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I have a nice reggae mix I want to output to file. Using 'Merge tracks to stereo wave file' I get a wav file as I should. However, when I load it back into RB for some final tweaking I get a message 'the track is stereo audio. The file is mono. Do you want to convert the track to mono?'.
This is a real puzzler to me. First, this has never happened before. Second, the merge command specifies stereo output.
Is there some setting I may have changed? Or is there some other issue I might have missed.
I really spent quite a while serching the prefs and help files and I can't figure out what's wrong. Any ideas?
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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RealBand
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In Preferences - General what is your default track type? Someone else mentioned this issue recently and I couldn't duplicate it ..
Try changing default track type to MIDI before opening the file and see what happens.
If you right-click the track and select properties, what is the bitrate?
Last edited by rharv; 11/14/11 11:09 AM.
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In Preferences - General what is your default track type?
It's set to Audio-Stereo.
Try changing default track type to MIDI before opening the file and see what happens.
I'll give that a try. I'm guessing you mean that RB outputs the file as stereo but the error is occuring during the import? In other words the file is truly stereo but RB thinks it's mono. If so I hope PGMusic can clear this up in the next patch.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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If you right-click the track and select properties, what is the bitrate?
Bitrate is 44.1KHz.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Yes, I was wondering if the new 'default Track type' was causing an issue with importing audio.
Have you tried to both Open the file in RB and Import the file (Audio-Import wave file)? Any difference?
Like I said, I can't seem to duplicate it here, but I have heard of the issue once before.
Maybe even try right-clicking the file name and choose 'Open with .." then find RB to open it with. Just shooting for anything that may help locate the issue.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
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Quote:
If you right-click the track and select properties, what is the bitrate?
Bitrate is 44.1KHz.
Stereo?
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Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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Ok, I misunderstood.
The bitrate is 705kbps
channels 1
16 bit, 44KHz
So the output is mono which it should not be. The problem lies with the output.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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RealBand
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The problem is with the merge routine. It is outputting a mono file. It worked in the past so I just don't know what might have changed.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Thats good troubleshooting. Thanks
At this point I'd email support and ask them what may have changed, link this thread, and see if they can help sort it out. You are not the only one this has happened to.
I'll continue to try to find the source, but I suspect that something chnged in RB for some users.
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I have my default Track setting as Midi as I prefer the ability to contol the Wave inputs. If the Merged File is Imported and the Track type is Midi or Audio-Mono then you are asked to choose either Stereo or Mono and if the latter then you a further option to split the Mono Wave into two tracks. If your Track Type is set for Stereo then no options are provided. I believe that the default setting for Track Type is Stereo and would be better set to Midi.
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His problem is not with the importing of the file; he used Merge Audio and DXi to stereo wave file command and got a mono file as the output.
pwarren; are you *sure* you used the correct command? Did you duplicate it with a second effort?
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pwarren; are you *sure* you used the correct command? Did you duplicate it with a second effort?
Yes. I duplicated it several times.
Today I tried something different. I ran RB from the portable HD on a different PC. In this configuration the output was a stereo wav file as it should be. So the problem lies with my installation on my music PC.
Now that I think about it, just before I noticed the problem I got the BSOD while trying to merge to a compressed file using the LAME encoder. When I re-booted I elected to NOT restore the default settings (since it shouldn't have mattered). This seems the most likely culprit although how that could have changed the output to mono on a permenant basis I don't know.
So now I just need to find the best way to restore the functionality. I can't remember if there's a return to factory settings in RB or whether there's some ini files to remove. I'm sure a forum search will help here. As a last resort I can re-install.
All in all it seems a very strange issue. It would be nice to have it fixed but since it seems to involve third party software it might be near impossible for someone else to duplicate.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Normally it's RB.CFG and realband.ini
There are settings inside the ini file that I'm the type to look at and edit, but don't recommend it to normal users. Looking at the entries it is often easy to figure out what they stand for. Renaming these two files should cause RB to recreate them. You'll have to re-set things up afterwards though, like soundcard driver etc
Last edited by rharv; 11/15/11 01:42 PM.
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Make your sound your own!
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RealBand
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Thanks rharv that saves me some searching. I'll look through the ini file and see if I can find any settings that might be causing the problem. The strange thing is that there is no option to pick mono output, afterall the command is 'merge to stereo'. If there is no option then I don't know how the change can persist after a re-boot.
Anyway, I'm sure I'll track it down eventually and I'll definately post the fix so anyone else in the same boat can fix it too.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Well I got it working properly again. I couldn't find anything in the ini file that controls the output channels. However, by trying to merge tracks to compressed file and making sure I had chosen a stereo codec I got RB to output a stereo wav file before crashing again (it can't seem to generate the compressed file).
After re-booting the PC I chose to load the default settings and after that the merge tracks to wav command is working properly and giving a stereo file. Unfortunately that doesn't tell me whether it was the LAME encoder that caused the problem or whether some setting, or corruption, in the ini or cfg files caused the problem.
Anyway, it's working. Now I have to figure out why RB can't use the LAME encoder without crashing.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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Here, when I had Lame installed in XP, it showed up in the RB list as it's own item, separate from mp3 list. How are you installing the Lame codec? I need to get it onto the new system and haven't tried yet in Win7. I've just been using wma for now.
Glad it's working now anyway.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Quote:
Here, when I had Lame installed in XP, it showed up in the RB list as it's own item, separate from mp3 list. How are you installing the Lame codec? I need to get it onto the new system and haven't tried yet in Win7. I've just been using wma for now.
Glad it's working now anyway.
I installed the ACM version of lame located here. It showed up in the RB list as it's own item, as you mentioned. That's as it's supposed to if you read the referenced page above.
However, it doesn't work in RB. After selecting 'Merge Tracks to Compressed file' the popup dialog asks you what codec to use. I select Lame mp3 and an appropriate bitrate etc. and click Ok. The progress dialog comes up indicating the wav file is being converted. Then I get an error message saying 'can't get stream.size'. When I click Ok I get another message saying error in module lameenc.acm. At this point RB is basically locked up and must be closed using the task manage if the BSOD doesn't happen.
It's a real pain in the butt. I want a good mp3 codec since the windows supplied codec doesn't offer any better than 56kbps.
Are there any other free mp3 codecs that do work with RB?
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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That was my experience also with that installer. Thanks for the confirmation.
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BiaB behaves exactly the same as RB with the LAME encoder. It renders the wav file then attempts to convert it at which point it crashes and you have to use the task manager to close the program.
BiaB 2013 b366, RB 2013 b4, WinXP Pro SP3, Toshiba M70, 1.8GHz 2GB RAM 100GB HD. Focusrite Saffire 6 USB, Ketron SD2. BiaB Wiki
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