Hello,
I recently bought band in a box and the jazz realpack 1 and 2. I have to say it's abolutely amazing!! PG music has done a great job and i want to thank them for making this terrific software.

I have a technical question which is not about the software but my laptop hardware. My laptop runs BB just fine, but if i want to use it with other audio devices (such as my EWI usb) it says
"couldn't open the wave device. the likely cause is that another program is using the audio playback or left its drivers open." this makes sense because my ewi is using it. Is there a way to work around this problem. would buying a new usb sound card be a solution? or can i adjust some settings to fix it? (I have downloaded and installed the asio4all driver.)

any help is very appreciated.

rodin

Man, good luck with the ewi. I ordered one from Sweetwater a few months ago and couldn't get it to work with anything I had. Sent it back and they sent another figureing there was something wrong with the first unit. Well, long story short they got that one back to. Best reason I have found so far for using Sweetwater is the fact that they took them both back and refunded all $ except the shipping so I I didn't really loose anything but my time and the agravation of trying to make it work. Like I say, goodluck!

Rodin, welcome to the forum.

You need to give us more information.

I assume you have BIAB version 2011.5, but if it is not, let us know.

Which of the two EWI models did you buy?

How are you using the EWI - what program is running? You should be able to just select it as an input device in the Options, MIDI Driver window, if you connected it via USB.

I'm guessing you selected ASIO as your BIAB audio output driver. In many cases, the MME will work better, and will avoid the ASIO-caused problem of not being able to open two programs that use ASIO to control the same soundcard.

But, we need to know more about your setup to help.

There was a lot discussion in 2009 about using BIAB and an EWI USB together. From what I remember 99% of the people who couldn't it and one person did and didn't know how he did it! Just Google EWI USB/BIAB and there's a lot of info there. By the way I traded my EWI USB for an EWI 4000s for the versatility and no need to be tied to a computer as with the USB. Later, Ray

Thanks for your replies.
To clarify some things.
- I use the latest BB version 2011.5
- I use the Garritan software which came with the Ewi usb.
Both programs work fine but if I open them together only the one I opened first will have “sound”.
The same thing occurs when I open two other programs that have sound, such as windows media player and the EWI (only the program that has started first will have sound.)
I checked Google but these questions are about how to use the ewi in BB. This is not what I’m looking for since I want to run the software separately. (Garritan for the EWI and BB for backing tracks)
Would buying an external sound card solve this problem?

Lots of thanks,
rodin

I don’t believe you will be able to use the Garritan for the EWI and BiaB for the backing tracks as BiaB has only one midi port. Everything on the backing tracks will play using Garritan’s sounds, thus no piano, strings etc. You can set up Aria to receive some of the sounds by matching midi channels but only with BiaB using MME drivers and Aria using either MME or ASIO drivers. I use Biab in DAW mode with MME drivers in Sonar using ASIO drivers with no problems. Try either way and see what happens.

However I think a better way to do what you want to do is to use a sequencer. Have your tried RealBand? That has more than one midi port so it should work like you want. I use my EWI-USB Aria as a VSTi in Sonar with both using ASIO drivers. You are trying to use Aria as a VSTi right?

It also sounds like you are using your laptop’s soundcard. If so getting a new soundcard will really improve your sounds. Ask the guys and gals here what is the best, as I have no idea. I do not use laptop for music creation.

I hope this helps - MarioD

You need a multi-client driver to run more than one audio app at the same time. That would allow you to run BB and Garritan simultaneously as stand-alone apps.

Sadly, ASIO4ALL will not run as a multi-client driver in Vista and Windows 7. And most (all?) on-board sound cards can't do it either.

Do a search for multi-client sound cards and you'll probably find what you need.

from the 2012 realband upgrade manual


Support for using ASIO with multiple programs at once

http://goo.gl/VdLxK

from the realband upgrade manual


Support for using ASIO with multiple programs at once. Previously, if you were using an ASIO driver
(so that you have low latency), you could only use ASIO with one program at a time. Now you can use
multiple programs at once with ASIO - for example RealBand and Band-in-a-Box at the same time. This
requires using the Steinberg® ASIO Multi-Client Wrapper, which you can download here:
ftp://ftp.steinberg.net/Download/Hardware/ASIO_multiclient_driver/
To get this function working:
1. install the ASIO Multi-Client-Wrapper
2. Run the ASIO Multi Server, and select your ASIO Driver (e.g. ASIO4ALL). The ASIO Server is
a program located in “C:\Program Files (x86)\vidance\asiomulti\asioserver.exe”
3. Run RealBand, and choose Prefs-Audio-Driver Type ASIO, and then select ASIO Multi-Client
Wrapper” as your ASIO driver.
4
Note: that you may have to reboot your PC after you have installed any new ASIO Drivers.
The steps above need only be done once. The next time you run RealBand, things will already be setup.

This is the same stuff Mike posted above, but without clicking and going away. This, it seems, works with the NEW 2012 version.