PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here GETTING A SONG IDEA DOWN FAST IN REALBAND. (particularly if one has an old clunky pc).

CREATING SONGS FAST IN REALBAND (RB).
(takeing a song idea in ones brain to playback in a short time.)
(this is mainly for new users.)

RB has many advantages. not only more tracks (256) but many other advantages if one reads the manual such as very deep midi features as well as fractional tempos to name a few.
there are also various ways to generate both audio and midi session musician instrument and drum tracks.

these tips will show how to create songs fast in RB and focuses on the new
user with a clunky old pc.

1.PREAMBLE.

you just received your pg drive. and your excited as was i when i received my first pg content years ago.
sooo...your all to hot to trot as you have many song ideas.
you also know you have to enter the chords of your song.

BUT...heres the rub...often one changes song arrangements as one builds ones song idea. sooo...if one is useing all real tracks to generate audio tracks if one makes a change in chords or arrangement one needs to regenerate the audio tracks.
on a slow clunky computer with lots of real tracks this can take time....and thus one might lose creative flow as one waits for the generation process on tracks to finish.

now let me emphasise this is no critique of the audio real tracks...
its just the way things are. maybe in the future with fast quantum computers (lol..) everything will be 'blink of an eye'.

so what to do when you get that song idea at 3 am comfy in your bed !!
which happened this week to me. ie the muse grabs you and you know its a neat song idea you need to get down fast.

heres the way.

2..GETTING THAT SONG IDEA DOWN FAST.

midi to the rescue !! as rb has sooo many midi features.
the great BEAUTY of midi is tracks get generated in a 'blink of an eye'...much faster than audio tracks.
and we can take advantage of this to get a song idea down fast.
now let me cover something before i get into this further.
often someone new to music production will complain about
midi tracks sounding 'CHEESY'.
please note this is NOT the music apps fault (in this case rb) but depends on the users choice of plugin.
rb has nothing to do with it.

so let me detail how i got my song idea down fast this week in the middle of the night.

1. i opened up rb and accessed the stylepicker and focused on midi styles only....
after deciding on a generic music style genre.
(in this case 'rock' but it could be country or jazz or whatever.)
2..i then went thru a few midi styles double clicking in stylepicker to audition and locate a rock style close to my song idea....then..
3..i loaded its demo at my desired tempo.. now i can hear you saying...
'but you havent entered your chords yet'.
this is purposefull...let me explain.
at this point i'm concentrating on a song 'skeleton'...
and dont want to faff around with plugin choices as well as patch choices because my ideas on such might change as i develope the song.
so at this point i have the demo midi tracks loaded and genned in rb in a 'blink of an eye'. also NOTICE the COYOTE pg plugin has been loaded for you and hit play and one hears playback...
BUT...of course the demoes chords are displayed and not mine...
now let me talk about the coyote plugin for a sec.
although some people call it 'cheesy' or 'junk' actually ive fooled normal music consumers in the past with some of its sounds.
and people have said to me 'ooh i like that'.
it depends on the situation. the thing i really like in rb is in loading up a demo style coyote is set up plus the patches thus enabling me to work fast.
to those that critique the sounds in coyote my response is you cant have it both ways. if you want to use an alternative thats fine just be aware that you might have to bear with the fact that the alternative on a junk pc might consume more pc resources. all i'm saying is yes coyote might have what some might term 'cheesy sounds' but actually sometimes ive found a nice sound.
for example awhile back i found a nice piccolo patch in coyote that people preferred to a fancy plugin. it just seemed to 'fit' nicely.
in summary at this point of song development i'm just testing various arrangements and final sound selection/plugins is for later on.
now onto the next step.
4..now i enter my chords in the chords view in rb.
and playback. then i go 'wait a minute i dont think the first chorus works
gonna change it'...so i change the chorus in chord view and regenerate and once again everything is 'blink of an eye' processing.
5..so lets recap. i STAY ALL MIDI UNTIL I AM SURE THE CHORD LAYOUT and ARRANGEMENT I"M HAPPY WITH. then and only then do i start thinking about instrumentation i will need in the song that will make me happy.
this saves later lots of time consuming audio track generation and regeneration which as i said can take some time with a clunker pc.
in summary i use a divide and conquer approach.
so in summary its now onto the next step once i'm firm on the song arrangement.
6..now its time to see how well my vocals work with the 'rough song
skeleton' as to lyrics and a re-evaluation of best key for my vocals etc.
so i do tests with my vocs.
7..the next step is i now search in styles for the style that fits the song best. so i start NOW auditioning lots of styles USEING MY CHORD SHEET REFERENCE.
ie...MY CHORDS which have replaced the original style demo
chords.
PLEASE NOTE TWO IMPORTANT STYLEPICKER SETTINGS...
**ensure that in stylepicker that double clik plays chord sheet is checked..
AND...
**ensure that stylepicker style follows YOUR chosen tempo rather than a styles tempo. if you find that the tempo doesnt follow YOUR TEMPO..
ensure that the option to select best tempo for style is not checked.
this is very important.
in summary i'm going thru both audio centric and midi centric styles as well
as mixed audio/midi styles often singing along to styles.
now HERES THE RUB. you have a choice at this point...either audition a few styles OR spend lots of time auditioning styles for best fit.
(what i typically do is at 3 am in the morning after haveing got my skeleton down i save as a SEQ and go back to bed...lol....satisfied that i wont lose the song idea.).
now heres the problem with only auditioning a few styles...
i find by doing this over the years i might miss some really groovy instrument
audio sound pictures generated. so you need to make a decision as to your commitment to the song...is this a SERIOUS song so i typically go thru a ton of styles OR is it a ruff demo in which case i go try a few styles.
fyi ive found there are no shortcuts with a serious song if thats what you want. you must be committed to put in serious hours and graft to find the best session musos to use in the pg vast content.
OTHERWISE you WILL miss some neat sounds that could really move your song to the next level. for example the pretty girl song in my sig youll hear a subtle little guitar in a couple of places which people have told me they like.
if i hadnt been willing to put in the hard graft i would never have found it by accident.
yep it was a pure happy accident. same with my other songs in my sig.
lots of work to find the sounds to make the songs work the way i heard them in my head.
a piece of advice...dont be afraid to cross into other genres.
for example lets say your doing a pop song dont be afraid to test out what rt's in other genres might do to elevate the song eg jazz or country genres as two examples. in summary dont limit your exploration of suitable sounds to just
your genre. be open minded.
several times for example ive had fun singing in an operatic voice which then morphs into punk rock...lmao. (ive sung in the past in various operatic/rock/country/church etc groups/genres and thus sometimes like to experiment with mixing genres.)
8..now as i said i start now auditioning pg content...
ie session musician rt's/rd's/midi supertracks/loops etc to see which fit my song best....lots of work. no shortcuts imho.
now the next point is important...in order to work FAST when i get a sound i feel is appropo to the song i make a note of its ID from the stylepicker readout.
in summary i keep a log with a star rateing/comments in a text document of 'likely session musos' that might work in my song. this way i dont end up with a huge SEQ on song save. ie...the idea is to keep everything NIMBLE.
9..once ive gone through lots of pg content i typically have lots of 'likely session muso candidates' that could make the cut to be the final musos in 'the band'. sometimes i might have even have 90 likely candidates in my log of candidates.
so now its time to cull the herd....and this is when you get into..
10..decideing which musos make the cut to be in 'your final song band'.
ie...deciding my final instrumention for the song.
(its akin what some commercial studios might have done in days of yore.
interview candidates and then decide on the final group of musicians for a song.)
now the question becomes how to ensure the most effective way to cut down on the time for tracks to generate on say a clunky pc...
thus meaning one is not 'twiddling ones thumbs' waiting for generation to finish.
heres what i do >>> i deal with ONE TRACK AT A TIME.
rather than a bunch of tracks that might take lots of time to generate.
heres a tip...once i get a genned track the way i want it i save the SEQ.
so gradually over time the seq gets larger.
on a clunky pc also you might consider haveing various midi tracks driving
'LOW RESOURCE USEAGE VST/VSTI PLUGINS'....and maybe a smattering of genned real tracks. I cant stress this enough...on an old clunker..one has to be very aware of loading the clunker up with too many tracks and plugins otherwise you will get problems like 'stuttering' occur. ive seen this too many times with people new to music production and their resulting frustration.
in fact i have become so concerned about this i located and tested a collection of free plugins...both fx and instruments that have low resource useage on a pc....ie a 'starter pack' as it were.
heres the link...

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=813558#Post813558

in summary...just because a friend can run a fancy shmancy plugin dont assume you can as well....because maybe your friend has a much more powerfull pc. but a word of caution before running out and buying a new pc
its sometimes not a panacea as you need to realise it too might need optimising and testing before purchase if you can. (see my tips in tips forum re acquiring a new pc for music production.)
11..so now i have my log in a text document of lots of pg content i would like in my song and culled the herd and made the difficult decision to cut down to maybe 20 final candidates.
then i retest each one to make sure i like it via generation and listening how it sits in the mix.
if happy i save the seq and go on to evaluation of the next piece of pg content from my final list of candidates.

so there you have it. i hope the above gets a new user particularly with an old clunky pc startedwith rb.
a final suggestion. if the reader has a clunky pc i suggest BEFORE getting into serious music production one assess its suitability for music production.
in the pg tips forum is a guide for new users re useing a pc for music production.
(note point 1 running latency mon to assess the suitability of a pc.)

i hope the foregoing helps someone and gets them started.
if any other pg users have ideas re what i might have missed (i'm only human...lol.) re the above..
please pm me and i'll add an addendum and of course attribute it to you.


happiness.

om