the 240/241 bar boundary, I have to say that the "255 bar limit" is only partially solved in RB. The reason I say "only partially solved" is that while RB does indeed allow songs to have more than 255 bars, it will repeatedly "hiccup" at the 240/241 bar boundary during its generation of BiaB tracks by making an erroneous chord change to bar 241 (when there is no chord in bar 241) and sometimes creating a glitch on this boundary at the same time. I've been able to reproduce this issue using numerous scenarios and even saw it happen when I regenerated a section of a track that began a few bars before this boundary and continued on to the end of a 320 bar song. If you haven't done so already, you can read more about this issue over in the RB forums. You can also watch the following video that I created of this scenario and then uploaded to my Youtube channel:
So it's joining the the 2 sections to go over 255. I would say that's a bug they need to look into as it's not stitching it correctly. I highlighted and selected all tracks and regenerate that section and it still generate 2 files per tack. It should be fixable.
So it's joining the the 2 sections to go over 255. I would say that's a bug they need to look into as it's not stitching it correctly. I highlighted and selected all tracks and regenerate that section and it still generate 2 files per tack. It should be fixable.
My thinking is also that it should be fixable. It did the same thing for me when I regenerated all the tracks at the same time in their entirety. I just wasn't able to regenerate a small section around the 240/241 bar boundary for all the tracks at the same time. I explained several of the scenarios I tried in order to understand the exact nature of this problem over in the RB forum if anyone is interested in reading them.
What you can try is copying another section of track earlier or later with the same chords and paste and replace that section or copy that section's chords to somewhere after the ending, increase the number of bars to cover it, select that new section of chords and all the tracks then generate all selected track in section, then cut and paste that into the bad section, then set the number of bars back.
If Biab has to do 240 at a go then stitches them for RealBand then this maybe the reason it's not been done in Biab, maybe it's too much of a job to fix ??? Maybe fixing this issue now for RealBand may let them work out a way of doing it in Biab ??
What you can try is copying another section of track earlier or later with the same chords and paste and replace that section or copy that section's chords to somewhere after the ending, increase the number of bars to cover it, select that new section of chords and all the tracks then generate all selected track in section, then cut and paste that into the bad section, then set the number of bars back.
Thanks for the suggestion. Unfortunately, I've done this already and found out that it's a relatively slow process compared to when I did a very similar process in Tracktion 6, which is my preferred DAW for this purpose because of its simple GUI and minimal use of resources (as I mentioned in a previous post). IOW, your suggestion is the same workaround that I've used in the past but with a different program. To me, this does not "resolve" the "255 bar limit" in BiaB. Tracktion allows more than 255 bars as well. It just doesn't generate tracks like BiaB does. So, it's much easier and quicker for me to save a shortened version of a BiaB generated arrangement of my song that I can then import into Tracktion, replicate, crop, and then piece together into one contiguous arrangement. Using either program is fine if I'm creating a single arrangement for only one song. But if I have to create multiple versions of an arrangement for that song because of mods, tweaks, and other enhancements, it can easily consume hours and hours of time. I know this from experience because I went through it a couple of months go. This is the main reason I shared my "idea" that started this discussion about a week ago.
I reported the this issue with RealBand in the beta testing forum. You could run 2 instances of Biab, save the first and second half the chord sheet in MuseScore, load one xml into the first instance of Biab and the second half into the other, you can then highlight the bars in each instance of Biab and drag export them into Tracktion so the second one will include the ending.
EDIT: I just hope they will give the plugin more than 255 bars also.
I reported the this issue with RealBand in the beta testing forum. You could run 2 instances of Biab, save the first and second half the chord sheet in MuseScore, load one xml into the first instance of Biab and the second half into the other, you can then highlight the bars in each instance of Biab and drag export them into Tracktion so the second one will include the ending.
EDIT: I just hope they will give the plugin more than 255 bars also.
Creating two parts of the song in MuseScore is fairly easy and quick to do. But are you suggesting that I start BiaB twice---once for each instance? And is it possible to drag and drop a group of arrangement bars from BiaB directly into Tracktion 6? I've never tried that. Instead, I save the entire arrangement as a .WAV file from BiaB and then import the .WAV file into Tracktion. It gets imported as a self-contained long rectangular box that can be moved around and have its length adjusted in various ways. That's why Traction has been such a help with this issue. Also, which plugin are you referring to in your post?
You can do the same with 2 instances of the plugin in Tracktion. You would need to import the xml to Biab and save as SGU then in the plugin open the SGU.
You can do the same with 2 instances of the plugin in Tracktion. You would need to import the xml to Biab and save as SGU then in the plugin open the SGU.
Wow, that's very interesting! Thanks, pipeline! Normally, when I import my .WAV file that I saved from BiaB, it just takes up one track. But as I ponder this, am I correct in thinking that the plugin will import each instrument from BiaB onto its own track? If so, I suspect that each instrument would be in its own rectangular box graphic that can be easily moved around and adjusted exactly like the .WAV file can be. I'll definitely watch the video and figure out how to do this. It could be a much better workaround than my original Traction workaround---especially until this bug gets fixed in RB (if that ever happens, of course).
You can drag the Master as a stereo mixdown of all the tracks into a stereo file or drag the Master as all separate tracks that lets you add FX and adjust levels of each instrument.
You can drag the Master as a stereo mixdown of all the tracks into a stereo file or drag the Master as all separate tracks that lets you add FX and adjust levels of each instrument.
Cool! That's a very flexible plugin. I look forward to trying it out very soon.
Getting back to the "hiccup" in RB at the 240/241 bar boundary, I noticed in one of your previous posts that you were able to regenerate a 3-bar section of all the tracks in your test song. Why wasn't I able to do that when I tried it? (I should have probably included this failed step in my video.) I'm wondering if I had to select the drum track as well, which I didn't do. I guess I'll have to try this to find out if that was the reason nothing happened.
I tried selecting the last 2 tracks and selected Generate All (selected regions)(selected tracks) but it didn't work then I selected all and it worked.
241-242 plays C and it should be B
I would being trying Tacktion with 2 Biab Plugins. In the first plugin that loads the first part of the chord sheet from MuseScore un-check Ending and the second un-check Leadin. Drag the Master green square for stereo mix of all tracks or the Master blue square for all tracks.
Pipeline, I want you to know that I haven't forgotten about your suggestion to try out the BiaB VST plugin with Tracktion on one of my songs that exceeds the 255 bar limit in BiaB. I've just been very busy over for the last two weeks in the RB forum where I had started a closely related discussion on 6/7/19 about a couple of problems I ran into when I followed jazzmammal's suggestion to use RB on one of my long songs because of his assertion that this limit has been resolved in RB. As you may already know, that discussion has been somewhat overwhelming, complex, and even confusing at times because, for a while, the focus was switching back and forth between various workflow scenarios using RB, BiaB, or both RB and BiaB. So, I finally suggested that someone start a new discussion over in this forum about all the known workarounds to the 255 bar limit in BiaB and even suggested that some of the BiaB-focused posts in the RB forum be transferred to this new discussion.
Besides wanting to remove some of the confusion that had developed in the RB discussion, my main reason for making this suggestion was to create a central repository of all of those workarounds for newbies to be directed to in the future who weren't able to figure out their own workaround or who wanted to know about other workarounds besides their own. While I'm still in favor of such a discussion being started and would even be willing to participate in it myself, no one has expressed any interest in doing so. And because I'm not knowledgeable enough about BiaB and RB to make it happen and to make sure that all the pertinent issues are properly addressed (as in, the user's primary objective, workflow scenario, software skill level, and musical/songwriting expertise, etc.), I feel that it would be better if someone other than myself took on this task. Consequently, I decided to follow up on this discussion by sharing the same suggestion here with the hope that someone has enough interest in BiaB's 255 bar limit issue to initiate the discussion.
You can do the same with 2 instances of the plugin in Tracktion. You would need to import the xml to Biab and save as SGU then in the plugin open the SGU.
Pipeline, I have the BiaB plugin installed in Tracktion, and I also opened an XML file of a 204 bar section (the first 204 bars) of a 325 bar song in BiaB as my first step to try out this procedure. Unfortunately, I am not able to save this first section as a .SGU file or as a .MGU file from BiaB. The only option BiaB gives me is .MGX, but the BiaB plugin doesn't open .MGX files. It only opens .SGU or .MGU files. I also checked the manual but couldn't find anything there about this, and the video on using the BiaB plugin with Tracktion doesn't address it either. So, I've hit a dead end with this procedure and don't know what else to try. Got any suggestions?
Add updated printing options, enhanced tracks settings, smoother use of MGU and SGU (BB files) within PowerTracks, and more with the latest PowerTracks Pro Audio 2024 update!
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