Well, this afternoon I received a reply from Joe at PG Music to the email I sent to technical support yesterday. Before I share what Joe wrote to me, I'll share with I wrote in my email:

"Dear Technical Support,

I started using RealBand for the first time a few days ago to find out if it resolves the 255 bar limit in Band in a Box per the suggestion of another user in the Band in a Box forum. In the process, I discovered a problem that occurs repeatedly when RB reaches bar 241 during its track generation process using the BiaB engine. Rather than explain the problem in this email, I'll provide you with a link to the discussion I started in the RB forum on your website as well as a link to a video I created that documents this problem. I'll also provide you with a link to the original discussion I started in the BiaB form that resulted in my decision to try RB in order to create arrangements for two of my songs that exceed the 255 bar limit. Perhaps you could explain why this is happening and if there's anything I can do to work around it. Better yet, perhaps you could fix this problem without much effort. Thanks for your help!

(links included)

Tom"

And here is the reply I received:

"Thank you for contacting us. Although the limit for the song length in Band-in-a-Box is 255, generally speaking the closer you get to that point the more work the Band-in-a-Box engine taxes your computer and thus can create some pretty unwanted results.

As a general rule, the shorter the song the better it is. Even if you need to export smaller portions as a .wav then import them into another DAW to increase the length of it that would be a good work around.

Let us know if you require further assistance.

Cheers,
Joe
PG Music Inc.
Important Reminder: Please include all previous correspondence when replying to this message."

In my opinion, this is a strange reply. I contacted support about a bug in RB's execution of BiaB's engine to overcome the 255 bar limit, and support responded with a discussion on BiaB and a recommendation to use songs that don't get close to the 255 bar limit. Huh?

Tom Levan (pronounced La-VAN)
BiaB 2024 Win UltraPAK Build 1109, Xtra Style PAKs 1-11, RB 2024, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Intel Q9650 3 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD & 2 TB HDD, Tracktion 6 & 7 (freebies), Cakewalk, Audacity, MuseScore 2.1 & 3.4, Synthesizer V