PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Add-ons and UserTracks for Band-in-a-Box Plenty of issues & shortcomings still to fix (for staff & others interested)

I haven't gotten into Reaper, no, but then I honestly don't find the creation process all that hard, and to me actually the most fun part is the creative aspect of this (very broken) feature.
It's the technical stuff that irks, the post production tweaking, and setting all the crucial correct rules in the correct places, and the things that flat out just Don't Work, and the... crap, now you got me all worked up, just when I've said I wasn't going to be bothered anymore!

REATRAK fits them by color association for different sections marked by color and has shots n holds, you can keep bars linked together for riffs or drum sections
each of the sections are represented by a color (like EZDrummer)
play_anywhere
count_in
intro_post_fill
intro
intro_fill
verse_post_fill
verse
verse_fill
verse_ending
bridge_post_fill
bridge_fill
bridge
pre_chorus_post_fill
pre_chorus
pre_chorus_fill
chorus_post_fill
chorus
chorus_fill
chorus_ending
drum_riff
hold
shot
rest

I'm sure all that sounded so simple in your head, Mr. Programmer Mentality

Anyway, first things first, I'll at least check out if any of this actually works on my platform, ta for the tips.

Yes Mac/Lin/Win

Eddie, sorry my update wasn't clear. 2019 BiaB for Windows Help or F1includes a description of the UserTracks Development Dialog Window, see the screenshot below. Hopefully the same information will be available in the 2019 BiaB for Mac release.

Very good. I think I'll actually save that screenshot for further study, ta

That's worth a look, then

Bottom line is still this:

Until PG team realises that the only way to properly implement the concept of Usertracks, is that everything is designed exactly the same way as with their Realtracks, with the only difference being where the audio track comes from, the result is always going to be disappointing and fall much too short of the goal.

You two (Fogle & Pipeline) were sort of getting to that conclusion in your latest posts when you started talking about the S&H part of the equation, and it's "only" taken 4 years to get there! - But at least you got there well before PG has ....

Maybe they have realised that if they do this there will be competition for PG RealTracks in the market place ?
I can create RealDrums with this in depth tutorial Making RealDrums Styles with Band-in-a-Box®
There is a short Tutorial Make your own UserTrack with Band-in-a-Box® 2014 and higher
I can't find Making RealTracks with Band-in-a-Box®

Maybe if I create up 12key soloist UserTracks and put each one in a RealDrum package,
this way it will play in the right section in the right place, play the whole bar without dividing it up, I could change the UserTrack (RealDrum) at any bar to another or substyle variation, they won't over transpose.

LOL that's my life here, always looking for workarounds.

Who's up for a challenge ? I'm just worn out from beta testing from late Nov til now !!!

Here's a Midi Flute in C and Cm, there is a 2 bar count-in with 1 bar lead-in,
there's 4 4 bar endings, you can set 2 to Aending and 2 to Bending or duplicate them and have 4 of each .
It sounded ok with Kontakt factory library Flute with no reverb,
I had the A playing with the sustain switch and the B playing with staccato.
Here is some info on substyle variations this is where drums have ^ on the end of the name.
This way you can use this for different keys Major or minor.
You just transpose the below midi to the 12keys staying in octave range of Kontakt or another VI for each substyle variation.

FluteClassicalPopEv8^
in the root of that folder you will have all the wav files for each key
and in the respective sub folders you will have the txt file that points to
the wav name for particular key, you should only have to create 1 text file
that is renamed and the source wavename=FluteClassicalPopEv8^_120_Style-C.wav inside the text file, then put 1 in each folder pointing to it's respective key wav.
In the txt you can add the sections as below,
6) duration of the pattern in bars, I think keep this 1, 2 bars that way it
should look for other different sections from the source file to fit on the next bar so it's not playing the same 4 bars in a row from the source file.
If you get enthusiastic you can put other tempos in just like drums.
; in front means the line is commented out, irrelevant
; after at the end just has a comment what the line is

https://www.dropbox.com/s/bkeb5a7mc8g7y7h/RapidComposer-Flute-Kontakt-C-Cm.zip?dl=1

Info here Drums Sub Folders

more useful info User RealDrums and Drums picker

More info here to add drum names to BB drum list and memos
http://www.realband.org/tutorial-drums2.html

more if you get stuck Making RealDrums Styles with Band-in-a-Box®

All patterns are defined in the text file using lines of text containing seven elements, with each of the seven elements separated by a comma. The seven elements are: 1) the text "pattern", 2) type of pattern, 3) section definition (A, B or all), 4) weight (how often the pattern will be played higher the number more often played), 5) Mask (restrictions on where the pattern can be played), 6) duration of the pattern in bars, 7) the location of the pattern in the style wave file.


pattern,Normal,A,2,1,2,75
pattern,Fill,A,1,0,1,58
pattern,PostFill,B,8,0,8,3
pattern,Ending,0,6,0,2,114
pattern,Count-in,0,5,0,2,-1

Here are some examples of 'A' patterns:
pattern,Fill,A,1,0,1,8
pattern,PostFill,A,8,0,8,1
pattern,PostFill,A,5,0,1,9
pattern,PreFill,A,4,0,2,7
pattern,Normal,A,2,0,1,3
pattern,Normal,A,5,3,2,11

Here are some examples of 'B' patterns:
pattern,Fill,B,6,0,1,32
pattern,Fill,B,5,0,1,58
pattern,PostFill,B,4,0,2,17
pattern,PreFill,B,7,0,1,57
pattern,Normal,B,5,1,2,75
pattern,Normal,B,2,5,2,64

Here are some examples of '0' patterns:
pattern,Count-in,0,5,0,2,-1
pattern,ending,0,1,0,1,33

Here are some examples of special-case endings:
pattern,ending,Aending,5,0,2,37
pattern,ending,Bending,5,0,2,77


You could even create some shots and hold with a single note,
but the problem is drums use the same for shot or hold ???:

Like patterns, shots are also defined in the text file using lines of text containing several elements: 1) the text "shot", 2) type of shot (0 for shot or hold, 1 for pushes), 3) the bar number of the shot in the style wave file, 4) the number of ticks (1 beat = 120 ticks) before or after the bar number the shot occurs, 5) the duration of the shot in ticks, 6) weight, 7) volume of the shot


Shot,1,41,-1,349,3,110 ;kick
Shot,0,41,-1,349,2,110 ;kick
Shot,1,41,349,250,4,100 ;snare
Shot,0,41,349,250,3,100 ;snare
Shot,1,42,120,777,1,80 ;crash and kick 1
;Shot,0,42,120,777,1,80 ;crash and kick 1
Shot,1,43,418,774,2,80 ;crash and Snare
Shot,0,43,418,774,1,80 ;crash and Snare
Shot,1,45,233,405,7,90 ;crash2 and kick
;Shot,0,45,233,405,7,90 ;crash2 and kick

Shot{ Kick (applicable for Brushes & Sticks) },1,183,0,634,1,90
;Shot{ Kick (applicable for Brushes & Sticks) },0,183,0,634,1,90
Shot{ Snare with Sticks },1,184,155,475,1,90
;Shot{ Snare with Sticks },0,184,155,475,1,90
Shot{ HiHat with Sticks },1,185,151,158,1,90
;Shot{ HiHat with Sticks },0,185,151,158,1,90
Shot{ Crash 1 with Sticks },1,185,310,158,1,90
;Shot{ Crash 1 with Sticks },0,185,310,158,1,90
;Shot{ Crash 2 with Sticks },1,185,469,316,1,90
Shot{ Crash 2 with Sticks },0,185,469,316,1,90
Shot{ Crash 2 with Sticks, choked },1,186,306,348,1,90
;Shot{ Crash 2 with Sticks, choked },0,186,306,348,1,90
;Shot{ Crash 3 with Sticks },1,187,175,761,1,90
Shot{ Crash 3 with Sticks },0,187,175,761,1,90
;Shot{ Crash 4 with Sticks },1,188,457,634,1,90
Shot{ Crash 4 with Sticks },0,188,457,634,1,90
;Shot{ Tom 1 with Sticks },1,190,132,634,1,90
Shot{ Tom 1 with Sticks },0,190,132,634,1,90
;Shot{ Tom 2 with Sticks },1,191,287,634,1,90
Shot{ Tom 2 with Sticks },0,191,287,634,1,90
Shot{ Floor Tom 1 with Sticks },1,192,442,316,1,90
Shot{ Floor Tom 1 with Sticks },0,192,442,316,1,90
Shot{ Floor Tom 2 with Sticks },1,193,279,475,1,90
;Shot{ Floor Tom 2 with Sticks },0,193,279,475,1,90
;Shot{ Cross Stick 1 },1,194,276,475,1,90
Shot{ Cross Stick 1 },0,194,276,475,1,90
Shot{ Cross Stick 2 },1,195,272,951,1,90
;Shot{ Cross Stick 2 },0,195,272,951,1,90

5) Mask

A Mask can be used to specify that a pattern should only be used a certain number of bars after a part marker. It only applies to Normal patterns, and all other patterns should be given a weight of 0 (0 means no mask).

Here is a list of the possible masks, and what effect they will have:

0 - No mask: This pattern can be used anywhere
1 - Odd bars only: 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, etc. bars after a part marker
2 - Even bars only: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, etc. bars after a part marker
3 - 3, 7, 11, 15, etc. bars after a part marker
4 - 4, 8, 12, 16, etc. bars after a part marker
5 - 5, 13, 21, etc. bars after a part marker
6 - 6, 14, 22, etc. bars after a part marker
7 - 7, 15, 23, etc. bars after a part marker
8 - 8, 16, 24, etc. bars after a part marker
etc.

Many drum beats use 2-bar rhythms that then repeat, so it's very common for the "1" and "2" masks to be used. If you have assigned a "1" mask to several Normal patterns, and a "2" mask to several others, you will always be sure that the 2-bar grouping remains consistent. Just remember that you have to make sure that there are enough patterns to cover all possibilities. If you have only patterns with "1" masks, and no patterns with "2" masks, then Band-in-a-Box® will not be able to find any patterns for even bars. The safest thing to do is to use a mask of "0," but this may not be the most musical approach. A mask of 4 is often used for more subtle fills that would highlight 4 bar phrases. Masks higher than 8 are not commonly used, as it would mean that the pattern would be played very rarely.

*Ding-ding-ding-ding-ding* - We have a winner!

No, seriously though, unless the whole thing really was as bad of a case of "half-baked idea" as you can get, this very conclusion always seems to have been the plan from the start. Just this week's interview with Toby is an example right there. No sooner had the interviewer mentioned "you can create your own", and one of the first things to come out of Toby's mouth is "You can sell it"!
So clearly they have to have envisioned some positive angles to that inevitable "competition" element, and I've been trying to tune into that mentality for a couple of hypothesis from that standpoint:

1. Making the RT's is very likely one of the most resource-demanding part of BBox's creation, and almost certainly the most time consuming one. So maybe that's one advantage of this kind of pseudo-delegating the task to the users. At any rate it potentially frees up a lot of PG's time at least, time that they (understaffed as they are) could then invest much more into the technical sides of their software.
2. Making the RT's with these highly seasoned professionals is obviously very beneficiary to set the standards of quality work, that's for sure, but on the other hand these seasoned pros are not going to come cheap. So again, pseudo-delegating via the Usertracks contributions can potentially help there, even if the audio quality is invariably going to vary considerably as a result. And who knows,. there's always that chance of a "discovery" among the user creations, which in turn could potentially be of some value to PG themselves. I mean, I have certainly heard several high-quality performances from fellow users in their work, regardless of if they think of themselves as pros or "just a hobby" musician


But as this whole bulk of a thread has been saying all along - none of any of the musings are going to make any difference until the feature itself is actually working and living up to its expectations!

Erm, quite... I presume the "challenge" part is to convincingly pretend to have understood any of what followed from there, then?

Try this, it only has a few keys, I will do the rest if you think it works ok. Select the song key over on the right under variations.
EDIT: new link
https://www.dropbox.com/s/l98a4fwn8p0jyrz/FluteClassicalPopEv8%5E-10key.rar?dl=1
put it in your Drums folder then click rebuild in the drum picker, I think they fixed the Mac so it's the same as Win with ExtraDrumFolderNames.txt
"This file has list of UserDrums not found in PG's list of RealDrums"
if not you may have to add it to Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Data/PGALLDrumFolderNames.txt



Tags to:
Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Data/DrumStylesInfo2.txt

Info to:
Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Preferences/RDUserMemos.txt

Worth a shot, sure. I'll check back in here with results once I have the chance to test this, stay tuned.

in each folder just rename 04 to 40 in each text file should be B bar 40 it was playing bar 4 that is an A, will upload another, just need a new dropbox no space left.

pattern,Normal,A,5,0,1,33
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,1,34
pattern,Normal,A,5,0,1,35
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,1,36
pattern,Normal,A,5,0,1,37
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,1,38
pattern,Normal,A,5,0,1,39
pattern,Normal,B,5,0,1,04

Oh crap, I have to do edits?! I must admit that when I signed up for this I did under the presumption of this being a a ready-made thing

I had the new one uploaded in the above post before you replied, but I guess it's good practice for you as you now should be able to make up your own drums

Reaper_RealDrums_Soloist_Flute_regions.zip these are the Reaper Regions for the above midi file, set first > File > Project Settings > Project start measure -1 , then View > Region/Marker Manager > right click > Import Regions > load the regions.csv
you can see the layout here
and in the DAW
the end number is the bar, the number before is length in bars.
Section 1
Section 2
Section 3


and the pics to see what's it looks like in the DAW:

I think I'm going to bow out of this increasingly convoluted thread, as I'm really only interested in well designed UT's and, more importantly, how well they work in BBox. I thought initially that that's what this whole "challenge" concept was what you were asking to be tested, but as you keep going on about the (apparent) importance of what's going on in some other program altogether, I'm no longer sure.

These are UTs !!! No one's forcing you or conning you to do anything, I was asking everyone, some users might come here from a google search and find it extremely helpful, besides if you don't try anything you won't learn anything "User-to-User" I'm only here for one reason to help other users and it's great when they appreciate that, it will help some users, be of no interest for other users, and go over the heads of some other users.
All the information shown is trying to make it as easy as possible for any users to create them, the reaper pics show color regions to make it easy to work out the text to create a "well designed UT's " this helps in the design process. There is no ulterior motive lol

"as I'm really only interested in well designed UT's"
sure we all are but the don't fricken work period !
I have just put more request in the get them fixed once and for all !!! but until that happens there is not much you can do is there ?, but hey at least I'm trying to find other ways of doing things.