PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows (old thread from Jan 2011) GM.DLS on Windows XP 64 bit edition...

Without a good clean swap space so the songs can render I figure you are snookered.

The software is using Real stuff to start with, then it writes a bunch of sound files for your song. I've never explored how much, but maybe some guru named Mac can figure that out. Is it one .wav file per instrument or 1 mp3 file per instrument, or 1 big wav file or...

I don't know.

But if you can change the volumes of instruments after the song is rendered, then there are multiple files ....

However it the file to start with is picked up 'all over the drive' due to fragmentation as previously mentioned, AND then the rendered file is all over the drive...well top that off with limited real memory and a slow processor, the result is not going to be good.

Have you installed/reinstalled and/or updated the drivers for your midi sound module (M-Audio I think it was)?

I was wondering if you are a Windows XP X64bit user?

On a 64bit system you should find GM.DLS in the following directory "C:\WINDOWS\system32\drivers\etc\gm.dls"

- If you do not find it
I would also recommend re-applying your latest service pack for Windows and downloading the newest version of Direct X for Windows XP.

Hello,

Quote:

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It appears that midi parts (yellow in the top of the synth window) are now playing (!) but RealTracks (green) will not

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Right, the MIDI tracks now work fine because the Roland VSC-DXi doesn't use GM.DLS. I don't know why your audio tracks aren't working - that may be an entirely different problem. Could you try opening the file Listen.MGU and see if both the MIDI and audio parts play? You should find this file in the '\bb\Tutorial - Audio Harmonies' folder.

Also, if you could try running Band-in-a-Box directly from the PG Music hard drive and see if everything works fine there... that would be very helpful. Remember to select the Roland VSC-DXi before attempting to play a song, since BB will select the Coyote WT by default.

OK. Since my last post, I have done this:

1) Using Remove Programs - removed every app connected with BIAB, including Coyote and Roland stuff.

2) Deleted all related folders and files, both old install and new. Only exception to this is I put my old compositions into renamed folder on a separate drive, for archive. Also, I checked - with all this deleted it leaves well over 70 Gb of free space on C: partition. My HDs are defragged weekly automatically, but I ran a check, and fragmentation was less than 0.01%.

3) Searched further with google, and located a copy of GM.DLS. Copied it into C:\Windows\System32\Drivers. Updated by hand the registry entry which is supposed to point to this file's location.

4) Then I tried a clean install. Ran the setup program on the 2011 HDD, selected option 3 (everything) and otherwise selected defaults all the way through. On this install, I did not get the "Can't find sound font file GM/DLS" error at end of install or on launch of BIAB, as before.

5) Adjusted Midi/Audio Drivers setup. Load and play any song with Real Tracks or Real Drums parts. Get error message "Beat Map Stretcher was unable to Load in the wav file". If I click through this message, the Real Tracks parts are generated, but Play only produces sound from midi parts (yellow). On most demo songs this is drums and count-in click only, on a few songs there are other midi instruments which play. No real tracks parts (green) or real drum parts produce any sound.

6) Tried John's suggestion next. delete BB and RB folders. Run BIAB from the 2011 HDD. Double checked Setup Midi/Audio Drivers setup. Load demo songs, and try to play. Same error: "Beat Map Stretcher was unable to Load in the wav file". Same play results as above, no real tracks or real drums, but midi works.
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So, to summarize the events so far, here is how I have got to this situation.

1)Had an older version of BIAB running fine for years. Received the 2011 HDD EverythingPAK.

2)Without changing anything on my existing install, I ran the 2011 HDD setup program, selecting the Install everything onto my HDD option, and selected (to the best of my memory) default on file location.

3)First install apparently went to a different directory from existing install, which according to some posters should not necessarily be a problem. Attempts to play produced two errors "Can't find sound font file GM/DLS" on program launch, and "Beat Map Stretcher was unable to Load in the wav file" on play.

4) Made some settings changes in Midi/Audio Drivers Setup (thanks Noel) and got midi to play, but no real tracks.

5) Next, I made one or two attempts like this: remove and, after moving old install files to same location as new install default, re-install. Same errors and lack of real tracks.

6) (as in this post) Attempted to purge my system of all traces of old install, added copy of GM.DLS to drivers folder, and tried running from 2011 HDD. Then tried another install of BIAB, again using everything option, default location. Both of these produces same result. "GM/DLS" error is gone, but "Beat Map Stretcher" error remains and real tracks /real drums parts do not play though midi parts do.

I think the root cause must either a parameter setting in some file somewhere or a entire file in the wrong place or missing somewhere. Thinking logically, since the malfunction is the same now running from 2011 HDD or onboard drive, then the problem is either somewhere in my XP setup, or it is somewhere in the BIAB files so it manifests on both HDD play and installed play.

I really want to avoid having to clean-install my OS just to get my BIAB upgrade to work.

Anybody have any more ideas as to what could be causing the "Beat Map Stretcher" error and lack of realtracks play?

Thanks

Find another computer and try BIAB from the usb drive it came on and see what you get. What about RealBand?
Good luck.

Glad you got it sorted. Obviously something happened to your computer if GM.DLS disappeared; maybe your WMA CODEC got messed up at the same time.

I'm glad it's working now.

Sorry for digging out this old thread, but I ran into quite similiar problems on my XP64 box and would like to share the way, I finally got it sorted out:

Any Win32 application will not get access to the Windows\system32 folder which is intended for 64bit applications. Instead it's (transparently) redirected to the Windows\SysWOW64 folder which has the same structure and contains 32bit runtime files.

So my remedy was to get the GM.DLS from "Windows\system32\drivers" and put a copy to "Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\" and additionally to "Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\etc\", just to be sure :-)

After doing so, installation did not complain anymore and the application seems to work properly.

I hope this may help also on other 64bit installations...

>>> So my remedy was to get the GM.DLS from "Windows\system32\drivers" and put a copy to "Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\" and additionally to "Windows\SysWOW64\drivers\etc\", just to be sure :-)


Thanks for the tip.

>> my XP64 box

To be clear, this issue is peculiar to Windows XP 64
( http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb457053.aspx released in 2001)... correct?

>>> my XP64 box

I'm using a cheap onboard soundchip, possibly this might have been a reason, see below..

> To be clear, this issue is peculiar to Windows XP 64

I didn't try installing BIAB on Win7 (and never will on Win8...) but I think that it's common for all 64bit Windows versions: Microsoft are sharing most of the code (some people swear that there is still 16bit code from Windows 3.x inside) between their versions and I din't see any differences between XP64 and Win7 concerning the handling of 32bit applications.

But anyway, the main point is not the OS but the driver setup procedure for the sound hardware: If the driver setup is not aware of the "specialities" of a 64bit system, it just puts the files into system32 but not into the folders for the 32bt sandbox.

It strongly depends of the sound hardware manufacuters. But maybe your setups could care about? :-)