New Features in RealBand 2012

RealBand 2012 for Windows is here with over 40 cool new features! Same But Different MultRiff Selection. You can now audition 7 different RealTracks performances, to choose the one that works the best with your song, with a single click! This works for the entire track, or the highlighted section of a track. You can customize over 150 of the Guitar based RealTracks using the new Guitar Amp Simulator that is included (AmpliTube CS). We include Direct Input (clean signal) Guitar RealTracks for these, so all of the added effects come from the Guitar Amp Simulator. Weve added Loops support, so you can add your own or 3rd party loops to any RealBand track. Weve added a Simpler RealTracks setting a checkbox that makes the RealTracks play a simpler (less busy or embellished) arrangement. Theres a new main screen VU meter with a clipping indicator. There are track specific Solo buttons, and a handy FX button to easily choose track F/X. Weve added a huge number of new RealTracks (101), with great new Jazz, Pop, and Country Styles. These include: - Jazz RealTracks: Dixieland full band with tuba/ banjo and soloists, Jazz Funk (Jeff Lorber, Alex Al), Fusion Guitar soloing (Carlos Arellano), Bossa Organ and Piano (MikeLeDonne), Solo Guitar Accompaniment (Oliver Gannon). - Country RealTracks: Pedal Steel Soloing (CMA winner Paul Franklin), 6 new guitar soloing and accompaniment RealTracks recorded by Nashville guitar legend Brent Mason, Praise And Worship Promise band, Drivin 8ths full band, Bluegrass Waltz - Pop/Rock RealTracks: Texas Blues soloing and rhythm with guitar masters Sol Philcox and Brent Mason, Rock Piano (CMA winner John Jarvis), Soul (full band), Pop 16ths medium (full band), Pop Ballad 16ths (full band). And more The New Features in RealBand 2012 for Windows are... Same But Different MultiRiff Selection. You can now audition 7 different RealTracks performances, to choose the one that works the best with your song, with a single click! This works for the entire track, or the highlighted section of a track. Choose one, or multiple to add to the song. For example, if you want a pedal steel riff for 4 bars, highlight that region, and listen to the 7 selections, and choose the riff that works best. Or if you want 2 different acoustic guitar strumming parts, choose 2 from the 7 different generated parts, they will be written as to different tracks, and contain different strumming. We call this Same but different since the strumming patterns are on the same chords, but are different performances. Guitar Amp Simulator Added (Amplitube CS) and over 150 Direct Input Guitar based RealTracks. You can customize over 150 of the Guitar based RealTracks using the new Guitar Amp Simulator that is included (AmpliTube CS). We include Direct Input Guitar recordings for these, so all of the added effects come from the Guitar Amp Simulator. Weve added Loops support, so you can add your own or 3rd party Loops to any Band-in-a-Box track. New horizontal master output VU meters on the main toolbar Theres now a VU Meter visible on the screen at all times, with a clipping indicator. There are handy new buttons in the tracks window. [S] - Solo buttons are on each track. Now you can select multiple tracks to solo, by clicking the S button on the tracks that you want to solo. Soloed tracks show with a yellow S button. [F/X] Effects button launches the dialog to choose VST Audio F/X or MIDI Synths for the track. This is much faster than previous method. Weve added a Simpler RealTracks setting a checkbox that makes the RealTracks play a simpler (less busy or embellished) arrangement. Weve added a huge number of new RealTracks (101), with great new Jazz, Pop, and Country Styles. 30 New Jazz RealTracks! These include: Dixieland Rhythm Section w/ Banjo, Guitar, Tuba, Piano, Drums. Dixieland Soloists: Clarinet, Trombone, Trumpet.

Jazz-Funk Breezy 75 - 7 styles. Bass (Alex Al), Guitar (2) (Michael Thompson), Piano (Jeff Lorber) (2), Sax Solo (Eric Marienthal), Drums (Ricky Lawson). Jazz Guitar Fusion Soloing (Carlos Arellano). Mike LeDonne Bossa Piano, Organ RH only, Organ RH+LH bass). 40 New Pop/Rock/Folk RealTracks! These include: John Jarvis Rockin Piano. (John is a Country Music Association (CMA) Award winner for Pianist of the Year.) 60s Soul. Full band with Bass/ Guitar/ Piano/ Drums. Folkie 16ths band Banjo, Bass, Guitar. Texas Blues Shuffle with Blues Masters Sol Philcox and Brent Mason. Pop16ths ballad (65) Full Band. 10 instruments - Guitar (5), Bass, Fiddle, Mandolin, Piano, Drums. Pop 16ths Medium (110) - Full Band. 8 instruments - Bass, Fiddle, Guitar (3), Piano, Drums, Mandolin. 31 New Country RealTracks! These include: Pedal Steel Soloing. 3 styles with Paul Franklin (CMA award winner, Pedal Steel player of the year). Fancy Fingerpicking by Brent Mason (CMA winner). These fingerpicking parts are intended as the second part to accompany an existing fingerpicking RealTracks, with different voicings, and passing tones. Praise and Worship: Styles: Promise - 8 RealTracks (Piano, Guitar (5), Drums). Brent Mason Classic Country Soloing (4 styles). Swing 65, Swing 165, Even 85, Even 165. Country Drivin 8ths - Full Band. 5 RealTracks - Bass(2), Fiddle, Guitar, Pedal Steel. StylePicker Filter has been Enhanced. There is an easy search feature on the main StylePicker filter window. You can type a search term, press Enter, and the styles are filtered. This includes, in addition to typing any text, special terms like Ev (shown only Even feel styles), Sw (Swing styles), 8 (8th note styles), 16 (16ths note styles), 140 (find styles that work at tempo 140), 140! (list only styles where the original tempo is 140), Real (list only real styles), MIDI (list only MIDI styles), Oliver (list only styles including Artist=Oliver), Duo/Trio/Quartet (# instruments) and more. The StylePicker Advanced Filter has been enhanced, with new options to include/exclude styles with soloists, only include styles matching the tempo exactly, list of RealTracks Artists includes instrument names (Oliver Gannon: Jazz Guitar instead of Oliver Gannon), individual genres listed (e.g. show Country and Pop styles only), Faster (single click) selection of options (radio buttons instead of drop down combo) for most commonly used settings. StylePicker filter added for time signatures 4/4, 3/4 waltz, 5/4, 6/8, 9/8, 12/8, and others. StylePicker memo enhanced. - Lists *** includes Soloist *** for styles with Soloists - Shows N/A for missing RealTracks - More elaborate drum names, you now see CountryPopEv16^01 a:Sidestick, Hihat b:Snare, HiHat instead of CountryPopEv16^01SSCldHt,SnrCH - Expanded size show; more of memo shows Song memos are imported from Band-in-a-Box songs. The Auto-generated memo is also imported from Band-in-a-Box songs that have been saved by BB 2012. The imported memo appears on the comments window, which is opened with the song. Now Able To Save A Highlighted Region (Or Entire Track) Of A Song As WAV, wma, mp4 Or m4a. Choose the new Track- Save selection as audio (WAV,WMA,mp4,m4a) command, or right click on the tracks window to choose this command. Band button added to main screen, allowing you to quickly choose the most commonly used styles for Jazz, Pop, and Country.

Note: You should have tempo swapping so that the styles will work over a widest range of tempos. RealBand will remind you about this (by a yellow message) if you have turned off tempo swapping. Some Yellow Hint Messages can now be clicked on to perform the action. Questions asked when songs loaded (requiring a response) are now changed to yellow flash messages, that don't require a response but can be clicked on if you want to do the function: Styles can now contain extra information, such as: Custom Panning, Reverb, and Tone Control settings. Styles can also store Audio FX to use with tracks, and specific VST synths to use. Styles can also be made to specify simple variations for the RealTracks, or use Direct Input Guitars. Note: For styles that store extra information (such as panning, reverb, tone, substyle names, plug-in names etc.), an extra file with a .stx extension is saved. So for zzjazz.sty, you would also have a zzjazz.stx file, and both of them should be present for the features to be present. STX files are not needed for most styles, just ones that need to store this extra information. [Nt+] [Nt-] - Note+ and Note- buttons on the Guitar Window. If a notation window is open, pressing these buttons will place the note on a different string for guitar tab or on-screen guitar display. Note: this is done by use of MIDI Channels 11 to 16 for guitar strings. Chord Symbols are now drawn on Audio Edit Window RealDrums names have been improved, so instead of cryptic names like: CountryPopEv16^01-SSCldHt,SnrCH You see: CountryPopEv16^01 a:Sidestick, Hihat b:Snare, HiHat a:Sidestick, HiHat : Kick on 1 and 3 with the sidestick on beat 4. The hihat is playing a 16th note pattern, b:Snare, HiHat : Kick on 1 and 3 with the snare on beat 4. The hihat plays 16th notes throughout and is sometimes opened slightly The RealTracks Demos folder names are improved, and list the names of the RealTracks set. (e.g., Instead of c:\bb\RealTracks Set 42 it says c:\bb\RealTracks Set 42 Boogie n Texas Rock.) RealDrums arrangements have been improved with less busy playing on odd bar numbers. The Same But Different feature is improved, and finds more varied playing. Rests now apply to the Melody and Soloist tracks (if they have RealTracks, Loops, or MIDITracks on them). Note that for purposes of excluding the tracks from the rests, the Melody and Soloist tracks use the same setting as the Strings track. RealTracks arrangements are enhanced. Band-in-a-Box handles major triads more intelligently, considering their function in the key of the song. Better playing over 2 beat chords (sometimes would piece together two one beat riffs for a chord lasting 2 beats. Fixed: issue in which double-clicking on style picker might cause the style picker to be behind the main window. Fixed - in the Audio Edit Window, the background of the lower channel could overwrite the top channel if the window wasn't made large enough And more. Also If youre updating from version 2011 or older, check out these important features added in RealBand version 2011.5 (released July 2011), including 30 RealBand 2011.5 features - redesigned Jukebox, fully featured with full control over a playlist - audio and MIDI volumes higher than 127 - Support for using ASIO with multiple programs at once

Tracks are "painted Red" during recording, to confirm that recording is occurring in the right place. You can "freeze" a track, which prevents it from being regenerated by functions like re-generate all tracks, or the [BB] button. To do this, right click on the track and select, "Freeze track from Generation." Default track type for new songs is now Audio, instead of MIDI. Since typical projects are mostly audio, this saves time setting the track types. Copying and Moving selections is easier with Drag and Drop. You can drag and drop highlighted regions of a track by holding the Ctrl key and then dragging the region. When you drop to a new track (or the same track), a dialog appears with options to move or copy. Video Help toolbar button added. This launches the RealBand videos webpage. The Audio Edit window now shows events with background colors, and has a gray background instead of white. Auto-hook-up to Coyote GM Wavetable MIDI synth when running RealBand for the 1st time: When the program is run for the first time, and the MIDI Driver Setup dialog is popped up, the Coyote WT, if present, will be automatically loaded into the default DXi Slot . Support for loading frozen tracks from Band-in-a-Box MGU files has been added. When loading a Band-in-a-Box song, frozen MIDI, frozen RealTracks, and frozen RealDrums tracks are loaded into RealBand. When loading in a new style, the tempo of the project will be changed to the typical tempo of the style. Other GUI enhancements: The mouse scroll wheel in Tracks window will zoom in/out if hovering over the overview section. It will still scroll horizontally if hovering to the left of the overview section. Horizontal Scroll bar on Tracks win now redraws the window as you drag the scrollbar, not waiting until you lift the mouse. Hotkeys added: o Ctrl+NumPad Plus hotkey for "Zoom In" in the Tracks/AudioEdit window. o Ctrl+NumPad Minus hotkey for "Zoom Out" in the Tracks/AudioEdit window. o Shift NumPad Plus hotkey for "Zoom Selection" button in the Tracks/AudioEdit window o Shift+NumPad Minus hotkey for "Zoom Whole" in Tracks/AudioEdit window o Ctrl+Shift+N hotkey toggles through the notation modes of Notation window Sticky buttons added. Sticky buttons on the Tracks window like the [Snap], [L] (lock), and [ZWhole] buttons will display font in bold when pressed in. Mixer F/X buttons will appear sticky "pushed in" if a Track strip, Aux strip, or Master strip has any non-blank F/X slots. You can apply a custom color (foreground and background) to a track, or all tracks, using right-click menu items "Current Track Event Colors" and "Default Track Event Color Setup." When playing audio via MME and a track contains volume changes, these will be heard at the scheduled time rather than with a delay. In the Chords window, a [Bar] button has been added on the top tool bar, to launch the Settings for Bar dialog. Easier change of tempo when song has audio. Now, when you change tempo and the song has audio, the audio stretching happens without a confirmation dialog required. You can Undo the changes if you want to restore the original tempo. In the Track menu the Merge command now has an option to "Always merge to audio." "Auto-convert MIDI track to audio track" now has the ability to convert to the same track. This function is accessed by right-clicking on the Tracks window, and will convert a MIDI track to audio. Now it can keep the audio on the same track. The program no longer needs to show a "checking soundcard" function when being used for the first time. This speeds up starting time.

No warning dialog is displayed if no MIDI Drivers are installed. A less intrusive yellow fly-by hint message displays instead. [Reset Bar] and [Reset All Bars] buttons have been implemented in the Settings for Bar dialog (F5). Canceling the dialog will restore the original. These allow you to quickly remove settings that apply to the current bar or all bars.

Tutorial: Using the New MulitRiffs Feature in RealBand 2012

About MultiRiffs With Same but Different MultiRiff selection you can audition 7 different RealTracks performances, to choose the one that works the best with your song, with a single click! This works for the entire track, or the highlighted region of a track. Choose one riff or multiple riffs to add to the song.

For example, if you want a pedal steel riff for 4 bars, highlight that region, and listen to the 7 selections, and choose the riff that works best. Or if you want 2 different acoustic guitar strumming parts, choose 2 from the 7 different generated parts, they will be written as to different tracks, and contain different strumming. We call this Same but different since the strumming patterns are on the same chords, but are different performances. If you are generating riffs for a highlighted region of a track, not for the complete track, you can select the Allow riffs to start earlier or end later checkbox. This allows the program to insert the whole riff, even in the case of the riff starting earlier or ending later than the highlighted area. For example, you may have selected bar 2 through bar 4. If that checkbox is enabled, and the riff generated by the program happens to start early or end late (be more than exactly 3 bars long), then, when the OK button is pressed, the program is allowed to insert the entire riff into the track, even if it means that what gets inserted actually starts earlier than bar 2 or actually ends later than the end of bar 4. The riff description in the MultiRiff dialog reports how many ticks earlier and later the riff is. This is also visible in the track overview.

The Riff data itself is generated in such a way so that the program always generates the nearest X bars worth of riff data. For example, if the user highlighted beat two through beat three of bar 6, then the riff is really going to be a bar long. However, if "Allow riffs to start earlier or end later" checkbox is unchecked, then the user will get what the user selected rather than a full bar. If that checkbox is unchecked then the user will get at least a full bar of data inserted. If the start of the highlighted area, or end of the highlighted area, is not on a bar boundary, then the Riff description is expected say that the riff starts early (or ends late). That is not a bug, since it does start early or end late relative to the area that the user highlighted. For example, if the user highlighted beat 2 through

beat 3 of a bar, then the program may say that the riff starts 120 ticks early and ends 120 ticks late since the program really generates at least a full bar in that case. NOTE: If a riff that was generated happens to END earlier than the end of a bar, or END earlier than the end of the highlighted region, this will not be reported in the riff description field. That field will only tell you if the riff starts early or ends late. Generating MultiRiffs To generate MultiRiffs you right-click with the mouse on the track where you want a new RealTracks instrument track generated. In the menu that opens, select MultiRiff (Choose).

The RealTracks Picker will open and you can choose the instrument you want for the track. When you OK your choice there will be a bit of a delay and the MultiRiff dialog will open.

You will see the seven different riffs that have been generated listed along with a riff description giving the number and range of notes in each one. Click on the adjacent [] play arrow to hear each riff playing along with your song arrangement. Hit the [Stop Riff Playback] button if youve heard enough and want to move on to the next riff.

There is also an option to play multiple riffs. You can have several riffs all seven if you want generated and played on separate tracks. Try this with some of the Dixieland RealTracks soloists! This is also the easy way to layer backing tracks. There is also an option to solo each riff to hear it unaccompanied. When your riffs play, they are loaded into the track you have selected (or multiple tracks for multiple riffs playback) and you will see the waveform(s) in the Tracks window overview. Of course this means that you have all of RealBands editing features available to you. You could even drag and drop your favorite sections of each separate MultiRiff onto a single track to compile them into one edited track. Youll see that your track name has been updated with the name of the RealTracks instrument you chose for your riffs.

To change to a different instrument, right-click on the track and select MultiRiff (Choose) in the menu.

This will open the Assign RealTracks to Tracks dialog (RealTracks Picker), where you can select different instruments to play the riffs.