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

I'll let you know if I hear anything.

As I said yesterday that I was going to do today, I called Tech Support to follow up on the two reply emails I sent them in response to the single email I received from them last Tuesday regarding this issue in RB (which I originally contacted them about two days prior), but I still haven't spoken to anyone (except for the receptionist) because I've been on hold for nearly an hour. To make sure that my call didn't somehow go into "no man's land," I called the same number on a different line but didn't even get to speak to the receptionist. Instead, I got a recording that said "All technicians are busy, etc." I can't keep sitting here on hold waiting for someone to take my call, so I may just have to try again tomorrow at 10 AM when they open. I definitely wasn't expecting this to happen, that's for sure.

<<< I can understand all of that. However, if I want to use RB to work on a new song with more than 255 bars that doesn't have the kinks worked out of it yet as I've done numerous time with BiaB for songs with less than 255 bars, then I would prefer to not dive into your workflow recommendations until after I've worked out most or all of those kinks and finished or mostly finished developing my song. But I can't do that with my full length song in RB currently because of the problems that occur at the 240/241 bar boundary. So, I have to either go through extra steps to deal with those problems or cut out one or more sections in my song to reduce the bar count to less than 255 (in which case, I would just go back to using BiaB for this shorter version of my song instead of using RB). In such a scenario, your workflow recommendations is not a fix but rather is a workaround that makes the early stages of working out the kinks in a song that is being developed more complicated and time consuming than is desirable and necessary. >>>

"I can understand all of that."
I don't think you have a handle on the process yet based on the four points of your response. I will address each point individually below.

1. "if I want to use RB to work on a new song with more than 255 bars...I would prefer to not dive into your workflow recommendations until after I've worked out most or all of those kinks and finished or mostly finished developing my song."
You can't work out kinks in the RB program. Only PGMusic programmers can do that. Anything you or I can do is a workaround. Fortunately, there are multiple ways to work around the 255 bar and excessive length issues in both BIAB and RB.

2. "I can't do that with my full length song in RB currently because of the problems that occur at the 240/241 bar boundary."
That's true because you continue to use the same concepts of your current workflow. "Don't be so sure of what you want that you won't take something better." (Chris Voss) is a saying I've adopted and apply very often. You can apply that principal with your recording techniques and it will help you sort out the difference between how you understand and apply BIAB/RB techniques today compared to the more advanced techniques available. You don't have to understand the theory at this point but simply apply the steps to get the benefits.

3. "I would just go back to using BiaB for this shorter version of my song instead of using RB)."
Yes. You can do that and you should do that. Either BIAB or RB can be used but BIAB has more features available, faster auditioning of Styles and RealTracks, Faster rendering of audio and generally in the first stage, is more efficient and intuitive than doing it in RB. Start your project in BIAB and once your song is structured, move it to RB. Many forum members follow this sequence.


4. "In such a scenario, your workflow recommendations is not a fix but rather is a workaround that makes the early stages of working out the kinks in a song that is being developed more complicated and time consuming than is desirable and necessary."
No. The reality is just the opposite because you're only thinking in terms of your present workflow, your present song, your present relation and procedures between you and your producer and how those circumstances interact at your level of understanding of BIAB/RB. Your workflow is a relatively elementary process you've implemented and it has worked well for you other than the interference of the glitch and erroneous chord change. You, nor anyone else, regarding any of the techniques I've discussed and described, have actually posted you've tried or tested them. I'm not surprised or concerned by this because I've described and recommended some of these techniques in other discussions here on the forum and most do not even elicit a response. I feel I'm partially to blame for this as I've been told in the past by my wife, my brother Jim, at least 4 close musician friends that I'm bad for explaining processes and thinking they're easy when in these folks minds particularly, they don't see the process as simple or clear. That seems to be somewhat of the case here. I apologize if I've been unclear to this point.

One thing I've thought of doing is placing a request in the 'I want a video that shows me how to ....' forum thread to create a video of this step by step process. I'd be glad to discuss and provide the steps so that a clear and concise quality video could be produced by PGMusic.

Reviewing the RealBand Forum main page, this article at only two weeks old has by far generated the most comments and views of any RB discussion over the past year (7 Pages). Surely that fact alone should give PGMusic staff cause to consider producing a video. They do a great job in the one's they've done so far.

Charlie, I think you hit the nail on the head. Not really so much of a workaround, more of a workflow.

I'm sorry, but you misunderstood my point. I wasn't referring to the kinks in the RB program. I was referring to the kinks in my song. Such kinks always exist in my songs when I'm writing and developing them, and I'm sure they do in yours, too. (Perhaps "kinks" is the wrong term, but I don't know what other term to use.) Even when I think I've got all the kinks worked out of my songs (after I've figured out all the chords and have played through it enough times to feel confident that they're gone), my producer usually finds a few that I either missed or couldn't see/hear because of deficiencies in my songwriting knowledge and experience. Of course, this is only true for those songs that I've given to him to produce but not true of songs that I haven't given him yet or that I won't be giving him to produce.

But getting back to what I meant by my point, the reason I prefer to bring my entire song into BiaB rather than into RB during the early stages of my songwriting and development process is so that I can quickly generate an suitable arrangement for that song that I can then listen to for any problems or issues that may still exist without me having to play it on my guitar because BiaB's arrangement makes it easier for me to identify potential issues and problems in my songs than when I play them myself and to make "on the fly" changes to those songs in order to address those issues and/or problems (unlike RB). But after all of those problems and/or issues are eliminated, then I would be able to dive into your workflow recommendations for that song---especially if it's a song that I don't plan to take to my producer for him to arrange and produce for me.

Though I had mentioned this in a previous comment, I'll mention it again. If RB took advantage of Windows' multi-threading capabilities for PCs with more than one processor during its track generation process, it would make RB fast enough for me to consider using it instead of BiaB during the early stages of my songwriting/development process. This is especially true of my songs that exceed the 255 bar limit in BiaB. Do you or does anyone else know why RB doesn't multitask it's track generation procedure?

Also, I really like your idea of creating a video to demonstrate your workflow recommendations and would definitely be interested in seeing it if it ever becomes reality. And I fully agree with your comment about the length of this thread being an indication that the need for such a video definitely exists. But the length of this thread is also an indication that my workflow for the early stages of my songwriting process (opening XML files that I exported from MuseScore) is probably quite different from that of most users of BiaB and RB.

I have the fixed version that let's the XML file load properly in RB.There is now, soon, no need to try and work around 255 limit of BIAB. RB now does the whole shooting match. No glitch, no new chords no nothing. Just the song and cxhords.
This issue is solved!

Here is a link to the .seq file of Tom's 332 bar song with the version of RB I have. Just his file, 2 RT and 1 RD all properly sewn together.Took me 5 min.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yJORSWlytKjfegIdN-e2XHbjHh17xzXK

To followup on and repeat what I said to you in my PM, neither BiaB nor RB can handle XML files of a lead sheet that has a repeating section---for example, a verse section that is repeated twice: once for the first verse and once for the second verse. Both programs will simply drop the second verse and treat the lead sheet as if there is only one verse in the song (or two verses if there is a third verse later in the song). I don't know if this issue is in the way MuseScore creates the XML file (perhaps it isn't encoding it properly) or if BiaB/RB aren't interpreting the XML file properly. The reason I haven't brought this issue up before is that it wasn't enough of an issue previously for me to take the time to present it and discuss it here and in the BiaB forum. Besides, I had gotten used to a workaround that I came up with when I first encountered this issue several months ago, which was for me to simply create a separate lead sheet file within MuseScore that didn't have any repeating sections but which had all of the sections exist consecutively in a series. But now that Tech Support is working on the code for RB that opens the XML file, I decided I may as well bring this issue to everyone's attention, too. If necessary and desirable, I can start a new topic with this issue instead of mixing it with the topic of this discussion.

I don't know what's going on with this file, but it couldn't have been created from the song I sent you. My song has 327 bars, including a 2-bar lead in before the chords start. Also, my song is in the key of G. This song begins on a D/E chord in bar 0 and ends on a C chord in bar 241. When I opened this file, I got an "exception error" message in RB that suggested I shut down the program and restart it. Also, there are no tracks in the Tracks window. My version of RB appears to be (2). So, should I update mine to V4 (the same as yours) to be able to properly open your file?

Actually, the latest available version of RB is V3 from January of this year. So, I'm just gonna sit tight and do nothing until I hear from you, Silvertones.

You always, always want to use the latest version. It should have been the first thing you did before starting this thread. AND that info should be included in your sig so anybody trying to help you knows you're on the latest version. I see you don't even have RB listed. AND, you also want to include the details of your computer, other software, audio/midi interfaces, all that stuff like what's in my sig.

Does Support know you're not running the latest version?

Bob

Bob, I didn't even know that I wasn't running the latest version until Silvertones mentioned yesterday that he has V4 and that I have V3. But then I checked mine and discovered that I have V2, but Silvertones said that V3 didn't work as well with XML files as V2 did and that V4 was even worse. So, what would be the point of me updating mine to V3 or even V4 (which isn't even available on the Support page) until Tech Support fixes this issue?

Also, Tech Support has never asked me which version I'm using. I've only heard from them once. But I'll add the info you suggested to my sig.

Okay, after updating RB to V3, I was able to open your file without any problems. All the chords seem correct beginning with the G Am Dm Em progression starting in bar 1 with two lead in bars. I also scrolled to the last bar (bar 337) and saw that the last chord is a C in bar 322 (which is actually the same as bar 324 counting the two lead in bars) with 17 empty bars after that, three of which were from the XML file from MuseScore. So, RB added 14 more bars at the end. No big deal.

So, then I checked and saw that there were indeed four tracks to play, the first a blue (midi) track of the melody and three more RealTracks. When I clicked on Play, the tracks played fine. Then I jumped ahead to bar 240 in the Chords window to check those chords, and they all looked correct with a Dm chord in bar 238, no chords in bars 239-243, and an Am chord in bar 244. Next, I decided to play this section beginning at bar 238. When I did, bars 241-243 sounded a little strange. So, I turned off the drums and bass guitar and played only the piano and melody. Bars 241-243 still sounded strange. So, I switched over to MuseScore and brought up the piano keyboard so that I could figure out which note the piano was playing in RB for bar 241. After some experimentation, I was able to determine that RB had changed the chord at bar 241 to a C chord and didn't change the chord again until it reached the Am chord in bar 244.

To summarize, the erroneous chord change has still occurred in the file you created, Silvertones. For me to test if a glitch would exist at the 240/241 bar boundary, I would have to insert a Dm chord into bar 241 and regenerate the tracks. But this issue is secondary to the erroneous chord change at bar 241. If RB would remember that there was a Dm chord in bar 238, there wouldn't be any need for me to insert a Dm chord into bar 241 and run the risk of a possible glitch occurring there. Besides, I shouldn't have to do this. RB's algorithm should be smart enough to do this for me without actually showing a Dm chord in that bar.

Weird I missed that adding the Dm@241 & regenerate all works.

But you shouldn't have to do that, and neither should I. After 173 posts, here we are at the exact same place we were when I started this thread nearly three weeks ago. So, where do we go from here? I already emailed Tech Support three times without getting anywhere and even called them once yesterday but hung up after being on hold for an hour. I would have called them again, but you privately told me not to because you claimed that the issue had been fixed. This old horse just keeps going around in circles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XdAQpq_1Xw


At least you had fun...

I figured my last post would get a response from you, MusicStudent!

However, it was primarily directed at Silvertones because of his "inside connections" at Tech Support. Just so you know, my patience hasn't run out yet, but I am getting a little frustrated by the lack of progress that's being made with this issue. I can always switch to another related thread for a while and take a partial break from this one if need be. This will give the old horse a much needed break, too.

<<< My song has 327 bars, including a 2-bar lead in before the chords start. Also, my song is in the key of G. >>>


If this song is one you intend for your producer, what do you send him and what file format or formats do you use to share work between the two of you? I understand you also send him a video of the chords.


Do you send him the XML file or just audio files? Do you send him a single audio file or does he get all of the multiple tracks to drop into a DAW?

I doubt that I will be giving this song to my producer because it's not the same genre as the genre of my album that he's working on. Plus, I don't think it's the type of song that would appeal to enough people to make it worth the time, effort, and expense to have it professionally produced. I could be wrong about this, of course, but the feedback I've already gotten suggests otherwise. So, my plan is to use BiaB and/or RB to create a decent instrumental demo and then eventually have someone (possibly a female) create a vocal track for me that I could add to the other tracks to finish the demo. Ultimately, I would use the finished demo for various purposes and may even release it as a single or possibly put it on a different album. However, depending on the circumstances, the last two options could justify having it professionally produced, but who I would choose to do that is currently an unknown. So, I can't really use this song as a basis for answering your other questions.

Instead, I'll use the last song that I recently gave to my producer because it's nearly the same length as this one (317 bars vs. 322 bars). In the past (before I had purchased BiaB), the only file I gave to my producer was a midi file of the melody to my song. Besides the midi file, I also gave him a printout of the lead sheet with all the chords and lyrics along with another printout of a one-page lyric sheet that included the chords. My producer used the lead sheet to perform, arrange, and produce my song, and he used the lyric sheet when he recorded the vocals. For the most recent song with 317 bars that I gave to my producer, I still gave him a midi file, a lead sheet, and a lyric sheet. But I also gave him a single .MP3 file of the audio from BiaB that included drums, a bass guitar, a finger picking acoustic 12-string guitar (left channel), and a 12-string strumming guitar (right channel). In addition, I gave him a .MP4 file of the lead sheet video from MuseScore that had this same audio output from BiaB synced to the melody in the MuseScore video. I used ActivePresenter to create this video and added the audio output from BiaB as a separate track. He imported all three of these files into his DAW, which is Sonar by Cakewalk.

A few weeks after I had given all of the above to my producer, he called me and asked for a new midi file because we had made some last minute changes to the one I had given him that somehow got messed up during his subsequent recording sessions. He also asked me to give him a .MP3 file of just the bass guitar and the finger-picking guitar together and another .MP3 file of the strumming guitar by itself. He didn't need the drums in either of those files because he had already finished recording them. That's the first track he always starts with in his production process. When I gave him these files, he imported them into his DAW to replace the .MP3 file and midi file that I had given him before. However, the three tracks that these audio files occupied in his DAW were only there for him to use as a reference until he had finished recording his own tracks of those same instruments in their place.

Add the chord. Wait for the next release.ill help more when I'm off vacation in October.
Glad I could help.