MY WISHES FOR RB.

Let me lay out what I feel RB needs to slay the market.
My dream list.
to be fair RB is still unique as i havent found any other daw in the market with a combo of track generation and audio/midi and 256 tracks.
but imho i hope this is no reason to rest on RB's laurels.
I advocate for a very aggressive development cycle for RB.
the reason i'm posting the following is i, like some people ive talked to, am tired flitting between multiple music apps to create a song.
If I could do it all in RB I would be soooo happy.
non destructive editing is assumed like many daw's.

(RBTV = rb tracks view.)
Basically RBTV is the musos work center.
i'm sure ive missed something so feel free to add your own.

1..NEW BB FEATURES IN RBTV.

As soon as possible I would like to see some new BB 2024 features implemented in RB.
ie…
..multipicker library access.
..speed of track generation of BB 2024.
I love both.
note if a way could be found not to create oodles of wav files in creating a song and thus end up with big SEQ's this would be great. i doubt i'll ever see it but i would love to be able to record and playback in a compressed format as ive been able to do in another daw.
i love being able to do it and am a big supporter of such as ive done a slew of songs using this.

2..ADDITION OF SPECIAL TRACKS.
(under the RBTV timeline.).
..a chord track which takes over the functions of chords view. (an option.)
..instead of the old skool markers dialog…just have a markers track…and right click anywhere on it to set a marker and name it however the user wants eg one of INTRO/VERSE/CHORUS/LEADBREAK/BRIDGE/
OUTRO/DRUM SOLO…ie however the user wants to label.
The marker track could also be used for special production notes.
..a lyric track. self explanatory.(not urgent as there is currently a lyrics view/box.)
..a tempo track
..a time sig track (good idea ROB HELMS)

note re graphical vol automation like in rb and other daws i'm not a fan. For us vision impaired we can't often draw in the points properly. which is why I prefer the use of an up/down cursor on a section of track.
By comparison vol automation is too 'fiddly' to enter and get right from my experience in any daw.

3..OTHER NICETIES.
..a new low cpu usage 'quickie simple mini channel strip' like ive suggested for BB...one fader for comp/lim, one for noise gate/..a five fader simple 5 band like pg dx and simple reverb like BB…of course all current track features stay the same.
NOTE…the intention of this mini strip is for quickie demos like the one i find useful in BB.
it's not meant to be a strip with loads of settings that might be difficult to use for a user new to music production plus it's meant to be low cpu usage of course.
so it could be run on old clunker pc's.
this strip would be the same as ive suggested for BB so that there is some commonality between BB and RB for new users.
let me say for those wanting to use fancy advanced plugins and who understand advanced dsp routines, still such plugins can be used as currently.
i DO feel it might be useful that RB warns a user of potential pc overload as some users ive seen over the years on various daws have tried to run a ton of tracks and high cpu plugins on clunky old pc's and thus things can get pear shaped quickly. Maybe an early warning feature pops up ?
..addition of features that might help the vision impaired further..and getting away from the 'old skool' dialogs etc.
ie.. further modernisation.
..more commonality re features between BB and RB
to lessen a new users learning cycle.

The advantage of the above for pg i would suggest strategically is to keep users using pg products rather than needing to use other music apps. I'm sure lots of people are like myself, i.e. tired of flitting between different music apps and the time this all entails. as ive said before.

i'm sure ive missed something….lol.
anything ive forgotten i'll add. Please feel free to add your own.

happiness.

om

+1
sounds like solidrock saga part II
justanoldmuso = solidrockII

I think you just brought up a lot of repressed memories in me from a past life.

mcity.

i'm not solidrock lol.
frankly its not trivial running a tech company. lots of competing user needs. ive seen it all in tech.

thus when i get a tad frustrated i remind myself that i'm sure the beatwells and martin in the abbey would have done hit songs using just current RB.
they would have gone ' what ? 256 tracks ? plus BB for 100 bucks on a tiny flash drive ? compared to our few tracks and costly gear ?'

so i just work with what i have.
(which is what my ever patient wife says every day...lmao.)
reminding myself that there are various unique features in RB that aren't in any other music app.

great respect to you for helping so many users mcity.
thanks for the +1. you and i want the same.
ie RB to be a giant in the daw world.

happiness.

om

Looking back through those old posts when I was trying to make RealBand better, there were messages then:
It was all a learning curve, learning how Reaper can work, learning how Biab works then putting 2 and 2 together.....
we now have the PLUGIN, thanks to PG and Cockos for listening, and I can open frozen SGU's instantly and directly in Reaper.
So all that stress and frustration brought about some great features now in Biab and the PLUGIN that would not of otherwise happened without it so RealBand has served a good purpose.

JAOM .. trust me, musocity knows that you were not solidrock .. he would know if anyone did <grin>
/trying to be subtle here

SolidPipeCityRockMusoLine! New name idea!!!!! "wink"

great alias rob lol.

a general comment.
security on the net.

actually as my wife and i have worked in tech we decided ages ago to adopt certain methods in order to protect our family.
It's a shame. but we felt it had to be done due to the bad actors and hackers out there etc etc.
we used to get laughed at when we suggested certain methods we used..until an acquaintance was compromised..
frankly, and i'm sure some people might think it extreme, but i wonder if one day governments all over the world will insist a special unhackable or spooferd technology be inserted in not just pc's but all manner of technology.
so that the bad guys can be identified.
i dont want an argy bargy debate but i suggest the above might occur once a threshold of compromised people and organisations is reached.
Frankly, I would far prefer to be more open and treat these forums like my local pub/hangout…lol.
ie the way life used to be.
But it's just the sign of the times that I can't be more open. oddly enough as i'm typing this i am hearing of the trials and tribulations of being a major label artist and what artists go through and the implications of AI.

All I can say from my family to yours is to be safe in this crazy world.
happiness to all.

re RB 2024.

well i probably drive PG and jeff nuts re my rb suggestions.
it's all done with good intentions i assure you all.
I will say from my interactions with PG and Jeff re rb I am impressed.
jeff and pg developers are highly talented people imho based on my working with developers in industry.
in the old days i and my fellow techs would brainstorm new tech at the local pub as to what we could do to keep our user base happy. Which was difficult as often the user base couldnt agree with each other, and of course we had to deal with senior industry management that didn't have a clue often....lol.
(never give a CEO an easy to use pc…lol…because he thinks he is a tech expert suddenly and cant understand why major systems are such a different long term challenge…lol.
Once I had to sit down with a CEO and show him what was involved. Luckily for me he was very clever. and went 'my goodness i never knew'. i never ever got flack
again !!)

I am glad actually I saw several of my suggestions in rb 2024.
I'm sure many users made the same suggestions.
i'm particularly glad to see comping in 2024 as it makes comping vocals easier as i do a ton of vocals.
Of course i would love to see mpicker and the track genning speed of bb 2024.
so ive changed my work methods to take advantage of strengths of bb and rb.

Jeff and PG know all my dreams/suggestions/wishes etc to make rb a giant.
So I won't bore people with constant repetition…lol.

happiness.

om

"So I won't bore people with constant repetition…lol."
Lol I do ! it's like ads on the TV you can't just run them once for them to work, you have to keep running them so they go in and work. "Early to bed, early to rise, work like hell and advertise."

I loved RB and saw so much potential in it but all because of RB issue's and it's snail sloooooow development you get this (see below),
I can't do anything with RB but change some bmp's, I can't get in to code it or script it other than some AutoHotkey scripts.
It still hasn't changed that much since the solidrock days. I was more enthusiastic about RB than any other user, PG or PG staff, so rather than all that going into RB it went into Reaper, ah what could of been

mcity.

i dont care which ...biab tracks view ...or...rb tracks view..lol
i just want to use ONE APP to create a song in.
ie ONE WORK VIEW ...like lots of people im tired of flitting between several apps.
oops a little robin in my garden just told me he is tired of flitting around town so he chose us...lol

unfortunately much as i enjoyed big R for years i only use it now for editing.
your right though if rb had been more aggressively developed years back it would now enjoy the huge world fan base that big R has built.
i only need big R v2 for the clip / nd editing.

in summary...i'm like that robin flitting around town just wanting to find one place to call home...lol

ps what i do often is a trick to cut down loads of wav files....
i do most things in bb then mix beds to stereo.
then import the stereo bed mix into rb...then add my vocs and other doodads...and finish off the song in rb. its not ideal but it works for me re reducing tons of wav files.
the bluegrass song in my sig used this method etc.

om 🇨🇦 🇬🇧

If I try to open a frozen Biab SGU with all mixer tracks in RB it loads the BB tracks and all the Utility track's RealCharts midi but not the Utility track's audio.
If i change the song tempo it has to re-encode all the wav files to the new tempo, it would take even longer if it loaded the Utility audio in also.
Reaper just instantly loads all the tracks in without creating wav files, and instantly changes the tempo.

See Video: Biab-Frozen-Tracks-RB.mp4

Build 4 of RB 2024 will fix the bug in which the Utility Track's audio isn't being loaded in from SGUs/MGUs

EDIT: Meant 5, not 4.

The current 4 is not working so will wait for the release version.