I've done this a bazillion times but now just can't. I have a song in my DAW consisting of vocals and BiaB backing tracks, including a 2-bar count in. I now want to import the vocal .WAV file into BiaB so I can better edit the backing tracks. I import the .WAV vocal track to chorus 1, bar -1, beat 1, but the vocals are behind a beat or so. I can re-import the BiaB backing track files into the DAW and they are in sync with the vocals. But I can't import the same vocals into BiaB.

Know this is something stupid I'm just doing wrong, and have my dunce cap standing by.

THANKS in advance for any assist!

Ron, I don't think you are a dunce. You just have a bad workflow.

Files go from BIAB to your DAW. NOT from your DAW to BIAB.

DrDan, well, in prior years you would be correct. But since I want to CHANGE my workflow (which is currently the one you suggest) so that I do MORE in BiaB and LESS in my DAW, THEN...I'd like to try it with an existing song. Frankly, the new features in BiaB are exciting enough to make me want to try a different workflow, and it's been a long, LONG time since that's happened...

So I'll gladly engage the joke responses to get there.

My dunce cap is still at the ready, but not because I shouldn't be exploring a new workflow...

Ha!(?)

Hi Ron,

Since BIAB began allowing for the partial regeneration of Realtracks, I also import the vocal into BIAB and use partial regeneration to create better realtracks that sit more comfortably with the vocal line. It's brilliant. In the past, I used to do a heap of work in the DAW. Now, I just send a rough instrumental track to the DAW so that I can prepare the vocals. Then, when I have the vocals sitting reasonably well, I put them into BIAB and refine things there. Then I send the final tracks to the DAW for polishing. It's a much quicker workflow to do it this way.

When you import the vocal into your DAW, you may need to time shift since BIAB has two count in bars. I have Reaper set so that it has two blank bars and matches BIAB. When you come to the menu that gives you the import locations, click on "Reset to zero" so that the audio is imported to bar 1.

Regards,
--Noel

Hi, Noel! Yes, your workflow is exactly what I'm trying for. "Brilliant" is my objective.

Since I've incorporated the two bar BiaB count in to my DAW vocal track (which is synced with imported BiaB tracks), my BiaB import settings SHOULD be chorus 1, bar -1 (bar -1 is the first bar of the count in, bar 0 is the 2nd bar) and beat 1. But this isn't working. The vocals are coming in about a beat late. I've also "reset to zero" in addition to countless other combinations of bars and beats over the last couple of hours.

Like I said, it's something stupid. I'm just too stupid to figure out what.

THANK YOU for the workflow input and help!

Ron

Ron,

For the song in question, do the vocals begin before, on or after beat 1 of bar 1 (bar 1 is the one that immediately follows the count-in). If you have a look at the audio track in the Audio Edit window, you will be able to see the timing of the audio file in relation to BIAB's bars. Also, have you set BIAB time signature and tempo to exactly match the DAW in which the vocal was recorded?

--Noel

Noel, the vocal track starts with bar -1, the first beat of the BiaB count in. The actual vocal comes in about bar 10. Yes, BiaB has the same time signature (4/4) and tempo (118 BPM) as the DAW. The confounding part to me is the BiaB tracks import to the DAW perfectly, and sync with the vocal track, but the vocal track will not import to BiaB. Like I said, it's a stupid mistake on my part, and I'm just too stupid to solve it...

THANK YOU for the response!

I've found that I'm getting better results now. In the past, I copied and pasted sections of track in Reaper to make corrections to a the track. Now with partial regeneration, I can try numerous possibilities before settling on the one that I like best. Regeneration also makes it possible to find suits instrumental riffs that have potential to be used as a instrumental hooks. Partial regeneration and working with the vocal in BIAB has unleashed a whole new world of possibilities.

This is just my 2¢ worth I'm sure that other people will do things differently.

I guessing here so I might be wrong. From the above information, though, it sounds like you might have started recording the vocal a bar or so before you started singing. If the recording had started at bar -1, it should line up with BIAB as it would have 10 bars of recording with no sound.

I just loaded a vocal created with Synth V that starts two bars before the 4-bar introduction. This means that my vocal recording has 6 bars of blank recording (the vocal starts on beat 1 of bar 5 in BIAB. Allowing for BIAB's bars -1 and 0 (count-in), I need to import my vocal at CHORUS 1 (since I use a single chorus, linear layout), Bar -1, Beat 1.



If I had started recording at Bar 6, though. This means that I haven't allowed for BIAB's count-in bars nor the introduction, then I would need to import the vocal to...

CHORUS# = 1
BAR# = 6
BEAT# = 1

What I suggest you do is to load the vocal into the Audio Track and then have a look at it in "Audio Edit". You will be able to see how it lines up. You will also be able adjust the track by inserting silence or cutting blank space.

Page 247 of the user manuat has a detailed explanation of Audio Edit and how to use it.

Noel, since my vocal audio track starts at the same time as the count in, it should import correctly with exactly the same 1 -1 1 0 import settings you show. But it does not. Know I can move the audio around manually, but...I'd like to put more time into getting the import function to work correctly first.

Have also tried dozen of other import settings with no improvement.

Anyway, THANKS again for thinking about this with me. Helps a lot!

Update: Tried to import vocals into another BiaB file using the same steps and it worked perfectly. Still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong on this particular song though...

Ron,

When the faulty vocal is loaded, did you have a look in the Audio Edit window? You'll be able to see what the problem is by where the wave visually sits.

Ron,

My vocals just loaded in 2 bars too late, as well. They worked fine earlier in the day now, though, they're late. I'll report it to the development team.

You should be able to use Audio Edit to adjust the wav so that it sits where you want it. The process will be a variation of the below process that I used to move my wav 2 bars to the left.

1) Import the wav file.

2) Select Audio Edit.

3) When in Audio Edit, click on "Snap" (#1 on the image).

4) Make sure Audio is selectect (#2).

5) I need to delete 2 bars to bring everything into alignment, so I select 2 bars where no sound wave is present by dragging the mouse (#3).

6) Under the "Edit" menu (#4), I then select "Delete" and blank bars will be removed and the audio is brought forward 2 bars.

Noel, yes, I can see the timing offset. It is delayed about a beat though I didn't measure it. Thanks for the detailed example of how to shift the vocal track by deleting empty space. Need to take a break but will try that out in a while. Thanks AGAIN for all the advice!! Ron

Ron,

With "snap" on, when you drag a selection it will lock to 1/4 of a beat (i.e. 1/16th notes) in EV time sigs and 1/3 of a beat (i.e. a triplet 1/8th note) in SW time sigs. That might help. If you need to work with fractions of a beat, click the snap off. If you want to zoom in or out, use the scroll wheel on the mouse. By clicking on the region where the wav image is located, you will set the position of a red vertical cursor. By zooming in and using this cursor, you will be able to more accurately gauge how far out of position the wav is.

Ron and others that run into this issue, BIAB has a feature to align audio in the Audio Edit Window. Place the Red Curser where you want the first beat of the audio to be, Rt. Click anywhere and select 'Mark this as bar 1 ... '

This aligns the curser and the audio beat one correctly.

Thanks, Charlie. I did not know this. That's an excellent tool to be aware of.

Ok, have done more testing and it is not a timing offset issue, it is a time stretching issue that is happening inside BiaB when I import my stereo audio file. Here is an image from my DAW of the correct audio file (top) and the BiaB imported audio file (bottom). As you can see, the audio starts late, but the offset increases over time. So when I manually correct the timing offset at the beginning, it continues to lag more and more over time. The audio is in the proper key, but it has (somehow) been stretched.

Also...I imported a previous mix of the entire song, which is 118 BPM, into BiaB and ran the ACW Auto Analysis, and it mapped the song as 120 BPM. Hmmm.

Anyway, I don't have a solution, just laying out some interesting findings...

THANKS to those who have pitched in so far!

I'm not sure you're correct. It looks like your screen shot is taken from Studio One? If that's not correct, it still appears to be taken from the DAW you use.

If that's correct, there's an issue with your conclusion. It seems you're saying the bottom audio file imported into your DAW from BIAB is the time-stretched audio done by the ACW. If that's correct, then yes, it is expected behavior for there to be an offset that changes over time. BIAB rounds bpm to a whole whereas DAWs are quite a bit more accurate. It appears to me in the screen shot the waves reach a certain level of offset and stabilize and I attribute that to be from BIAB wav being time stretched to a different bpm and also to the inherit difference of the DAW tempo accuracy to BIAB's rounded tempo.

I'll only comment on the BIAB images posted earlier and that is a timing offset, or import placement issue. Doesn't matter which, the fix is the same.
If the ACW does an accurate analysis, whether manual or not, or even if it's not accurate, the BIAB Chord sheet should accurately follow the tempo template the ACW creates.

Charlie, I'm going to summarize in CAPS for those who are skimming this. THIS IS AN ISSUE WITH TIME STRETCHING DURING AUDIO IMPORT, NOT AUDIO PLACEMENT DURING IMPORT.

Back to your note. Yes, I say "Here is an image from my DAW..." which is Studio One. The top track is the vocal audio file I imported into BiaB. The bottom track is the same audio file after I dragged it back out of BiaB. The bottom track has (apparently) been stretched by BiaB. That's the only conclusion I've drawn.

The ACW paragraph was just an independent excursion to see if the entire track (not just the vocal track) was correctly interpreted as 118 BPM by BiaB. It was not. If this is normal as you say I'm surprised, but it doesn't impact my issue as I did not use any ACW settings whatsoever. I just analyzed the song file and then closed without saving. Sorry I wasn't clear on that.

THANKS for the assist! Still searching...

Have sent this issue to tech support. Will update when resolved.

Hi Ron,

The mystery deepens!

For some reason, audio stretching does seem to have occurred. Whenever I've had problems like this, it's usually because the audio has been "acidized" (saved with information that allows it to be time-stretched). When you import the vocal file, is the "Set audio master tempo" option visible? I've highlighted it on the image below.



If there is no acid info present on the audio file, the importing window indicates "no tempo data detected".



When the file is transferred to Studio One, it is possible that BIAB saves the audio with acidized details that allows it to be time-stretched/shrunk. The BIAB option is found under the "Audio" menu at the very top of the BIAB window. To access the setting, click on "Export Song as audio file".



When you get a chance, can you check out these options as these could be causing the issue.

--Noel

Noel, all six of my audio file import trials have been marked "No tempo data detected" at the dialogue box per your pic. Saw the info about acidized files in the help section but I've "assumed" it does not apply as indicated by the dialogue box. That being said, SOMETHING is going on...

Have sent this issue to support along with example files...

THANKS again!

Noel, forgot to add...my "Include ACID info" checkbox is unchecked the same as your screenshot for the Render to Audio File checkbox.

Thanks for the update, Ron.

Out of curiosity, was the file you imported 16 bit, 44100 Hz? I'm not sure that this matters these days but as this is BIAB's default format, it might be worth checking that. The small amount of stretching that is showing up might possibly be explained by the difference between 44100 Hz and 48000 Hz files. That's the last of my ideas. Because I had an issue, too, there is definitely something going on. Hopefully Support will have success sorting it out

Great idea. I did have it set up for 24 bit, 44100 Hz but changed it to 16/44100...and got exactly the same results. Interestingly, the imported file is labeled "32 bit", which I'm GUESSING (again) is a 16 bit stereo file.

THANKS again, Noel!!

One more detail...my Studio One export dialogue box does not have the "include tempo info" checkbox checked. So I don't believe I'm sending tempo info with the audio file.

Ron, you confirmed the BIAB file was time-stretched so I wasn't suggesting that wasn't the case. My only question was all the steps the file had gone through.
In most normal audio import situations with BIAB, BIAB will not automatically time-stretch pre-recorded material. Acid based material would be one exception and Noel has covered that.
The ACW can create tempo maps and time-stretch audio to a specific tempo. It would be interesting since you know the correct tempo, to import the original audio into BIAB, open the ACW and equalize the tempo to the correct 118 bpm. I don't know if it would have any effect, but I always have BIAB audio driver set to MME.

Another thing, how did you determine in the ACW the tempo to be 120 bpm?

Charlie, my audio driver is set to WAS. Have not tried another setting on this issue yet.

As I recall, when I ran the auto analyze function in ACW, BiaB indicated 120 BPM and forced the song tempo to 120 BPM. But I just tried to repeat those results, and ACW now interprets the song file as 118 BPM. However, the timing is still stretched so the imported song file does not match the BiaB tracks on which the song file was based.

I agree that BiaB should not time stretch pre-recorded material that is not Acid based. But somehow, and this may still be on me...that is what is happening.

THANKS again, Charlie! I sometimes find it hard to remain cool and analytical with these frustrating issues. Very helpful to have you and Noel talking me off the ledge.

Ha!

Ron,

I've just had a spot of lunch and that got me thinking again. There is one other way we can approach this and see if it works. It will sound confusing but it is not all that much effort to do this. If you're game, we can try this using a manual process.

Firstly, a bit of background about BIAB and audio.
When BIAB creates and saves an audio file on the Audio track, that audio file will have the same name as the MGU or SGU file and it will reside in exactly the same directory as the MUS/SGU file.


With the above in mind...

1) Go to your song's folder and **delete any .wav or .mp3 file that is <songfile name>.wav or <songfile name>.mp3

• In my case this file was: NEVER_AGAIN.WAV (I didn't have any mp3s)

• **If you want to save the existing files, simply change their name so that the end extension is not .wav or .mp3.
• I usually add .old to any file that I want to keep but that I don't want BIAB to see. So in my case, I would hide NEVER_AGAIN.WAV by renaming it to NEVER _AGAIN.WAV.OLD

2) Go to Studio One and save the vocal as 16 bit, 44,100 Hz.(either mp3 or wav will work since BIAB works with both formats).

3) Take the saved vocal file and copy it to the same folder that the song's MGU/SGU file is in. Check the date/time stamp of the file to make sure that it was the one that you just created.

4) Rename the vocal file that has been copied to the song's folder as <songfile name>.WAV or <songfile name>.mp3 if you saved an mp3.

In my case, I would name this vocal file to NEVER_AGAIN.WAV

5) Now start BIAB and open the MGU/SGU file. I would open this using "File | Open" within BIAB rather than double-clicking on the file in the song's folder.

That's it. The audio file will automatically be attached to the MGU/SGU file.

Hopefully this will work for you!
--Noel

P.S. This is a great learning journey we're on

Noel, brilliant idea! But, unfortunately, identical result. Oh, well. Really appreciate the investment of your time, but not sure this journey is as "great" as it is "grating". Ha! I suspect the PG support group will not be working much, if at all, over the weekend, so I'm going to kick back and try to make some music today. Hope you have a great weekend as well! Ron

Good morning Ron and great idea Noel. At some point Ron, PG staff will request you make an SGU and Audio file available if they can't immediately diagnose the issue. Is it possible you could make an SGU file/ song available someway we on the forum could look at? We're missing something so far.

Also, I'm curious to your complete steps you do when you import the file in BIAB, open the ACW and sync the audio to the ACW. What point do you realize the audio is time stretched?

Candidly, there are several others having issues with the ACW that have posted videos or detailed all the steps and with these aids, I've been able to accurately understand their issues, duplicate them on my program but also see what to change to correct the issue.

To be honest, the secret weapon we have in your case is the involvement of Noel. He is a much, much better instructor and explainer than I am. I'm thinking if I can see your complete process and if this issue isn't actually a bug with the ACW, I may can explain the fix to Noel well enough he can share it with you and others that may encounter this problem.

Charlie, sorry I confused the discussion with my ACW excursion. My issue is with the File>Import>Import Audio function stretching the audio it imports. It's a very simple process, or always has been before. First, select the file to import. In my case, it is a 16/44 vocal track. Second, select the insertion point. Since my audio file starts with the BiaB 2-bar count in, the insertion point is chorus 1, bar -1, beat 1, tick 0. That's it.

Noel is indeed a weapon, but that's not much of a secret. Ha!

Here's the email I sent support:

I’m running the latest build of BiaB 2024 Audiophile on a Windows 10 PC.

"Problem: I’ve run half a dozen tests, and half the time BiaB is time stretching audio files when importing. Below is my thread on the forum.

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=793946&page=1

Here is one of the problematic BiaB song files:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/l76xtz9aspd7zcmso33r0/Wrong-Place-Wrong-Time-2.SGU?rlkey=f7e3mqkvj87yjc4styr2fz74n&dl=0

Here is one of the audio files that gets stretched upon import to BiaB:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/8nfvnjcuooeh2st0q1j1r/Wrong-Place-all-vox-5.wav?rlkey=blqgvt0r7nab6f71iodpera81&dl=0

It is a vocal track recorded in a DAW with BiaB stems and includes the two bar count in. So the import point is bar -1

Here is what the track SHOULD sound like coming out of the DAW with the vocal track properly synced:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/sgxo284dhw0ha0dor5dzr/Wrong-Place-2-Dusted.wav?rlkey=quivt9zifzpavifnehtf28vfv&dl=0

After importing, the vocals start late and get progressively later as time goes on. When I export the vocal track back from BiaB into my DAW I can see that the vocals have been stretched. The vocals are in the correct key however.

I have reset to factory settings in BiaB and completely rebuilt the song file from new with no change in results."

Thanks again, Charlie!

Thanks Ron. PG Staff will likely and hopefully quickly resolve this issue and I'll be monitoring the thread to see how things turn out for you.

Truthfully, I get a lot of blowback about participating in these type issues and have been asked by prominent DAW experts to no longer interfere with their strategy to convert BIAB into a full-fledged DAW.

So, have fun with BIAB, don't let it frustrate you. Music should be fun.

Charlie,

You do a great job. You impress me no end with your depth of knowledge. Don't let the naysayers stop you. Ultimately, it's up to them if they want to read your posts and learn what you explain to them. If they choose to be unreasonably critical, that's a comment about them, not you.

Please keep up the good work!
--Noel

Ron,
Please have a look at your messages. You need to scroll to the top of the page and the Message icon is beside you user name on the upper right.
--Noel

Charlie, don't stop giving your expert advise or your ideas about BiaB. I am not keen on BiaB becoming a DAW however if I can exit BiaB anytime I want, like I can now, and others want it to become a DAW then sure go for it.

Yes music should be fun.

<< I import the .WAV vocal track to chorus 1, bar -1, beat 1, but the vocals are behind a beat or so. >>
This is your vocal import settings. I downloaded the SGU and the Vocals. Thanks for doing that. I assume the vocals start at bar 9.

I adjusted the import settings to Chorus 1, beat 4, tick 0 and these settings properly placed the vocal track in BIAB. This import setting started the vocals at bar 9 and there was no time stretching during the import. I played the file with vocals at 118 bpm. Give this a try.

DC - Hows this working out for you so far? I am watching, however, you are working in areas of BIAB that I never go, so can't exactlly tell. Be sure to let me know at the end just how practical this "reverse workflow" is for you.

Charlie, the vocals do not start at bar 9. The last syllable of the first vocal phrase (the word "eyes") lands on beat 1 of bar 9. I linked a rough mix of the entire song file in the Support email above if you'd like to hear how it's supposed to sound. Understand you're not getting stretching with this audio file (neither is Noel) but I still am. So now there appears to be something about my install (which is new) or configuration (which hasn't changed in many years) or...something else?

THANK YOU for diving into this!!

Well, DrDan, this has been a journey just to get to the start of the journey I wanted to go on. Will certainly update on my technical resolution in this post, and the "reverse workflow" separately. THANKS for checking in! Ron

FWIW, I tried MME and ASIO audio drivers with same results as with the WAS audio driver.

Ok, I figured it out. Kinda. The "base tempo" for the Audio track was incorrectly set at 120 BPM and it should have been the same as the song tempo of 118. Not sure how this happened, but I'm certain it was nothing I intentionally changed. I just don't monkey with settings that much. (Well, until the last two days anyway)

To fix: In Track View, right click on the Audio track and select Track Settings>Set Base Tempo. Enter the song tempo in the dialogue box and press ok. Easy Peasy. Now anyway.

I'll mark this as Resolved.

THANK YOU to Noel and Charlie for providing insights, testing the files and, most of all, keeping me focused on solutions and not the problem. You guys are the best of the best. Sincerely.

Back to the music now, at last...

No problem. Not being familiar with the song, I estimated using the lead in silence and the chord chart to guess vocals roughly started around bar 9. Knowing "eyes" lands on beat 1 of bar 9 would make it easy to precisely sync the lyrics to the music. My aim was to have the first beginning wav form to be just behind bar 9 start and I was able to accomplish that. Secondary was to see if any setting contained in your SGU was activating the time-stretch and apparently that doesn't seem to be the case. There are still many variables to weed out and find the source of the overall issue. I'll hang on the the two files and may do some further testing but my thoughts presently is PG Staff will probably be how it's ultimately solved.

Thanks for updating the thread, Ron.

Setting the base tempo on an individual track basis is not something I'm familiar with. Well done on working it out!

As I wrote in the in the private message, what worked for me was to import the wav a second time while the original wav was still in place. This was my process...

1) Import wav and generate song. (The vocal tracks was misaligned.)

2) Without erasing or killing the imported wav, import it a second time. Make sure that "Overwrite existing audio" is selected.



3) Generate the song again. This time the vocals were aligned for me.

In light of your discovery, I'm guessing that the second import set the base tempo correctly to 118.

I'm glad that all's well that ends well
--Noel

Charlie, no worries, I have what I need now. You may have missed the resolution posted a few minutes before your last post. THANKS again for all!

Noel, THANKS again for posting this and your resolution. What I DIDN'T do in testing your resolution was regenerate the song after the 2nd import. Oof!

At least I (and we) have a little more granularity on what is going on if anyone else experiences this and how to fix it. I still don't understand WHY, since I've imported audio dozens of times without issue before now. But I'm not going to worry about it. Done enough of THAT of late! Ha!

Enjoy the weekend!