Chapter 2: RealBand 2022

There are over 30 new features to RealBand 2022, including the ability to install multiple VST plugins from a folder at a time, improved Audio Chord Wizard detection routines, the ability to record mixer movement for the masters/subgroups, new Transpose/Stretch All Tracks dialog lets you transpose/stretch/reduce all tracks and then conveniently save to a new file, the new settings to save selected tracks only and exclude muted tracks when saving all tracks to individual files, the option to save all tracksto a compressed format, and much more.

Summary list of New Features

RealBand can install multiple VST plugins from a folder at a time.

The built-in Audio Chord Wizard has better chord detection routines.

RealBand can record mixer movement for the masters/subgroups.

The new Transpose/Stretch All Tracks dialog lets you transpose/stretch/reduce all tracks and then conveniently save to a new file.

The Render - Save all tracks to individual files command now has settings to save selected tracks only and to exclude muted tracks.

The Render - Save all tracks to WAV files command lets you save to a compressed format such as M4A. WMA, etc.

The Render - Export Acid Loop command can now export a section of a MIDI track or the entire MIDI track to an acid loop. Previously it only allowed this for an audio track.

When using the Render - Save all tracks to WAV command, you now have the option to acidize all the .WAV files.

When auto-converting a MIDI track to a .WAV file, you now have the option of acidizing the .WAV file.

The Batch File Conversion dialog now lets you select Auto/Mono/Stereo when converting to audio files, as well as select the bit rate when converting to compressed audio.

The new Mute submenu on the right-click menu in the Tracks and Mixer windows lets you mute all track, un-mute all tracks, mute selected tracks, or un-mute selected tracks.

The new Solo submenu on the right-click menu in the Tracks and Mixer windows lets you solo selected tracks, un-solo selected tracks, solo rhythm section, or un-solo all tracks.

When you start recording, a message will display to the right of the record button for several seconds to indicate which track is being recorded.

The General Preferences dialog has new settings to set the default volume for tracks and the default gain offset in dB for audio tracks.

In the File Preferences dialog, you can now choose a custom folder where backup files are automatically saved.

The Lead Sheet Options dialog now has a “Highlight played notes” checkbox that lets you enable or disable the highlighting of played notes independently of the regular Notation window.

In the Tracks window, in the situation where a long track name wraps to the line immediately below the track name (the track name is displayed using two lines), the font size and color of the lower area will match the font size/color of track name field itself to make it more obvious that the track name wraps to the lower field.

When loading in a .SEQ file, if a VST plugin used isn’t yet installed into RealBand or a DX plugin used isn’t installed on the computer, then the list of these plugins will be written to the flash message log.

More ASIO formats are supported (big-endian, and 64-bit floating point) although these are UNTESTED and likely uncommon.

There is now an option to hide the display of nodes in the overview section of the Tracks window. This will display the overviews at the full height when tracks are expanded in size vertically.

The Bar Settings dialog in the Chords window now allows you to enter Meter changes.

When inserting or deleting a tempo in the Tempo Map, you now have the option of stretching any audio that exists in the section of the song that is affected by the change in tempo.

When loading an XML file from Guitar Pro that has two clefs of guitar notation on 1 part, RealBand will correctly load the tab clef and ignore the redundant other clef.

You can now insert/remove a trill (tr symbol) for a note with the Notation window right-click menu. RealBand can also read trills from XML files.

RealBand can now recognize if a track within an MGU/SGU file is set to a custom RealTracks instead of just the default. Previously, if you opened the file, selected a different RealTracks, saved the file, and reopened it into RealBand, the custom RealTracks was ignored.

The StylePicker is enhanced.
- The mixer area has an additional row for the Utility tracks to show which instruments are included in the Utility tracks.
- The Other filter button has more menu items.
- The Set # column shows HalfDouble for Half-time/Double-time variation styles.
- We’ve added more user categories (e.g., Xtra12 All Styles, XPro Styles, Style Demos with Vocals, etc.)

The RealTracks Medley dialog is improved.
- It now opens instantly.
- The arrow buttons have been removed. You can now just click on the list to select RealTracks.

Features and Fixes since 2021 Release
Added: RealBand will now let you save audio tracks as Utility Tracks when saving to an MGU or SGU.
Added: RealBand can now import floating point 32-bit WAV files.
Added: Cut-time symbol will be shown instead of 2/2 time signature, if Cut-Time mode is selected in Notation window.
Added: RealBand.exe (2020 version) can now be launched from the RealBand folder if you need to run the 32-bit version of RealBand.
Fixed: Distorted button images when hovering the mouse over the tool bar buttons in Windows 11.
Fixed: When printing, sometimes the lyrics of the previous line would also show up at the beginning of the next line.
Fixed: The wrong bars were being sent to the routine that generates the intelligent audio harmonies.
Fixed: The bar offset not was not being taken into account for the From Bar and Thru Bar fields of the harmonies dialog.
Fixed: If an XML file being saved contained a drum track, then notes on the bottom staff would display too low in other programs
Fixed: If generating a section of a RealTtracks that was all rests, a yellow message would say WaveInstructionsToWaveFile failed without explaining this could be due to the section of the track consisting of all rests.
Fixed: when generating RealDrums in the case of multiple sections, then a flash message might show up saying the folder doesn't exist.
Fixed: RB will now reduce the size of the Chord font in the notation window, when appropriate, to ensure the chords fit within the bar.
Fixed: Could get distorted audio when recording with ASIO, with input monitoring effects enabled.
Fixed: Issue with event list event times sometimes displaying incorrectly, when odd time sigs, or multiple time sigs, exist
Fixed: Undo of an audio transpose didn't work, if the transpose was a result of a key sig change.
Fixed: Hi-Q midi patches were not working. Now, Sforzando Hi-Q midi patches are supported, when right clicking on a MIDI track in the Tracks Window, and choosing “Select Hi-Q MIDI Synth Patch.”
Fixed: if a song with gain nodes is loaded in, or changes to gain nodes were made for the current song, and the song was rendered without first playing it at all, then gain nodes could be ignored during rendering.
Fixed: max number of patches in a patch list increased from 2000 to 20000 to support modern synths with lots of patches.
Fixed: issue with jBridge not working correctly as a result of not being able to read a registry key
Fixed: Program would silently crash (quit) when selecting FlexASIO driver
Fixed: If changing the song sample rate in Audio Settings and then going into the ASIO Drivers dialog, then “resampler in use” or “resampler NOT in use” might be incorrect.
Fixed: If Windows Audio input/output drivers had different sampling rates, then the warning message was shown too frequently. It will not be shown once per session, or when recording is pressed.
Fixed: You could only resize the track height in the Tracks Window by hovering the mouse over the overview area but not the panel area on the left side of the screen.
Fixed: Generated loops would be completely silent
Fixed: Print options doesn't adhere to the Bars Per Line in Print Options when “from this screen on” is changed in Notation Window. (Fixed by adding a checkbox setting to Ignore Bars Per Line Markers.)
Fixed: When printing, and a Bars Per Line marker exists in 2nd row of notation, then the first row being printed might have the incorrect bars per line.
Fixed: When loading in an MGU/SGU, slurs entered in Band-in-a-Box Notation aren’t in RealBand Notation.
Fixed: When importing an SGU that has drums forced to MIDI, it generates RealDrums instead
Fixed: Held Option in RealTrack picker does not work
Fixed: Can't save mono WMA files (could do so in RB2020 and earlier)
Fixed: Load Audio Category Effects does nothing
Fixed: Interpret Chords always uses Audio interpretation instead of MIDI
Fixed: RealBand sometimes creates an empty / incorrect registry key that confuses the installers
Fixed: When typing in the Comments Window, hotkeys like “r” for record would get triggered.
Fixed: RealBand would freeze up when Time Stretch and Pitch Shift of Selected Audio Tracks, in the Tracks Window right-click menu, was executed.
Fixed: RealBand would get an access violation if loading in an MGU or SGU that contained utility tracks. Now the utility tracks will be loaded.
Fixed: language strings added.
Fixed: Save As button - Save Chords Window or Notation to video file, would not always generate the video properly or notify you that it was complete.
Fixed: “Converting file...” notification during/after a take was kept.
Fixed: “Invalid SMTPE Frame offset” notification. (edited)
Fixed: When using the Browse button in the File Prefs, or the Audio Prefs, the edit field to the left of the button would not get filled with the path you just selected.
Fixed: Right-clicking on the track number in the Mixer Window wasn't launching the right click popup menu FIXED - if you had RB configured to run as an administrator, and you right click on a file in Windows Explorer and select one of the items in the RealBand submenu, nothing would happen at all.  Note: You'll still have to respond to a windows prompt/question to run in admin mode.
Fixed: After running ACW a Yes/No question asking about stretching the audio was popping up, when it wasn't supposed to.  This could also occur in Beta 1 in other places that it wasn't supposed to, such as when loading in an XML file with multiple tempos.
Fixed: When loading a style that had a utility track set to a RealTracks, RealBand will now be able to generate the RealTrack for that utility track.
Fixed: The RealBand Forum button in the About dialog would go to the main forum page and not the RealBand forum page.

And more!

Details of New Features

You can install multiple VST plugins from a folder rather than one at a time.
When you press the [Scan Folder for VST Plugins] button in the DX/VST Options dialog (DX/VST Window – [Options]) and select a folder, RealBand will automatically scan the VST/VSTi plugins in that folder and its subfolders. (Note: It’s not advisable to let RealBand scan the entire hard drive. Select folders where you think plugins exist.)

The built-in Audio Chord Wizard has better chord detection routines.

RealBand can record mixer movement for the masters/subgroups if you move one of the 16 audio output sliders in the lower right section of the Mixer (which normally function as master audio outputs).

The new Time Stretch and/or Transpose Entire Song dialog lets you transpose/stretch/reduce all tracks and then conveniently save to a new file. You can access this dialog from the Edit menu.

The Render - Save all tracks to individual files command now has settings to save selected tracks only and to exclude muted tracks.

The Render - Save all tracks to WAV files command lets you save to a compressed format such as M4A, WMA, etc.

The Render - Export Acid Loop command can now export a section of a MIDI track or the entire MIDI track to an acid loop. Previously it only allowed this for an audio track.

When using the Render - Save all tracks to WAV command, you now have the option to acidize all the .WAV files. The “Acidize WAV?” message will pop up once and the settings will be applied to all tracks except drums which will be auto-detected based on either the track name or the MIDI note channels in the case of a MIDI track.

When auto-converting a MIDI track to a .WAV file, you now have the option of acidizing the .WAV file.

The Batch File Conversion dialog now lets you select Auto/Mono/Stereo when converting to audio files, as well as select the bit rate when converting to compressed audio.

The new Mute submenu on the right-click menu in the Tracks and Mixer windows lets you mute all track, un-mute all tracks, mute selected tracks, or un-mute selected tracks.

The new Solo submenu on the right-click menu in the Tracks and Mixer windows lets you solo selected tracks, un-solo selected tracks, solo rhythm section, or un-solo all tracks.

When you start recording, a message will display to the right of the record button for several seconds to indicate which track is being recorded.

The General Preferences dialog has new settings to set the default volume for tracks and the default gain offset in dB for audio tracks.

In the File Preferences dialog, you can now choose a custom folder where backup files are automatically saved.

The Lead Sheet Options dialog now has a “Highlight played notes” checkbox that lets you enable or disable the highlighting of played notes independently of the regular Notation window.

In the Tracks window, in the situation where a long track name wraps to the line immediately below the track name (the track name is displayed using two lines), the font size and color of the lower area will match the font size/color of track name field itself to make it more obvious that the track name wraps to the lower field.

When loading in a .SEQ file, if a VST plugin used isn’t yet installed into RealBand or a DX plugin used isn’t installed on the computer, then the list of these plugins will be written to the flash message log.

More ASIO formats are supported (big-endian, and 64-bit floating point) although these are UNTESTED and likely uncommon.

There is now an option to hide the display of nodes in the overview section of the Tracks window. This will display the overviews at the full height when tracks are expanded in size vertically.

The Bar Settings dialog in the Chords window now allows you to enter Meter changes.

When inserting or deleting a tempo in the Tempo Map, you now have the option of stretching any audio that exists in the section of the song that is affected by the change in tempo.

When loading an XML file from Guitar Pro that has two clefs of guitar notation on 1 part, RealBand will correctly load the tab clef and ignore the redundant other clef.

You can now insert/remove a trill (tr symbol) for a note with the Notation window right-click menu. RealBand can also read trills from XML files.

RealBand can now recognize if a track within an MGU/SGU file is set to a custom RealTracks instead of just the default. Previously, if you opened the file, selected a different RealTracks, saved the song, and reopened into RealBand, the custom RealTracks was ignored.

The StylePicker is enhanced.
The mixer area has an additional row for the Utility tracks to show which instruments are included in the Utility tracks.

The Other filter button has more menu items.

The Set # column shows HalfDouble for Half-time/Double-time variation styles.

We’ve added more user categories (e.g., Xtra12 All Styles, XPro Styles, Style Demos with Vocals, etc.)

The RealTracks Medley dialog is improved.
It now opens instantly.

The arrow buttons have been removed. You can now just click on the list to select RealTracks.