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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Each time I use BIAB, I run into something where the program goes unresponsive. I cannot say it is a specific incident. The most recent was when I was adding Blues Tenor Sax Real Tracks to a solo part. What makes it frustrating is that you lose the work from before that point. The only thing I can do is close and re-open. However, all I did was lost. Is there something I can do to stop this from happening? It happens anytime I go to add or change something to an existing song. That is about the only thing in common in all these instances.
Any suggestions as to how I can correct this? I am still using 2010.
Thanks.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Ricke,
Is it time related? That is does it happen the first time you try and change something to a song or further down the track?
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks Noel for your quick response. No actually, that is what is strange it is a random thing. I would either add a soloist and then go to recompose it because I did not like the first take. And it can happen when I am changing a chord in the song. It is not something that is consistent from my observation. What I do is before I change anything, I wait until the program has finished composing so as to not cause it confusion.
One thing is consistent is that is occurs when an action requires a recompose. The status will say, "Please wait..." My curses swirls and it never comes back.
Thanks again!
Rick
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Rick,
What is your operating system (XP, Vista, 7; 32 bit, 64 bit)? Also, how much free hard drive space do you have? And lastly, are you running BIAB from your computer's hard drive or the USB drive?
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I am on Windows Vista Premium 32 Bit. I have 200GB free HD. And I am running BIAB from the PC hard disk.
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Hi Rick,
I use Windows Home Premium 32-bit as well. I was having problems early on and decided to deactivate the User Account Control (UAC). It sounds like this could be what's happening to your computer. The UAC is responsible for popping up and asking "do you want to run this program", etc. It could be that there's a hidden pop-up asking for permission to write to the disk and nothing can happen until you click OK. Because it's hidden, though, it cannot be clicked and so the system hangs. BIAB creates temporary undo files and these need to be written to the hard drive. This would explain why the system hangs after modifying things.
What I suggest is to go into Control Panel | User Accounts | Turn User Account Control On of Off. Windows will tell you it's not safe doing this because the UAC is protection against something unknown writing to your hard drive. Since I run a separate antivirus scanner, I didn't worry about having UAC off. I haven't had a problem in over 2 years of no UAC.
Anyway, it's something that I'd try. If the problem persists, turn UAC back on.
Let me know what happens. I'm curious.
All the best,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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in addition to other suggestions made i also suggest a computer restart before using BiAB as a way af clearly the computer's memory
how much memory do you have?
M4 pro Mac mini 1tb HD 24GB mem M3 MacBook Air 16GB mem casio wk7500 presonus audiobox i2 usb interface
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
The most recent was when I was adding Blues Tenor Sax Real Tracks to a solo part.
Did you by any chance audition the track? There was an issue a while back where the RT picker dialog would be hidden behind the main BiaB window after auditioning. Since it was waiting for a response BiaB would be unresponsive. If this is what is happening to you there is a fix.
Use Ctrl-Tab to cycle through all your open windows. Bring the RT picker to the front and click Ok or Cancel. ThenBiaB will respond normally.
This issue has, I believe, been fixed in later versions so an upgrade would also help. BTW BiaB 2012 is the BEST version ever released IMO. Upgrading would be well worth the money.
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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
...
One thing is consistent is that is occurs when an action requires a recompose. The status will say, "Please wait..."
On my setup, I've had that problem also. Defragging both the C drive and also the drive where the Realtracks/Realdrums are stored solves it here.
I use the dedicated Piriform Defraggler software, the free download version, to do this rather than the microsoft defragmenter. It is faster, seems to work better, and a wonderful feature is that it also allows me to choose just what folders to defrag rather than the whole shebang every time.
The Realtracks come from disk and get swapped over to physical RAM whenever one is loaded or you hit the Play button. From then on, that performance is in RAM unless and until you invoke a change and have to hit Play to force a regeneration. Then, of course, the entire disk to ram thing must occur again to cover the added changes.
If you aren't running enough physical RAM, then windows will go ahead and use part of the C disk for a RAM swap in order to fit it all in. But since the tracks may be coming from the same hard drive as the ram swap can take place on, or in the case of the external USB drive, transfer from there to an attempt at RAM writing followed by an attempt at disk swap writing once the system "knows" that the critical RAM resource is all used up with the previous song loadings, all sorts of timing probs can happen. So making sure you have as much RAM as possible for you OS is always a good thing as well.
With today's operating systems and puters, there are fewer tweaks needed than ever before to get a good music playing system, but one I still use is to visit the Hardware Manager and manually set the disk cache size rather than that quaint old, "Let Windows handle it" routine. I set my cache to be *twice* my physical ram size, which is read out there. So, if, for instance, you have 1g of RAM, set the cache size to be 2g (or really 2048 or some sum near to it). Those trhying to run Realtracks on older machines that came with XP and only 512mb of RAM should seriously consider the purchase of 1 to 3g of RAM for the thing.
And by all means do the DEFRAG ss well.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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One more thing--
I developed the habit long ago of doing SAVES periodically while I'm working in BiaB.
If I go to change anything in a song, I make sure that the song is SAVED beforehand.
This is easy enough when using the Toolbar button and it often avoids the problem of running out of resources while doing editing, etc.
(I ALSO use the method with SAVEAS - say the first iteration of the song I save as "mysong.sgu" and then I change something in the song, so I save that as "mysong2.sgu" etc. etc. etc. -- This yields a series of songfiles that are a timeline of the thing from change to change as things progress. May seem like overkill unless you try it for awhile, when things go awry this one can be a real timesaver, and since BiaB songs don't take up much in the way of disk space, not to be concerned along those lines. Besides, after the particular project is done and in the can, you can always go to that folder and delete the previously saved versions. But if BB crashes, well, you have the songfile with every edit but the last one and can reopen that after a machine reboot and keep on truckin'...)
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks Noel, When I went to look at the User Account, it was already turned off. I don't use this PC for any internet activity. Hence, any anti-virus or protections were removed to increase speed. But thanks for all your help!  RickeG
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Hi Mike,
This PC usually begins from a cold boot as it only comes on when I want to do some songwriting. (Which unfortunately is happening less and less these days.) It's got 4GB of RAM. I made sure when I purchased this a few years ago I would have enough to keep me going for a while. I believe that should be sufficient for BIAB 2010.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Warren, good question. I don't know if I acted upon "auditioning" the Track. But, it may have happened as I went about installing it. What happened was, I selected under the Soloist button, the sax player aforementioned. It played without problem with the exception of some really sour random notes. When I decided to replace the track, and what that did was reset to defaults to where it was going to solo from the start. I had originally programmed it to come in on the second verse. So, I stopped it in the second measure annoyed that BIAB did not retain my settings. Next, I opened the Soloist window and I had to re-choose the sax soloist again. And when I went to compose that is when it crashed.
Does that help shed any light. Warren, you got me thinking when you said audition. I never use that. But, is it possible that the first time you compose the track that somewhere it takes it as an audition?
Thanks,
RickeG
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 484
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Thanks Mac, as I shared I do not use this PC as often I do my other. But, I have neglected to defrag in the process. I am going to look for the Defrag program you mentioned because it appears Vista does not allow you any access as to what need defragmenting or isolating the disk. Part of that pretty bells and whistles while they take the goods away form you.. kind of development.
Thank you all for your counsel. I knew I can count on the gang here to offer some insightful suggestions. After my defrag I will run it a while and get back to this post so others who experience the same may have a resource.
As far as saving goes, yes. I have done a lot of saving and Save As. However, I had just saved the composition a couple of strokes before the crash. But, those strokes were key to the track turns out. When BIAB came back, I realized that I missed the pieces I really liked. Hence, my frustration.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Don't forget as well Rick, that recent RTs will only work with recent BIABs - ie 2011, .5 and 12?
I'm not sure how 2010 would react - it might flat out refuse a newer soloist - I'm not sure, never tried.
Remember, you can just upgrade BIAB without going for all of the new RTs. Sale until Jan 15 - check packages page.
Yours is not a glitch I've come across - my sys is XP running 2012 BIAB on 2.5 GB
Luck - Ian Fraser
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Ok, I was just able to reproduce the problem as I remembered it.
Right click the soloist track and select a soloist. Click the Play (what I thought was called Audition) button top right side of RT picker. The song then starts to generate. The RT picker disappears. The song plays but BiaB is completely non responsive. The song ends and BiaB appears locked up.
However, if you Alt tab through the open windows you'll find the RT picker is still active. Releasing the Alt key brings the RT picker to the front and you can then close it and BiaB becomes responsive again.
This still occurs in ver 2012. However, in PGMs defense, I think this may be a windows issue since I know MS Outlook also does this with e-mail forms under XP. The difference being Outlook doesn't occupy the whole screen so you can see the open window behind the main app.
I'm almost certain from your description that this was what was happening to you. If it happens again remember to Alt-Tab and find the RT picker.
Hope this helps.
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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