PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Stuttering

for what its worth i've been running BIAB on soundblaster cards with WAS for years. my current pc runs fine with a soundblaster audigy for playback although for recording i use a uphoria usb interface so i can use a condenser mic.

whatever is causing the stuttering its not - IMHO - the soundblaster card. my bet would be another program kicking in like virus checker or some maintenance software.

I want to address some of these posts all here.

First, I've sent BIAB Support a video of the stuttering. The video I sent had the song starting, and played all the way up to bar 27 before the tracks started to regenerate. This is a problem that is not related to the audio card or drivers. I'm beginning to think it's a CPU or Motherboard issue. I'm going to have to treat it as such.

Blake, you said: Can you reproduce the problem with 2021?
Or is it only happening with 2022?

I had, at one time or another, 2018, 2021 and now 2022 installed on the computer. When I upgraded, I upgraded over the previous install, which is I originally thought this might have been a software issue. I AM running 2021 on a laptop, an old Celeron actually, and it runs fine there. I suspect if I put 2022 on there, it would also run fine. The reason I need to use it on the desktop is my A/D and D/A converters are external and require optical S/PDIF.

Mario, I believe that I am going to have to replace the computer. Right now, money is seriously tight, and I don't have it. Makes me cry not having the money, too, because Korg just released the keyboard I want to replace my 12-year-old keyboard. https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PA5X76--korg-pa5x-76-76-key-arranger-workstation :-) :-D ;-p

Matt, I agree, real tracks generation does put a burden on the CPU, which is why it seems longer and longer to generate the tracks, but, having said that, once the tracks are generated, they're just audio files being played, and even if you have up to 10 audio files playing at once, most computers, even older ones, should be able to handle that. Once generated, the playback (and I've only been using four or five tracks) shouldn't stop to regenerate the tracks.

OM, I haven't had the opportunity to test yet, but my Edirol interface is one of these. https://www.roland.com/global/products/ua-1g/

Bob, I've shut down all sorts of programs, and when using BIAB, my computer free resources are in excess of 75%. Since this is actually having the tracks stop in the middle of the song and regenerate, this is not an audio issue. The audio output stutters and stops because Band In A Box is, for some unknown reason, regenerating the audio tracks inside of the program. I've asked PG Music, they say it's not a software issue, but probably a computer issue. I don't understand that, because there are times when the files play back perfectly, once generated, and other times when it stops at the second bar, the 27th bar, or the 42nd bar to regenerate. So, if it was a computer problem, why the differences? If it's a software problem, why doesn't it do it all the time?

I'm going to have to find a way to buy a new computer, or find a mobo, cpu and ram that I can replace what I have here (even used) and try that. But, for now, I don't have the money, so it's going to have to sit on the back burner.

If I need to record a song, I can use the BIAB PlugIn in Cakewalk and create the audio tracks there, but actually working on a song or trying to find the right styles, or mixing styles, etc., has to be done in BIAB, and of course, that's where the problem is. By the way, generating the audio tracks in the plug in works flawlessly.

Gary

hope you find a solution. if it is a software program kicking in it wouldn't necessarily happen all the time - just when the program was 'triggered'

what background programs does Windows Task Manager show running and is there one you have on the PC you don't have on the laptop?

Good points Bob. As mentioned previously, if it is a resource issue anywhere (CPU, Disk, RAM, even Network), the Task Manager, Resource Monitor, or even Process Explorer should be able to identify it. Process Explorer takes a bit more driving, but the information it provides is significantly more than the other two tools.

Gary.

I would definitely try that edirol and see if the stuts go away.
If it has a user control panel try increasing the buffers. same for creative if it lets you change buffers.

A point to make is most audio interfaces today have such a control panel with a myriad of features including ability to change the buffers.
If the setting is too low sometimes the pc cant handle it and stuts occur. Something important to bear in mind. Does the creative have a buffer control panel ??

Another point is certain daw’s report stats on a sound device.
One aspect i like bout reaper daw is at top right it reports the latency of a sound device. I’m 4ms or less. if cake has this feature its sometimes useful in diagnosis.
If its too low stuts might occur. It would be interesting feedback to rest of us if you could report the latency in ms reported for the creative.

I’m also curious if you get stuts in realband. If you dont in rb but DO in bb,...
his is something to diagnose. .thus i would suggest genning rt’s etc in rb and see what happens.

Gary in addition re new pc, you dont have to spend a lot.
I , and others on these forums love refurbished off lease pc's.
Many of which are beasts of a pc if selected wisely …that can often be had for less than 400 buckies. ..look for HP Z (or lenovo or dell equivalents) workstations.
just google refurbished HP (or lenovo or dell) workstation , 32 gb ram , ssd etc etc.

The states is flooded with off lease beasts of pc’s for little money that come with lots of memory, and you can stuff em’ with multiple ssd’s. AND they often come with 1 year warranties.
I love refurbs cos all the junk is taken off them and with the right refurber they are performance tuned. Just ensure when buying you can return for full refund. Thats what i do…and it might be hard to believe ,...
BUT over many years of buying refurbs i havent had even ONE problem with any. an old refurb i have boots into win in a few secs from cold. same for bb.


Just trying to help/happiness/wishing only the best.
om

All good points. I will add that a virus and/or malware can cause such problems and they may or may not be detected with the above tests. A few messages back I suggested a thorough computer scan using free software. Hopefully Gary has run them and is virus and malware free.

AT, thanx for Process Explorer. That is a new one for me.

Thanks for the thanx! Yes, it's a very powerful tool and one I use occasionally when diagnosing difficult to locate resource issues that are problematic to pinpoint. The top graphs quickly allow one to locate not just instantaneous resource demands, but historical ones also. A great feature.

Gary,

Another setting that may prove helpful is in the RealTrack settings; Ctrl+E > RealTracks.

Enable (Check) the "Speed up generation of RealTracks" and then set the Tempo/Pitch Stretching quality selection to "Low".

Hi Gary,
I PM'd you a couple files that will let us test and confirm if this is specific to 2022, 2021 and/or any specific build.

So, Andrew sent me the cores for both BIAB 2021 and 2022, and both of them failed the same way. I guess the basics of this is that I'm going to need to get a new computer, since I really think that's where the problem is right now.

Gary

I am tremendously puzzled by this.

Without rereading the whole thread, have you posted a song where this happens, so we can test?

I have not posted a song. I had to shut my webpage down quite a while ago, so I don't have anywhere to stick it, but it seems to fail with any song, and any style I use. But, as I told Andrew, it's not an 'all the time' thing, i.e., it can happen multiple places in a song, and multiple times, OR, it may not happen at all.

That may be true, though I'm sceptical that this is a CPU issue as I have both a desktop and a notepad PC with BiaB 2022, the desktop (i5-7400) about 25% more powerful than yours, the laptop probably rather less than yours (dual-core Celeron 1.5GHz).

On the notepad I have to stop some background MS services or sometimes things go into a stuttering mode. I also can't use VSTs that are CPU-resource heavy like PianoTeq. What I do notice with this (Win8.1) PC, though is that once the stuttering starts even killing the probably-offending MS programs doesn't seem to get BiaB to recover.

On the desktop, I just ran a song (Caveat: using Wine on Linux) with ten tracks active, six RealTracks and four MIDI tracks with Native Instruments VSTIs on them and BiaB takes ~10% of the grand total of ~15% CPU. I doubt that BiaB under Wine is more efficient than on Windows (though it may be a little as RealBand reports more tracks available than on Win10 ... I know not why and am cautious about believing it, though this has a performance-oriented kernel). This machine does have a graphics card, though I think BiaB should mostly be lightweight in the graphics as there's little going on on the screen.

My suspicion is that it isn't the CPU, but it might be related some other part of the hardware, maybe a graphics chip and driver (maybe you've already tried that)? Might it be possible to turn off the screen when BiaB is running or try a lower resolution. Years ago we used to turn off the Ethernet, but I'm doubtful that would a problem now. Bluetooth?

Gordon,
I"m not sure. Right now, I have BIAB loaded onto a laptop, and it's doing what I need to do there. There may be an issue with this computer, I do have a problem with one slot, although upon examination I can't see anything wrong with it, but it doesn't work properly. (I'm an electronics tech, I know what I'm looking for) Everything else does, so I'm wondering if there is a problem on the Motherboard. Since it doesn't effect the audio or video streaming of anything else, live streams, YouTube, other audio including Cakewalk, I didn't think it would effect BIAB. But, any more, I don't know. It's endemic to this computer, not my other ones, so that's all I can guess.

So, maybe it's making a call out somewhere on the board, and getting bounced around and coming back as a failure. I don't know.

Gary

I know how frustrating these things can be!

I had the same thinking (I too am tech), that it's likely something motherboard-related, which could be anything from a dodgy capacitor to a chip fault to a fundamental flaw in the board design.

Whilst money is tight and if the laptop does the job for now, I personally would be tempted to live with it. YMMV.

Which is where I'm going with it. If necessary, after I build it out in the laptop the way I want it, I can transfer the file to the desktop, open Cakewalk, and use the PlugIn to put the tracks in Cakewalk and go from there. It's just a pain to have to move from one to the other, physical room, etc.

But, yeah, if that's the way it has to be, so be it, at least until I find some more money.

G

An update to this. It would appear that the problem was a hardware issue. Replacing the motherboard, CPU, RAM and video card appears to hvae fixed the problem, at least for now. So, I'm thankful that all of you were here to offer your suggestions and your help in this matter. I'm sorry I put you through all of that, though, for what probably was an issue on the motherboard.

Gary

I'm glad you have it sorted, though sad that you had to replace so much.

Unusual for a motherboard to be the issue, but certainly not unheard of. If the problem returns (and I hope it doesn't) another sometime cause is the PSU having a low or dirty voltage.

I remain puzzled, but I’m glad it’s working for you. So the only things you didn’t replace were your disk drives (keeping the case and peripherals); did Windows have to be reauthorized?

Hi Matt,
Yeah, I have a relatively new Seasonic PSU, my Go-To PSU. I kept the case, the hard drives, the sound card and that was about it.

As to reauthorizing, yes, but I had the serial number, so it wasn't an issue. Same thing for my copy of Office 2010, that needed to be reauthorized, too, although I just clicked on the button for that.

During all my issues, I lost my primary computer due to a bad CPU. I had been using liquid cooling and while there was fluid in the tank, I think the lines gunked up and the CPU overheated, slowly. So, I still had the hard drives. My sister gave me an older Gateway computer, with a third generation i5 in it and I think the mainboard might have had an issue, and that was made more evident after I posted the thread when I tried to install an USB 3.0 PCI-e card and it wouldn't recognize it. The only slot was the GPU slot (there was built in graphics I was using).

So, I spent money I didn't have to spend, picked up the stuff I needed, and while my new CPU is only a Ryzen 5 5600G, it should work for a while.

Gary