PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Still Having Problems

Hi guys,
Firstly I must apologise as this may be quite a long post, but please bear with me.

You may recall from an earlier thread that I’m having problems with the higher bank patches with the Ketron SD2; well despite all the suggestions & help from the forum (which were very much appreciated) the problem is still there.

Basically, BIAB will not change to upper bank patches when programmed into the song file. The patch changes “stick”, and BIAB acknowledges that a (higher) patch change has been inserted, but will not switch to the upper bank. Lower bank patches – no problem.

The MIDI monitor does not show CC changes for MSB.

I’ve ascertained that the upper bank patches do work, by manually changing the spinner during playback. I’ve done return to factory settings several times, re-installed BIAB 2011 on top of 2010.5, and I’ve and uninstalled BIAB totally (several times) and reinstalled it from the HD.

I’ve checked the patch change options in Pref/MIDI file options (include patch changes in MIDI files), Pref/MIDI options (allow any patch change) and Pref/Overrides (allow loading patch changes.

Is there any I’ve missed?
Is there anywhere a reference box that relates to allowing higher bank patches?

I’m getting an occasional mysterious message when I use the MIDI monitor – a box appears titled “ Working….” and contains “please wait…building test block”, but I’ve let it run for up to 30 minutes without anything happening.

Now here’s something really strange; I installed BIAB2011 onto a computer at work (not connected to a keyboard or Ketron so I couldn’t listen), entered a few bars with higher bank patch changes, and ran the MIDI monitor, and it showed that LSB/MSB were changing from 0 to 1 as they should. However I tried it again today, and it no longer shows the CC changes.(Both computer are running XP)

So, I’m stumped (and frustrated) and don’t know what to do next.
Perhaps I should remove 2011 and reinstall 2010/2010.5 and see if it works??

Any suggestions – no matter how trivial or left field – may just prove to be the solution.
Thanks everyone.

Keith, I've just spent hours making almost all the same observations you report! Not only that, I was doing it in the context of trying to help folks on the Yahoo group use the feature. (How embarrassing is that?) I even had the same impression as you, that it worked initially then stopped and not even a factory reset (with .pat preservation) fixed it. (I'm running Win7x64.) So I came over here to see if anyone had reported it, and lo, here's your post a couple hours young.

I will keep looking at it. But please, PLEASE PG, lose interest in midi if you must, but don't break what was already there...

-Ron

Hallelujah!!

Thank you Ron. I was starting to feel very alone in BIAB world, but now that you've reported a similar thing, I see it may be a bug.

Whew!! Return to sanity

If I recall, with a previous high bank patch problem, it was a similar time frame - everyone else's worked okay, but one by one they all succumbed to the same problem. The PG people fixed it in the next build; hopefully they will again.

Perhaps other forum users will check to see if it's happening to them.

Okay, I'm going to set up my BB2011 to run nuthin' but the SD2 here again and see what I can find.

You'll have to give me a day or so to find the time to get that round tuit, though.

Meanwhile, since we already have two good reports on this problem now, I suggest that you contact pgmusic development via email with a short "I did this and got this result" kind of bulleted step-by-step description of the problem you are having, plus it might be good to append a BB songfile that shows this happening. They should have at least one SD2 up there set aside for testing purposes, although this is not likely to be a problem for just the SD2, sounds to me like MSB is not being sent for *any* hardware synth that may require same...


--Mac

My friend uses a Ketron live a couple nights a week. This upper Bank thing plagued him for quite some time as well prior to the fix in 2009.5. I've just sent him an email to see if it's back although if it was I think I'd here him scream from Fl all the way to NC. I'll post back as soon as I hear.

Let me be clear. I'm not using the Ketron. This has nothing to do with the sound source. Until I'm proven otherwise, and I'd love to be, the basic F5 utility for sending higher bank Program Changes is broken. I think Keith's issue is the same. I scanned that (very long) other thread about the SD2, and so far am convinced all issues can be explained by my supposition.

I just rebooted my computer: no improvement. Running build 313 under Win 7 pro x64. Here's a typical test:

1) Load new song, make it one chorus, 12 bars, key of C, no chords entered.
2) Solo the piano and ensure it's on default channel (3). Set it to no patch change, (or to a GM patch, doesn't matter.)
3) Disable any DXi.
4) Load a style that has a piano patch defined (or does not, doesn't matter), but disable style patch changes in Midi Options.
5) In the chord window, put cursor in Bar 5, first half, and press F5. In the patches column, choose a patch from the higher bank selector. It can even be a GM patch, if that bank is included in your .pat file, as it is in mine. Disable "send patch changes with Style" although that setting makes no difference here.
6) Open the MIDI Monitor and toggle the "always on top" tick - even if it is already on (there's a bug here that doesn't honor this setting until you manually reset it; and Keith YES, I also get that crazy "rebuilding list" message from the MIDI monitor; there's another bug in the Midi Monitor with the 'play' button; the MIDI monitor's been buggy this way for years. But I digress). Set the monitor filter for only Channel 3, and only controllers 0 and 32, and the program change.
7) Set an initial GM patch for the piano at top of chord window (or leave it no patch defined, doesn't matter). Oh wait, I already said that. But if you do it now, you'll see the change immediately displayed by the Midi Monitor, which should convince you it is at least capturing events correctly. (If you don't see that, make sure you've got "Host Program Output" ticked in the Filter window.)
8) Hit play from main menu and watch midi monitor.
The initial transmissions are sent (cc's only if there was no patch defined, program change included if there was), but NOTHING from Bar 5! Zilch. Nada. And, btw, in the F5 window, higher bank dialog, the "Send Patch" button doesn't work either.
9) Use the Save + button with "save all settings with song" enabled. I save as "test.sgu". Reload the .sgu, and play again with midi monitor open. Same result.

If you're uncomfortable with midi monitor, use a Dxi or synth, and do same test, watching for patch changes on that channel.

Repeat: this is NOT a synth problem. It's a fundamental breaking of the higher bank sending facility when it's invoked at the bar settings level. You load a higher bank patch at the song level (ie. at the top of the chord sheet), it works. You do so from F5, it doesn't.

Matilda, I'm down on my knees, I'm begging you please: Prove me wrong.... (apologies to Simon & Garfunkel)

-Ron

Hi folks,
Just for U'ens I hooked up my Juno and ran a couple of tests. First I tried gm2 mode and that worked correctly. Then I loaded a .pat file and I could not get it to work on the high banks using the f5 key. It will send the program change if it's set in the left hand + box but it won't send the control changes from the right hand + box. So it's not working here either. I'm running BB 2011 (313) on XP SP3.

Aside:

Mac, how do you manage to have so many round tuits? I'm 67 and retired, and I used to think I'd have oddles of 'em once I got away from the salt mines, but, truth is, my round tuits seem to be scarce as hen teeth. lol.

Later,
Jim

Just my opinion on round tuits-I don't think Mac and his other forum members who always seem to come up with answers--------never sleep! Thanks guys. DennisD

Hi Keith,
can't get it to work either. Running Win 7.

With my system, pressing f5 or alt f5 brings up some sort of a volume slider?
When I right click and choose bar settings, I get the correct window.

It appears to change gm2 patches & banks, but totally ignores any higher banck changes.

Hopefully they'll fix it.

I also tried it with my PA800 patch list. Same problem as SD2

Hi Rikki,
It's odd, because I recall a few days ago you checked it for me and yours was working fine.
The same thing happened to me.
I'm not getting the volume slider though.

I'll get in touch with the help desk. Thanks for responding.

Hi Keith,
so sorry, I misread what you were trying to do. I was getting the changes through that spinner function I think you were refferring to. Hadn't realized one could actually insert program changes via Bar Settings F5.
I've got a lot to learn.


My SD2 used to give me grief when I used to use it with my One Man Band arranger software or my psr keyboard. The way the sd2 only uses msb to change banks , instead of msb & lsb like most other keyboards & synths do, made things difficult. It was a great sounding little module though.

Quote:

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Hi Rikki,
It's odd, because I recall a few days ago you checked it for me and yours was working fine.
The same thing happened to me.
I'm not getting the volume slider though.

I'll get in touch with the help desk. Thanks for responding.

---

Thanks - we'll look into this further

For the record . . .

I have the same exact problem that Keith from Oz has reported.
Thank you Keith for the clear report.
Let's hope it's fixed soon.
I use this live and I always fear some goofy result when I hit play.

Don

Thanks everyone for responding. For those who are not yet affected, and are using higher bank patches on live gigs, please be careful, as the problem can sneak up on you. On two separate computers it was working fine one day, and the problem surfaced on the next use.

Time to chime in on this again.

Studio computer where arrangements are created uses VSC (Vista). No problem here.
Lap top computer (for live performance) has W7 OS and the Ketron 2 for sound(cannot use VSC W/W7).

Used the Ketron 2 live yesterday.
Higher bank commands sent for Hawaiin guitar - came out Sitar.
Sounded like a cross between Ravi Shankar and The Three Stooges.
Lots of strange looks from the audience.
Crap!

Just got a call for a performance in a few hours from now.
Not much time to test things out so I'll try to choose what seems safe.

VERY, VERY ANNOYING!

Someone - please fix ASAP.

Don

Yes, by all means I'd choose the safer path of the VSC DXi for that gig.

And I wouldn't tell anybody that anything is any different and they likely wouldn't know or notice.

(Have done it before that way)

Hopefully development is going to release an update with the fix, keep checking for that update periodically and then we should be able to safely use the hardware synths and upper banks with them again.


--Mac

I see that Team PG has been working hard fixing some issues with Real Tracks, so perhaps this problem is next on the list.
Here's hoping!