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It's been a while since I tried to solve this problem. Last time no-one, including PG, could solve it for me so I will have another go.
At the end of every song using a style with at least one RT there is an annoying audible "blip" at the end of the song. It happens at the end of the last bar assigned to the song, not when the last actual instruent plays. I have taken to assigning extra blank bars at the end that I don't need which means I have time to stop playback with spacebar beofore I hear the blip. It is happening when the sound card "switches off" if that is a correct term.
I have tried muting all instruments with F5 at the end of the actual sng but this makes no difference. I happens with Win 7/8/10 and BIAB 2014/15/16 and perhaps even earlier.
I had assumed it was something to do with my particular laptop but having just acquired a new W10 I7 machine it does exactly the same.
Any ideas?
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Tony,
Have you tried increasing the output level of your computer and turning down the amp/mixer? Generally speaking, if your sound source is turned down low and your amp/mixer is turned up high, it would tend to make any undesirable, extraneous noises louder.
I have never heard the sound you describe, although in the early days of RealTracks, I sometimes heard a stray note or two at the very end of a BIAB-generated 2-bar ending. I have pretty much stopped using those endings and that was one reason why I decided to do so. Instead, I usually just use a final held chord for 2-4 bars, depending on tempo.
Jim
Psalm 33:3 Sing unto him a new song; play skillfully with a loud noise.
BIAB 2018 build 519; Dell Inspiron N4110, Windows 10 64 bit, Intel Core i3-2350m running at 2.29 GHz, Memory: 6 GB DDR3, SDRAM 1MHz
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Tony, I believe you. This is not unheard of. Could you provide this info please:
Does the noise happen at the end of a song played not in BIAB, such as when using Windows Media Player?
What sound card are you using? Are the drivers for it up to date?
Are you using ASIO or MME in the BIAB audio settings? If you switch, does it still happen?
If it's ASIO, what is the buffer setting? Have you experimented with changing it?
Do you have any digital connections in your audio chain, such as SP/DIF or light pipe?
Does the noise appear on a recording of your BIAB song, and if so, is it in the exact same place?
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.
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Tony,
Have you tried increasing the output level of your computer and turning down the amp/mixer? Generally speaking, if your sound source is turned down low and your amp/mixer is turned up high, it would tend to make any undesirable, extraneous noises louder.
I have never heard the sound you describe, although in the early days of RealTracks, I sometimes heard a stray note or two at the very end of a BIAB-generated 2-bar ending. I have pretty much stopped using those endings and that was one reason why I decided to do so. Instead, I usually just use a final held chord for 2-4 bars, depending on tempo. I always have the computer volume set to max. The sound is not a note - it's an electronic blip, similar the what you get if you unplug an audio input to an amplifier with the volume turned up. That's why I think it sounds like the sound card "turning off" Tony
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Is it reproducible? If so upload the song so we can try it on other users systems. That will confirm if it is unique to your systems. Seems like that would be a good start to finding the source. I can tell you I don't hear anything like that at this time.
BIAB – 2026, Reaper (current), i7-12700F Processor, 32GB DDR4-3200MHz RAM, Motu Audio Express 6x6 - My SoundCloud.
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Tony, I believe you. This is not unheard of. Could you provide this info please:
Does the noise happen at the end of a song played not in BIAB, such as when using Windows Media Player?
What sound card are you using? Are the drivers for it up to date?
Are you using ASIO or MME in the BIAB audio settings? If you switch, does it still happen?
If it's ASIO, what is the buffer setting? Have you experimented with changing it?
Do you have any digital connections in your audio chain, such as SP/DIF or light pipe?
Does the noise appear on a recording of your BIAB song, and if so, is it in the exact same place?
No, it never happens anywhere else but BIAB I always use MME but switching to ASIO makes no difference. Yes, my drivers are up to date but it also happens if I switch to a Soundblaster USB sound card and was exactly the same with my previous computer. I have no other digital connections. It is not recorded with a BIAB song. It only happens at the end of the last bar of any song with RT's even when the bar is empty and the audio has already finished. I can move the blip ahead by say 4 bars by simply adding four bars to the end. You can see why I eventually gave up and lived with it! Tony
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I do understand and I do believe you, and your well-controlled frustration.
That's good info but you did not answer one question that may be the most important: what brand and model is your soundcard? This problem has been reported with M-Audio, Focusrite and Realtek, to name a few I have read about.
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.
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Sounds like the buffer is unloading at EOF. That's my first guess.
For some users this happens at the start of a song when play is clicked again (the buffer stays loaded until then).
To test:
If you let BiaB play the song through once from start to finish, does it happen the next time you play the same file?
In other words, on some systems this only happens when you stop the song during playback (and thus leave the buffer loaded) so it is waiting for a point where it can 'unload'.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Thanks for the responses
Matt
The laptop soundcard is a Conexant Smart Audio HD and I also use an external USB SoundBlaster SBX-Fi-Go-Pro, I have no idea what the card was in my previous laptop. In every case the blip was the same so I wonder why it could be due to the particular card/driver.
Rharv
Your description "sounds like the buffer unloading" fits the symptoms and I have occasionally heard a blip at the beginning of a song. However I cannot reproduce it at the beginning.
The blip at the end happens every time I play the same song however I will recheck if I hear another starting blip.
Perhaps I should mention that I nearly always use a "manual" song ending e.g. A... to hold all tracks, followed by B. to stop all tracks. I have tried using a two bar ending generated by BIAB but still get the blip.
BTW I have created hundreds of songs with at least one RT and every single one blips!!
Tony
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Thanks Tony. I agree with you; just trying to rule things out.
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.
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Interesting....
So.... if you render the BB song to a wave file... does the blip get recorded into the wave or does this only happen when you're doing a live playback inside BB?
I have had some weird things happen in BB and RB with tracks and some of those are with the manual endings as opposed to the BB 2 or 4 bar endings....
So the next aspect of this would be if you are planning to produce a finished song.... the blip can easily be edited out in a DAW. In which case, who cares about the blip in the track end in BB? It will never make it to the final mix anyway.
You should hear some of the stuff I edit out of my BB/RB tracks..... no, on second thought, no you shouldn't... that's why I edit it out.
Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/25/16 06:28 AM.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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So.... if you render the BB song to a wave file... does the blip get recorded into the wave or does this only happen when you're doing a live playback inside BB?
Exactly, and I asked him that. He said it does not get recorded into the song. It occurs when the audio stops playing. Quite a puzzle.
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.
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If it's not recorded into the wave at rendering .... that means it's not in the song's music... either data or audio.
That means it has to be computer related. Very likely related to the driver, the audio card and the settings being used.
I saw that Tony is using a Sound blaster card and MME drivers. Those are not the best cards or drivers to use. If the buffers and latency are not set properly, that could be introducing problems.
You can find my music at: www.herbhartley.comAdd nothing that adds nothing to the music. You can make excuses or you can make progress but not both. The magic you are looking for is in the work you are avoiding.
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Exactly. That SoundBlaster is not a home studio recording interface, it's a consumer grade item sold at Fry's or Best Buy for gaming not for musicians setting up a home studio. Could it be made to work properly? Maybe, I don't know. What I do know is I would never consider it in the first place.
I can't guarantee that's the problem here but just as a matter of course I would go to a GC or Sam Ash and pick up a proper interface and see what happens. It might cost you $150. If you still have the same problem, return it.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Please don't pick up on my mention of SoundBlaster as the reason for to my problem. I know there is a lot of negative opinion about this brand.
I have normally used the built in sound card on two different laptops and BOTH exhibit the same problem. I would bet that many, many people do it this way this without my blip problem. I just happen to have a little SoundBlaster USB card which I tried to see if there was any difference. I'm not prepared to buy another piece of equipment just yet since I seem to be the only one with the problem.
I will give ASIO another try but I abandoned it years ago because of strange clicks, latency problems and general bizarre behaviour. MME has always been very stable and predictable, apart from the blips. I should mention that I don't use DXI because I have an hard synth and the BIAB FAQ says you may need ASIO if you use DXi.
Thanks
Tony
Last edited by Tony Wright; 01/26/16 02:12 PM.
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OK I seem to have solved the problem, at least for now.
I downloaded the latest version of ASIO For All and it seems to have solved the problems. I couldn't get it to work properly at first but turning off "always on" seems to be working. I have given up on ASIO in the past so my jury is still out.
Thanks for your help
Tony
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Thanks for reporting back.
It can't be said enough; drivers drivers drivers
If it happened at the beginning of a song (even if occasionally) it was likely the drivers having buffer issues. You probably could have narrowed this down with testing (stop in middle of song while buffers are loading, rewind to beginning, hit play and listen .. can you cause it to happen reliably).
Whatever drivers work for your system are the best ones to use.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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This whole thread reinforces why troubleshooting digital audio can be challenging. SoundBlasters do get a bad rap, but for playback only, I believe that bad rap is undeserved.
The most interesting thing about the solution is that most advice now suggests to not use ASIO4ALL. ASIO4AlL is not ASIO; it is a utility that fools the system into thinking it is ASIO when it really uses WDM. Although it rarely solves problems and often causes them with other soundcards, perhaps it is a better match with the SoundBlaster.
Always fun, isn't it?
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.
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The most interesting thing about the solution is that most advice now suggests to not use ASIO4ALL. ASIO4AlL is not ASIO; it is a utility that fools the system into thinking it is ASIO when it really uses WDM. Although it rarely solves problems and often causes them with other soundcards, perhaps it is a better match with the SoundBlaster.
Always fun, isn't it?
Thanks Matt So what is a better ASIO to use than ASIO4ALL? Tony
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If a soundcard has its own ASIO driver, it is likely better to use it than to use ASIO4ALL. Even the descriptions of ASIO4ALL say that. However, there are exceptions and you still have to try whatever you have and find out. As an example, for the Tascam FW-1884 I had for many years, the company even recommended not using their own ASIO driver! They said to use their WDM driver instead.
In other words, try everything and then use whatever works better.
There is a benefit to NOT using ASIO. Most ASIO drivers still work with only one sound source at a time. There is a new multi-client ASIO standard now, but not all equipment has such drivers. When you wan to run, say, BIAB and an audio editor like Adobe Audition at the same time (and I do that), and both use ASIO, you can't output both to the same device. As a result, many here use the MME driver for BIAB. Unless you are recording AND want to record a keyboard along with existing sound, you don't really need ASIO anyway. The benefit of using ASIO in that situation is to reduce the latency of monitoring your own keyboard playing so you don't get confused by the delay as you record.
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.
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