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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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when I've double clicked on one or more track icons in the plugin to tell BIAB to stream audio (stereo ) back to the host. **synchronised** with the DAW transport it seems I cannot get the arranger yellow cursor to follow the point in the song bar by bar.
is this something missing for now?
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Is it set in the Plugin's File > Preferences ? "Highlight bars during DAW playback"
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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Is it set in the Plugin's File > Preferences ? "Highlight bars during DAW playback" yes
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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OP
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On another related note -
Although it was interesting and maybe helpful in some situations - for you to suggest the workaround of using multiple instances of the BIAB plugin on separate tracks to be able to stream in-sync separate instruments to the DAW - on experimenting with this - I think its not really that useful since any change chord progression-wise in this scenario has to be saved back to the original song file on disk - then all the instances would have to re-load that modified song in order to have this reflected in all plugin instances - and THEN each plugin would have to be re-rendered.
So for this scenario it really *would* just be much easier to drag all the audio into the DAW and use one plugin.
What would change this of course would be if - instead of the song data being stored in the saved-state data for each plugin as normal - that either all plugins would always read off the BIAB SONG on disk across all instances.
But this would still entail that after any change to the chord progression one would need to save to disk the song.
So a better alternative - ( but one probably not needed at all once multi-channel audio streaming is added ) would be if inter-process messaging was used between all instances if the plugin - so one plugin would be designated as "master" and the rest as "Slaves" and all "Slave" instances would derive the latest state of the song arrangement from the "master" plugin instance.
But again - for CPU efficiency and most likely - plain user friendliness - it would be best if one only used a single plugin instance.
Having said that - having used multi-channel sampler libraries like KONTAKT - it gets complex having several instruments in one plugin and all the multi-out business - and nowadays many users will - for KONTAKT - just use many instances.
But I guess a better example would be drummer apps like BFD, EZY drummer or Groove Agent - where its always one plugin but with multi-out as option. And as it happens EZ Drummer is a kind of "arranger" app in a very limited and focused kind of way so the comparison is more apt.
Last edited by nonchai; 09/18/19 01:50 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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I was about to suggest - as an interim stage - adding separate volume controls etc for each track for the plugin ( similar to how the mixer window in BIAB standalone operates ) but really - rather than wasting developer time on that - and thinking of how BIAB plugin works in a DAW production type workflow - it would be just far far simpler and logical to just add multichannel outputs and then we just always get used to setting volume and pan etc etc - in the DAW directly itself.
Which of course is where one really wants to be doing that kind of thing. I always thought that the idea of a separate mixer and channel strips etc in plugins like BFD and EZY drummer. made the whole business far more complex. as oe has two different places potentially in which this stuff can get tweaked!
I'm all for the simple life me.
Last edited by nonchai; 09/18/19 01:55 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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I think you would use the multiple plugin method if you have the chord chart you need, but for building a song best to use Biab main app until you have what you are happy with. See the pic below, so you are not getting this chord sheet sync with the time line ? Even with plugin set to Always on top Cubase hides the plugin window when you click on another window. 
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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I'm speaking of situations when that little icon is coloured blue,
there also seems to be some confusion in what the info box is telling me regrading double-clicking to turn off audio etc etc..
I end up fiddling between the CMD and CTRL keys to turn thing off/on - maybe this is just a work in progress and needing more documentation etc. Or its not working quite as intended yet,
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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Another thing - bearing in mind the amount of crackles - and now I understand there's a "helper" BIAB app ( Band IN A Box Engine ) running behind the scenes - is the plugin streamingaudio from BIAB Engine or directly (with time-stretching if needed ) from the rendered audio for each track off-disk?
I'd understand why there's so much crackle if there's interprocess messaging etc going on between plugin and BIAB Engine each time an audio block has to be fetched. Although apps like Vienna Ensemble pro do this all the time with much more workload on my machine at the same buffer size so ought not to be any issue.
Vienna ensemble - for each "SERVER INSTANCE" ( holding many plugins in it - ) there's just a single refresh event for all plugin hosted channels. But if BIAB is currently ( when several instruments are in BLUE - for synchronised streaming ) doing separate audio refresh processes for EACH instrument - along with all the IPC protocols required - this would cause issues.
Far better if the plugin does all the required streaming from disk directly
Last edited by nonchai; 09/18/19 03:09 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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in the picture you supplied none of the track icons are in light-blue. if you do the requisite clicking to make one or more of the tracks ( or master ) stream audio to the DAW in-sync I think you'll see that the song position indicator no longer follows playback.
Last edited by nonchai; 09/18/19 03:51 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 550
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Also - I've just noticed that sometimes when I'm trying to double click on a track icon to make it go light blue in order to play and sync - nothing happens - even when everything is generated. silence.
if I click PLAY again and then STOP it plays back ok from the plugin ( but not in sync ) and if I then go back to hitting play in the DAW then sync playback works. So I think there are some intermittent bugs here.
clicking PLAY followed by STOP in the plugin and then doing the audio sync thing via DAW seems to make it work.
Last edited by nonchai; 09/18/19 03:55 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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How play/sync play is now is a hassle for users to work out that's why I suggested the example below to PG, you just left click the track/s you want to select and they highlight BRIGHT, now if you hit the Play button in the Plugin it will play those tracks, if you hit the Sync Host button they will play along with the DAW. I was demonstrating on the Win Plugin and it's an older version without the double click the drag icon turns blue. 
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Joined: Feb 2015
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Veteran
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Another thing - bearing in mind the amount of crackles - and now I understand there's a "helper" BIAB app ( Band IN A Box Engine ) running behind the scenes - is the plugin streamingaudio from BIAB Engine or directly (with time-stretching if needed ) from the rendered audio for each track off-disk?
I'd understand why there's so much crackle if there's interprocess messaging etc going on between plugin and BIAB Engine each time an audio block has to be fetched. Although apps like Vienna Ensemble pro do this all the time with much more workload on my machine at the same buffer size so ought not to be any issue.
... Nothing is streamed from the BBW4.app the files have already been generated into the local folder. What you can try is up-sample the existing 16bit 44100 files to 48000 and the bit depth your DAW is set to in the Saved Files folder then try sync playback and see if you get the crackling. Just keep the original file names. A simple way you could use a free tool like MediaHuman Audio Converter.
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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The sync host button doesn't exist on the Mac version - a feature that needs adding, as well as chord output to utilise the Chord Track feature within Cubase - my top 2 feature requests.
Last edited by ColinMc1; 09/18/19 10:32 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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Nothing is streamed from the BBW4.app
Speaking of the BB4 app - what is apparent ( and maybe mentioned already by you ) is that whenever a style is auditioned via the style picker dialog that currently goes out of the main Mac audio outputs. This might be ok for some purposes but not others. There might be dramatically different volume levels at play between the Daw outputs and Mac main outputs. So clearly this might be a case where audio needs to be streamed from BB4 into the plugin
Last edited by nonchai; 09/19/19 02:47 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box VST/AU and Pro Tools/AAX DAW Plugin (Mac)
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The sync host button doesn't exist on the Mac version - a feature that needs adding, as well as chord output to utilise the Chord Track feature within Cubase - my top 2 feature requests. Yea, that's just a mock up pic of how it should be, but I'm sure they will be working on those now.
Nothing is streamed from the BBW4.app
Speaking of the BB4 app - what is apparent ( and maybe mentioned already by you ) is that whenever a style is auditioned via the style picker dialog that currently goes out of the main Mac audio outputs. This might be ok for some purposes but not others. There might be dramatically different volume levels at play between the Daw outputs and Mac main outputs. So clearly this might be a case where audio needs to be streamed from BB4 into the plugin Yea that's the same with the Win version but what they want to do is have the m4a RT RD and STY demos play thru the DAW track.
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