PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums RealBand Glitch and erroneous chord change occurring between bar 240 and bar 241 [Resolved]

When I gave my first song to my producer for him to evaluate at the beginning of 2017, I sent it to him as a .PDF of my lead sheet with the lyrics, melody, and chords. I also gave him a link to a video of MuseScore playing the melody of my song as it scrolled through the lead sheet, which I had uploaded to my Youtube channel. At the time, I was only interested in him producing this one song for me and didn't have any plans for him to produce an entire album because I didn't have enough songs of the same genre written yet that he could produce as an album. (I only had three other songs in the works at the time.) But after he agreed to produce this one song for me, one thing led to another with the result that he's now working on my seventh song, and I have three to four more in the queue.

Sure, I'd be interested in hearing a demo of one of my songs done your way. To make this a fair and straightforward comparison of your way vs. my way, I'd like to sent you a file of the first song that I created a demo of using BiaB back in January. I can also send you a link to a video of my demo for you to listen to, but I think you should create your demo before you hear mine---unless you feel otherwise for some reason. So, how do I do that?

Post a link here.

I sent you a PM with three links.

Ok cool.

It's been over three days since I replied to Tech Support's response to the original email I sent them about this issue and asked them to revisit it, but I still haven't heard back from them. How much longer should I wait for them to write me back before I either write them again or give them a call?

I'd send them a gentle reminder email in the morning.

Charlie, I just sent Tech Support the following email:

"Hi Joe,

I'm writing you again to follow up on the status of your investigation into an issue that I initially contacted you about a week ago today. Though you did reply to my original email last Monday, I wrote you again on Tuesday because the information you provided in your reply did not directly address RealBand's implementation of the Band in a Box track generation algorithm. Instead, it focused on Band in a Box itself and presented a workaround to the 255 bar limit using Band in a Box. Because I already have my own Band in a Box workaround that is more suitable than yours for the types of instrumental arrangement demos I'm creating for songs that exceed the 255 bar limit and because I have the impression from another RealBand user (whose user name is jazzmammal) that RealBand is your solution to the 255 bar limit in Band in a Box, I would like you to take a closer look at the problem in RealBand that I'm presenting to you by reading through the discussion I started in the Windows RealBand product forum with the same title as this email. Only then will you understand why I contacted you in the first place about this problem and why I am following up with an additional reply to your only email reply to my original email. In addition, because it has been several days longer than the typical reply time of 0-2 days that is mentioned in your auto-reply email, I want to make sure that this issue isn't being inadvertently neglected. Though I've already provided these to you in both of my previous emails, below are links to the discussion I started in the Windows RealBand product forum along with two other related links.

(Links)

Thanks for your assistance with this issue.

Tom"

Silvertones, I'm curious about a couple of things regarding your track generation test:

1) Did you have a chord entered into bar 241 before you generated this track?

2) If so, did you listen to a small section of the track that includes a few bars immediately before and after the 240/241 bar boundary to determine if an audio glitch occurs on the 240/241 bar boundary as a result of RB's attempt to change to a different chord than the one you had entered into bar 241?

3) If you did not have a chord entered into bar 241 before you generated this track, did you listen to the same section to determine if RB erroneously inserted its own chord change into bar 241 and if you could tell if that chord was a C chord?

4) Are the "regular tracks" you started out with in RB the same as BiaB tracks (or "BB tracks," as RB refers to them)? My understanding is that "regular tracks" are different from "BB" tracks. If my understanding is correct, doesn't RB have to convert regular tracks to BB tracks before it can generate an arrangement for those tracks?

1.yes
2.yes
3. I'd have to say no cause I had different chords 240 and 242 but it was perfect.
4. No I start with all REGULAR TRACKS NO BB TRACKS. I ALWAYS just right click on a track and choose generate/ Real Track.
The RT pick list will come up an d I choose them one at a time. Styles mean nothing when it comes to the use of RTs.

MusicStudent, you make made a very good point. Actually, you made two very good points. The first one is that there is a workaround to the "255 bar limit" in BiaB. In fact, there are numerous workarounds to this limit. Some of those workarounds can be implemented within BiaB itself while others involve the use of other programs like RB (as jazzmammal mentioned in response to my suggestion of an idea to fix this limit in the BiaB Windows product forum or like other DAWs (Tracktion, for example) using the BiaB VST plugin (as Pipeline mentioned in that same discussion).

The second "very good point" you made is that "it's a shame sometimes that so much effort goes into learning this lesson for newbies." Fortunately for me as a newbie, it didn't take me very long to figure out on my own a workaround to this limit that suited my needs. But other newbies may not be so fortunate. Therefore, because of the likelihood that PG Music will never fix or eliminate this limit in BiaB, I have a suggestion that would be of benefit not just to newbies who have difficulty figuring out their own workaround to this limit but also to experienced users like yourself who may get tired of seeing this "dead horse" being beaten to death over and over again in these forums. My suggestion is as follows:

Why doesn't someone (such as yourself or another experienced user like Charlie Fogle or jazzmammal) start a discussion in the BiaB forum with the topic heading of "Known workarounds to the 255 bar limit in BiaB" (or something similar) that would serve as a central repository of all these workarounds for newbies and experienced users alike to reference whenever the need arises? (To my knowledge, such a repository doesn't exist. If it does, then please point me to it.) For example, newbies who encounter this issue and inquire about a workaround could be referred to such a discussion instead of spending time rehashing the same stuff ("beating this dead horse") in a new discussion. Also, various workflow scenarios could also be discussed in connection with those workarounds with the goal of determining which workaround would be best suited for a particular workflow scenario. Because you seem to have become frustrated with this discussion and with the other discussion I started in the BiaB forum, why don't you take it upon yourself to implement my suggestion? I'll be glad to share the workaround I've been using for my particular workflow scenario (as I've already done in this forum) and contribute my thoughts on and experience with other workarounds that are mentioned.

Did some testing:
1. The song you sent is only 173 bars long per the PDF
2. It put down all the chords and they all appear to be right. I'll let you do that leg work.
3. I got the piano part as well BUT it was like only 1/16 of measure 1
4. I generated 3 RTs in about 5 mins.

PM me an email address and I'll send you what I got.

1. Correct, I didn't send you a song that exceeds the 255 bar limit. I didn't know you wanted one of those because I thought that you just wanted to demonstrate the difference between your procedure of using RB and generating individual RealTracks vs. my procedure of using BiaB to generate all tracks with a particular Style.
2. I'm sure the chords are correct, but I'll check them anyway.
3. There is no separate piano part. The piano part is the entire melody. The first measure doesn't have anything in it. I included two blank measures at the beginning to correspond to the two lead in measures that BiaB creates (which can be turned off). I left those two measures in place so that the melody could be synced up with the chords. Normally, I export the .XML file without those two measures for importing into BiaB and then export a separate .WAV file with those two measures in place. If RB didn't create a separate midi track for the melody, then it doesn't have this available for reference when generating each track like BiaB did for me.
4. That sounds about right.

The limit for email is 10 MB. You'll have to export a .WAV and convert to .MP3 or export a .MP3 file that is less than 10 MB (for a song this long, it will be). I'll send you my email address in a PM, but you may want to take the info above into consideration before sending me what you have. Thanks!

Silvertones, you posted the following in response to my comment about the midi file not having the chords and then you made a subsequent post with your offer to create a demo for me done "your way" using RB (as described below) for me to compare to a demo done "my way" using BiaB:

As you know, Charlie, silvertones recommends that I drop BiaB completely and use RB instead. That may be beneficial in some workflow scenarios but perhaps not others. So on the one hand, before I decide to do that, I need to do enough testing with the procedure he is suggesting that I use on my songs with RB to make sure that's the right decision for me and my needs. On the other hand, I need to have a better understanding of the procedure you're suggesting I use so that I can go through the steps involved in that procedure in order to make a proper comparison between your suggested use of BiaB and his suggested use of RB. Therefore, I have some questions for you about your suggested procedure because I'm having trouble following all the steps in your explanation.

For example, in the above excerpt of your recent post, you mention a "master audio file." I assume you are referring to an audio file in a DAW such as RB or Tracktion. If so, then would each generated section of my song exist on its own track to make it easier to update? If so, that would eliminate the free version of Tracktion as a viable DAW because it only comes with 8 tracks, and I don't think more can be added. (This wouldn't prevent me from using RB, of course.) If not, then the best way for me to update an audio section in Traction would be to overwrite the contents of the existing audio section file that I had previously imported because it already is positioned at the proper location in the song. This would not be possible, of course, if I need to add or remove a measure during my editing of that audio section or of another audio section. In that case (which occurred a few times in the song I was working on a few months ago), other sections of the song would have to be moved in order to avoid gaps or overlaps in the song.

Another question I had pertains to my importation of an .XML file. You discussed the need for numerous folders to contain all the different sections of my song in BiaB. In order for me to create those different sections, I would need to create multiple .XML files within MuseScore for each section of my song and also have a complete master .XML file as the main road map of the song. I would also need to make changes to the master file and then copy those changes to one or more of the sub-sections as I go along, and then open the .XML exports from the edited sections into BiaB to regenerate the audio for them, etc. Am I correct?

I think I figured out the answer to my own question above. Correct me if I'm wrong. Instead of creating multiple .XML files (one as the master and the others as sections of the master), it would be better to just stick with one .XML file (that would have its name changed with each iteration) to open in BiaB. Then, I would delete all the measures within BiaB for all the sections except for a particular section for which BiaB would be used to generate tracks. This could be done repeatedly for one section (for example, the verse section) that ends up being modified multiple times while all the other sections remain intact both in the MuseScore master file and in the master audio file.

It may be desirable to drop BiaB and only use for songs that are ready for final production or that are close to that stage. But BiaB is very useful for working out the kinks in a song that is just being developed. For example, figuring out which chord progression sounds best for a particular section of the song or if one or more notes in a section should be modified to find out if they sound better than the current notes in that section. Because BiaB's track generation only takes seconds in comparison to the minutes that RB takes, making such changes in BiaB and listening to the quickly-generated results makes a lot more sense to me than doing this in RB.

Corresponding to the difference between how these two programs perform track generation is the time it takes each program to accomplish these tasks, which I didn't mention in my previous reply to your post, Jim, though I did mention this in a subsequent post and explained that the quickness of BiaB's approach makes BiaB more suitable than RB for working out the kinks in a song that is being developed (as an example). However, this has not deterred silvertones from abandoning BiaB completely and suggesting that I do the same. But as I've thought about the speed differences in these two programs, it occurred to me that RB would be much faster if it took advantage of Windows' multi-threading capabilities. For example, I have a 3 Ghz Quad Core PC. This makes it possible for a program like Format Factory to convert four .WAV files to four .MP3 files simultaneously because each of those files is processed independently by each of the four cores. Why doesn't RB do the same thing with songs that have four or more tracks? I know that silvertones likes to generate one track at a time after he selects a RealTrack that he wants to use for a particular track. But for someone who prefers to use a BiaB Style that has at least four instruments and wants to generate all four of those tracks at the same time, RB should be able to hand each of those track generation operations over to separate cores in the CPU to handle, thus reducing the amount of time it takes to generate those tracks by a factor of four. The same would be true of the generation of an eight track song on a PC with eight cores in the CPU, except that the time would be reduced by a factor of eight. If PG Music would make it possible for RB to multi-thread, it would be much more desirable for me and other users to use it instead of BiaB more often than not.

such a BIAB forum discussion area exists.



Here ->-> -> -> -> -> ------------> Forum List\Post your own Tip and Tricks

How you do this is determined by MuseScore. If MuseScore can assign a name to a series of bars, that is all you need to do to an .XML file different than what you do now. Otherwise, you will mark sections and name these sections of your song once the file is opened in RealBand. Example: Bars 1-12 (Intro); Bars 13-21 (Verse 1) and so on until your entire song has been broken into sections and each section is named according to what it is. What's important is that your song is broken into identifiable sections. This technique will make constructing or editing your song super manageable, super easy and super fast in comparison to your current workflow. It can literally turn hours of edits and arranging into minutes.

In DAWs this technique is call arranging. All DAWs have this feature as far as I know. I've never encountered one that doesn't in the few other DAWs I've used or watched videos of. I use Presonus Studio One 4 Pro and it places a lot of emphasis on working in the Arrangement Window as does Pro Tools and Ableton. RealBand has this feature although not as complex or advanced as some other DAW's. Doesn't matter. Even RB will make constructing a song (arranging) or editing it so much easier and faster.


How does a DAW or RealBand do this? By taking advantage that every track of a song recorded in a DAW can match the song tempo to a grid. The audio/midi/loop/sample can be placed at exactly the correct point to seamlessly merge with any prior audio from that point and any subsequent audio from that point. This works with a single note, single word, single phrase, whole verse, chorus, bridge, intro or ending.


To demonstrate the technique, regardless of what format you provide a demo to your producer, assume the producer reviews your project and gets back to you with the suggestion your demo song needs a 8 bar bridge between verse 3 and the last chorus. He/she further suggests the bridge's tempo be increased from 116 to 118 to make it more dynamic and the tempo should be dropped back to 116 at the last chorus. A final suggestion is to use a different chord progression than the intro or any verse or chorus.


For demonstration, your song has an 8 bar intro. Twelve bar verses and a 16 bar chorus. Using this technique, you have sectioned and named your song project when you created it. You have created a folder tree that follows and aligns with your song section structure. Intro, verse, verse 2, verse 3, chorus and outro. Following your MuseScore .XML file, you create a BIAB .sgu file saved and named to correspond to each section and placed in the corresponding sub folder in your song folder tree.


In this example you would first create a sub folder in your folder tree that corresponds with the Bridge you will create.

Second, open up the 8 bar intro BIAB .sgu file to create the 8 bar new section from and name it Bridge. Do a Save As - Bridge.sgu into the Bridge sub folder you created.

Working in BIAB project Bridge.sgu, Increase the tempo from 116 to 118

Decide on the bridge's chord progression and modify the chord chart accordingly.

If necessary or desired, change the style of modify the instruments and also changes to any bar using the bar settings.

Once you are satisfied with the Bridge's arrangement, Render the audio and save it into the Bridge sub folder.

Open your original RealBand project for your demo

Save a new and renamed version of the RB /seq file as your new file will now contain a bridge section

From the Bridge sub folder, select the Bridge audio file

Go to the Marker for the last chorus

Paste the bridge audio snippet at the marker for the last chorus

This inserts the bridge audio between verse 3 ending and the last Chorus just as your producer suggested. It is cross faded and seamless. If for some reason it isn't seamless, RealBand uses an artificial intelligence algorithm that can regenerate the audio to be seamless in a single step. (more about this powerful and unique feature later. RB is the only DAW that can do this)


So, after reviewing these changes to your demo, your producer comes back and is happy with the changes but now wants to eliminate the intro and begin the song with a Chorus then proceed with verse 1.

you open up the latest RB version of the project, Set the cursor at the beginning of a Chorus, Using Block\Select current selection - This will highlight and select the complete chorus section.

Go to the beginning of the song and set your curser at the beginning of the intro. Repeat the Block\Select current selection command. This highlights the Intro. Paste the copied Chorus at the beginning of the Intro and the Chorus audio replaces the Intro.

I added a photo to show a Marker block section highlighted.