PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BIAB 2009.5 not saving audio files?

I've been getting on happily with BIAB2009 - that is until I downloaded the 2009.5 update. It may not be a fault in the update, but installing it has certainly changed things somewhere. I've reported the problem to support, but it may take some time for them to answer. In the meantime I decided to check here if anyone has had the same problem, and if anyone has found a solution.

I'm creating music for my songs under BIAB, and then recording vocals over the top using the audio track, and then render them to a combined audio file using DXi. I'm following the same procedure as before. Set up the midi chords and style. Add a solo instrument (manually) if required. Record the vocals. All the way along saving using save with patches and harmony - creating new filenames each time so I have a backup.

Please note that this is NOT an issue with rendering - or at least, not directly. It's one about how BIAB saves audio files depending on how you've modified or adjusted them. Sorry for the long preamble, but I wanted to set the stage clearly.

The problem is this - contrary to my previous experiences, whether I first "Save with patches and harmony" or whether I first - without saving - go to render with DXi, BIAB retains its own song file, but deletes the vocal that's been recorded. At first I thought I had done something wrong, but his has happened repeatedly.

Has anyone had the same problem, and found a solution? Or does anyone know of any setting that might have been changed (I can see nothing obvious in the audio-setup dialog). Can timeshift adjustment affect what the program saves, and how does BIAB deal with the temp files created when you apply a plugin to the sound file?

I've left mentioning the plugin until last because that's the only new thing I started doing before the problem first occurred. I just added reverb to a vocal track, noted the filename where it was saved, and continued. I tried importing the various temp files created and saving them with the program, but nothing I tried could import the plugin-modified audio file and save it with the song file. Is there no way of manually selecting where to store audio files created with BIAB and yet ensuring you can keep them linked with the song. I would expect some sort of dialog for each song with full details of how it's made up and what files are linked - but I can't find any.

Sorry for the length of this post, but although it's disturbing, it's not easy to explain.

All help appreciated.
Thanks

Have you checked to see if the Rendering works right with no Effect applied to the vocal track?

Which Effects are you using, destructive or Realtime DXi?

Once your vocal track is created, does BIAB create a .wav file of the same name as the songfile in the same folder?

This *may* be a bug, I'll try to find time to duplicate later. Meanwhile, you should try the above things and report back.


--Mac

Hello Digihound,

I have done some tests, but could not reproduce the problem using Band-in-a-Box 2009.5 (287).

You should check some things when rendering. After you click the [DXi - Direct Render] button, watch the top left corner of the screen. If the song has an audio track, and "Merge in Audio Track" is checked, then you should see this at some point during rendering:

"Merging Audio Track with Rendered MIDI"

If you see it, then the audio track is getting mixed with the song, but perhaps it's volume is getting decreased somehow. This could be caused by one of the plugins that you are using. As Mac suggested, you should try rendering without any plugins, and/or try using different plugins.

Also, make sure "Adjust Audio Track volume by" is set to zero.

Thanks Mac and Blake.

I'll respond to your questions, but can I first clarify one issue.

One side of this is not about rendering. If I create a new song, save using "Save with patches and harmony", record a vocal on the audio track, and then save again using "Save with patches and harmony", the audio track is *not* saved. This is despite the status bar at the top of the screen showing an audio track and its size. Is there any way to ensure that the audio track is saved? I lose my recorded audio every time. This is totally unconnected to rendering, as I haven't rendered anything at that stage.

Mac - I'm not sure what you mean by "destructive or Realtime DXi" effects - I'm only just branching beyond singing along to the music! After recording the vocal, I used the Audio>Plugin menu to select reverb.

BIAB used to create a wav file, and then a bt0 file if I timeshifted the audio. I know once when I checked they were both there, but when I saved the file they vanished!

I have the same problem with rendering even if I've just recorded a fresh vocal on the audio track, without any modification.

Blake - It used to give the message about merging, but I haven't checked that recently - I'll watch for it. I'm just in the middle of composing another BIAB song at the moment.

On earlier versions of the song when I saved it, I adjusted the audio track volume up by 1 or 2 dB, but not the later ones. Are you simply concerned that this might be why the audio is, as you say, perhaps reduced in volume, or is there a bug so it only works at zero?

Thanks for your help guys.

Hi guys - any response from Mac or Blake? Help appreciated.

Incidentally, the problem has corrected itself on a new day. Why, I don't know, but I'd still like to understand the options.

Thanks

Hello Digihound,

If the audio track is simply not saving with the songs (in which case, the track name "Audio" would no longer be yellow), then that would explain why the audio was also missing from the rendered file.

One reason why the audio files would be missing is if you manually changed the names of the Band-in-a-Box songs (in Windows Explorer - not in Band-in-a-Box). For example, if you change songname1.sgu to songname2.sgu, then the corresponding audio file songname1.WAV would no longer open automatically when you open songname2.sgu in Band-in-a-Box.

Just so you know, it is not necessary to use "Save song with patches and harmony" if you want the audio track to be included.

Thanks Blake!

I was having exactly the same problem of the audio track not saving sometimes for no apparent reason. It appears that I was changing the name of the saved .sgu file to indicate it had an audio track but didn't change the name of the associated vocal .wav file. Perhaps the programmers behind BIAB can figure out how to ensure that associated files keep the same name.

I must admit I got so frustrated with the limitations of the audio recording setup in BIAB that I stopped recording audio on it, and instead exported the midi and added the audio on Sonar. Not sure if you can do the same on RealBand.