I think we've discussed that BIAB and perhaps RB make use of multi-core processors. I think, but perhaps I'm wrong, that the consensus was that BIAB does take advantage of multi-core capabilities.
Here's what I'm wondering: it seems that newer processors are constantly upping the number of cores and threads, is BIAB and RB keeping up with this and do they take advantage of this? If I go from a 4 core processor to a 6 core, 12 thread processor would I expect to see and difference?
I have been experimenting with few animation programs. It is scary how much you can spend that is actually useful for processing video.
$2500 for a video card, $2500 for a processor, $1000 for a motherboard. AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X 32-Core, 64-Thread Unlocked Desktop Processor...$2600 WOW
8K plus for a machine ready to go. Then of course you need the latest iPhone to go with it. The new phone is actually useful.
The only good news is that Blender software is free and can do almost everything that Maya can. The industry standard is called Maya and costs a mere $1700 a year...lol
It is totally amazing to me the quality of animation that one can create in a home studio.
Well, in the scope of things I guess it is pretty easy to spend 10K on a good piano. So everything is relative I guess.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
To answer Jeff's question, yes. I saw speed of use increase with the new i9 computer I built. I have no idea if BIAB is using all the cores. Things load faster and render faster as far as I can tell.
But... whatever performance increase I got with the i9 over the old i7 4770 was not all that useful for BIAB.
If my old i7 computer would have not started to give me issues I would not have built a new one. If I was forced to build a new one again I would still buy an i9 because the price difference between the i7 and the i9 is not much.
I also just finished building a new i5 machine. BIAB runs on it faster than I can think...lol
All these more complex CPU/GPU devices make a large difference with video. With the type of audio stuff that most of us are using everything ran fine on XP with i7 processors. If BIAB was my only consideration, buying really faster CPU's does not buy you a lot.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
Since graphics cards were mentioned, it has always been the case that this is at the bottom of the list for BIAB hardware. Now, I don’t use any of the video functions BIAB introduced a few years ago. Not much is discussed here about that. But for audio and BIAB, that’s the last place I would spend any money; instead I would upgrade to an SSD then the CPU then RAM.
Billy, there are some hardware-monitoring utilities that show the activity of each core while running a program. Give it a try on your best CPU and let us know if all are being used.
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 we've discussed that BIAB and perhaps RB make use of multi-core processors. I think, but perhaps I'm wrong, that the consensus was that BIAB does take advantage of multi-core capabilities.
Here's what I'm wondering: it seems that newer processors are constantly upping the number of cores and threads, is BIAB and RB keeping up with this and do they take advantage of this? If I go from a 4 core processor to a 6 core, 12 thread processor would I expect to see and difference?
Jeff
I've used BIAB on an 8-core machine, and IIRC it did use all the cores available. Honestly, I've tried BIAB on slow dual-core laptops, my 6-core gaming machine, and my old 8-core monster, and never noticed much difference in speed. Yes, I can measure a difference (sometimes a significant difference), but seeing or feeling the difference? Not much. If you want to upgrade, try putting in a nice NVMe SSD, that will likely give you the most noticeable difference.
Originally Posted By: Planobilly
Well, in the scope of things I guess it is pretty easy to spend 10K on a good piano. So everything is relative I guess.
It's also easy to spend $10k on a not very good piano as well. I've played a few in the $10-20k range that I didn't particularly care for.
That said, I've also played one that was $150k, and was much happier with the one across the room from it that was $25k. Whatever floats your boat I suppose
Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Billy, there are some hardware-monitoring utilities that show the activity of each core while running a program. Give it a try on your best CPU and let us know if all are being used.
There's one built into Windows - the Resource Monitor. It can give you a graph of what each CPU is doing - see my screenshot.
Last edited by Simon - PG Music; 09/07/2111:05 AM.
I thought Task Manager would show the cores but I don't know how to make it do that.
Billy
In resource manager, it shows all 8 cores being used. Less than 2% CPU use and 2 gigs of ram being used if I understand what I am looking at.
Last edited by Planobilly; 09/07/2111:21 AM.
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
Task Manager doesn't, but Resource Monitor does and costs just as much (nothing). Some systems seem to have it, some seem to need to have it installed (download from M$ via SysInternals), but it is an excellent tool for troubleshooting and other fun stuff, as Simon showed.
Sometimes, once installed, Resource Monitor actually shows up inside Task Manager as a button to launch it. Sometimes you need to make a separate shortcut, never bothered to learn whatever trick makes it appear, maybe it's simply OS dependent.
*Edit- I see you found Resource Monitor (I assume, though you said Manager, which is for servers), great. This post may help others know how to find it so I'll leave it for now.
Last edited by rharv; 09/07/2111:34 AM.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Billy - most likely your CPU's are too powerful, and only need to exert 2% of the power to get the job done. BIAB typically starts playing before the entire song is generated, so it likely is programmed to not use 100% when it's not necessary.
Realistically, there is likely something else bottlenecking BIAB. It could be a power management setting, could be storage speed, who knows. I personally don't often see BIAB using absolutely 100%, usually topping out at 50% on my ancient computer.
Rharv - I've always seen the Resource Monitor linked from the Task Manager, so I didn't know that there was the possibility of it not being there. Maybe it's not automatically installed with Windows 10 Home - every computer I personally use with Windows 10 is running the Pro version.
Resource Monitor is at the bottom of the performance tab in task manager on my system. I just did not see it at first and went to the control panel to find it.
The Radeon RX 570 GPU is the only thing on this system that gives me any issues. I have had to reload the driver after an update a couple of times.
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
I thought Task Manager would show the cores but I don't know how to make it do that.
Billy,
Task Manager does show the cores. See my screenshots. Highlight the Performance Tab, choose CPU, right click on the graph and choose Change Graph to-->Logical processors.
Thanks, Steve, that is a pretty convoluted process...lol
Billy
“Amazing! I’ll be working with Jaco Pastorius, Charlie Parker, Art Tatum, and Buddy Rich, and you’re telling me it’s not that great of a gig? “Well…” Saint Peter, hesitated, “God’s got this girlfriend who thinks she can sing…”
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Windows Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
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Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
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Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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XPro and Xtra Styles PAKs Special Extended Until August 31st!
XPro & Xtra Styles PAKs Special Extended Until August 31st!
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Learn more about the Bonus PAKs!
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