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Thanks for the tip and the kind words, Matt.

2b


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The only reason I started explaining RB is because the reason you started this thread about Mixcraft or Reaper was you were having problems with RB. To me it's logical to look at the underlying reason for a question as well as the question itself.

You'll notice nobody has actually disputed my points.

RB works as advertised.
VST's work fine.
Time stretch works fine.
Midi editing works fine, it's better than some, not as good as others.

Nowhere did I say RB is perfect or cannot be improved. Every piece of software in any field has issues and can be improved. Especially Help files.

The reason I'm posting this rather than using PM is because thousands of potential customers of PGM search about things like this all the time and this thread will pop up. If I wasn't making these points lots of people will think there's something inherently wrong with RB when there is not. Overall it's a killer program.

Bob


Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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[quote=jazzmammal]

You'll notice nobody has actually disputed my points.

The reason I, myself can not dispute is because I stopped using RealBand about 3 years ago due to the issues I had. So long ago I don't remember what they were other than frustrating. Therefore, I don't feel qualified to debate it. Meanwhile, I developed a new common workflow. Most often BIAB straight over to Reaper. Basically by-passing the Tourette Syndrom inducing features of RealBand. I watch the forum periodically for consistent claims of RealBand Peace and Happiness Uphoria. Weighing your experience as a veteran user against other novice users has peaked my interest only a little.


Does the noise in your head bother me ?
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I use RB now and again mainly to generate a lot of tracks that I then mix in Cubase. In that sense its a great program, you can enter chords etc generate plenty of realtracks within it.

It has crashed on me many times and when restarting always get that message do you want to use factory or default settings as it crashed last time you used it.

Did I do something wrong, I don't know nor do I have the time to find out. I just know that it can crash often, but I am not going to stop using it for it does things like generating tracks that no other DAW can do, so I will put up with its little quirks for the above reasons.

Another user has so much interest in Realband they actually crated a website to promote it,

Real band website

He/she got so frustrated with the quirks of the program they left the forum in disgust because they felt that nothing was been done to fix it.

He/she may have returned under a different name, I am not sure, but being a computer savvy person he/she sure knows what they are talking about, so its not a good idea to say that they don't.

BUT in the great scheme of things it doesn't matter, in 10-15 years time most of us won't be around and thinking of RB, its not wroth getting our blood pressure up about.

smile



Last edited by musiclover; 11/20/18 01:07 PM.

Musiclover

My music https://www.youtube.com/user/donegalprideofall

Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2024, Cubase 13, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use smile
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Agree with David and Dan, Bob. For my part, I wanted to love RB, especially since it's included in the hefty cost of BIAB Audiophile (it's worth it!). I continue to use RB, and have produced charted singles with it, but it's problematic. Sorry, it is. The editing features, zoom and panning into the Tracks window are primitive, It's only 32-bit, and though I purchased jBridge, 64-bit plugin performance is not seamless. It doesn't support VST3, which is important for some of the best 3rd party plugins. Although I have a robust PC, there are still occasional lockups and a less frequent crash. The volume node feature doesn't work well. You can't automate subgroup sliders with multiple channels assigned to them. I'm very happy RB works flawlessly on your end. It doesn't here, and other sophisticated users have experienced problems. Now, with the advent of the DAW Plugin for BIAB, my belief is that RB will not be updated, and will remain a so-so, 32-bit, VST1-2 program, which frustrates me, because again, I wanted to love it. I paid for it, I understand it fairly expertly, and I love the analog look of the UI. Again, can you produce a great sounding track with it? Yes. But in my experience, with lots of unnecessary work. Peace.


Best, Warren

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hi 2b im liking mixcraft a lot lately loving the midi side don't seem to have any noticeable latenecy on midi keyboard controller its a nice dawn I have used sonar to bandlab reaper,samplutude,reason and many more real band was crashing for me a lot 4 years ago so I left it alone for a time going to try it again it would give me a lot of options all dawns work great depends on your work flow I hope things work out for you eric


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One factor to consider is the support you can get on Mixcraft and Reaper. I have experience with Mixcraft support and it was excellent. I did not work with Reaper enough to form an opinion on their support. I found the Mixcraft tutorials and forum to be excellent. I did not try them for Reaper.

But keep in mind, lots of folks have one or the other who also have BIAB (and RealBand). This is a helpful forum and a unique place to get support if your questions are about using BIAB together with a DAW. I think, with no real evidence except reading past discussions, that a lot more people here use Reaper.

The brief upsurge to Mixcraft came at the same time that Cakewalk SONAR looked like it was no longer a choice, so some of those users (including me) started learning Mixcraft (and others). Then many of us (including me) went right back to the new incarnation of SONAR in the form of Cakewalk by BandLab. I did like Mixcraft but would advise you more to strongly consider Reaper if for no other reason than the support you can more likely get here when using it with BIAB.


BIAB 2024 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 6.5 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6; Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus Studio 192, Presonus Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors
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You can also use this method for getting chords from the Biab Plugin into Cubase or Studio One, ReaTrak for Reaper has a button to get chords from the plugin. I'm just looking into scripting in Cubase and Studio One to get the plugin chords from the plugin's Song.txt in the bb folder.
Cubase
Save a copy of the RealBand session to SGU to open in Biab
Watch https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmrih0pu325pobs/Biab-Chords-to-Cubase.mp4?dl=0
download https://www.dropbox.com/s/qmrih0pu325pobs/Biab-Chords-to-Cubase.mp4?dl=1

Reaper
Watch https://www.dropbox.com/s/ugjp1wgfcz3t5mb/RealBand-to-Reaper.mp4?dl=0
Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/ugjp1wgfcz3t5mb/RealBand-to-Reaper.mp4?dl=1

Studio One
Save a copy of the RealBand session to SGU to open in Biab
Watch https://www.dropbox.com/s/myxsq2v6y680e3i/RealBand-Using-Biab-Chords-to-Studio-One.mp4?dl=0
Download https://www.dropbox.com/s/myxsq2v6y680e3i/RealBand-Using-Biab-Chords-to-Studio-One.mp4?dl=1

Here's the Mac Output chords to midi:



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Interesting thread I missed before. My opinion is simple. Choose a REAL DAW that was designed by a software development team specializing in and focused on DAW software! To me RealBand seems more like a proof of concept project that was never fully developed or optimized for real world use. It is impressive for what it does but it simply does not compare with REAL DAWs IMHO.

There are plenty of REAL DAWs to choose from but I chose Reaper. Reaper is an outstanding DAW with plenty of advanced features along with a modern interface. It has never crashed in the 7 years I have used it (RealBand crashes or bogs down almost every time I use it.)

To those who say digital audio is complicated and that you need to spend 15 years to learn it and get it all working properly I'd say maybe that's true with RealBand but not with Reaper! It pretty much worked out of the box when I could barely spell DAW.

And regarding this silly notion that it is the user's fault RealBand crashes because they don't have a "standard" computer, well when other products like Reaper just work that pretty much proves it ain't the user's fault!

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Thanks to all of you who responded. I have been out of touch for a few days, so I just saw this.

First, I didn't want to get back into the contentious discussion about the wonders of RB and that something must be wrong with someone who can't get it to work properly and consistently. But since it has resurfaced, let me point out a few things.

1)Most of the people on this thread mention frequent crashing with RB and that was my experience. I used Reaper on the same computer for about 100 hours before I bought it. It never crashed. It still hasn't. I don't turn my wifi off or shut down my antivirus either. It just works.

2) Mr. Gannon has recently published a thread which extols the virtues of using Cakewalk with RB. That could be a signal that PG is going to let RB wither on the vine, and he may not be able to say that because of prior contractual obligations. I am not trying to put words in his mouth but it is something to consider. Most of us would buy BB at the same price without RB, so you could say PG makes no money on RB but they have to support it.

3) RB does some nice things when it works. I bought Reaper but I have opened RB a couple of times to copy and paste by measure number, a function I haven't learned on Reaper yet. I found I was still putting up with crashes and I was thankful I had made the change.

If RB works for you, by all means keep using it. I'm happy for you. At the same time, be happy for those of us who have found something that works better for us.

2b


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Originally Posted By: 2bSolo
.....Most of us would buy BB at the same price without RB, so you could say PG makes no money on RB but they have to support it.....

2b


and there's some Mac users asking for RealBand for Mac, I shiver and think they have no idea what they would get themselves into, it damn near killed me the stress it caused ! I tried it on Win10 as I thought that maybe the solution, it was going great, then BANG ! error, I just cried, seriously.
The plugin and a good DAW is the future, maybe they will get the plugin more compatible with the save BB.SGU songs with F5 settings ? RealBand forced me to get into ReaTrak Win/Lin/Mac and have not looked back.

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The thread is literally called mixcraft vs reaper. I haven’t seen a single post regarding either

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Welcome to the forum.

Did you read the entire thread? There is lots of mention about the two programs, in context that this is the off-topic forum for PG Music products.

Since you’re new here, I might also mention this thread is not an example of our finest work. If I were still teaching, I’d have at least two weeks of material on the interpersonal dynamics failures of a social media platform, just from this thread. But give us a chance. This is overall a friendly, helpful and knowledgeable group.


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Since I started the thread, let me respond. I was frustrated with Real Band and started looking for something. I had the free trials of Mixcraft and Reaper. I recorded with both.

In the end, I chose Reaper because there are so many support videos and it has an active forum. Also, a lot of people on this forum use Reaper. Since I did, I have not regretted the choice.

That doesn't mean you would make the same choice. IMO, the best way to evaluate is to have a piece you want to record. Try it on both DAW's and see which is better for you. Plan to spend several hours over the course of two weeks when you do it.

A couple of dislikes about Reaper: I don't like the non-destructive editing (but a lot of people like it). So I save before I edit and then tell the program to trim content. Also, it piles up files when you are doing punch-ins. Occasionally, you have to manage those.

If you have any other questions, post them. Or you can PM me, but I am not the most experienced user on this forum.

Hope this helps.

2b


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Originally Posted By: 2bSolo
S
In the end, I chose Reaper because there are so many support videos and it has an active forum. Also, a lot of people on this forum use Reaper. Since I did, I have not regretted the choice.
2b


Quote:
Reaper ...is a joy to work in. Primarily given that on my system it is and has been for years Rock-Solid. Can count on one hand the number of times it has crushed over these years. Add to that the Reaper Forum and many videos to view when you what to learn a new feature. And with Reaper there is always something new with constant upgrades.


Whoowie, I guess I win! grin


Dan, BIAB2024, SoundCloud Win11, i7(12thGen), 32GB, 1TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD), 2TB Libraries, 1 TB(WD-Black), 2TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD)Data, Motu Audio Express, Keystation 61, SL88 Studio, Reaper

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Late to the party as usual. But here is my two cents (sense) worth.

I start many years ago with a clarion 4 track cassette recorder, found a copy of cakewalk home studio on floppy disc. Bought a program called N track studios, it was glitches on my system, upgraded to cakewalk music creator 1, used it a while upgraded to 3, along the same time I used acid pro for a while. Then a regular here suggested a program called Multitrackstudios, I found that to be super stable and simple to get stuff done. Mean while I upgraded to cakewalk MC 5 then sonar 1 and 2 pro. Tinkered with them all a bit. Stayed with MTS for a while. Tried Reaper, found it solid and flexible, but it to me took to much set up and fiddling to cause me to switch. Bought a new interface from Presonus, it came with studio one free. Liked it, so upgraded (note I also owed powertracks, and BiaB) upgraded Studio one once again. Now I find it is the most stable and easiest to use. And by far the most productive for me. I did use RB for about two years creating backing track sets. It is fine but does occasionally crash and freezes for me.

Now on my system I have BiaB, RB, cakewalk by Bandlab, Reaper, and Studio one. My current workflow is Created in BiaB, and slide to Studio one. Once some of the little issues get worked out in the DAW plugin that will be a big part of it.

Point to all this is I have literally tried them all including a couple in Linux, even Cubase. Find one you like that works for you and stay they all make music.


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.
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"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."

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