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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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I'm wondering if anyone out there has seen this problem.
I'm getting serious pops and stumbles of audio on RT in BIAB2009Win on a MacBook Pro (under Fusion or in a Bootcamp Windows XP Home) when my audio output is USB interface to a Roland SonicCell. Audio using the internal circuitry or a FireWire interface works fine.
What's strange is that CPU and RAM both have plenty of room to spare. The noise gets worse with time. I called Apple and they blame Microsoft (duh). I also get it whether using MME or ASIO. I've tried bumping up the buffer, but then my timing is insanely out of sync (and I still get the noise).
The noise sounds like loud pop and crackles, and the whole song starts to stumble (yet, CPU remains low).
I talked with Roland about this and they suggested that it sounds like the sample rate is too high; supposed to be no higher than 44.1k/16bit.
Any ideas?
(BTW, please no suggestions to change to the BB2009Mac; I'm sticking with the Win version for now.)
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Joined: May 2006
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I don't think the sample rate is the issue.
Is there a place to adjust the number of samples being buffered by your SonicCell? This can be done sometimes in the music application, like Logic. Sometimes there is an applet for the sound card. The applet might be a stand alone app or could be in Control Panel. If you can find it, make the number of samples larger. Say from 256 to 512. This will probably fix the stuttering problem, but raising the number of samples processed will introduce a small amount of latency.
Some sound card managers let you adjust the buffer time, instead of the numbers of samples. In that case just increase the number. Say from 1ms to 2ms.
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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*Have you tried all available USB connections for the SonicCell? (Not all USB ports are created equal, sometimes there is only one that is true USB 2 rather than 1.1, although I'm not certain how all the different Macs handle that, I would think Mac would handle it better than that "other" brand does, but it is worth checking out.
Not only does the USB 1.1 vs the higher bandwidth available via a USB 2 port come to mind, also the sharing of devices internally in the Mac may have something to do with your problem, so trying any other USB ports again would be what I'd be doing next.
Too many USB devices hooked up at the same time might be fighting for bandwidth and attention also. An audio USB device can chew up a heckuva lot of bandwidth.
At the end of the day, the DRIVERS of the SonicCell may be the culprit. Don't know. Worth checking the mfr's website for any possible updates on that front.
Luck,
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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darryla also makes a good point worth checking out.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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darryla,
Regarding buffers, I've tried more and the delay becomes huge; very difficult to figure out the correct delay compensation. I'm pretty sure I still got stuttering, but I'll try it again.
Last edited by shunyun; 06/18/09 12:53 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Joined: Feb 2008
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Mac,
Well, that's the strange thing about it. I don't get this problem when playing through Mac drivers. And I'm pretty sure it's not a VMWare thing because I get the same behavior in Bootcamp (booting the Mac with the Windows XP operating system). I'm positive that I don't see the problem with Windows Media Player, but I'm going to try this again tonight. I'll post notes.
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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I tried increasing the buffer and that did improve on the problem, though not 100%. I tried adjusting the timing offset, (about 1280ms) and although they start off at about the same time, they (midi and audio) don't seem to stay in sync with each other. The audio seems to stumble on whatever and then timing is off.
BTW, let me reiterate that this is BIAB2009 for Windows, not Mac. I originally posted this to the Windows forum but it was moved to the Mac forum. Probably makes sense, since no Windows user would run BIAB in a VMWare session... just wanted to make sure you know which we're talking about.
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Joined: Nov 2006
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Hi Shunyun,
I to was getting mysterious pops and stutters when using an Alesis IO/26 on a windows partition using boot camp on my iMac intel core duo. I disabled my network settings in the control panel, restarted and everything was fine. I did have to recheck all of my settings for real tracks and real drums as they are on an external hard drive.
Hope this helps.
Bill
PS. The mac version is awesome as well. So far flawless performance.
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Quote:
Hope this helps.
Bill
PS. The mac version is awesome as well. So far flawless performance.
Thanks Bill... I tried your suggestion, whacked everything I could. Still no dice. What's really got me frustrated is that the SC works great under the Mac OS. But BootCamp or under Fusion, it sucks.
And no, compared to the Windows version, the new BB for Mac is not flawless. For me, at least. I spent huge dollars on my SonicCell and I can't even use the high banks (hit F5 on the first measure, you'll see something important missing). Course, the Windows version is pretty useless on my Mac as well... I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. 
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Hi Shunyun,
Re-read your post and missed the most obvious. Are you saying that your interface doesn't work correctly with Real Tracks, not BIAB? If so, I had the same problem with BIAB and RT. BIAB was solved by disabling network prefs, in the control panel. Real Tracks pops and crackles were solved by completely removing the Alesis driver, deleting all references to the driver, reinstalling same. Also, there is a monitoring control that I had to tweak on my IO/26. I am not familiar with the Roland unit, so not much help. I can say that I eventually did get RT to work with my iMac.
Also, I didn't say that the Mac version is flawless compared to the Windows version. My post says that so far, the Mac version is running flawlessly using RD, RT and BIAB on my iMac. The only thing I did was disable network and bluetooth settings. No crashes, no pops, no crackles.
Hope you can get your system straightened out.
Good Luck
Bill
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Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh
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Joined: Feb 2008
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Thanks Bill and all. I eventually gave in and bought the BIAB 2009 Mac. My reasoning is that, if I'm going to spend any energy reporting bugs, it's going to be for my preferred platform. I'm in IT, so I do this for a living; not exactly what I want to do in my personal art time. But if I'm gonna do it, I'm not going to waste my time with a flawed operating system.
So to wrap up this thread, I believe that the problem lies with Apple's USB drivers for MS Windows. It's the only common factor between VMWare Fusion and Bootcamp. I don't blame them really, it was mostly a concession to enable Windows users to get exposed to a real OS. ;-)
Again, thanks for your help.
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