I just started with BIAB 2019 yesterday. I don't know if this is the correct place to post technical issues (if not please tell me where to do so). I'm using a realstyle with 4 instruments for an original samba of mine, and when I play it back I get a weird static-like distortion. Any idea of why this is happening? It doesn't seem to happen on slower or medium tempo tunes I've put in so far.
Please tell us exactly which style you are using, and what is the exact tempo of the song.
If the song tempo is too far removed from the recorded tempo for those RealTracks, you may be getting artifacts from the stretching algorithm. This is just a thought, but we need a little more information first.
P.S. This is an ideal location for your question.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
Additionally, since you said you wrote a samba, I have a clarifying comment. I write a lot of samba songs. In BIAB, the samba backing tracks are constructed as if the samba is played in a fast 4/4, at a tempo of quarter note = 190 or so. If you had set the tempo to 100 or thereabouts, you would probably have trouble. It's not impossible, though. Tell us more and we can get into some of the finer points.
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.
Please tell us exactly which style you are using, and what is the exact tempo of the song.
If the song tempo is too far removed from the recorded tempo for those RealTracks, you may be getting artifacts from the stretching algorithm. This is just a thought, but we need a little more information first.
P.S. This is an ideal location for your question.
Thanks VideoTrack. The style I'm using is _SHSAMBA.STY with bass, piano, guitar, and drums. The tempo I'm using is 200.
I may have (unfortunately) figured out the problem though. My CPU processor is only 1.4Ghz, which although within system requirements is below the recommended level. It hadn't occurred to me before this post to check that, and when I went into task manager I could see it bottoming out a few times. So it looks like a new laptop is in my future.
If you do have any other thoughts or ideas for possible tweaks I can do to minimize that I'd welcome them. I've done quite a bit on the laptop already to eliminate background programs, increase page swap size, etc.
Zac, it sounds as though you have narrowed down the source of your problem.
That style is set for 190bpm, so, at 200 bpm I don't think it's artifacts that are causing the problem.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
It may be that your system is trying to generate the tracks at the same time it is playing them back (a feature in BiaB that may tax some systems).
Fortunately there is a setting to tell it to generate before playing.
Unfortunately I don't recall that exact setting, but it's in the Options/Prefs area and I *think* it references fast playback or such, and hopefully this post is enough to jar someone else into recalling the exact setting!
Edit: it may be the generation speed option in the image below
Last edited by rharv; 10/14/1911:47 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
3. enable "This song has playback problems... disable fast generation".
4. generate the song
Does it play better?
Explanation regarding the above setting
Normally BIAB starts generating the musical backing and the song starts playing before generation is complete. BIAB then continues to generate the backing in the background while the song is playing. This can strain slower CPUs. By enabling the above option, BIAB is being told to generate the backing fully before starting playback. This means that it will take a little longer for the song to start playing but it should play error free if the problem is CPU related.
Hope this helps, Noel
EDIT: I see rharv beat me... and with a graphic too!
This is done from Options > Preferences > RealTracks as shown:
Edit, whoops, Team Australia were both answering at the same time. As Max would say: "missed it by that much!" Edit Edit: rharv adds a graphic too
Well, no one can say this forum isn't loaded with helpful members
Last edited by VideoTrack; 10/14/1911:54 AM. Reason: everyone beat me <grin>
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Professional & Windows 11, Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors
Wow, you guys are amazing, thank you for all the help!
Okay, so here are the results.
1. I disabled the 'speed up generation of realtracks' in Options > Preferences > RealTracks. Closed BIAB, restarted my computer, opened the samba and waited for what seemed 5 or more minutes for the tracks to generate. Unfortunately as far as I could tell there was no appreciable difference in the amount of distortion during playback.
2. I took Noel's suggestion of right-clicking the songsheet & chose "This song has playback problems... disable fast generation" in song settings, hit play (waited another 5 minutes or so), and that actually did eliminate *most* of the static-distortion. I let the song play continously for about 15 minutes and monitored it. Some slight distortion still crept in a little here and there, but mostly it played back cleanly.
In the end it seems obvious my best solution is to get a newer laptop with a much more beefy CPU & RAM than the older slower one I put this on. I've only been using BIAB for 2 days & I know I'll be wanting to do more ambitious projects, so, time to pony up some $$.
Thanks again for your help. What a cool community! I really appreciate you taking the time to help out a clueless newbie with a tech issue.
If you are in a position to be able to afford it, getting a new computer sounds like the way to go.
When you start using a combination of BIAB and DAWs to create songs, you will definitely be pleased with more power.
In 2006, I tentatively bought an entry level BIAB not quite sure what to expect. Ever since then I've been hooked. I love writing and producing songs. Not a day goes by where I don't use BIAB. It becomes addictive!
If you are using an ASIO sound card driver, you may have your buffer settings too low. Try increasing the buffer size to see if the static goes away. I generally use 256 samples when recording MIDI (to avoid latency), and then set it to 512 for playback. But on a slower processor, you may need to see it a little higher. Just a thought.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 8TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 11TB SATA
jford's suggestion is worth looking at, regardless of whether you are using ASIO. The fact that it seems to have improved but not gone away warrants investigating the buffer settings he mentioned. That said, a newer computer may eliminate the need for this solution also, since it is just another way to compensate for a system resource issue.
Another tip (if possible) is to use a separate hard drive for the music than is being used for the operating system, as sometimes even drive speed can cause these type of issues. If your hard drive is trying to stream multitrack audio and the OS is interrupting it, it's yet another possible cause. More RAM or larger buffer sizes can help help alleviate this problem, but so can a new computer. <grin>
Yet another possible cause is a bitrate mismatch (the software being set to 16/44 and the interface set to 24/48 for example). But that usually only happens when a new piece of equipment or software is introduced into the system. I recently added a Focusrite 18i20 interface into one system and it took a fair amount of testing/adjusting to get everything playing nice afterwards since the Focusrite is 24 bit only.
Last edited by rharv; 10/15/1904:29 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
If you do buy a new computer, there are some characteristics that are more important for good performance with BIAB:
1) the fastest CPU you can afford; this speeds the regeneration of songs 2) get an SSD as your drive; it makes loading the program and RealTracks much faster
The graphics capability of the computer is NOT important for BIAB.
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.
If you are using an ASIO sound card driver, you may have your buffer settings too low. Try increasing the buffer size to see if the static goes away. I generally use 256 samples when recording MIDI (to avoid latency), and then set it to 512 for playback. But on a slower processor, you may need to see it a little higher. Just a thought.
Good suggestion, thanks, looks like the laptop uses a RealTek chip, couldn't find any reference to ASIO on it anywhere.
Some people seem to get results with the internal RealTek card, but a highly recommended upgrade no matter what your computer, is to buy a dedicated external audio interface. These can be very modestly priced such as a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or similar.
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.
jford's suggestion is worth looking at, regardless of whether you are using ASIO. The fact that it seems to have improved but not gone away warrants investigating the buffer settings he mentioned. That said, a newer computer may eliminate the need for this solution also, since it is just another way to compensate for a system resource issue.
Thanks rharv for your suggestions.
I couldn't find any way on the laptop to change the RealTek soundchip buffer size. Tried a Google search for it too, not finding anything there. I'm guessing it's not available. However, as it turns out I wasn't on the latest driver for the RealTek, so I'm updating it right now. Hoping that *might* help.
Quote:
Another tip (if possible) is to use a separate hard drive for the music than is being used for the operating system, as sometimes even drive speed can cause these type of issues. If your hard drive is trying to stream multitrack audio and the OS is interrupting it, it's yet another possible cause. More RAM or larger buffer sizes can help help alleviate this problem, but so can a new computer. <grin>
Great idea! I do have an external hard drive I haven't used for awhile which I could try. How would that work exactly? Would I move the RealTracks and RealStyles folders to the external HD, then reconfigure BIAB to stream them from that drive? Or....?
Quote:
Yet another possible cause is a bitrate mismatch (the software being set to 16/44 and the interface set to 24/48 for example). But that usually only happens when a new piece of equipment or software is introduced into the system. I recently added a Focusrite 18i20 interface into one system and it took a fair amount of testing/adjusting to get everything playing nice afterwards since the Focusrite is 24 bit only.
The only thing I could find in Win 10 related to this was under Speaker Properties > Advanced. It says 24 bit 48000 HZ to be used when running in shared mode (not sure what that is). I wasn't able to find bitrate in BIAB. Looking that up now.
If you are in a position to be able to afford it, getting a new computer sounds like the way to go.
When you start using a combination of BIAB and DAWs to create songs, you will definitely be pleased with more power.
In 2006, I tentatively bought an entry level BIAB not quite sure what to expect. Ever since then I've been hooked. I love writing and producing songs. Not a day goes by where I don't use BIAB. It becomes addictive!
All the best, Noel
I certainly understand the addiction Just in these few days of putting in my originals & hearing the quality and realism of the realtracks, well, it's a game changer.
I am looking at more powerful laptops, still trying a few things on the old one just to see what happens...
Some people seem to get results with the internal RealTek card, but a highly recommended upgrade no matter what your computer, is to buy a dedicated external audio interface. These can be very modestly priced such as a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 or similar.
Thanks, I do plan to get an interface at some point. When I get a better laptop I want to run a DAW on it as well, so a decent interface would be a must.
In BIAB, under "Audio" on the uppermost menu, select "Audio Drivers/Settings".
On the top right of the Audio Drivers' window, there's an option called "Audio Driver Type". This is probably set to WAS or ASIO (WAS is BIAB's default setting). Click on this option and change it to MME. That might make a difference to playback.
Regards, Noel
P.S. A 5 minute wait is a long time. I have a pretty powerful PC and I usually have playback starting in less than 10 seconds (for full-song generation of a song around 70 bars in length).
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The style I'm using is _SHSAMBA.STY with bass, piano, guitar, and drums. The tempo I'm using is 200. 
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