Hi Folks.
UPDATE:

I did not want to pollute this forum section with another thread. So updating this. I believe I found the cause of shuttering audio / latency. It is happening only when HALION SONIC is present and plays midi through 2 or more of it's channels, rest are RT's. Troubled projects have only 1 VST - which is Halion Sonic.

Shuttering occurs at random spots. All the resources are near flat, nothing is spiking. My system is Win10, i7 6 core / 32 gb ram, dedicated 4gb GPU, nvme SSD. It is NOT related to system resources

Yes, I tried MME, WASAPI and ASIO (which is native to my interface) If you have a suggestion how to fix this, please save yourself some time and skip all the reading below of original post and just post a reply on second page.

THANK YOU!


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Original post:


Something recent and unexpected. Hardware did not change. Completely clean install of BIAB.
When I play arrangement in BIAB occasionally I would get a shuttering/latency effect, almost like the whole arrangement is slowing down and becomes shuttered, then it catches up again and plays as it should. Does not stop completely (as "audio engine stop") I am usually good at those things, but this one I can not figure out. It does not happen in DAW (even with 30 tracks running), only in BIAB

Including audio settings screenshot at the bottom.

Checklist:
1)Computer 6 cores 32ram. High performance power setting.
2)True ASIO card, not Asio4All. (I tried with 2 different ASIO cards, same result)
3)Buffer on ASIO card set to whoping 1024.
4)BIAB running 6 RT tracks / 1 midi, a single instance of Halion Sonic VST.
5)No other VSTs except for the ones that came with BIAB.
--------------

Thank you in advance for your time!

Try running Task Manager and also Resource Monitor
Check for things like spikes in CPU usage and Disk I/O when the problem occurs.
Monitor what is using the resources.
Disable A/V from scanning the BB folder
If you previously did not have this problem, then we presume your system has adequate capacity previously.

Check what else is running on your device. The symptoms you describe are usually because the system can’t keep up. If you’re using Windoze it sometimes happens after an update when Windows decides you needed more stuff turned on. (After all Windows knows what’s best for you.). I use Norton 360 and it might decide to protect me by performing some “background” work.

Turn off what you don’t need.

Also using VSTi plugins can cause a huge drain on the system. Render or “freeze” tracks so you are running audio and not VSTs.

For example, on Cakewalk one can see how much load is on your PC (you can do similar in Reaper). The load may be very high with several instruments running and almost nothing once the tracks are frozen (converted to audio). It is very simple to unfreeze again.

Even other VST plugins on audio can create issues if running too many of them. Once a track is how you want it render it (note you may be committing a track once rendered.)

Just some thoughts

Tony

Videotrack, Tony,
Thank you for trying!

(After all Windows knows what’s best for you.*) LOL!
I believe apple is a stricter nanny

Yes, I did ABC's. I run system slim.
Resources do not spike more than 10-18% CPU running at 3.4 Ghz on average, leaving ample headroom. Cooling policies are suppressed. Here is the thing. If I export same 6 tracks + midi and use same plugin in Cakewalk, everything works fine (even if I have 30 tracks running instead of 7) It started to happen when I had some issues with BIAB, and I completely re-installed 2020 (a week ago) + latest patch.

The offset DMA/Latency boxes in BIAB do not interfere with ASIO drivers, correct? I was thinking that something might be ticked (or unticked) in BIAB that is doing this. If it is not that....>

I had a few strange crashes lately and sent report to PG support. If it is not BIAB settings (see photo above), then maybe I should wait until they sort out crash log, perhaps it's all related to one "something".

Misha,

I agree with Teunis. What you describe sounds exactly like BIAB track generation cannot keep up with the performance. This often occurs at fast tempos when 5 or 6 Realtracks are used.

You mention that you have six RTs. Some RTs are much more intensive on computer demands when generating... soloist ones for example.

How BIAB works is that when one clicks "Generate", BIAB will begin generating the song. Once it's reached a specified number of bars (I'm guess around 8 bars), it starts playing and generation continues as a background process. If the tempo is fast, or if the computer resources are being stretched -- for example an internet connection is running in the background or antivirus software is checking the generated RTs --, then the background generation does not work fast enough to keep up.

To check this.... right-click on the chordsheet, select "Song Settings" and then select "This song has playback problems, disable fast generation" (it's at the bottom of the right column of Song Setting options).

With this setting active, BIAB will generate all the Realtracks for the whole song before playback starts. This means that you will wait a little longer but it avoids generating RTs as a background process while the song is playing.

It's also worthwhile checking if your system runs OK with MME set as the audio driver. This is the BIAB-friendliest of audio drivers. If the stuttering doesn't occur with MME, it could be that the ASIO driver is creating the issue. (Not all ASIO drivers are equally friendly with BIAB.)

Hope this helps,
Noel.

P.S. Have you excluded \bb and \Realband folders from being checked by your anti-virus software?

Noel,
thank you for extensive answer.
I did not had this issue before...this is fairly recent.

My system is a 6 core 2.8-3.5GHZ i7 with 32 gb ram, BIAB is on NVME SSD drive. It should fly. Nothing heavy is running on background. When using BIAB, resources do not even hit 18% mark under any circumstances (regenerating, VST etc.) Nothing seems to spike. That what bothers me.

As I mentioned, I have tried 2 audio cards with well written ASIO drivers, that do not give me trouble in any other software or media playback.

I do not believe it is a good idea to set MME for a dedicated ASIO card but for testing purposes I will consider it. Hopefully PG tech will get back to me about the crashes that I had, maybe that will shine a light on this latency/shuttering issue.

Thank you,
Misha.

Misha,

Did you try the "Song Settings" option I mentioned. Was the song still having problem after setting this and regenerating?

Also, check the date on your ASIO audio drivers. You computer might have updated the drivers automatically and these may be faulty.

Setting BIAB to MME will not damage anything. At most, nothing will work because the driver is incompatible. You could ask the techs about this and see what they say.

Regards,
Noel

I get something similar when I need a driver update on my PreSonus Audio Box.

...Deb

Check things such as your ASIO buffer sizes. These can have a major bearing.

A buffer can be thought of as similar to a saucer holding water. We let water out of the bucket into the saucer then into the pot. If our saucer (buffer) does not hold enough water then not enough goes to the pot. (We need to quickly go from filling the saucer to pouring into the pot. (A heap of CPU) ) We get stutter and stoppages in the audio.

On the other hand if we have a big saucer, it takes too long to fill it before we can empty it into the pot. We get delay (our buffers take too long to fill up and we get a delay hearing our signal making it difficult to play along with. Or whatever..

When playing or recording (when we need a audio short delay) keep the buffers small but only as small as our system allows. (Understand we must fill and empty the saucer this put stress on the CPU.) However, when just playing back (where we don’t really care about delays reduce the stress on the CPU make them larger.) It is important to realise we are talking in milli seconds.

I’ve been out tonight and am therefore philosophising, sorry,

Tony

Great explanation Tony, clearly put into veery understandable layman's terms.

You must be / have been a computer guy? I think Professor Finlay will agree.

(BTW, More than philosophical, in my view. )

RustySpoon, as you and I have talked about before, we both have computers with more than enough horsepower to address 6, or more, RT plus midi plus VSTi's.

Like you, I have run into this problem before when I max out RT's. Strangely, what seems to fix it for me is to hit "return to factory settings (excluding resetting midi drivers and my patch maps). Other than resetting a few of my personal preferences, like which folder to open and a few other personal tweaks, nothing seems to change in the settings from where it was. But the problem goes away.

The only thing I can figure is that the return to factory settings seems to reset some underlying things in the program that the user has no access or visibility to.

Give it a try and see what happens.

Jeff

Deb, Tony, Videotrack
Thank you for your input!
Yes, I done all of these. Drivers fresh, Buffer at 1024, I tried two different audio cards, and issue persists. Everything seems to be in check.

Now, Jeff (thank you!) I suspect you might be right. There is "something" internal that goes south, which is not user adjustable. I tried a factory reset several days ago for another issue and that helped...but the issue was different

However, I actually do not want to do it now. I want to see what support will say about crash log, which I believe might be related. I think it is a good idea to pinpoint the issue and if it is a bug, fix it rather than put "antibiotic reset" on everything. Hopefully they reply today or tomorrow. I will post back if I find the cause.

P.S. As Noel mentioned, it can be that ASIO driver is not "friendly" with BIAB, but bearing in mind that I tried 2 ASIO cards/drivers it might be something internal that does not like ASIO protocol in general.

Misha.

rusty
what manufacturer /make of asio" cards are u useing ??
i have no problems.
ps reaper will tell you if a plug in is a cpu hog.
before i use a plugin in biab i test out in
reaps. i only use non cpu hogs.
there are tons of low cpu useage plugins out there.
you also need to be aware of rtl.
round trip latency.
see gearslutz.com for discussions on rtl.

justanoldmuso,
Thank you for trying. My hardware /buffer settings are more than sufficient to handle this load about 5 times over. I suspect it is something internal to BIAB. Hopefully soon I will find out the issue that caused crashes, so it would be more clear.

I agree Rusty your system has plenty of hardware to do anything you want with Biab. I assume you're running Win 10. You should put all the specs in your sig btw like I did. Your system is way more powerful than mine and I have no issues. As a test change to the WAS driver and if that doesn't work use the old MME one and see what happens.

Digital audio can be tricky. One of my favorite YT channels is Molten Music. He tests all kinds of things in real time right in front of you and many times certain interface drivers work perfect in one DAW but not in others. He usually has 2 or 3 different interfaces to try out. Most work OK in most DAWS but then he'll find an anomaly and he's good at digging into either Windows or DAW config settings to fix things. Sometimes ASIO4ALL is the best one. In your case Cakewalk works fine but maybe Pro Tools or Studio One would have issues, who knows? Robin is funny about that. People ask him why this works and not that. He just shrugs and says "Who knows, it's Windows". We're using Windows in ways not intended by Microsoft and I've said that for years too. Digital audio music production is barely on their radar. We're a small fraction of all Windows users so we're pretty much on our own.

Bob

I found something that might relate to audio issues. There was a couple of posts from other users concerning audio (Audio Session Error*), which might be related to this.

I had this thing happening: I set BIAB audio driver as ASIO for my external interface. Result was: Song picker played through "computer" speakers and when style was loaded to BIAB it played through my external card...

To make it work I opened computer sound settings and manually selected external interface as "default" device. Only then, demos of songpicker and opened style played through the external card. This should not be happening. There must be some sort of issue / conflict with how BIAB handles audio drivers. If it was not looked into, I hope this helps.

----------
Jazzmammal, we are not that of a "small" group of Win users I hear you well about incompatibilities between software, but this is about 2020 BIAB, was not happening in 2019 version. I did test this with a few things. P.S. Yep, I watched a few Molten Music vids. He is pretty informative guy.

Maybe already posted: Turn off for EVERY USB Root Hub the Powermanagement, In Device Manager; see Pic 1

Also set minimum processor power to 100%. (Advanced Power Settinge via Control panel). Pic 2

Fiddler, thank you.
Power options were curbed first couple of days I had the machine. I believe it is how BIAB handles audio driver(s).

Did you try using WAS or MME drivers?

Bob

Jazzmammal, thanks. I tried all of them
Including 2 interfaces and onboard chip. I done some extensive and heavy duty testing. As I mentioned in this revised post, I located the issue and it is specifically related to BIAB+Halion combination. BIAB by itself works fine.

Trying last resort of reinstalling Halion and rewriting it's preference file.
If this does not work, there must be incompatibility issue with Halion and latest BIAB. Halion works fine as a standalone and as VST in DAW.

Will update this once I reinstall and test it again.

Reinstalled Sonic. All latest version (just as I had it)
still get shuttered sound. It starts at random places and times and ends at random places and time.

Unfortunately, I can not get a hold of tech at PG, but if they are reading this, maybe they can advise.

Including a 30 sec audio file...I recorded it with my phone to headphones to save time, but shuttering is clearly audible then it goes away after 18 sec. Again, Nothing is spiking in Task Manager, Nothing is spiking at Halion monitor. This drives me monkey mad.

Thanks.

Have no problems with Halion 6 (3 SE in my BIAB setup) 64bit and BIAB 713 64bit.
If you use a 32bit BIAB that might be the cause, as Halion is 64bit only me thinks.

OK, I see this thread is still active. I also just read the edited first post that says it is limited to Halion Sonic.

I did not get into this thread at first because I was puzzled by the term, "shuttering". I assume that means what I would call "stuttering". If that's wrong, then someone please tell me. Or perhaps "shuddering", as in, you will shudder when you hear this...
_________________________________________________________________

I don't think anyone has yet mentioned the problem of an unregistered plugin. These will cause interruptions at random and may come in the form of unwanted noise or stuttering audio. Is it possible that Halion Sonic or some component within it, or something else called by your project, is a plugin that is not registered or expired?

Ah, you made me realize it was an old post ..... let's about forget it LoL

No, it's not old. It's current.

Go back and re-read the edited top of the thread's first post. It's not a computer resource problem nor (probably) some setting in the operating system. It's related to Halion Sonic, and perhaps you can help.

Matt, Fiddler,
Thanks for trying.
Sonic 3 is full (not SE) current version, fully registered /activated. Clean install this morning. It is not life or death situation, I can probably find alternatives for now, but I would like to get to the bottom of this as Halion Sonic is my "go to" synth in BIAB.

P.S. I got lucky and spoke with Steinberg support this morning without extensive wait time. We checked a few things, and I have everything installed correctly. His only suggestion was to try and reinstall the program and preference files, which I did.

As Jazzmammal stated your specs are MORE than enough to handle this unless there is something we do not know about that you may have loaded into memory, knowingly or not, BUT that aside:

If your six RT with one MIDI track file is a BIAB supplied song can you give me the name of the song file? I have HAlion full, Halion Sonic, and SE and I can try and replicate but so far on my desktop (specs below) picking some songs at random I have no stuttering issues (yet?).

If no stuttering with desktop and your file, assuming I have it, after a few tries, I will also try on one of my laptops with i7-7500U, 16 GB RAM and a 2TB PCIe SSD.

Larry

Larry,
Thank you for volunteering!!!

I assume you have latest Sonic 3 (full, not SE) ver. 3.3.1.77 VST.
Can you follow these steps please. This is how troubles started for me...

BIAB:
1) Load a single midi track ~100-120BPM into mixer, just so it can trigger a pattern in Sonic for testing purposes, does not matter which style you choose.
2)Point it to Halion Sonic 3 VST
3)Choose patch in Halion: Ethnic->World Kit01 120
4)Go to mixer track with that midi loaded ->track actions->Save track as WAV file

When it renders, can you playback your file ok? Mine is all distorted in a very bad way.

I know this is not "original" question., but that how it all started for me and the easiest thing to check.

Again, I thank you in advance!

Misha.

Yep I have current Sonic (3.3.1.77) (I did NOT use Sonic SE or Halion Full)

I need to look at this more tomorrow but YES initially I DID get a very noisy (i.e., crapola) for a file. Yes it sounded like typical digital "out-o-sync" noise BUT then I changed to other patches/instruments and it stop making noise - and the audio file was fine.

Like I said More tomorrow
Larry

Stupid Q: GM mode active? Maybe the VSTsound file is corrupted. When BIAB was 32bit only i used Jbridge for Halion 3.

Is there any 3rd party plugin active WITHIN Halion? Digi noise is often used as copy protection pestering legitimate users only.
IK multimedia stuff i never use anymore, think it comes with BIAB and must be activated.

Try installing 3 SE to see if it behaves the same way, probably so if it uses the same VSTsound file. SE is usually there already.

Larry,
Thank you for doing that. Yes, most of the patches render fine. This came up for me first, so I was curious to know if it is my system or rendering issues with BIAB.
Seems like it is rendering issues with BIAB. And I suspect "shuddering" issues during a playback is related.
---

Fiddler, thanks for trying. I re-checked license, everything up to date. Even done all the maintenance on soft e-licenser, including memory cleanup. No, it is not related to GM mode or registrations. I tried Halion 6 as VST in BIAB and even a default patch (hexagon synth) had same shuddering issues.

While I am typing this, I came up with something...For testing purposes I can try to run Sonic as a standalone and connect to BIAB through LoopMidi. I think that will shine a light on the whole situation.
P.S. I am pretty confident shuddering will not occur. I should have some time around lunch to check this, so will post back.

I didn't read the posts before this. I skimmed a few.

So... the issue is related the Halion and involves midi tracks. I'm guessing the processing of the midi tracks in real time is the problem. (Duh...)

So in this case, why not simply FREEZE the offending synth tracks? Freezing lets the program write the synth track to audio and waa laa, it doesn't have to process in real time. you have the audio and the synth is off line for the playback. It's easy to unfreeze if you need to edit it. Other than that, you don't really need to have the midi processed in real time anyway. Freeze it and use the easy to process audio.

Kinda curious.... I believe you said there were multiple midi tracks..... have you tried running it with a single midi track to see if it can handle the real time processing without stuttering?

I used to work a lot with midi tracks and CPU intensive plugs and synths.... and on a barely capable laptop. I had 80% or better CPU duty cycle and the resultant pops, clicks, and even audio engine drops. The solution was to freeze the tracks and synths that were drawing the CPU power. I could freeze one or two of the main culprits and my CPU usage would drop from 80% or more to well under 40% and I could run problem free.

Something occurred to me while reading through this post. There is mention of checking the USB settings in Win 10. I always have these set to off i.e. Win can not shut these down as I have many hard synths running USB.

Well....come to find out that these have all been set back to allowing Win to shut them down after the latest update! Also, I have Bluetooth shut off as it cause spikes on my system when it constantly looks for available bluetooth devices.. Surprise, surprise....Win turned bluetooth back on after the recent update.

Might be worth a look.

Jeff

Herb,
Thanks for trying. You can not "freeze" Sonic. It is 16 channel VST synth. You can freeze the midi line in BIAB...For the sake of argument, I tried "freezing" the midi track (with Sonic) that did not work, because Sonic is not frozen it does not follow mixer "freeze" state but even if you (I) could, "freeze all" it would not help me. I use BIAB to arrange and experiment with tracks, so I do regenerate things often.

Jeff,
Good thinking, but still nothing. I have done some extensive troubleshooting and actually on one of the tests, I switched to "airplane" mode before even starting BIAB and on other test, while running BIAB+Sonic and distortion was happening. That did not help. I run tests clean without any external (usb) peripherals. Only interface plugged into the port.



My test results

As I suspected, running Sonic as a standalone and channeling midi through LoopMidi from BIAB worked just fine. I "regenerated" tracks in BIAB 10 times, I poked at different places in the chord grid, so it starts in random places. It works fine (No distortion!) Of course I can not use it like that, this was done only for testing. I (and all of the folks who tried to help here) spent quite a bit of time on this. I can say with great certainty that it is related to BIAB. I believe it is a good idea for the tech support to step in. I am out of ideas. (at least for now)

Misha.

I'm still looking at this but I get strange results using as well with MIXCRAFT (current version 9 ) and the VST2 version of Sonic using ANY PATCH from that World Persuasion library:

when Rendering in Mixcraft (64-bit) and using the VST2 sometimes same I get NOISE as in BAIB, sometimes SILENCE in rendered file, and a lot of crashes out of Mixcraft. However, using the VST3 version in Mixcraft all is fine- it renders fine and doesn't crash


Repeating all this in REAPER (64-bit, current version and the VST2 or 3 version) that World Percussion library never has issues: so go figure.


BUT why would you ever use a drum with a BPM library when BIAB controls the BPMs anyway for entire song? BIAB is NOT a DAW

Larry,
Thank you for follow up.
Yes, I know BIAB is NOT a DAW

This one was just the easiest to test, because the rendered "crap audio" file sounds very similar what I get in BIAB playback with some non World Percussion patches from Sonic.

I have 2019 version of BIAB on my backup computer, I have to transfer Sonic license and test it in the next few days.

Sonic seems to be a popular plugin among users of this forum. Maybe PG staff should request for a couple of "testing" licenses from Steinberg so they can recreate the scenarios with ease?

I think I'm done looking at this (it's tax time plus I need to get some brass prep and reloading done for this coming weekend where I turn lots of gun powder into smoke(less))

I don't use, and have no reason to use, that Steinberg library. Also I have no other issues (to date) with HALion or Sonic, sans that library, and to repeat my last post: using Sonic VST2 and that library (World Percussion) it is also causing issues in at least one other host (Mixcraft 9) so its NOT exclusivity a BIAB issue, it is at least, in part, a Steinberg issue as well.

Good luck
Larry

Misha,

I found out something a few days ago that maybe relevant. Most multi-timbrel and multi-output VSTi players like Kontakt, Halion or Sonic do not attempt to balance resources so if one instance of the player is playing back multiple midi channels and patches the cpu load is cumulative on one cpu core, usually core 1. However, if you use multiple instances of the player the host program may balance the load across multiple cpu cores.

FWIW I recently realized I had hit a Polyphony limit on a certain synth (it could only play so many notes at a time) .. it wasn't BiaB or RB that couldn't handle it, it was how the synth was handling the number of MIDI events being thrown at it.
Just a thought.
Running another instance of the synth may fix this problem like Jim mentioned above, depending on the synth/OS etc.

Larry,
You already done more than I asked for. I would even dare to ask to test this further. Thank you!

Jim,
Thank you for trying. Sonic has an option of handling / balancing things through multi-core. I tried from turning this multi core feature off to switching from 1-6 cores. No difference. CPU cores are not spiking. Nothing is spiking. Multi instances...sure I would love to use that if I did not have to lose a mixer channel to it

rharv,
Good thinking, but polyphony is not maxed. I am only using 4 midi channels. Actually 2 channels, layered. Not busy stuff at all. But I will try multi instance for testing purposes.

Guys, many of you genuinely tried to help. I think it is BIAB related, but Jazzmammal you might be right.. it might be one of those "dark, unknown things" Unless tech wants to get their hands dirty, I will just find alternatives to those synths/instruments (Sonic), and return to this with the next BIAB or a big Windows update.

Thank you.
Misha.

Welcome to user-pestering Microsuck Windows 10 policies. Some tipsbelow, and get rid of the Home version.

I bought a Windows 10 LTSB version a while ago, alas abandoned after 1916. Doesn't have al that bloatware and 'automatic' so called features no one ever needs. The most stable Windows i ever had.

Now i am forced to use W10 pro again as Nvdia drivers don't work due Nvidia's installer.
There must be a way around that, but being fed up with this nerdery i made a fresh Windows 10 pro installation.

Also because a license i have for 10 Enterprise did not work anymore. This i had from 8.1 days as free update 'service'.
Called Microsuck, 1 hour on the phone and was told you cannot use this anymore. Thank you Microsuck.

IMO a must: let windows update work after a fresh install, then use at least 00shutup to get rid of a lot of bloatware.
Use Edge Block 1.5, AND Windows Update Switch, as Windows updates ruins your careful tuned settings regarding USB hub powermanagement and processor Power among things.

You cannot switch of Updates in windows, as it keeps turning it on.

There's more like those everlasting permissions issues. TakeOwnership is a registry entry tool you really need at least.

Switch off Windows defender in favor of a 3rd party anti virus, and Windows firewall too, and use Private firewall 7.0 instead,
quite tunable and user friendly.

Once up and running, about 4 hours work, make a backup with True image etc, in case if things go wrong.
Creating Restore points along the way can be useful.

If there are security updates you can always install them manually. Watch out what Windows Defender etc does after that.


For Jeff: I had USB isues with external RME hardware. Bought an expensive Sonnet 4 controller PCIe card, for separating USB hardware. That solved my occasional audio stuttering.

Fiddler, this should be a part of a warning label on Windows boxes (if such exist these days)

You forgot to mention all the reporting, "user experience", Cortana and 3 dozen sneaky privacy features.

Ohh well it is not a perfect world, thankfully there are alternatives.
Still wish for tech to step in and attempt to help as the plugin only acts up in BIAB for me.

I had a similar problem with stuttering when using Halion and was still present even when I switched the audio driver to NME.

Solution so far for me is to use asio4all v2, so far so good no stuttering in Halion, Set as default synth, even with a mix of midi and realtracks.

And its an old computer as well, with only 4gb of Rab

i would like to respond re useing expensive multiple core 3ghz plus
computers and thinking that spending 2g's plus on a computer will enable
them to load endlessly with apps for a recording studio.
by way of background to my comments mes amies i spent 30 yrs in
"tech" includeing product mgt (my day gig) while also being in various
bands and recording in different studios and owning different
studios. (my "side gig".lol.)
heres the deal.
i'm still not happy with current computer architectures because i think it
will be only when we can buy cheaply new computer architectures
(ditching silicone tech, maybe quantum tech ??)
that we will all have the computing power we really need so we dont
have to worry about maxing out systems/processors etc.
the problem being us musicians are a small market for tech.

musicians are stuck today (as are other power hungry people in other
disciplines ) in what i term the 2 to 4ghz plateau "lock".
this is because of the laws of physics. viz you can only cram so many
transistors on a processor "die".
thus processors went to many cores to attempt to solve the problem.
but in reality we are still stuck in the ghz speed "lock" conundrum.

with gigabit transfer storage speeds , the storage is not a problem.
what we need is faster base motherboard architectures and processors.
(please lord gimme a 32 core processor with each core running
10 ghz. whoopee lol.)
in summary us musicians are stuck. sure you can buy a cheap 300
buk pc , but once you load it up it prolly wont meet your needs
because its ok for general tasks .
otoh if you spend 3g's on a computer it probably will become
obsolete.
so what to do ?? i personally refuse to pay lots for computers,
otoh i need power , so the only solution for me is off lease refurbs
multi cores with ssd's and warranties. thus i can save lotsa buks.
my whole family has refurbs ive carefully selected .
(nary a problem. one advantage of refurbs being that in the refurb
process lots of junk is cleaned out.ive never had one problem
with refurbs. all my refurbs boot from cold in very few secs cos i
tell the refurb people i want "fast boots".)
but also i'm prudent with the music apps i use so everything runs
smoothly with no hiccups or stuttering which are often caused by
drivers in audio interfaces, or the way the user has set up the computer.
or asking too much of an underpowered computer.
just because you throw a bunch of money at a computer doesnt necessarily
mean youll be problem free. due to many factors ive outlined.

so heres what i do (my methodology).
1. before starting the song i think of computer resource impacts.
is this song going to need lots of traks ? plug ins etc etc.
is this a complex song ? if its too complex maybe i should be thinking
more of a KISS concept with song . always in the back of my mind
is what a big time producer once told me with gold coming out his ying yangs.
ie if it needs a load of traks are you putting "lipstick on a pig" etc.
in decades past remember once world selling records were done on
studer b67's with very few traks. 3 traks if i remember.
todays pc's will do loads. some over 100 depending on pc.
ask yourself "am i over producing perhaps". ??
eurythmics once did a hit song on a tascam 8 trak recorder
if i remember correctly .
2. if i DO decide to do a very difficult song that i know will require
lots of recording time/computing resources) i lay out a plan.
(hopefully this will help people with very slow old computers etc etc )
at this point i'm soley concerned about "arrangement".
ie does the arrangement work ??
so i use midi only no exotic plug ins or real traks
and use midi to get the arrangement to my liking.
constantly refining. then maybe doing bass and drum realtraks to make
more "feel". once happy i, drop the bass and drums into reaper traks.
i'm soley concerned bout getting the "rhythm section" right .
(useing my favorites folder approach. read my earlier methodology).
i continue doing this testing other bed trak instruments in biab.
eg say i nee a "sax" i test out various saxes in biab.
choose one, then pop it over to reaper. i continue doing this one
instrument at a time. remember the old "trak sheets" that big
studios used to have for their 2 inch studers /mci's 24 trak
machines ?? i do a similar thing.
this way i can test out lots of different real traks and/or midi plug ins.
the whole deal being not to overtax a computer.
3. in reaper i do trak assembly from the biab traks, and add my own
vocs and instrumentation. for example sometimes i just cant find that perfect
lead solo in biab, so i make my own with maybe a midi trak turned
to audio via a plug in etc etc.

in summary i have no intention as a "know it all" or great musician etc
its just ive been round the "recording roundabout" more than a few times.
and i see people loading up their computers expecting they will do anything
they throw at it, and sometimes getting problems because imho the core
computer architectures still need advancing in terms of
lots of boosts in performance and power.
best regards to all.and sorry for the long post.
ps remember if you get problems.
simplify.
ps ive had no problems in 2020 biab with stuttering etc
etc.

Maybe it has to do with patch changes. Try this - create a text file named "AsstSettings.ini" and put this file in the MAIN bb folder. Add the following lines to it:

PlaybackPatches_DoNotSendRedundantPatches=1
PlaybackPatches_MSDelayAfterPrgChange=500
PlaybackPatches_RemoveEmbeddedTrackPatches=1

Now restart Band-in-a-Box and test playback.

Also, if rendering is an issue, close Band-in-a-Box and add these lines to that file.

RenderDXorVST_CheckSettingsEveryRender=0
RenderDXorVST_MSDelayAfterPrgChange=500
RenderDXorVST_RenderRatePercentOfRealTime=200
RenderDXorVST_RemoveEmbeddedTrackPatches=1

i forgot to add some further info.
as follows.
you will hear on various recording forums.
1."i have the same computer and plug ins as my friend
why does he have no problems but I DO with stuttering
and/or latency".
2."why does a interface / driver work in my friends but not mine "
etc etc
anytime peruse the net recording/songwriter
forums and youll see all manner of people with problems of
one type or another. even people with hi power configs.
lets address this.
it comes back to the point i made before that us musicians
badly need new powerfull computer architectures.
because the recording business needs them imho.
to date in summary we have been "shoehorning".

lets address two specific points
point 1 above (the same pc).
well maybe one user is trying to shoehorn an intensive
plug in onto the same disk drive as windows etc etc
resides on instead of dedicating a seperate hi speed
ssd drive so windows has the drive to itself to do its thing.
and so does the intensive plug in have its own drive.
particularly sample reading/streaming off old slow hard drives
might be a problem due to the latency of the drive reading process.
use ssd instead.

now lets address the point .
"my xyz plug in works fine in my daw multitrack so why not biab."
and pg tech support can correct me if i'm wrong.
the answer is a daw multitrack is a different animal from biab.
BIAB IS A DIFFERENT BEAST> ITS AN ACCOMPANIMENT
GENERATOR/PROGRAM.
i call it the best darn song bed trak generator around.
thus it needs processing power for the generation process.
so this could conflict on some computers
where also power intensive plug ins are also used as well.
ie the two processes end up fighting each other simplistically
for processing resources. the lower the computers power
probably more chance of problems.
even high power computers might have problems depending
on the config/set up.

in summary we are talking two different software bases.
biab and the daw. the daw is not a bed trak generator,
one has to record traks from scratch etc etc in a daw
whereas biab is "assembling" in real time..
were it me i wouldnt be useing major computer performance /useage
demanding plug ins biab. so as not to impact the generation process.
i purposely use only low demand plug ins in biab so as not to
impact the generation process.
thus i never get stuttering and other problems.

thus if i were useing large sample based (on disc) plug ins i would ensure
that i had a seperate hi speed ssd drive just for samples ,and use such a plug
in in the daw only . i would generate say a nidi trak in biab then pop it into
the daw to drive the demanding plug in on a daw track and then print the track.
even in a daw only situation you will see musicians with high trak and
plug in counts complaining about "puffing out" their computers , even
powerfull computers. thus confirming the fact WE NEED NEW MORE
POWERFULL COMPUTER ARCHITECTURES.


in closeing like you dont overload a car made for 4 people with 16 people,
understand the limitations your computer has ,
i only wish everyone happy music makeing and hope this helps someone.

also.
rusty.
please describe your computer config in detail.
are you useing just one ssd for everything ??
windows plus halion plus biab ??

for anyone else following this it IS LIKELY
if someone is running windows AND a big sample
player library AND biab realtraks off ONE DRIVE.
youll get stuttering problems due to contention for
drive resources.
if you ARE in this situation and you are a user
wishing to run big sample player plug ins in biab i
would run a test as follows.
a powerfull desktop with 3 seperate physical ssd's.
1. one ssd for windows,
2. another ssd for the sample player and its sample
library and
3. another ssd for biab realtraks library etc.
thus no drive contention.
imho the above method with ssd's should be on every
music software forum.
too many people are useing underpowered laptops
and desktops imho. thus problems.

justanoldmuso, thanks for your contributions that are very informative. I think it's been established that this particular problem is not the kind of stuttering caused by a deficiency or bottleneck in the hardware or software; it is limited to Halion Sonic. The audio example did not sound to me like stuttering, shuttering, or shuddering, whichever it may be. Take a listen and see if you agree.

matt.
i post knowing the info might be also of interest to people
who might be newbies to the "recording madness".lol.
and reading the threads possibly wondering why his or her
one drive 300 buk laptop or desktop is puffing out once its loaded
up with everything but the kitchen sink.lol.

re nvme.
the question in my mind regarding nvme is
"CAN WE NOW THROW EVERYTHING BUT THE
KITCHEN SINK AT ONE SSD INCLUDEING RUNNING
WIN OS SO WE DONT NEED TO USE MULTIPLE SSD'S".??
ie has the paradigm changed. remember sample streaming
libs can be very large.
as i mentioned , in the past the prudent approach was to use
multiple drives.
so RUSTY, my question is ARE YOU RUNNING EVERYTHING OFF
ONE SSD ?????

justanoldmuso,
Thanks for your time. Actually I have tried this method of running things from 2 ssd's simultaneously, before posting this thread

I tried running program on one / RT on the other, Program+RTs on one and VST on the second.

There seems to be a particular issue with Sonic + BIAB combination in my case. Andrew posted couple of possible solutions which I will try next week. What is strange that Sonic has all those adjustments to lighten the load on CPU and none of them seem to have any effect.

Will post back if Andew's method will solve this.

Have you tried asio4all yet Rusty, did work for me.

Maybe i don't have problems because i use RME hardware, and their drivers. AND a separate USB controller audio channel for that audio unit only.

I have never been a fan of especially simple laptops with one or two USB ports for connecting external hardware as midi or audio stuff. If you're lucky it works. Most of the laptops have only one USB controller chip, and boy, if your mouse or keyboard is confined to the same bus .... seems an invitation for trouble. F

fiddler.
excellent point. rme is great product.
sometimes its all about interface and drivers etc etc.
i personally use steinberg ur22 for the reaper/biab
combo , no problems.
your also correct about laptops/usb.
sometimes i advise musos with big libs/samples etc
to get a rrefurb i7 desktop for example.
sling in 3 ssd's.
1. one ssd for win.
and the music /recording prog exe'ss.
2. one ssd for biab realtraks/samples etc.
(win drive has core biab progm).
3.one ssd for the big sample libs from
whoever the 3rd party sample progm is.
(win drive has sample progm exe.)
divide and conquer etc.
otoh if that dont work.
keep the 3 ssd's and try installing the base progms
ie sample lib exe and biab exe on seperate drive from win.
thus leaving win to operate by itself.
old school lol.
i know its a lot of trouble , but the only way is to test
many approches and see what works best.
think of the poor developers of music software.
not easy for them also.
they are on a hiding to nothing because there are so many
different user set ups.
so they cant keep everyone happy as they are locked into
the current pc technology platform.

fiddler2007, justanoldmuso.
Thanks for the input. I do not believe it is related to a particular hardware. Fiddler, I have tested with Arrow interface (UAD TB3) another External USB Asio interface and internal Realtek chip.I am pretty positive it is software related. I will try / test Andrew method later in the week.

An update...
Andrew, the created ini file with both sets of code you gave did not work. See attached. There are two instruments. One BIAB rendered ok, which is arping synth (clean sound) all the other stuff, although it sounds "cool" but that was not the "instrument" it supposed to render, LOL.

It is actually sampled acoustic hand drums (very acoustic sounding) from Halion Ethnic section, but they got rendered some strange EDMesque way. My guess, it happens because some instruments in Halion have deep midi programming with sequenced/arping notes.

I will avoid using Halion in some ways for now in BIAB and focus more on creative, non troubleshooting things

One day, if the problem persists with new projects, I will transfer Sonic license to a backup computer and will test it with the same troubled projects, just to see if it is "specific system" issue.

Thanks everyone who participated!