(As much as I would love to speak Japanese, I had to use Google for the above. Sorry.)
Oh my gosh.... you really have worked hard. Please be aware that you've actually progressed your way through some very complex aspects of BIAB and Reaper right now. This learning is going to very worthwhile when it comes to understanding the easier things.
Again I say, "Please trust me on this". You've done really well and have every right to feel proud of your effort.
I had a play around with both harmonisers in Realband last night and there is definitely much more control available. It's worth persevering with if you have the time.
At the risk of scaring you, Realband will also give you something new to learn. What you've learnt already will help significantly, though, although it might not seem so at first.
There is a file that PG Music include that is designed for practising with the harmonisers. This file is found under \bb\Documentation\Tutorials\Tutorial - Audio Harmonies". It's called LISTEN.MGU (or .SGU if you'd prefer the version without a melody track).
I suggest that when you open the Listen.MGU file, you save it straight away as SEQ (in Realband) or as a different file name (e.g. Listen-test.MGU) in BIAB so that you don't overwrite the original material. I apologise for not mentioning this sooner... it completely slipped my mind.
If you have a listen to my below song, floyd jane (from Users Showcase) added harmony to this using the TC Helicon Harmoniser a few years ago. His harmony section starts at around 2:30. It's very cool what he did. He didn't have the original material to work with either!
The trick with the harmonisers is not to have the harmony too loud because every now and then audio artifacts and octave jumps occur. These are incredibly difficult to avoid. Fortunately, at lower volumes, the listener's ear doesn't hear them and the harmony is still just as effective. I've used TC Helicon Harmony many times and I like it. Harmonisers are also useful for creating a track that user can learn to sing and then create their own vocal harmony.
What I suggest is that you open the file Listen.MGU (located above) in Realband and test that it plays. Save it as an SEQ file. This is Realband's file format. If it doesn't play, that means I will need to give you some Audio and MIDI driver settings.
In Realband, the harmonisers are under the "Generate" menu (IMAGE 1).
To create a harmony...
1. select the Audio track (i.e. click on it and then press CTRL+A to select the whole track - see IMAGE 2 below).
Notice that it is track #8
2. Now click on the top harmoniser (that the arrow points to in IMAGE 1).
[I'll continue these instruction in the next post below]
3. After you select the top options, you'll be taken the screen on IMAGE 3 below. Set it as I've shown.
Notice that Audio is track #8 and that the first empty track on which to write the first harmony track is #10. For this reason, I chose "11" as my first harmony track (#5 on IMAGE 3)
4. Click OK
5. When you get to the next screen (IMAGE 4), set it as I've shown.
What to look at...
I've turned down the volume of the input track 8 to zero (#1)
#2 shows which setting refers to Harmony Down and which refers to Harmony Up.
I've left the volume settings where they were. If you want to make volumes louder, slide these upwards.
#4 I've set the "Harmony Down" to sound a little more masculine (the 'M' setting)
#5 I've set the "Harmony Up" to be a little more feminine (the 'F' setting)
#6 I've added a natural vibrato to "Harmony Up"
6. Leave everything else as is and click on "Generate" on the right side of the dialogue box. IMAGE 5 shows the harmony tracks written to Realband tracks 11 and 12.
After I played around with volume levels -- I raised all the MIDI volumes and lowered the Audio track volume a little...you'll find mp3 files of my results at the end of the post.
NOTE: I only used Coyote WT to play the MIDI backing. With either Realtracks or a superior soft synth these mp3 files would sound much better.
I hope this helps.
It's slow going for you because we're in different parts of the world. We'll get there, though. You're doing amazingly well!
Regards, Noel
P.S. You might like to have a look through video clips at the below PG Music site.
Hi Noel, I just recorded my voice using Realband. My voice track still delays tiny bit from other tracks. You explained me how to move one track to Aline with others on Reaper before. Could we do the same thing on Realband as easy as on Reaper?
Absolutely turn off snap to grid and click and drag the track. Also check the levels of the sound card input and the track levels and make sure it is not too low. You can use the audio level increase option inside RB or use a dynamics plugin or several other options to bring the recorded levels up
Lenovo Win 10 16 gig ram, Mac mini with 16 gig of ram, BiaB 2022, Realband, Harrison Mixbus 32c version 9.1324, Melodyne 5 editor, Presonus Audiobox 1818VSL, Presonus control app, Komplete 49 key controller.
...adding onto Rob's post above, the following quote is found on page 54 of the Realband 2020 (English) pdf manual. This will help. The manual is accessed under the "Help" menu.
Originally Posted By: from Realband 2020 Manual
Drag and Drop Editing
RealBand supports drag-and-drop editing in the Tracks and Audio Edit windows.
In the Tracks window you can easily move tracks up or down in relation to each other by drag ‘n’ drop using the mouse, e.g., drag track 1 below track 2 to change the order of the tracks.
You can move a highlighted region by holding down the Ctrl key with the left mouse button pressed, and drag the region to a new location in the song.
After releasing the mouse button, you have four options:
1. Move to new location and overwrite 2. Move to new location and merge 3. Copy to new location and overwrite 4. Copy to new location and merge.
Here's how I go about moving audio in Realband (RB). I'm old-school -- this will give you a couple of ways to do things.
PART 1 of 3
FIRSTLY... Here's how I move a section of audio.
I've loaded the PG Music demo called "\bb\Documention | Tutorials - Audio Harmony | LISTEN.SGU". I encourage you to work through this with me.
1. Set the resolution of Realband quarter notes to 120 PPQ.
The easiest way to do this is to deactivate the "Convert PPQ of loaded files to:" and then RB's parts per quarter note will be 120 ticks. (See IMAGE 1 below and follow the 1, 2, 3, 4.)
2. Right-click on any RB track and select "Grid" from the right-click menu (#1) and then set it to 16th note. (See IMAGE 2 below.)
This means that vertical grid-lines will appear every 1/16th note. Thus each quarter-note will have 4 gridlines.
Now because a quarter note consists of 120 ticks, this means that each 1/16th note will consist of 30 ticks. (File this away in your mind for later use.)
Now it's necessary to estimate how much to move the audio. To do this...
4. Listen to the audio. It's easy to hear the the beat 1 timing is not quite correct. For jazz, though, this is fine. For the purposes of this exercise, I want to line-up the word "Listen" so that it plays on beat 1.
The highest point on the the first syllable's blob (i.e. the wave diagram of the sound) is where the main part of the syllable "Li-" occurs.
Since I know that each 1/16th note is 30 ticks, when I look at the highest point on the syllable "Li-", I can see that it's about 26-27 ticks after beat 1 (IMAGE 4). I can tell this because it's not quite up to the 1/16th note gridline.
I'll use 27 and pull the audio back 27 ticks.
5. Now I select a region around the audio that I want to move (IMAGE 5).
6. Select "Cut" from the Edit Menu (or the "Cut" icon or CTRL+X).
On my example, the audio is cut from (bar)=0 (beat)=4 (ticks)=90 -- this is the START of the blue selected area of the WAV.
7. Select "Paste" from the edit menu (or the "Paste" icon or CTRL+V).
When I paste it, I need to move the audio 27 ticks to the left. So instead of pasting it a 0 4 90, I take 27 off the 90 and paste it at 0 4 63 (See IMAGE 6)
8. The top of the "Li-" blob now lines up with beat 1. (IMAGE 6)
If you play the song, you will hear the difference.
1. Cut the blank couple of bars at the beginning of the audio track. Do this by...
(a) select just the first region of the track (I'd have "snap to grid" on)
(b) click on "cut" (this section is not pasted anywhere)
2. Using the waveform, estimate how far away from the beat, the first syllable of your vocals is. (Just like I did in the above the "Listen".)
3. Now click on the Audio track and press CTRL+A to select it all.
4. CTRL+X (or press "Cut") and, like before, make a note of the "From Bar, Beat, Ticks".
5. CTRL+V (or press "Paste") and adjust the bar, beats, ticks setting to the new value.
There you have it.
In future, what I suggest you do is to use ASIO or Windows Audio for your audio driver when you record. If you do this, you probably will not have to adjust the audio track at all.
If you don't have an ASIO driver for your soundcard, download ASIO4ALL from the below site and install it. It's free and its what I use. BIAB and RB work with this driver.
NOTE: If you use Windows Audio (WAS in BIAB) or ASIO, it's possible that you will not hear audio in other programs if RB is open. If you change RB audio back to MME after recording, this problem won't occur. Also, if RB is closed, this won't be a problem either.
Hi Noel, thanks a lot AGAIN for spending your time and efforts to explain step by step. I’ll go through all the information above and get back to you soon.
Hi Noel, I recorded my voice successfully on Realband. Then tried to harmonize the track on Realband. Unfortunately my computer stopped working. I had to force shut it and tried it again. Same thing happened. My computer doesn’t like Realband harmonizer for some reasons. To be continued.
I have Windows 7 and everything that I've posted here I tested first. It worked for me.
Have you tried running your computer in Administrator Mode? This is different from logging in into Windows as Admin. To enter Admnistrator Mode, right-click on the Realband startup shortcut and then select "Run As Administrator".
If this solves the problem, you can set "Run as administrator" permanently by right-clicking on the short-cut, selecting "Properties" and then, under the Compatibility tab, set the option.
Because my folder permissions were inherited from a Windows Vista computer that I had, I cannot run RB without using Administrator Mode.
Also, with your Antivirus software, it's a good idea to exclude the \bb and \Realband directories. This usually speeds things up (but it shouldn't stop things working).
One more thing, when running TC Helicon, make sure that your Audio Driver is set to MME. This is the driver that seems most stable when trying to work out what causes a problem. (Setting the audio driver is in "PART 3 of 3" above.)
Lastly, if you had to use CTRL+ALT+DEL to start Task Manager to close RB, it's possible that vertical scrolling of the tracks in RB is not properly set. (I've reported this to the developers.) To set this, have a look at the image below and set the "Tracks" screen to maximum size.
Haaaaaaa, big sigh. I’m not designed to do those. I wish I could hire someone to do this for me. I just wanna sing.
Two things.
. The instructions I provided you earlier will work with any audio you record that is out of sync due to latency. It's a one button selection in the audio editor of BIAB. So if you want to stay with trying to record with a computer DAW, make a backing track, record a vocal track and sync the vocal and backing track in the BIAB audio editor.
I think a better solution for you is:
. If the above statement you made above is true. Reverse how you are currently recording and create your BIAB backing track to a stereo audio file. Purchase a stand alone digital recorder, load your BIAB stereo backing track onto the SD card of the digital recorder and you will instantly eliminate all of the above issues and solutions you've encountered so far. You literally and physically can be finished with a song perfectly recorded in sync between your singing and the recorded backing track within 10 minutes of taking the digital recorder out of the box...
If your goal is to make a stereo backing track, mix vocals and backing vocals similar to the posts you've made in the past, I recommend the model below. There are other versions that are smaller and cheaper but this specific model has the specific features included so that you can complete your project without having to send all your recorded tracks back into a computer DAW. Here, you will create your musical backing tracks in BIAB and export that into the external recorder, record your vocals on the external recorder. There will not be any latency.
The Tascam DP-008ex is designed to do what you want. The next size up, the DP-03SD has even more editing and effects than the DP-008ex if you want a more polished recording.
You've spent nearly 3 weeks on this issue and haven't resolved it yet. There's also no promise that a future update on your computer won't mess everything up again. You can have a stand alone, digital multi track recorder in a few days and record for the next 20 plus years without issues.
Hi guys, I had a couple of days to cool down my over heated brain after your last postings on 23rd. Then yesterday, it was my short term goal to complete at least one tune with harmony. Here are things I did.
I recorded my voice with Reaper by plugin. BIAB bar cursor wasn’t in-sync. I ignored it for now. Bigger problem than that was BIAB bar settings weren’t functioning. I muted certain instruments at certain bars during a song in BIAB. Non of the settings were working. BIAB played all the instruments all time. I ignored it too for this time. But I want to know the solution for this problem later if I can.
Then I rendered vocal track only in wav file and imported it in BIAB and harmonized it. I won’t let you listen to it. Cuz my singing isn’t making my standard unfortunately. I was too tired physically and mentally to do a few more takes to get better voice recording.
There was another difficulty while I was arranging this one tune. I’m sure this one is a minor problem for you guys to give me a solution. When I tried to insert a guitar solo in this tune, I couldn’t cut and paste a few bars cuz I didn’t know how to highlight the part on Reaper. I was so tired to investigate it further. Could you tell me how?
Anyhow, I did this particular task above, cut and paste, using Audacity to complete my project on time.
In Reaper, at least the theme I'm using, you place the cursor in the track info bar, just above the wave display for the track you want to highlight .. then drag
Which reminds me I still need to get my old theme back on this new machine
Last edited by rharv; 01/28/2001:38 PM.
Make your sound your own! .. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Bigger problem than that was BIAB bar settings weren’t functioning. I muted certain instruments at certain bars during a song in BIAB. Non of the settings were working. BIAB played all the instruments all time.
There are 3 reasons that I can think of that would cause the bar settings not to sound....
1. The song wasn't regenerated after the settings were added... each time bar settings are made or modified, the song needs to be regenerated.
2. Tracks are frozen -- the "freeze' icon is the snow crystal on the rights of "S" on the mixer. This will be light blue if it is on. Just click on it if it is blue and it will deactivate. Now regenerate the song.
3. An audio file of BIAB's backing has been made... if you saved BIAB's backing to audio (wav, mp3, etc) then that audio is saved in the same folder as the song file. Every time you open the song file the audio will be loaded along with the song file and it will play along with BIAB.
Now if the audio was created before you set the tracks coming in and out of the song, you will have an audio file with no bar settings playing along with a song file that has bar settings. The end result will be that it sounds like the settings are not working.
If an audio file is present, click "Audio" then select "Edit Audio | Kill entire audio" on the very top menu and then select "Kill Audio". This will delete the audio file.
Now regenerate the song and play it and the settings will work.
Originally Posted By: ライミン
Then I rendered vocal track only in wav file and imported it in BIAB and harmonized it. I won’t let you listen to it. Cuz my singing isn’t making my standard unfortunately. I was too tired physically and mentally to do a few more takes to get better voice recording.
Excellent! I'm glad you've got it working.
If you successfully recorded audio, that would have used the Audio track. Since BIAB only has a single audio track, any song file that was saved to audio (as I mentioned above), would have been overwritten. This means the muting problem is either due to #1 or #2 above.
Originally Posted By: ライミン
There was another difficulty while I was arranging this one tune. I’m sure this one is a minor problem for you guys to give me a solution. When I tried to insert a guitar solo in this tune, I couldn’t cut and paste a few bars cuz I didn’t know how to highlight the part on Reaper. I was so tired to investigate it further. Could you tell me how?
I highlight a section in Reaper by holding the left mouse button down and dragging across the top display of bars and beats. This creates a selection and it can be fine-tuned by dragging the end markers in or out. Pressing ESC will remove the selection. See the image below.
Once you've selected a region. Scroll to the track you want to copy from, right-click on the track and select "Copy selected area of items" -- it's about 2/3rds of the way down the menu. CTRL+V will paste the copied section.
Thanks guys. Sorry that I’ve been away from this forum for a while. I’ve got an offer to perform at a restaurant next weekend. I was psychologically busy for the preparation.
I will come back and study you guys suggestions the following week. Talk to you soon. Ciao.
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-- this will give you a couple of ways to do things.
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