One of my most annoying issues with BIAB is regeneration time. With any small change I sit and wait and wwwaaaaiiiittt... Life is precious, but I do not feel that when I am just looking at the screen waiting for regeneration to finish. Trying out things, I could make well over 100 changes in one tune that I would want to audition.
Ideally I would want regeneration times to be a fraction what they are now... About 75% faster.
My computer is fast enough
Here are some thoughts. 1) Logically, if selective tracks can be frozen and regenerate only "unfrozen" sections should take less time. Or wise versa: re-generate "selected bars"
2)Have a lightweight set of all real tracks, a fraction of the space they take now (lesser quality) for assembling / auditioning thing fast, and when it is time to render go to the source of larger files.
3)Do active re-generations in RAM. I would guess 4-8gb of unused ram should handle this for a single project at a time(~16gb total ram).
I just loaded a 70 bar song of mine with 5 x Realtracks (RTs) and it took 5 seconds to begin playback.
Also, if you are trying out different RTs by using Realtrack Picker to load them, just click on "Generate" at the bottom of Realtrack Picker and only that selected track will generate. Once it's done, you will be taken back to the song.
If you are not using Realtrack Picker to load the RTs, then the same single-generate action is obtained by right-clicking on the track in either the Mixer or on the horizontal row of Track Names, selecting "Track Actions" and then selecting "(re)Generate...".
Hopes this helps speed things up for you a little more.
What sort of wait times are you experiencing, Misha?
I am talking about "changes" re-generations. the ones that come with every single chord change, with every experiment of shot.holds,rests each takes about 7-10 seconds to regenerate. So when I make/ audition changes to the project, it adds up. And I do audition many changes when arranging. I guess it has to do with my workflow.
What I do when I am in the process of working out the chord progression is to work with a MIDI-only style first. Generation is instantaneous then.
Mind you, if you were in a studio working with live musicians, I dare say it would take much longer than 10 seconds to implement changes when one considers explanation time, etc.
Also, it just occurred to me that when in the "getting the backing organised" phase and if you don't like using the MIDI-only styles, just use a guitar Realtrack. The generation time is dependent on the number of RTs used so a single one will speed things up a bit for you.
All the above said, I imagine that PG Music continually look for ways to enhance RT generation. Things move an awful lot quicker today than when RTs were first introduced!
The above are just suggestions that might be useful at the moment.
Noel, Well yes, midi will surely work faster... But I need to hear how particular set of tracks sound when change is introduced:)
Maybe it is possible to start playing sequence while regeneration occurs? So it buffers first 5-10 seconds and starts playing while the rest is processed? For that, I think this has to change:
I believe, BIAB processes/renders tracks in Serial mode, in all theory, given the speed and multicore processing power of modern computers, it should process them in Parallel mode...
I would guess that it might be possible to pre-select your choice of RealTracks and load them into RAM. From that point, everything would run as fast as theoretically possible. But what do I know?
BIAB already does have a setting to begin playing while regeneration continues in the background. Perhaps you turned it off if your machine is slower or you had problems in the past?
You should have been around in 2008 in the early days of RealDrums then RealTracks. You would not be as concerned now. We have things pretty good.
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.
A suggestion you may find useful if your current workflow is regenerating your chord chart adjustments and auditions from the Main Screen Chord Chart is a method I use daily to work on Chord arrangements and RealTrack/Midi instrument auditions.
I use the Stylemaker's Play (using current Chord Sheet for song) feature with the 4 Bar Preview button checked in most cases. I do find it beneficial to leave the 4 bar preview unchecked in many situations.
I filter Styles to lower my search to manageable numbers and include/exclude RealTracks/Midi according to the specific need of the song.
Even if I'm working on a completed Chord Chart, I modify and change the chord progression of the first four bars to specify the exact chord changes I'm auditioning. I also change the Part Marker if necessary. What I'm doing is reconstructing whatever verse, chorus, bridge, intro or outro section of my song in the Stylepicker and I can audition dozens of Styles and hundreds of RealTracks or MIDI instruments hearing exactly how they will sound in my song in that particular section of my song.
Note this is a non destructive modification to the Chord Sheet and after the search and audition are done, simply replace the first four chords in the Chord Sheet with the correct chord progression.
This is a very fast and efficient way to audition changes as I'm constructing a song. Because a Style can sound dramatically different over a song's actual chord progression compared to how the demo sounds. It is very useful to use the Play using current chord sheet option. I find many instruments I normally would not find using this option because of the huge difference between the demo sound and chord chart sound. Each style averages 3-5 instruments so as I audition down the Styles list, I'm also hearing a large number of instruments.
It's a good search option but it can be improved on. I recently made a BIAB Wish list post that requests that this feature be modified to recognize a selected area rather than overwriting the first four bars. You can read that post -HERE- and add a like if you find it useful.
Charlie, thank you for suggestions. Yes, the 4 chord helps somewhat, but I do not want to feel like a juggler. That is why I am requesting for a solution not a partial workaround, that would benefit all users. Fast rendering, at least a lower quality one should be available right at your finger tips, not under your toe nails Charlie, you are always helpful, but I feel this has to be dealt with on developer level, not on user end. P.S. The tune of yours that brought fruit after many years, still rings in my head. Beautiful!
Matt, "BIAB already does have a setting to begin playing while regeneration continues in the background. Perhaps you turned it off if your machine is slower or you had problems in the past?"
I am confused... where is that setting? I have the "fast boot" turned on and "speed up regeneration of RT" set to high... But I do not believe it has to do anything with "begin playing while regeneration". Please point me to the right direction.
Sure. You have made a reference that, I think, is confusing two settings.
Options, Preferences, RealTracks, Speed up generation of RealTracks is a checkbox. If that's on, playback begins while the rest of the song is still regenerating. Hover over it and you'll see the tooltip description. Is your checkbox on?
"High" relates to the next item, Tempo/Pitch/Stretching Quality. That's a completely different setting, not related to speed up generation. Fast Boot is also a completely different purpose.
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.
Are you using wav or decompressing wma ? If wma try decompressing the RealTracks/RealDrum of the style you are using. In bb\data\ there should be a decompress.exe/zip if you put that in a RealTrack folder and run it, not in the root as it will do all. Try that.
Now those RT RD folders move/backup elsewhere, now create a RAM drive and copy those folders to it, you can delete all the wma out of the RAM drive folders. Create a symbolic folder link back in the RealTracks and Drums folders pointing to them on the RAM drive. So now it will read the wav files direct from RAM and generate them into RAM. Try that and see what results you get.
Matt, thanks yes, I have that checked. With it checked around 10-11 seconds for every change, un-clicked it, took forever. --- Pipeline, I am using WAVs. Nmve ssd Samsung 970... Ram disk will prolly be somewhat faster for the "testing" purposes, but it will not solve the issue
It is not life/death situation, I can live with the wait times, but I do prefer PG people figure a way to speed up things.
If you are using .WAV files, either you have the audiophile version, or you already decompressed the files. If you did as Pipeline suggests, your files now take up about ten times the size they did before.
It used to make some difference in the early days of RealTracks. Maybe 20% at most. But now, the difference is less.
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.
I think the time is more on the calculating the best fit from the possiblities. If I do it in Reaper it's instant but it's just simple random matching without transposing.
Pipeline, If I had (If I really had!) my say in this, I would rather have "selected" bar freeze and "inverse selection" so BIAB regenerates only places which are not frozen. So in theory, if regenerating only 10-15% of the arrangement,regenerations should speed up significantly...and solve quite a few ongoing issues and requests as well.
Noel, Thank you. Yes, I tried this and that... and a bunch of other things. It is just annoyance I will have to live with until PG figures out how to make things faster. On that note, the link that pipeline re-posted... I support that, +10
But why is idea of freezing selected bars and generating(re-generating) unfrozen sections is not better?
In my opinion it gives a greater control over the arrangement as whole. For example you can do 4 "change" re-generations in four different places leaving everything else frozen...
Maybe pipeline's / JJJ idea supersedes this, selected bar freezing and I just do not get it as a whole. Have to think about it.
P.S. Two more thoughts on this matter, while I still remember them
1) have bars one color... When change is introduced change the color of the bar, so you know where change was made and so only those "colored" bars are re-generated.
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