PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Dropouts

I mostly get a couple seconds dropouts with Band in a box after about 5-10 minutes of play back.

Also if I disable all other programs, anti virus etc. The dropouts occour with other processes in the task manager. One of them has the name mscorsvw.exe. I hoped it was something I could disable, but the sudden 100 % disk usage is probably some processes triggered by band in a box.

My pc should be fast enough 3,3 GHZ processor and 4 GB ram. I use Windows 8.1. I have updated BIAB and drivers. I use MME and have tried with different delay settings without success. Seem that I can not select ASIO.

When I google BIAB there are thousands of people having dropout problems and very few who succeed in solving the issue. I have contacted PG music technical support, but so far they can not help me.

I have a suspicion that it could be related to my sound interface. It is Roland V studio 20. But it worries me if I spend more money and again without luck. The experience is already costly.

So I hope there are wise people here, who can tell how to get the program running or which sound cards works on my platform (windows 8.1).

Have a nice day.

Hi Munken,

Welcome to the forums.

In relation to your problem, it could well be related to the Roland.

There are plenty of people on these forums who use Windows 8.1 and BIAB works fine.

What I suggest, is going to back to basics and setting up sound internally first. When that's all up and running, then external apparatuses can be plugged in. Doing things this way, a step at a time, makes it much easier to determine where potential problems lie.

If this was my problem, here's how I'd go about fixing it.

1. Disconnect all external devices. These'll be connected later when things are working.

2. Click on "Prefs" to open preferences.



3. Now click on #1 on the image below to get to the driver set up.



4. Set #2, #3, #4 as I have set above. To get #4, simply click on the button and various choices will appear depending on what's installed on the system. Select Coyote WT.

5. Click on #5 and set the Audio driver to MME.

6. OK out of all open windows. If there is no "OK" option, simply close the window.

BIAB should now work.

If you get a chance to try the above, let us know the outcome and then we can proceed from there.

Regards,
Noel


P.S. When you say ...


I have to say that I've been regularly helping people in these forums for a number years now and I've certainly never come across thousands of people experiencing dropout problems. It would seem that Google and I see things differently.

• latest song: Just A Little After Midnight

Great advice Noel

Methodical and step-by-step

Certainly a good way to work through the process of elimination

I use BiaB with Windows 8.1 and a number of external and internal devices with no problems.

You method should hopefully help track down.

Hi Noel

Thanks for your answer with clear suggestions for setup.

About the Roland sound interface, I have same drop outs with Roland on another pc running windows 7, so this could also be an indicator.

Except using VST/DXI Synth my setup was like presented on the image.

At the moment my driver latency is set to 488 ms in a previous attempt to solve the problem.

Last night I also chose “Microsoft Sound Mapper” as input/output driver (from another window) instead of Roland VS-20, but haven’t yet done a good test with that.

I will test the setup with "VST/DXI Synth" in the evening and come back with the results. I do not use keyboard, synth og any plugins. Just play back with real tracks.

Best regards

Henrik

I don't know much about this interface so I looked it up.

Here's the specs page. Read the first thing under the SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS heading.

http://www.rolandus.com/products/v-studio_20/specifications/

There could be a problem with the operating system since in the specs.... it doesn't list W8.1 as a compatible system. Nor did I see, in my quick look through the page, any mention on it's ability to use ASIO. It listed the first 2 editions of 64 bit OS's and nothing since.

I've never been a fan of the multifunction interfaces..... some folks are, but in my time helping folks in Cakewalk's forums, the multifunction interfaces were problematic at times due to them often using codecs and wrappers rather than ASIO.

MY SUGGESTION: Go to a store with a 100% no questions asked 30 to 45 day refund policy and buy a single purpose interface that's compatible with the newer OS's... W7 and W8.1 in 32/64 bit. Load the drivers and install it and see if it solves the issue. If it does, sell the Roland or find another use for it. If the new interface doesn't solve the issue, pack it up and return it and get your money back.

Whooaaa
That surely sounds like some serious issue, probably not caused by BiaB itself.

Use Noel's steps to go through the process of elimination, and also check that all of your drivers are up to date.

Half a second, wow!

Hi again, Munken,

VST/DXi is a great soft synth. I didn't suggest that because I thought that you may have a 64 bit operating system (when I read about Win 8.1) and it only operates on a 32 bit system. In my opinion, VST/DXi is better than Coyote WT.

How does your system function with the above settings?

Also, what antivirus software do you use?

Regards,
Noel

Hi Munken, do you have the latest drivers installed. If not here is a link that has Win 8.1 drivers for the V-Studio 20:
http://roland.com/support/article/?q=downloads&p=VS-20

According to this Roland site the V-studio 20 has limited compatibility with Win 8.1:
http://roland.com/support/article/?q=information&p=VS-20&id=63060592

Another site said the unit will have problems with some USB 3 ports and suggests you only use USB 2 ports.

It sounds like you should dump this and get a better audio interface.

Munken, can you tell us a bit more about your computer? A 3.3 GHz processor could be as old as a Pentium 4. A better way to see if your computer has the horsepower for good performance with digital audio is to download and run the free utility, Geekbench, and report your score here.

Audio dropouts are frequently caused by driver conflicts. Download and run another free utility, the DPC Latency Checker. It says it isn't updated for Windows 8 but it still works. See if you have any red spikes, and if you do, follow the instructions on the website.

Thanks for all the response. It’s nice to see many here with lot of experience with the program.

First of all. I have now tested with the settings from Noels image. Beside I also changed delay to 104 ms.

I don’t have English interface, so I just guess that this path is called something like: Audio/audio driver settings. It seems that this is another driver menu than the “Midi driver” from the image.

In the midi driver I have chosen Microsoft GS wavetable as suggested. And in the other audio driver menu I changed from Roland VS-20 to Microsoft Sound Mapper.

With this setup I have now played back for 20 minutes without droputs, and this has only happened a few times before.

Noel

For the moment I use Avast, but I have had dropouts when I was using AVG, kaspersky and also while turning off antivirus.


Guitarhacker

About ASIO I have also wondered, why I could not select it. I have downloaded the latest updates for the Roland driver. I believed it should work with both with windows 7 and 8. I mean, at least it seems to work for some people when I google.

Thomann have a good return policy, so if no other solution seem to be stable, I can try one of their sound interfaces. Maybe some here even have good experience with one of their less expensive models?

http://www.thomann.de/gb/audio_interfaces.html

Matt Finley

It’s a Lenovo Idea PC and the system information window write:

Processor Intel i3-3220 – 3,3 Ghz.

In my attempts to solve the problem, I have previous downloaded a program called LatencyMon, which should be able to test if dropouts can occour. This program run for long time and saying my system is suitable. Except in one or two tests, where it has said it could help, if I changed a setting in the bios. I looked for this setting possibility, but I couldn’t find it in my bios.

About the processor, it does not seem to be loaded very heavy in the task manager, when the dropouts begin. It looks more like as if the bottleneck is caused by a 100 percent disk usage. One of the processes I tracked on the internet and found it had something to do with compiling program. This I think could also be in accordance with problem with the driver.

Running Geekbench I get

http://browser.primatelabs.com/geekbench3/2080073

Single-core score 2454
Multi core score 5465

When I run DPC I have only get yellow stribes except one or two green.


MarioD

Yes I have installed the latest driver for windows 8.1. But now I can see as you tell, that they write limited compatibility for the 32-bit edition. I have 64-bit edition

http://roland.com/support/article/?q=information&id=63060593

but it is the same about limited. More specific under audio interface they write limited for Cakewalk FA-66 and with a link to a compatible driver. Not sure if this could help me.

http://roland.com/support/article/?q=downloads&p=FA-66&id=62798653

Anyway, I also had the problem under windows 7. But all in all, it seem there is a big chance that the Roland VS-20 is not very stable. On the other side maybe it will work if I don’t use their driver?

Again, thanks a lot to everybody for the help

Best regards
Henrik

Your i3 is fine for BIAB. LatencyMon is fine, perhaps even better than DPC Latency Checker.

What was the name of the BIOS setting suggestion?

I am very surprised by your disk access hitting 100% though. That would indeed cause audio dropouts. Unless you have an SSD drive, have you run a good Defragging program?

Check out this site:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/dotnet/archive/2013/08/06/wondering-why-mscorsvw-exe-has-high-cpu-usage-you-can-speed-it-up.aspx

It has been noted that mscorsvw.exe can cause cpu spikes.

Also have you run either Ccleaner or Anti-malwarebytes programs?
Ccleaner deletes all temp files and the anti-malwarebyes takes out malware the anti-viruses can't. Both programs are free.

http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

https://www.malwarebytes.org

I hope this helps.

Good thoughts, Mario. I considered saying something about malware, but I haven't heard of any that pegs the disk usage. Still, that's a great step to take to rule out malware right away.

[This thread alone is going to get us stuck back in the top ten posters list again!]

The suggestion for BIOS settings was in BIOS options to turn off CPU Throttling, but I couldn’t find the option in my BIOS.

I run the windows defrag program regularly. The same with ccleaner and antimalware. I have tried different programs. Also malwarebytes, which they recommend on different anti virus forums. But when I got the pc a year ago, one of the first things I did was to install Band in a box, and already on the new pc I had problems with dropouts.

Interesting link to mscorsvw.exe. Until now I have only seen it run for short time but with 100 percent disk usage and dropouts, but I will monitor the events now, and see if it can help me to run the script. As I understand it, the process is compiling/optimizing some code, that can have to do with the Roland driver, which is maybe not full compatible.

My idea was to use XLR out from my guitar amp into the roland sound interface and record with band in a box with realtracks. And I get fine sound. I guess it can become better with another interface, but so far I gave up recording, because dropouts spoiled everything. Hope the avoid use of Roland driver will be enough.

Which sound interface do you use? Are you satisfied with sound quality and do you have any serious issues?

Regards
Henrik

I recently switched from a Tascam FW-1884 running on Firewire to a Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 on USB, because I could not get the Firewire legacy driver to work reliably in Windows 8.1 (so I assume it won't under Windows 10, which I'm testing and really like on another machine).

The Scarlett is a minimal interface and it works well, once you learn the mix software. There are several threads around here on what sound interfaces to use that you may enjoy reading.

Here is another free suggestion. Download ASIO4all and see if it will work with your V-Studio 20. Just google/bing ASIO4all and you will see a lot of sites that carry it.

ASIO4all is a MME wrapper making it a pseudo ASIO driver that will replace your current driver. This may help but I don't know for sure. Some people love this drivers while others hate it. I think that depends on your hardware but I have no experience with these drivers.

Good luck.

Munken,

I use Avast! too.

Just to make sure that this is not interfering with BIAB/RB, under the "Settings" menu, go to "Exclusions" and add your BIAB and Realband directories. This will stop Avast from scanning program files every time you run them.

Regards,
Noel

The i3 chip is fine for running BB.

I have an old laptop that has a duo-core processor and maybe 2G of memory.... running Vista for the OS.

I can run BB just fine as long as the style isn't using midi synths as plug ins and the same is true in Real Band (RB).... if I run straight audio, it works fine with the factory sound card..... but add a midi track with any synth and latency is through the roof. Totally unusable.

HOWEVER... when I plug in my Focusrite Saffire interface to that same laptop and use the ASIO driver it prefers, I get picture perfect playback with NO discernible latency.

While I understand the hesitancy to spend money not knowing if it will solve the issue, in most cases.... probably close to 99.999% of the time, a good interface and ASIO drivers does solve the latency issue.

I've heard lots of people say, disable the wi-fi and anti-virus in the computer, but I'm here to tell you that if you have a decent interface and use the proper ASIO driver for it, the other stuff doesn't make a noticeable difference. I've run it both ways..... all the stuff on, and all the stuff off.... I could not tell any difference..... but then again, I had a decent interface and driver set up.

If there's one single thing that you can do that makes a big difference in performance.... it is to add a decent interface and use ASIO

You can't go wrong with this: http://www.thomann.de/gb/focusrite_saffire_6_usb.htm
and it has a 3 year warrantee and a 30 day money back..... it's a no brainer

Matt Finley

The shop recommended RME Babyface Blue and MOTU Audio Express, which are both more expensive than Focusrite Scarlett 18i8. I don’t know if any significant difference between them, but if Focusrite works for you on windows 8 it’s a big plus for me.


MarioD

I have tried to install Asio4all a couple of times. On windows 7 I came to the conclusion that it made other kinds of troubles as a lack of compatility. But I often notice Asio being praised with BIAB, so I tried again on windows 8 not long ago, but this time nothing happened. I couldn’t see nor choose it. Afterwards I read somewhere, that Asio was not necessary on windows 8, so I uninstalled it. But it is possible to find all kind of statements on internet, so this is maybe not true.

Noel96
Nice feature, I have added the paths now.

Guitarhacker

This Focusrite Saffire 6 is a good price, and Thomann have a great return policy. What should be a reason to spend 3-4 times more? Do they have a big difference in sound quality?

I’m a little confused about latency, which seems to be important. What does it mean with a high latency. Is it just a gab between what is being showed on the screen and the music played from BIAB? Or does it also create problem when recording layers in BIAB? Or does it mean something else?

Best regards
Henrik

RME is top of the line in every way. Lynx is a comparable brand. MOTO is superb as well. I don't know anything about drivers for Windows 8 for any of them.

Focusrite makes the Saffire line of products, which requires a firewire connection. Their equivalent hardware for USB is the Scarlett line. Firewire is being phased out, and is a serious problem on any Windows version after 7.

A few quick and oversimplified notes on latency:

Latency means delay. It takes time for an electronic signal of what is being recorded to travel through analog to digital converters and amplifiers and back out to you. This results in you hearing an echo of yourself as you play. This messes up your ability to record if the delay is too long. Better equipment (and drivers) allows you to shorten the delay. Some equipment provides a mixer option for what is called direct monitoring, so you hear yourself correctly. All of this only matters for recording, not simple playback.