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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64
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OP
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64 |
Hey guys.
1: I've been concentrating so much on Real Tracks lately, and recording my own audio into BIAB, that I let the midi side of things go by the wayside, as it were. Problem is, at some point I must've made a change in settings, because I'm not seeing any midi activity anywhere in BIAB while I'm playing my external keyboard. No visual indications and no sound from Forte. My midi settings look okay - my UA-25EX interface is selected, and everything works perfectly fine in Sonar - I can control all my VSTi's etc. When I click on the on-screen keyboard in BIAB, I hear sound and see the little green dots on the keys, just not when I'm doing it from my external keyboard. (btw, even when I click on the on-screen keyboard, I'm noticing a huge delay between when I click a key and when I hear the sound. I thought latency just had to do with input from external gear. No?)
2: I had a Real Style loaded and a song created, and I went in and changed the bar settings for the strings and the drums, at one of the later bars in the song. Both were set to Mute at that bar, and then go Back To Normal a few bars later. Well, the Real Drums muted fine, but I'm still hearing the strings. I soloed them just to be certain, and sure enough, even though the bar settings clearly said "Mute", the strings would only mute if I right-clicked the actual strings instrument heading at the top of the BIAB screen (but of course that mutes them for the whole song). I do see that the strings is the only instrument written in yellow letters - all the others are in green. Doesn't that just mean it's not a Real Track? And even so, any idea why it's not muting from within Bar Settings?
3: My audio from my external keyboard sounds fine when I play along with BIAB, but just after I record the audio and play it back, it's out of sync with the "band", playing about 100 ms too *soon*. I discovered how to offset the timing in BIAB, after the fact, but the further problem is, if I then do a punch-in recording (after getting the original recording's timing right), the new take will be off a little bit, and I can't then go adjusting the timing for it too, because that will affect the timing of the *first* recording, which I've got sitting perfect, timing-wise (the offset seems to be a global thing). So I need to find out how to make BIAB get the timing right the first time so this isn't an issue to begin with.
Thanks for any insights. (btw, I'm using ASIO) (Vista 64 bit)...
Bobby K.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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1) Might be the "Route MIDI Thru to...) checkbox in the MIDi Output selection window. With that UNchecked, the keyboard should route to the DXi synth. Some p;eople report that they have to hit the Play button once before the thing works. But then it lasts for the whole session.
2) The MIDI Strings *should* mute at the marked bar, of course. Try the Return to Factory Settings first, which often corrects things like this. It might also be that you've found a new bug, don't know but will try to find time to check it out at this end this evening.
3) Recorded Audio out of sync with BB is usually the result of the Latency settihg with MME sound drivers needing some tweaking ih one direction or the other. This is a matter of experimentation, trial and error until you find the magic number of milliSeconds that works with your particular machine.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2002
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Hello,
A few other ideas.
1. Where your MIDI thru part is routed, is affected by whether you are using MME or ASIO audio drivers. Pressing a key on the on-screen keyboard as well as playing your external MIDI keyboard are both considered MIDI thru.
If you are using MME drivers and a DXi synth, the MIDI thru part will be routed either to the DXi synth or the "MIDI driver" (selected MIDI Output Driver), depending on if you have that box checked in the MIDI Driver Setup. However note that when the song playback is stopped, it is always routed to the MIDI driver. If you have the Microsoft GS Wavetable selected, there is around 100-200 ms of latency associated with that synth (depending on the OS), so there will be a delay between when you play the note and when you hear it.
If you are using ASIO drivers and a DXi synth, the MIDI thru part will always be routed to the DXi synth while the song is playing, but will be routed to the "MIDI driver" while the song is stopped, unless you have the ASIO Always On checkbox checked in the ASIO Audio Drivers dialog. You may need to press Play once at the start of your session to turn ASIO on.
The other consideration, if you are using the ForteDXi, is that you will want to set your Thru part instrument to something OTHER than "no patch change".
2. Are there any other bar settings (any other bars with a red outline)? For example, maybe there is a style change which is causing it to get unmuted, or another volume change that you aren't aware of. As a test, you could SAVE your song AS (a test version) and try clicking the Reset all bars button in the Bar Settings dialog, then re-set your bar volume change and see if the problem still happens. Also, make sure you have the correct chorus selected "settings apply to chorus number"...
3. If you are using ASIO, it doesn't seem like you should be having this problem. What driver latency is set in the ASIO driver's control panel. What ASIO driver are you using? You might try the ASIO4ALL driver (which you can get for free) to see if the same thing happens with that....
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64
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OP
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Posts: 64 |
1: Thanks guys. It's really strange - today I opened up a new BIAB session, and, after confirming that the midi problem I detailed in my initial post was still afflicting my project, I went into 'MIDI/Audio driver setup' and looked over what everything was set to, and then simply clicked "OK" without making any changes whatsoever, and voila!, I immediately began hearing my midi synth (Forte) again, when playing from my external controller, and there's no latency when I click the on-screen keyboard now. Amazing, I did absolutely nothing but click 'OK' on my existing settings. Maybe BIAB just likes to be reaffirmed sometimes(?)  2: On the strings patch not muting, I tried resetting all bars and then re-doing the bar mute, but the problem persisted. I would also click on 'Play' instead of 'Replay', to try to give BIAB the idea that I wanted it to give the thing a fresh start. Still no joy. So I chose another style and... suddenly it started muting fine at the correct bar. So I switched back to the "problem" style, and said a little prayer. Voila! again! It now mutes correctly. So happy. I don't understand it but I'm happy. (btw, this bar muting problem never did occur when starting a new song - it seems to have been confined to just that one project, so I guess something about it was just messed up...) 3: As for the out-of-sync recorded audio track, I've always had 'ASIO Always On' checked, and I'm wary about changing the audio driver since I had a heck of a time trying to get rid of error messages when I messed with it a couple years ago or so. Granted, it was an older version of BIAB - maybe it's not so touchy now. But back to the ASIO thing - I've got the buffer set pretty high (the ASIO window just shows "maximum" and "minimum" - no actual milliseconds - and mine is set to just under max, probably because I was having problems with Omnisphere last year...). Maybe I should back off the big buffer now. But what I don't get is why my recorded audio plays almost a full beat too SOON. When I think of latency, I think of things "lagging behind" and playing too LATE. Could it be that my audio is playing correctly but the rest of the "band" is playing late? Whichever it turns out to be, I should mention, I didn't have this problem before updating to 2010.5, if that gives anyone a clue about what might be happening. Anyway, so that's my one remaining issue at this point. Thanks again for the feedback, and for anything further.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Your sound device's ASIO window may show only Max and Min, but the BiaB Latency window should automatically report the selected time in mS. But here's the drill -- when you first change the soundcard's buffer settings, the number reported in the MIDI/Audio Output window in BiaB will NOT reflect the new setting. You have to Close that window by clicking on Okay and then Re-open that window to let it "get" the buffer setting from the soundcard and display the mS figure properly.
Sounds like you are getting things done, that's great!
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918 |
Hello, Quote:
But what I don't get is why my recorded audio plays almost a full beat too SOON.
That would be the case if you set the offset in ms to a positive value after you recorded your audio track. If you didn't change that setting after you recorded it, I'm not sure what's going on there.
What does BB say the latency is if you go into the Band-in-a-Box Audio Drivers window? What synth are you using for MIDI playback? Do you have a file called AsstSettings.ini in your main bb folder?
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64
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OP
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64 |
Quote:
That would be the case if you set the offset in ms to a positive value after you recorded your audio track. If you didn't change that setting after you recorded it, I'm not sure what's going on there.
No, I never messed with that setting until after the sync issue started, in an effort to offset or compensate for it..
Quote:
What does BB say the latency is if you go into the Band-in-a-Box Audio Drivers window? What synth are you using for MIDI playback? Do you have a file called AsstSettings.ini in your main bb folder?
Latency is listed at "39", with my current max buffer setting in ASIO. I'm using ForteDXi, and I'm not seeing any "AsstSettings.ini" (or any other ini files actually) in my main bb folder. But really, like I said, I'm no longer experiencing extreme latency when actually playing the midi instruments (live from a controller or with the onscreen keyboard) - rather, it's the sync between the recorded audio and the rest of the "band" (both RealTracks and midi) when playing back the song, post-recording. Thanks.
- Bobby K.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918 |
What is your exact build of BB (Help | About)?
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64
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OP
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Hey, quick reply there! (You posted while I was editing my last post, so you might want to re-read its last paragraph, as it's changed a little.)
The build is 2010.5 (303).
Thanks.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918 |
Hello Bobby,
I'm not sure what could be causing that. A couple of suggestions - there is a command 'Audio | Edit Audio | Timeshift' that may be helpful to you. Otherwise, perhaps the best solution is to move into RealBand when you want to do the audio recording.
If you still want to play the song in Band-in-a-Box after recording your audio track(s), you could even do this, by saving the RealBand track(s) as a wave file, naming it the same as your Band-in-a-Box song, and placing it in the same folder. Then Band-in-a-Box will consider this wave file to be the audio track.
Once you get the hang of audio recording in RealBand, you'll find it much easier and much more flexible than Band-in-a-Box, partly because you have multiple tracks to work with.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: May 2005
Posts: 64 |
Perhaps, but darnit, I had BIAB recording audio just fine, as recently as a month or so ago. No sync issues whatsoever, no need for Timeshift...
Btw, I'm wondering whether my lack of an "AsstSettings.ini" file in my bb folder means anything. Should I have one?
Maybe if I try the same recording procedure in RealBand, and have no sync problems, I can think about doing a full factory reset of BIAB or something.
Bobby K.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: May 2002
Posts: 7,918 |
Hello,
It is ok if you don't have that file. It can be used to adjust settings for some soft synths. I thought you might have experimented with it.
You can still do a complete reinstall of the main Band-in-a-Box program without affecting your existing installation. Just leave your existing one alone, and install the program to a folder like C:\bbTEST. This only takes a couple minutes. Then, run it from that folder and see if you still have the same problem with the new install. Note that it won't find your RealTracks, but since your problem doesn't seem to be related to RealTracks specifically it doesn't matter, since you are just testing to see what happens. If all is good with BBTEST (no sync problems), then install the latest patch and test again.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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