PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Exporting/Rendering audio doesn't work...

Please forgive me if I am missing something obvious but so far I can't find an answer.

I can't get instant audio rendering or exporting to work.

Windows 11 Home
AMD Ryzen 9 3900XT, X570, RX6600
64GB DDR4
Samsung EVO 970 NVMe SSD
M-Audio Delta 1010 - ASIO
Tascam US-1200 - ASIO
And more...

OmniPAK: Full Install Option 3
Band-in-a-Box® for Windows
Version 2024 (1104)
64 bit application

I have been running an audio configuration of BIAB <> ASIO Link Pro <> Delta 1010, which works quite well with all of my other DAWS (including instant rendering involving VSTi plugins) but I have tested BIAB with other ASIO configurations including Direct (no ASIO Link Pro involved) to the Delta 1010, and also a USB 2.0 Tascam US-1200.

I've been running the audio devices at 44.1khz, 24bit. In the case of the Delta 1010, the main clock comes from an external Fantom XR over SPDIF. With the Tascam...44.1khz and its internal audio clock.

I've checked with CoyoteWT, VSTSynthFont64, Plogue sforzando, Garritan ARIA, Roland Sound Canvas VST, Plogue Bidule>HALion 7, and quite a few other VST2 64bit instrument plugins.

About a month ago I installed the 2023 OmniPAK and it seemed to work quite well (including instant rendering loaded songs or tracks to audio). I attempted to use the DAW plugin in Cubase 12 one time, it crashed, and rendering a song or track to an audio file has not worked from any variant (The main 64bit app, VST plugins, Real Band, etc) of BIAB since.

I knew 2024 was on its way to me so I put this rendering to audio issue on a back burner.

Now I have 2024 installed using option 3 from the hard drive to the system drive c:\bb on top of the 2023 edition (the one that installs wma real folders but not the full uncompressed variants).

Again it seems to be working well, except it refuses to render/export audio files that are anything but a song's length of empty/silence. Unless there are real tracks...those render, but the MIDI based ones do not.

Ultimately my goal is to keep Bidule as the default synth, and host a bunch of stuff inside this (Namely HALion 7, which only comes in VST3 for Windows). I've reverted to Coyote as the default synth for now, and removed ASIO Link Pro from the equation, and wonder what to try next.

Thanks,
Brian

A couple things to try:

If you're using the Microsoft GS Synth, typically MIDI tracks will not render. This is in Options > Preferences > MIDI Driver.
Switching audio driver to WAS or MME may help - some ASIO drivers don't play nicely with rendering. This is in Options > Preferences > Audio.
It might be worth resetting BIAB to factory defaults - this is in the Options menu, the third entry from the top.

Brian,
Just to tag onto Simon's post. MIDI tracks need to be running through ad VSTi/DXi to render. As Simon mentions, under Options > Preferences > MIDI Driver, set Coyote as your default VSTi/DXi softsynth and see if that works. You setup should look like the image below.

Rendering to 24 bit

What happens if you try 44.1 kHz/16 bit?
Just a thought .. might be worth testing

Thanks everyone....

First thing I tried was resetting preferences to factory default.

Yes, I am trying it exclusively with CoyoteWT, or the included VST2 plugins (SynthFont, KV331, and sforzando) for testing purposes at the moment.

Also tried with VST2 plugins from Roland (Sound Canvas VA, SRX Plugins, etc), and Plogue engine stuff like sforzanodo/ARIA.

Rendering works again if I go with MME drivers, but then latency when trying to trigger sounds with the MIDI controller is insane. Perhaps I'll figure out how to get that tighter when I get more time to investigate this.

With the ASIO drivers everything about BIAB is snappy, responsive, and thus far seems solid as a rock (I've yet to crash or hang up the main app). I can play along with near zero latency. Everything sounds and works great! I just can't instant render and I'm not sure why. Getting a loopback to record in real time is easy enough, and I can also record in real time directly off the ASIO backend, or via Bidule plugin in an effect insert on the Mains. Just takes more time that way!

For now I've found a workaround. BIAB makes it very easy to swap between the MME and ASIO setup with a few clicks to change the entire settings profile. For now I'll just swap when I need to render, and swap back to work with the program in real time.

I'll keep trying things with ASIO in play and hopefully I can find the magic bullet that allows instant rendering there as well. Trying 16bit instead of 24bit might be my next move.

Seems like I might have found the problem.

In my ASIO backend setup, something in the pipeline somehow got 'muted'. I'm thinking Cubase might have done it that time it crashed when I was experimenting with the BIAB VST3 plugin.

It was at a point in the matrix where it didn't affect pure playback from BIABB, but it did somehow block something BIAB uses to render.

Seems to be working at the moment. Here's my first seemingly successful go at setting up a song, generating all the parts, and rendering a song to MP3 in BIAB. Yes it needs 'attention' but at least the 'test' worked
BIAB > Plogue Bidule > Garrtian JABB3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GhziEoy_OOjQuad2Lnre_W2Ws5fpq6Ky/view?usp=sharing

Fingers crossed that it's sorted now.

Hi Brian.

I'm glad you're up and running. That's a nice and lively bit of jazz you've assembled there

All the best,
--Noel


★ my latest song: The Best Gift Of All (Thank You, Mama) – vocals by Synthesizer V