More often than not, when I drag and drop a BIAB song into my DAW - Cakewalk Platinum - the drum track starts with a pronounced "boom" for the first bar of the count in.
It doesn't occur with every song, but it does with most. I run in admin mode.
I fix it by cutting the first bar in the drum track.
I would appreciate any ideas on how I can stop this problem. I assume it is a problem with BIAB rather than the DAW, and it may be something in the settings which I can change.
I have seen this often and I didn’t know how to prevent it. I just drag the start of the drum track to the right in SONAR. It shouldn’t have to be this way.
I have a guess that it’s related to the CountIn/Metronome setting. Sometimes a few of us have a missing beat 1 on the count-in, and an added bang just before the start of the second time through the song. But I’m just guessing.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
This happens to me about 1/3 of the time and has been going on for a few years now... I'm almost getting to the point that it's part of my workflow - drag and drop, edit out the first bar on the drum track, etc. It will get your attention... usually sounds like the drummer has done a full-on header into his drum kit! (I have experienced that same event happening during live gigs too!) It's semi-annoying, but doesn't mess with my final BIAB product so I live with it...
just an old analog dog tryin' to learn new tricks...
Yes always Real Drums, whenever I choose a MIDI style the drum track seems to default to a Real Drum when I load it.
This is random when it occurs, but probably on a ratio of three bad to one good track. I put BIAB into the minimised DAW mode and drag the Master to the DAW. I use Cakewalk now but this also happened when I used Sonar.
I tried setting a two bar count in in Cakewalk preferences but this made no difference.
I am a persistent little fellow so I will keep trying to resolve this problem.
I might be stupid maybe, but call me curious: ... is this also with a 1 bar count-in included file? Also with other sequencers? PS i work with Cubase and there you'll always have to import via it's import routine, you can only drag from it's own media pool .. a little time consuming alas. F
Just a thought...this has happened to me in the past and the culprit was my sound card. It seemed to hold on to the sound from the last time it played the song (it didn't refresh and clear its resources)
I can't tell you which sound card as I have a new computer (a desktop, which doesn't exhibit the problem) my old computer was an Acer laptop with its on-board laptop.
Like George, I suspect a 'buffer dump'. Like the track hadn't finished playing when you stopped it, and the data left in the audio buffer unloads at startup instead of clearing.
At one point when I was having this issue (I haven't had it it in a long time) I learned through testing that letting the track finish playing and actually end before doing anything would fix it (the buffer gets emptied). Not sure if this is the same issue OP is having, but thought I'd mention. At the time I seemed to be the only one with the issue, and a couple versions/machines later I no longer experience this so it may be machine dependant.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
I haven't heard of this problem before, and it doesn't appear to be in the bug list yet.
If anyone has a song file that consistently exports with an extra noise at the start, please send the song file and the WAV file render of the Drums track with the extra noise to support@pgmusic.com.
Please include a brief description of the issue (and/or a link back to this post), and the exact version and build of Band-in-a-Box that was used, I'll see if I can replicate the issue and report it to the development team.
It happens to me now, it seems all of a sudden, a tom Realdrums sound, in my case with _BURDEN.STY. and a lot of bar beat count changes active. Activating the Chord output on ch9 makes that one join the fun. Weird ?? F
I don't know if you've tried this but I've read on the forums that if one uses a hold chord to end the song, then a 'rest' chord is best put at the end of the hold (4, 5, or 6 bars later).
For example:
If you have a 4-bar hold from bar 32 to end your song (in the key of C major), at bar 32 put C... and then at bar 36 put C. -- the chord will not play because the dot says to 'rest' (because of this, any chord at all with a dot after it will do the job).
I still haven't been able to replicate this issue, whether there's a held chord at the end of a song or not.
Is everybody with this problem using holds at the end of your songs? Does it happen if you drag Drums directly to the desktop, or do you need to export using the Drop station?
If anyone who has this problem can send an example song file and a description of how they're exporting their tracks to support@pgmusic.com, that would be great. I'd like to track down the cause of this bug so it can be fixed.
It's within playback in BIAB, and in the realdrums exported track. Seemingly only the Realdrums, and audio from Chord export #9 joining the fun. In my case a song with a lot of beat count switches between 3/4 and 4/4. Song file is a mainly 3/4, but the intro 4/4. The Eureka ?? :
Originally Posted By: Bunyip
When I reverted to a standard 2 bar ending the problem disappeared.
Set mine to 4/4, 'bang' is still there BTW.
Re-rendering doesn't solve it, Windows 10, 64 bit, Fall Creators (v1803?) BTW an external USB RME interface, HD audio disabled in Device manager. Anti virus with BIAB folder set to 'trusted'.
Switching off 'audible lead-in' and chord output on ch #9 does fix matters though, see below:
I've finally managed to replicate the issue. If the song contains at least one held chord, "Drag Master as separate tracks" is checked in DAW Plugin Settings, and I drag Master to a DAW or to Explorer (not individual tracks), then I get the weird shot at the beginning of the Drums track.
I'm filling out a bug report right away.
Until this gets fixed, if you drag the Drums track into your DAW by itself, you shouldn't get the noise.
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