Real Band

[Harry Dove]

I've been thinking of trying out Real Band. Has anybody here spent much time with it? If so, does it have advantages over BIAB, or would my time be better spent on something else?

[Erv Niehaus]

I thought Real Band was part of BIAB?
Erv

[Harry Dove]

They include it with BIAB and you can swap tracks but they are different programs and run differently. I watched a couple of clips from YouTube and it appears that you can have much more control over what you make with Real Band. I'm just wondering if it would be worth the time, or is something else better.

[Norman Evans]

I don't record any on a computer, but I use Real Band all the time to tweak songs I've arranged in BIAB. I record everything I do on a Korg D888 recorder. Then I transfer the tracks as wave files to the computer and open them in Real Band. Real Band works like any DAW with a lot of useful tools. I'm sure you could record just like any other DAW, but I just haven't got into computer recording.

[Harry Dove]

Thanks for the info. It sounds like it might be worth the time to become more familiar with it.

[Greg Cutshaw]

I use RealBand to generate RealTracks which I then port to Reaper to add to my studio recorded live tracks and other parts like drums generated in EZDrummer. It's pretty intuitive to learn. In my case I simply type in a chord sequence and let RealBand generate the tracks which I then convert to wav files. The Realband tracks must be on their own hard drive if you want full fidelity on the the RealTracks. I bought BIAB/Realband packaged on a hard drive at a huge discount and everything works as advertised. If you don't want or need RealTracks you might be able to do everything you need in BIAB or better yet use a DAW such as Reaper as a home base for editing and mastering.

Here some songs where I used RealBand to generate the fiddle and piano parts:

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Midn ... arillo.mp3


http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Boot ... 20Drag.mp3


http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Corr ... orrina.mp3

[Harry Dove]

It sounds like Real Band generates some pretty good fills. So far I have been creating all my backing tracks on BIAB, but I want to expand a bit.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by the tracks being on their own drive. Are you referring to the tracks being stored as the full sized files rather than being converted to another form with smaller file size?

Thanks for the info.

[Greg Cutshaw]

The RealTracks are converted to wma files if you choose to load them and run them from your PC or MAC. They stay as high quality wav files if you run them from the BIAB provided hard drive.

You can always type your chord chart into RealBand, generate a Real track, then copy that track back to BIAB or vice versa. There's nothing special about the RealBand DAW functions. RealBand also has loads of midi tracks you can generate so you have the choice of generating midi or real tracks or combining the two. There's also MultiRiff which I use all the time. It gives your 7 versions of the same track and allows you to choose the version you like best.

[Harry Dove]

Ok thanks.

This is the response I got from PG Music regarding BIAB files:

From a audio (i.e. Realtrack) perspective, BIAB comes in two sound qualities. What quality you have depends entirely on the which version of the product you purchased.

If you purchased the Audiophile edition (that is, the top of the range), then the USB drive that it is shipped on will contain the WAV files for audio. If you purchased any other package, the USB drive will contain WMA files.

The Audiophile version also allows the user to install a WMA-file version of BIAB onto a computer's hard drive. So if you did buy the Audiophile software, make sure that you set BIAB's Realtrack and Realdrum preferences to point to the USB drive when you are building the final audio product.

If you purchase was either ProPak, MegaPak or ULtraPak, and you installed that package on your computer, then the audio files are WMA on both the external and internal installations.

[Jim Fogle]

Band-in-a-Box and RealBand have different objectives.

The objective for Band-in-a-Box is to quickly create backing tracks. The song (arrangement, structure and so on) is more important than any individual track. For the most part Band-in-a-Box will quickly deliver good sounding audio. The program focus matches the focus of its creator, Peter Gannon.

The objective for RealBand is the same as any digital audio workstation or DAW; to make each track the best it can be. You work on each track more than you work on the song. RealBand is a slightly modified version of the DAW PowerTracks Pro. The program DAW focus matches the focus of its creator, Jeff Yankauer.

[Jeffrey Smith]

I use RealBand to generate RealTracks which I then port to Reaper to add to my studio recorded live tracks and other parts like drums generated in EZDrummer. It's pretty intuitive to learn. In my case I simply type in a chord sequence and let RealBand generate the tracks which I then convert to wav files. The Realband tracks must be on their own hard drive if you want full fidelity on the the RealTracks. I bought BIAB/Realband packaged on a hard drive at a huge discount and everything works as advertised. If you don't want or need RealTracks you might be able to do everything you need in BIAB or better yet use a DAW such as Reaper as a home base for editing and mastering.

Here some songs where I used RealBand to generate the fiddle and piano parts:

http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Midn ... arillo.mp3


http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Boot ... 20Drag.mp3


http://www.gregcutshaw.com/Samples/Corr ... orrina.mp3

Very nice playing there, Mr. C. But the piano player didn't sound drunk nor were the fiddlers playing flat. What gives? Does it have a mode for mimicing local musicians in my area or not?

Jeff

[Jim Fogle]

RealBand can do some things that Band-in-a-Box can't. Some that come to mind are follow a click track, generation on command, partial track generation, have more than eight instrument tracks, export part of a track as a loop and multi-riff.

Band-in-a-Box uses what tempo is set and can only change tempo at each bar unless you use the Audio Chord Wizard to create a custom tempo map. RealBand lets you use the Audio Chord Wizard for a custom tempo map or listen to audio and create your own click track. RealBand will then follow your tempo map.

Band-in-a-Box automatically regenerates when certain conditions are met such as a style change. RealBand generates when a SGU or MGU file is first opened but then only generates on command. When RealBand does generate only selected tracks get generated.

Band-in-a-Box always generates whole tracks unless a track is frozen. RealBand only generates selected tracks or highlighted sections of a track.

Band-in-a-Box has eight tracks. RealBand has 48 tracks.

Highlight a selection in a track and the highlighted audio can be exported as an audio loop with root chord, time signature and tempo data embedded in the file.

Multi-riff is likely the most popular feature in RealBand as many people open the program only to use the multi-riff feature. So what is multi-riff? Multi-riff is the creation of up to seven generations of a RealTrack segment at the same time. Each of the seven generations will be different from each other as well as the original highlighted track segment. The major benefit is you can listen to each in context with the rest of the song to decide which riff works best. You can also select to use multiple riffs or all the riffs. You can also copy and paste to different parts of the song. It's a great time saver.

A screen shot of the wulti-riff window is below.