BIAB 2021 (844)
I have apparently messed something up such that I'm not able to record audio from my midi plugin. I swear this used to work.
In the PGMusic video showing new features for 2021, the presenter gives a peek at the record control panel.

He doesn't demonstrate it, but I bet if he hit some notes, the VU meter for his Steinberg device would respond. In my record control panel I don't get anything to respond. In BIAB, the output VU meter responds, but the input VU meter doesn't move. I swear the input meter used to move.

Any idea what I might have done wrong?

Recording MIDI and recording Audio are two different actions. Just to confirm, are you recording from a MIDI keyboard or through a microphone?

Please go to Options | MIDI/Audio Driver Setup and post a picture of your settings in this window.

To keep things as simple as possible, I think I should be able to tap the piano keys in the 'Pianos' tab of the mixer for the Thru track and see the Input VU meter respond and record the resulting audio somewhere. This somewhat dated video makes a point of demonstrating that: https://youtu.be/THKC6FvvrTw But since you asked, I'm using a re.corder by Artinoise as my midi controller. On Windows, one must install a 'bridge' application from Artinoise which then connects to a port provided by loopMIDI from Tobias Erichsen. This is like a virtual MIDI cable. BIAB connects to the other end.

maybe i'm wrong but don't you have to select a midi output - like GS wavetable synth - and then tick the box to route midi to the vsti.DXi synth? at least i always do. no midi/sound output as shown in your screenshot is exactly the problem you are describing. try selecting the GS synth - you'll still get the coyote sounds.

The way you've got BIAB configured, it is looking for MIDI coming in from LoopMidi (the Re.Corder) and sending MIDI out to the CoyoteWT synth. Pressing the keyboard keys in BIAB will not do anything on the Re.corder, and it will not record any audio into BIAB because MIDI is not Audio.

What audio devices do you have selected in BIAB? Also, where exactly is the audio coming from, an app running on the same computer sending audio through the virtual audio device in your first post?

Perhaps it's best if you explain in detail exactly how things are connected (physically and digitally) so that we can understand the signal flow. Could you do that?

There's no point sending MIDI to the re.corder. It's 'just a controller', not a synth. The benefit of using the keyboard keys is that we can forget all about the re.corder, the bridge app, and loopMIDI. They are unnecessary. If I launch the MIDI Monitor and click those piano keys, a stream of MIDI messages appears in the Monitor just as if they were coming from my re.corder controller and the plugin spits out audio that I can hear in my headphones.


Glancing at the class names of Steinberg's VST API, it looks like these plugins take MIDI in via CMidiIO and spit out audio via CAudioBus. That's the audio I want to record to a track.


Clearly, BIAB gets the audio out of the plugin via the VST interface. If I had access to the debug symbols and source code I would bring up a debugger on the output API from the plugin and trace the program's execution to look for where it is supposed to surface a virtual audio device in Windows' Record control panel.


I retired as a Windows developer 9 years ago. Reverse engineering BIAB so I could answer this question would be a chore. I'm a tired old man now.

Were there any new persistence files added in recent releases? I tried to return to factory settings both inside the program (Options->Return to factory settings) and outside the program (delete MySetup.DK and intrface.bbw) and it didn't help.

maybe i shouldn't step into the middle of a battle of giants, but if you are sending midi to a plugin to get audio out, why not send it directly to coyote or a synth of your choice to get a sound from the midi data?

The particular plugin I'm using is SWAM Saxophones from Audio Modeling. I had been using a V2 version but V3 became available a couple of days ago so I'm using that now. It sounds fine in my headphones. In order to record that audio to a track, however, BIAB needs to get the audio onto a virtual line-in device that can be seen in the control panel as shown in the first image above that I took from a PGMusic Youtube video. I'm sure this worked when I first installed BIAB but I didn't examine the mechanics all that closely because it 'just worked'.

I'm going to take a different direction here. I'm going to rig up a cable from the headphone jack on my PC to my Zoom H6 recorder. I'll record the backing track parts first and then use the overdub feature of the zoom H6 to record my playing. At that point I'll be using BIAB to simply host the VST plugin.

Thanks all for your time.

to the op.
i guess youve seen this installation vid showing connection to music software/win 10 includeing enabling
bluetooth...notice how he stresses certain finger presses
on the device.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMLLNesgwd4

its an interesting product.
but...if were me i would try realband as there is 48 traks of audio and midi possibilities.
so, like any daw you need to enable midi etc.
then lets say you want re.corder playing a certaion instrument use a vsti plug in. on a midi trak.

mebe one thing to try , as your haveing probs with biab...maybe try like the vid in cakewalk...and so
if you STILL have probs in cake this might indicate a
setting problem on your computer...maybe in win audio devices. this is sometimes a possible culprit.
is your pc on the net, if so an update might change something. i keep my daw pc rig off the net.

remember if useing any daw cake/tools/cubase/realband
whatever , correct set up of midi is important in the daw softwares driver dialog.

hope you get it sorted.
i'm gonna look into this product further.

hest
om
PS notice now was resolved.
please detail actions taken to resolve in case other folks try re.corder.

Yes, I've watched all of Stef's video. He's a very helpful dude. If you're on Facebook you might be interested in joining this group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/re.corderplayersunite
I don't have any problem connecting.


Maybe I'm abusing the 'resolved' tag. What I mean to say is that I'm going to work around it and not bang my head against it anymore. I find that I can use Audacity to record everything going to my headphones so maybe I'll just do that.

So you're just wanting to get an audio file of the output from the VST? You just need to load the VST onto the MIDI track in BIAB, then export audio from BIAB.

To get just that instrument in the audio file, you can either Solo the track in the mixer, or choose "One file per track" in the audio export window (which will give you separate WAV's for all tracks). There's no need for any extra software, virtual MIDI or audio, or an external field recorder - this is all functionality built into Band-in-a-Box.

This does seem to be a viable workaround. However,

• First you must record MIDI to a track so the rendering process will have something to render. Fortunately, recording MIDI still functions on my system.
• Click on the 'Filter' button and toggle ON all check boxes. The defaults cause a lot of expression to be lost.
• Make sure the same plugin is set the same way in both the Thru track (which you will listen to as you record the MIDI) and the track being recorded to, which will be rendered later, else things like reverb can be lost (if generated by the plugin).

Yup, this is the normal way to do things in BIAB. Glad it's working for you now!