PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand Is RealBand Flaky for others?

Hi All,
It may just be my installations of RealBand, but I find it is behaving quite flakily in a most annoying way.

The problems I have had so far are:

1. When I use the custom dialog for saving revised copies of midi files I get an exception. This happens if I have opened a midi file, modified it and saved it to the same folder under a new name. The file doesn't actually save.
2. If I create a song and save this as an SEQ then all works OK, but if I modify the song (change style perhaps) and save this with a different name in the same folder, I get an exception and the file is not saved. (see the error message below)
3. If I generate RealTracks from chords and then change the tempo I get a full crash. No problem if the generated song is all midi.


Access violation at address 004054EB in module 'RealBand.exe'. Write of address 0069006C.


Exception log with detailed tech info. Generated on 05/11/2019 11:48:03.
You may send it to the application vendor, helping them to understand what had happened.
Application title: RealBand - [untitled] 000135
Application file: F:\Realband\RealBand.exe
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Exception class: EAccessViolation
Exception message: Access violation at address 004054EB in module 'RealBand.exe'. Write of address 0069006C.
Exception address: 004054EB

I am not an expert on RB and in fact I rarely use it but I do have a question. Are you using save or save as when trying to save a song under a different name? In my DAW, Studio One Pro, I have to use save as.

If you are using save as then just ignore this message.

I do use Save As because its I am usually saving a different version of the song. It's Save As that actually causes the problem. Using Save is always OK because this keeps the properties of the file the same, including filename.
I tried an experiment. Firstly I created a RB file from scratch and saved it (using Save). If I open the same file again and attempt to Save As in then I get a crash (I think it is a permissions violation).
If I open the file again and use Save as in different folder then I crash again.

But ... if I copy an older version of the file to a temp folder, open this file in RB and save it, there is no problem, but then I have to change the name of the file outside RB. In short, I can manage it, but it is a pain. I have check my permissions and all seems OK. So long as I do not use Dave As there is no problem.

You say you don't use RB often! Neither do I. I tend to use Ableton and Sonar most of the time, but these do not give me the quick start with accompaniment and ideas that BIAB and RB and everytime I go back to them I have to learn it all over again (age not being on my side). They are both excellent at trying out chord progressions and chord types quickly. If only these could be integrated into Ableton.

I have had some interest in Studio One but I can't bear to be starting all over again (FL Studio gets a little kick every now and again)


John

I suspect RealBand is having trouble handling all the edit events. One way to minimize this possibility is to use the "Edit" > "Track" > "Consolidate Audio Region" command.

If a track contains separate audio events, this command consolidates the events into one big event. This command will work on the highlighted area of all selected audio tracks.

Are you running RB as an Administrator?

It sounds like your first couple problems may be permissions related to me also and this fixes a bunch of permission issues in one easy step.

Right-click your RB shortcut and 'Run as Administrator'.
If this fixes the problem, modify your shortcut Properties on the Compatibility tab to always run as admin (in the Privilege Level section)

Edit:
Just noticed the part of the message that says you are running RB from F:\ and not your C:\ drive
Is this the external drive, or an internal drive that you copied RB to?
Copying an application to a new drive can inadvertently cause weird permissions issue .. so running as admin is even more applicable. see below image


Have you tried the BiaB plugin for other DAWs? Or does it not work in Ableton ..

Thank you rharv, but I already run RB as administrator. I also feel that this is a permissions problem. I tried copying RealBand back to the C: drive to see if that might have been the problem, but no change there. I gave users Full Control of the destination folder but still no difference. Even though I suspect that this may be permissions related, I don't understand how I am able to create the SEQ file in the first place. If I simply create new songs and save them I can then modify them to my hearts content and there is no issue. These operation all require underlying permissions. It is only if I decided to Save As.
As soon as I select Save As I get the error, at that point the software has not even asked me where I want to save the file, it just says that an error has occurred as shown below. Because the message tells me I proceed, I dismiss the message and attempt to Save As a second time. This time I do get the choce of where I want to save the new file. I give the file a completely different name - test.seq - (original I know). I then get the error report again. After I dismiss the message I see that the file has not been saved.
I try again and open the original file, I then Save As. Now I put a couple of characters appended to the end of the original file name and then I'm told that file already exists as shown below.

Now, when I continue these test I found that it DID start to save the new file name, but knowing I have done nothing extra to the system I carry on these tests and for a few Save As tries it works a treat, not even giving me this original error! Sometimes the file is save with now filename, just the SEQ extension!

So .., I began the process from scratch but then I get the errors and as I persevere I get it to work several times. After a few successful Save As operations the program loops and I have to kill it in Task Manager.







So really this error is inconsistent and probably not worth anybody's time. If I can get it to work now and again that will be OK because I don't use Save As too often.

I'm very grateful for the very helpful support that we all get in this forum though.

One thing I was intrigued by though, was the ability to run BIAB and RB from and external drive. Does this simply meany, after installation, simply copying the BB and RealBand folder to the external drive. That would certainly save me a lot of save and allow me to use the program on my laptop and other PC.

Thanks again

As an addendum to this post I have spent some time time trying to sort the 'flaky' problems out. It was all too easy to try and blame RealBand for the issues because nobody elsse seemed to have the issues.

The the major issues that I had were:

1. Renaming a file when using Save As (SEQ save)
2. Crash after saving a SEQ after inserting a loop
3. A forever loop when I tried to change the tempo of a song containing audio tracks

Well, after learning that not nobody had these issues and looking at the error log, it did really look like I had a permissions problem. RealBand was already running under the Admin authority' so the application itself should have not had any issues with security. I looked at the set of folders which were the target of the save and I gave them full control to all users but this did nothing to alleviate the problem, still getting exactly the same error.

I tried moving RealBand back to the C: drive where it had initially been installed, but , again, no joy.

I used a folder at the root of the F: drive where RealBand.exe was located, but nothing again.

I did noticed that I could, outside RealBand, use Windows Explorer to make a copy of the original SEQ and I could rename this. This new file was easy to load and use Save, so at least I had a workaround.

I had decided to just to stick with this. Then, on a different tack, I was going to try to run RealBand from a removable drive and work on my laptop. I thought I might try the rename problem on this removable, and it WORKED.

So I moved back to my PC and created a copy of the RealBand song PC folder on my removable and, to my surprise (and delight), it WORKED.

So ..., I went back to the original folder on my PC and, to my delight (and dismay), it also WORKED. Because now I had no idea what was really causing the problem.

Now I couldn't seem to get it not to work. I shut down last night and started this morning working directly from the folder on the PC, doing edits and using Save As with no problem at all.

So now I don't know what the issue was. I'll just have to wait and see if it comes back again

At least points 1 and 2 have now been addressed.

Full of hope from the success of points 1 and 2 I thought I would try point 3 on the removable.

But this was just the same. I added an audio track to the song and tried to change the tempo. Everything appeared to be working. I'm told on a dialog that the Sample Rate is being processed and I even get the progress bar, but the circle appears on the screen and I wait ... and wait ... and wait - in fact I went for a cup of tea. On coming back I could see that no progress had been made. I look in Task Manager and I can see that the CPU is running at 40% with RealBand. I was unable to cancel on the dialog, so I just had to kill it - I don't think I've used Task Manager so much since I started using RealBand.

Still, if I use just midi on my tracks until I am happy with the song tempo then I can insert the audio at the last minute.

Thanks to all for the helpful pointers.

The reason I've spent so much time on it (I am an Ableton user) is that RealBand does have some really excellent features for song creation and I was contemplating moving to the 2019 version (2017 at present) and was evaluating whether or not it would be worth my while.

Not decided yet!

Thanks

John

Jonel
To answer your question above in one word - Yes

Remember that BB/RB allows up to THREE installs per Customer.
I run Win7 but I also DL it into my old XP system and after Christmas, if Santa is kind, it'll go on a new Win10 drive too.
Ian

Yes, I was aware of the ability to do this but what I means is, as long as I have installed on these different machines then is it OK to copy the RealBand/BIAB folder on to a portable drive and then simply move this around to the machine currently being used?

Yes.
As long as the drive is not used on two computers at once.

Many of us install the programs (only) to C: on different computers then use external drives for everything else like the RTs and RDs and file saves, if desired and room is available.
On my main machines I use a separate internal drive, but external drive works on my laptops, windows pad, etc.

Thank you, I'll give that a true.

Are you confirming/vouching, or did you mean you'll give it a try?
<grin>

Sorry, I meant I would give it a try. Another brain fart for me!