I did not want to pollute this forum section with another thread. So updating this. I believe I found the cause of shuttering audio / latency. It is happening only when HALION SONIC is present and plays midi through 2 or more of it's channels, rest are RT's. Troubled projects have only 1 VST - which is Halion Sonic.
Shuttering occurs at random spots. All the resources are near flat, nothing is spiking. My system is Win10, i7 6 core / 32 gb ram, dedicated 4gb GPU, nvme SSD. It is NOT related to system resources
Yes, I tried MME, WASAPI and ASIO (which is native to my interface) If you have a suggestion how to fix this, please save yourself some time and skip all the reading below of original post and just post a reply on second page.
THANK YOU!
--------------------- Original post:
Something recent and unexpected. Hardware did not change. Completely clean install of BIAB. When I play arrangement in BIAB occasionally I would get a shuttering/latency effect, almost like the whole arrangement is slowing down and becomes shuttered, then it catches up again and plays as it should. Does not stop completely (as "audio engine stop") I am usually good at those things, but this one I can not figure out. It does not happen in DAW (even with 30 tracks running), only in BIAB
Including audio settings screenshot at the bottom.
Checklist: 1)Computer 6 cores 32ram. High performance power setting. 2)True ASIO card, not Asio4All. (I tried with 2 different ASIO cards, same result) 3)Buffer on ASIO card set to whoping 1024. 4)BIAB running 6 RT tracks / 1 midi, a single instance of Halion Sonic VST. 5)No other VSTs except for the ones that came with BIAB. --------------
Try running Task Manager and also Resource Monitor Check for things like spikes in CPU usage and Disk I/O when the problem occurs. Monitor what is using the resources. Disable A/V from scanning the BB folder If you previously did not have this problem, then we presume your system has adequate capacity previously.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Hi Folks. Something recent and unexpected. Hardware did not change. Completely clean install of BIAB. When I play arrangement in BIAB occasionally I would get a shuttering/latency effect, almost like the whole arrangement is slowing down and becomes shuttered, then it catches up again and plays as it should. Does not stop completely (as "audio engine stop") I am usually good at those things, but this one I can not figure out. It does not happen in DAW (even with 30 tracks running), only in BIAB
Including audio settings screenshot at the bottom.
Checklist: 1)Computer 6 cores 32ram. High performance power setting. 2)True ASIO card, not Asio4All. (I tried with 2 different ASIO cards, same result) 3)Buffer on ASIO card set to whoping 1024. 4)BIAB running 6 RT tracks / 1 midi, a single instance of Halion Sonic VST. 5)No other VSTs except for the ones that came with BIAB. --------------
Thank you in advance for your time!
Check what else is running on your device. The symptoms you describe are usually because the system can’t keep up. If you’re using Windoze it sometimes happens after an update when Windows decides you needed more stuff turned on. (After all Windows knows what’s best for you.). I use Norton 360 and it might decide to protect me by performing some “background” work.
Turn off what you don’t need.
Also using VSTi plugins can cause a huge drain on the system. Render or “freeze” tracks so you are running audio and not VSTs.
For example, on Cakewalk one can see how much load is on your PC (you can do similar in Reaper). The load may be very high with several instruments running and almost nothing once the tracks are frozen (converted to audio). It is very simple to unfreeze again.
Even other VST plugins on audio can create issues if running too many of them. Once a track is how you want it render it (note you may be committing a track once rendered.)
Just some thoughts
Tony
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
(After all Windows knows what’s best for you.*) LOL! I believe apple is a stricter nanny
Yes, I did ABC's. I run system slim. Resources do not spike more than 10-18% CPU running at 3.4 Ghz on average, leaving ample headroom. Cooling policies are suppressed. Here is the thing. If I export same 6 tracks + midi and use same plugin in Cakewalk, everything works fine (even if I have 30 tracks running instead of 7) It started to happen when I had some issues with BIAB, and I completely re-installed 2020 (a week ago) + latest patch.
The offset DMA/Latency boxes in BIAB do not interfere with ASIO drivers, correct? I was thinking that something might be ticked (or unticked) in BIAB that is doing this. If it is not that....>
I had a few strange crashes lately and sent report to PG support. If it is not BIAB settings (see photo above), then maybe I should wait until they sort out crash log, perhaps it's all related to one "something".
I agree with Teunis. What you describe sounds exactly like BIAB track generation cannot keep up with the performance. This often occurs at fast tempos when 5 or 6 Realtracks are used.
You mention that you have six RTs. Some RTs are much more intensive on computer demands when generating... soloist ones for example.
How BIAB works is that when one clicks "Generate", BIAB will begin generating the song. Once it's reached a specified number of bars (I'm guess around 8 bars), it starts playing and generation continues as a background process. If the tempo is fast, or if the computer resources are being stretched -- for example an internet connection is running in the background or antivirus software is checking the generated RTs --, then the background generation does not work fast enough to keep up.
To check this.... right-click on the chordsheet, select "Song Settings" and then select "This song has playback problems, disable fast generation" (it's at the bottom of the right column of Song Setting options).
With this setting active, BIAB will generate all the Realtracks for the whole song before playback starts. This means that you will wait a little longer but it avoids generating RTs as a background process while the song is playing.
It's also worthwhile checking if your system runs OK with MME set as the audio driver. This is the BIAB-friendliest of audio drivers. If the stuttering doesn't occur with MME, it could be that the ASIO driver is creating the issue. (Not all ASIO drivers are equally friendly with BIAB.)
Hope this helps, Noel.
P.S. Have you excluded \bb and \Realband folders from being checked by your anti-virus software?
Noel, thank you for extensive answer. I did not had this issue before...this is fairly recent.
My system is a 6 core 2.8-3.5GHZ i7 with 32 gb ram, BIAB is on NVME SSD drive. It should fly. Nothing heavy is running on background. When using BIAB, resources do not even hit 18% mark under any circumstances (regenerating, VST etc.) Nothing seems to spike. That what bothers me.
As I mentioned, I have tried 2 audio cards with well written ASIO drivers, that do not give me trouble in any other software or media playback.
I do not believe it is a good idea to set MME for a dedicated ASIO card but for testing purposes I will consider it. Hopefully PG tech will get back to me about the crashes that I had, maybe that will shine a light on this latency/shuttering issue.
Did you try the "Song Settings" option I mentioned. Was the song still having problem after setting this and regenerating?
Also, check the date on your ASIO audio drivers. You computer might have updated the drivers automatically and these may be faulty.
Setting BIAB to MME will not damage anything. At most, nothing will work because the driver is incompatible. You could ask the techs about this and see what they say.
Check things such as your ASIO buffer sizes. These can have a major bearing.
A buffer can be thought of as similar to a saucer holding water. We let water out of the bucket into the saucer then into the pot. If our saucer (buffer) does not hold enough water then not enough goes to the pot. (We need to quickly go from filling the saucer to pouring into the pot. (A heap of CPU) ) We get stutter and stoppages in the audio.
On the other hand if we have a big saucer, it takes too long to fill it before we can empty it into the pot. We get delay (our buffers take too long to fill up and we get a delay hearing our signal making it difficult to play along with. Or whatever..
When playing or recording (when we need a audio short delay) keep the buffers small but only as small as our system allows. (Understand we must fill and empty the saucer this put stress on the CPU.) However, when just playing back (where we don’t really care about delays reduce the stress on the CPU make them larger.) It is important to realise we are talking in milli seconds.
I’ve been out tonight and am therefore philosophising, sorry,
Tony
Last edited by Teunis; 01/30/2012:24 AM.
HP i7-4770 16GB 1TB SSD, Win 10 Home, Focusrite 2i2 3rd Gen, Launchkey 61, Maton CW80, Telecaster, Ovation Elite TX, Yamaha Pacifica 612 BB 2022(912) RB 2022(2), CakeWalk, Reaper 6, Audacity, Melodyne 5 Editor, Izotope Music Production Suite 4.1
Great explanation Tony, clearly put into veery understandable layman's terms.
You must be / have been a computer guy? I think Professor Finlay will agree.
(BTW, More than philosophical, in my view. )
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
RustySpoon, as you and I have talked about before, we both have computers with more than enough horsepower to address 6, or more, RT plus midi plus VSTi's.
Like you, I have run into this problem before when I max out RT's. Strangely, what seems to fix it for me is to hit "return to factory settings (excluding resetting midi drivers and my patch maps). Other than resetting a few of my personal preferences, like which folder to open and a few other personal tweaks, nothing seems to change in the settings from where it was. But the problem goes away.
The only thing I can figure is that the return to factory settings seems to reset some underlying things in the program that the user has no access or visibility to.
Deb, Tony, Videotrack Thank you for your input! Yes, I done all of these. Drivers fresh, Buffer at 1024, I tried two different audio cards, and issue persists. Everything seems to be in check.
Now, Jeff (thank you!) I suspect you might be right. There is "something" internal that goes south, which is not user adjustable. I tried a factory reset several days ago for another issue and that helped...but the issue was different
However, I actually do not want to do it now. I want to see what support will say about crash log, which I believe might be related. I think it is a good idea to pinpoint the issue and if it is a bug, fix it rather than put "antibiotic reset" on everything. Hopefully they reply today or tomorrow. I will post back if I find the cause.
P.S. As Noel mentioned, it can be that ASIO driver is not "friendly" with BIAB, but bearing in mind that I tried 2 ASIO cards/drivers it might be something internal that does not like ASIO protocol in general.
rusty what manufacturer /make of asio" cards are u useing ?? i have no problems. ps reaper will tell you if a plug in is a cpu hog. before i use a plugin in biab i test out in reaps. i only use non cpu hogs. there are tons of low cpu useage plugins out there. you also need to be aware of rtl. round trip latency. see gearslutz.com for discussions on rtl.
Last edited by justanoldmuso; 01/30/2005:58 AM.
my songs....mixed for good earbuds...(fyi..my vocs on all songs..) https://soundcloud.com/alfsongs (90 songs created useing bb/rb) (lots of tips of mine in pg tips forum.)
justanoldmuso, Thank you for trying. My hardware /buffer settings are more than sufficient to handle this load about 5 times over. I suspect it is something internal to BIAB. Hopefully soon I will find out the issue that caused crashes, so it would be more clear.
I agree Rusty your system has plenty of hardware to do anything you want with Biab. I assume you're running Win 10. You should put all the specs in your sig btw like I did. Your system is way more powerful than mine and I have no issues. As a test change to the WAS driver and if that doesn't work use the old MME one and see what happens.
Digital audio can be tricky. One of my favorite YT channels is Molten Music. He tests all kinds of things in real time right in front of you and many times certain interface drivers work perfect in one DAW but not in others. He usually has 2 or 3 different interfaces to try out. Most work OK in most DAWS but then he'll find an anomaly and he's good at digging into either Windows or DAW config settings to fix things. Sometimes ASIO4ALL is the best one. In your case Cakewalk works fine but maybe Pro Tools or Studio One would have issues, who knows? Robin is funny about that. People ask him why this works and not that. He just shrugs and says "Who knows, it's Windows". We're using Windows in ways not intended by Microsoft and I've said that for years too. Digital audio music production is barely on their radar. We're a small fraction of all Windows users so we're pretty much on our own.
I found something that might relate to audio issues. There was a couple of posts from other users concerning audio (Audio Session Error*), which might be related to this.
I had this thing happening: I set BIAB audio driver as ASIO for my external interface. Result was: Song picker played through "computer" speakers and when style was loaded to BIAB it played through my external card...
To make it work I opened computer sound settings and manually selected external interface as "default" device. Only then, demos of songpicker and opened style played through the external card. This should not be happening. There must be some sort of issue / conflict with how BIAB handles audio drivers. If it was not looked into, I hope this helps.
---------- Jazzmammal, we are not that of a "small" group of Win users I hear you well about incompatibilities between software, but this is about 2020 BIAB, was not happening in 2019 version. I did test this with a few things. P.S. Yep, I watched a few Molten Music vids. He is pretty informative guy.
Jazzmammal, thanks. I tried all of them Including 2 interfaces and onboard chip. I done some extensive and heavy duty testing. As I mentioned in this revised post, I located the issue and it is specifically related to BIAB+Halion combination. BIAB by itself works fine.
Trying last resort of reinstalling Halion and rewriting it's preference file. If this does not work, there must be incompatibility issue with Halion and latest BIAB. Halion works fine as a standalone and as VST in DAW.
Will update this once I reinstall and test it again.
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