When the Generate and Play transport button is selected Band-in-a-Box performs two tasks, track generation and transport playback. My suggestion is to add a checkbox preference that modifies the Generate and Play transport button action by removing transport playback from the button. When the checkbox is enabled a user will select the Generate and Play button for track generation and the Play button for transport playback.
Background: Older, slower computers that do not have much available random access memory, or ram, can cause the Band-in-a-Box program to become overwhelmed and unresponsive to the point the program stops.
Jim, I will try to briefly analyze your request. Average computer replacement statistically happens every 4-5 years. Let's double that. My 10 (!) Year old backup/testing Thinkpad is i7 multicore with 16gb modest ram. The only non original part is a 512 gb SSD that sells for around $35 now. BIAB runs absolutely fine on that decade old machine.
So in your request....what kind of computer are you talking about that would need that feature?
Everything seems to be geared once you regen/generate it will start playing, I find this annoying. Can't the user hit play when they want from where they want ? In the MultiPicker when you hit generate it generates then plays. When making scripts I had to send a Stop command directly after to stop it.
No, I'm not asking for a step-by-step button but I understand why you may think so. From left to right the new transport controls are: play, generate and play, pause, stop, loop and record.
Every transport button tells Band-in-a-Box to perform one task. The exception is the generate and play button. As the name implies the generate and play button instructs Band-in-a-Box to (1) generate all tracks and (2) start playback. My proposal is to add a user preference checkbox that disables playback from the generate and play button. That way a user can select the generate and play button to (1) generate all tracks and select the play button to (2) start playback.
RustySpoon#
Quote
So in your request....what kind of computer are you talking about that would need that feature?
2007 Dell Laptop: i3 cpu, 8GB ram, 500GB HDD.
Musocity, My suggestion is specifically directed at the user having the capability to change the operation of one transport button. However, your thought mirrors mine in one respect, I am suggesting a user should have the capability to separate the generate and playback tasks.
Jim, "Every transport button tells Band-in-a-Box to perform one task." Not really. You are forgetting the Play button.
Let's assume we get that option, how it will interact with Play button that does auto-regeneration as it "senses" changes in composition and regenerates all non frozen tracks automatically.
P.S. time to upgrade laptop? I keep an older PC for guests to browse internet, check email, etc. if they are staying over, but for music making, even for forgiving BIAB, i3/8ram is pretty weak.
You would want it to generate if something has been changed (and you did not generate manually) when you press play, but it should not have to automatically start play just because you have generated a section or track.
You probably know this already. I apologise if that's the situation. Just in case you don't, though...
For various reasons that still exist today, there have been many times over the years that I have required BIAB to fully generate the Realtracks/Realdrums before they started playing. This can be achieved, but not exactly in the way that you would like. Maybe it will do the job that you're after, though. When Realtracks/Realdrums were starting to grow very popular (many years ago), PG Music included this option to accommodate slower computers.
There is a setting in Realtrack Preferences (Options >> Preferences >> Realtracks) called "Speed up generation of Realtracks".
What this setting does is that it forces BIAB to generate the tracks fully before playback starts. So if you activate this option, when you hear playback start, you can be assured that Realtrack/Realdrum generations are complete. (This is the same process that Realband uses.)
As you have pointed out, BIAB's normal process involves starting playback when RT/RD generations are only partially done. BIAB then continues generating the tracks in the background while playback occurs. For modern computers, handling generation and playback at the same time is not a problem. For older computers, though, they can struggle.
The "Options >> Preferences >> Realtracks" option is the global override and if you set it here, every song will generate fully before playback starts.
If you only want to engage full generation before playback starts on a song-by-song basis, then it can be activated using "Song Settings" and selecting "This song has playback problems, disable Fast Generation." This setting saves with each song.
I hope this is useful information for you and that it helps. --Noel
I'd also like the option to disable playback from the previous bar. It becomes annoying when you have to regenerate something many times to find something suitable. As much as I love BIAB, I can't for the life of me figure out the logic of making everything so unnecessarily difficult and time consuming.
Minus 1 from me. Generate and Play Button by design, function and name does exactly as it's designed, function's and named. Computer ownership isn't a PG Music problem. Having to send annoying stop commands to Reaper scripts isn't a PG Music problem. At some point, users, new and old alike need to at least use something in BIAB as it's designed, functions and named.
I've tested and a workaround to this grave issue is to press Generate and Play as normal but follow Musocity's protocol and hit the Stop Button before playing starts. Jim's wish is only pertinent when a user wants to pause and separate generation from playing. Adding a Stop to the normal sequence of generate and play works flawlessly.
You have to play it after generation, or you don't know what you generated. Use the Mpicker and double click away and when you have what you want stop. If you are doing partial regen, the same applied you have to hear the results or you are flying blind why would you want to generate and not play?
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
I think we are asking for an "option" in users preferences, as in user preferred method, not a hard coded forced one way or the other method. If it plays automatically how long do you have to let it play for ? do you sit back and wait until it's finished and plays all the way through ? is that what it wants you to do ? should the user be allowed to have control over it like you can now with Riff Edit ? or is destructive audio editing and wav creating a better way ? you now have an option to use Riff Edit or the old way to render to 32 bit wav files attached to the SGU.
<< I think we are asking for an "option" in users preferences, as in user preferred method, not a hard coded forced one way or the other method. >> Why would you opt to generate and not hear what you've created? See RS, Rob, and my question.
<< If it plays automatically how long do you have to let it play for ? >> You don't have to let it play. Stop and nothing plays. But why? What's the benefit of not hearing what you've intentionally created?
<< do you sit back and wait until it's finished and plays all the way through ? is that what it wants you to do ? >> Sure, it that's what you want. Suppose you've created a track that's everything you could wish for except for a single measure. At that point, regen what's necessary and then listen seems logical, right?
<< should the user be allowed to have control over it like you can now with Riff Edit ? >> A user has complete control. Auto starts, user manually stops.
<< or is destructive audio editing and wav creating a better way ? >> Creating WAVs is what BIAB does. Post editing, regenerations are just that, post generation tasks. Think of multi-riffs and partial regeneration and regeneration as overdubs or punch-ins over recorded audio in a DAW.
<< you now have an option to use Riff Edit or the old way to render to 32 bit wav files attached to the SGU. >>
<< you now have an option to use Riff Edit or the old way to render to 32 bit wav files attached to the SGU. >>
There you go. You nailed it.
I know, OPTION.
I change a chord on 198 for a simple strumming guitar track, it is mandatory that it has to start playing from the start and is it mandatory that I have to listen to the same strumming pattern all the way to 198 ? is there any way on earth that i can be the one to decide WHEN and WHERE to play it from ? or has Biab predicted what I want to do and does it ? I have a usertrack and I want to add the holds in I don't need it to play as I have to adjust the timing after I have put them all in, ONLY then do I want it to play from where I want to listen to them. Think outside the box you live in: "OPTION", It has to develop, it has to advance, it can't be held back in the 90's, come up with new ways, don't enforce old ways, allow users to have different work flows, options.
you can change bar 198, Select the play from bar icon in the Transport Toolbar, input bar 198 and play will begin at bar 198."
So in other words we are not allowed to have an "option" and we must do it this way when hitting Generate button. If they do make an "option" how will this affect you ? will it be bad that you can't enforce users to do everything how you do it ? As I said you have Riff Edit that you are by no means forced to use as you can still render to wav and destructively edit, we can't go back now and remove Riff Edit, Tracks view and Multipicker as you can still just use the Audio Edit window and the destructive FX. You can go into the images folder and blank out the Tracks icon. If they keep the old pickers you can go into images also and blank out the MultiPicker icon, just add a smiley face icon or something on them, let me know and I can do them up for you. I can make up an old BB2007 skin for old users and a new modern skin for new users.
While I applaud Jim's wish for one button doing one thing, I think Noel gave the answer a while ago. For those much older computers, assuming they run BIAB at all, then just disable the Fast Generation of RealTracks. In effect, this accommodates the request. The program churns away at regenerating the entire track before it begins to play anything. The requirements of the CPU and RAM are not unduly stressed since the processes have been separated.
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.
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