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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Since I have switched my main productivity machine from a Windows to Mac machine, I now have BIAB launched from a Windows VM inside of the Mac (Windows guest, Mac Hypervisor/Host). Windows is installed on my primary hard drive - meaning that this image is running from the internal (aka "fast") SSD drive. Since BIAB is so big - I had to get an external USB drive to fit everything which is USB attached.
... this USB drive is presented to Windows as a network share \\somedevice\somesharename. And it happens to be the "J:" drive under Windows. I know I can set this up differently - but this is what I have. BIAB runs its executable off this shared (USB) drive and the performance of BIAB in general (load time, etc) is good.
The problem I see is when rendering to audio, it takes "forever". I see that temp files always are using the location of BIAB's install as the temp file location. I would prefer to move temp files to a faster drive (C: in this case) either always OR have the temp files use the target file location for the location. So if I tell BIAB to save a file in C:\subdirectory\my_render.mp3 that the temp files would target C:\subdirectory
I think this would speed up rendering quite a bit for my configuration.
Is there a way to alter which windows drive temp files are created?
... BTW: I'm using a now ancient version 2019.
Thanks!
Last edited by JasonWhiteman; 06/01/24 03:23 PM.
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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I don't think it's possible. I'm not aware of any setting that allows the user to change this. Others may know more.
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.
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So you have the Win version running on Mac in a VM and you want to render to mp3 but it's too slow ?
If you had Reaper running on Mac it would just instantly open the frozen Win SGU and could load the tracks in as mp3 or other formats.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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> The problem I see is when rendering to audio, it takes "forever". I see that temp files always are using the location of BIAB's install as the temp file location.
Jason,
I assume you’re referring to BiaB, and not Realband,
For BiaB, what temp files are you referring to? Normally, to save a mp3, the only files saved are going to be the master.wav and the master.mp3 and both of those get saved to the (fast c:\…) directory you choose, and not to the BB home directory. The .mp3 conversion gets done by a windows codec, so we don’t have any control over that, but I don’t recall it needing to use temp files to do that. So let me know what temp files you are seeing.
‘The slowness you are seeing is likely related to the slow USB connection to the hard drive you’re describing that contains BiaB as well as the RealTracks. That would affect generation time of the arrangement itself, which takes place in memory, not on disk. But to make the arrangement, it is reading (not writing) lots of files from the RealTracks and RealDrums folders in your (slow) USB drive.’
What is the time to just render to a .WAV file?
Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Yes, this is BIAB. I'll gather more details and post back. Thanks for the help.
>So you have the Win version running on Mac in a VM and you want to render to mp3 but it's too slow ?
Yes, I understand implication.
>If you had Reaper running on Mac it would just instantly open the frozen Win SGU and could load the tracks in as mp3 or other formats.
I don't have Reaper but see it's fairly popular combined with BIAB. I think I'd need a newer version to get that to work (and the Mac version to run the plugin). Let me know if there's an option using what I have (2019 Win). I do have Cubase (Mac).
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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The 2019 version of BIAB does in fact render the wav file to your BB folder - specifically, J:\bb\Data\temp_wav_render.wav in your case. There is no way to change this, however there is a workaround: Using the Drag and Drop station in the upper left of the window will render directly to your DragDrop folder, which can be set to wherever you like. Give this a shot and see if it helps, and post back here with an update. Please see the manual page here: https://www.pgmusic.com/manuals/bbw2019full/chapter4.htm#_ToolbarsAs well, if you're considering upgrading anyway, newer versions of BIAB render to the target folder as Peter mentioned. As you're now on a Mac, you can crossgrade to the Mac version which will let you avoid having to use a virtual machine - these can also slow things down, particularly read/write speed over your "network" drive (the VM would limit file transfer to the speed of the virtual network interface, which is likely much slower than the hard drive).
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks! I tried rendering using the drag/drop feature. What I did was clicked on "Master" and held on to it then dragged it to the "MP3" just to the right of the "+" in the drag/drop box. This is the only way I could figure out how to render this way. Before dragging, I setup the feature by making c:\bb\DragDrop my temp directory for this feature. However, I still see the temp .wav file created in the j:\bb directory.
When I right-click on the drag/drop area, I see the second group reads "Open Drag Drop folder [\\network\share\bb\DragDrop]" and the 4th group reads "Copy files to DropBox Folder [C:\bb\DragDrop] ..."
Under the settings the custom folder location for Drag n Drop temp is: "C:\bb\DragDrop\"
The surprise was the Drag Drop folder which is half way correct. It got the path correct "\bb\DragDrop" -- and it wasn't this before I changed the setting. It was just "\bb" for the path. However, the drive is a fileshare "\\network\share" which maps to J: instead of using the C: I set for the drag/drop temp location.
And even so, the temp file (.WAV) shows up in J:\bb (not J:\bb\DragDrop) while doing the drag/drop kind of rendering.
To fill in some information from before (outside of drag/drop) - when I use the standard render audio feature and target C: for the MP3 it takes 13m14s to complete the render. Since the temp file is on J: if I instead target J:\bb for the MP3 using the standard render then this will take 11m35s because it removes the step where the resulting file is copied to C: after assembling on J:
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quick update: I noticed that J:\bb is creating the file ...
06/04/2024 08:42 PM 10,666,030 DRUMS_TEMP_RENDER.WAV
(filesize is an intermediate size before it's done writing to the temp file)
While C:\bb\DragDrop is now creating the [origfilename]_render.wav temp file.
What I had to do is:
1) Restart BIAB
2) Move the MGU file to the C: drive (it was previously saved in J:)
Now my renders using drag/drop are taking under 3 minutes (around 3.5 minutes if regeneration is necessary) even though the J:\bb\DRUM_TEMP_RENDER.WAV file (which ends up being ~60MB) is being created. This is a big improvement. I'm not sure I understand why the DRUMS_TEMP ... file is stubborn and stays in j: but I'll take a 4x improvement any day. If I could force DRUM_TEMP to C: somehow, I'd probably shave off some more time.
Thanks for the tip -- it got the ball rolling.
I retested the original "normal" audio render (not drag/drop) and with the MGU file on C: this also takes ~3min. So it looks like the big savings here is moving the MGU to the "fast" drive. With the "normal" audio render the same DRUM_TEMP file is showing up in J:\bb as drag/drop.
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks for the tip -- it got the ball rolling. Happy to help! If I could force DRUM_TEMP to C: somehow, I'd probably shave off some more time. I'm fairly certain that the only way to do this would be to install BB onto the C drive - doing that might also provide further speed improvements as the application and data files would be on a faster "drive", not just the DRUM_TEMP file.
Last edited by Simon - PG Music; 06/05/24 02:10 PM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Wanted to chime in now that the gig is completed. Thanks again to all. The suggestions helped make sure that BIAB didn't "get in the way" of success per schedule and allowed me to craft a good show for an hour of dinner music playing straight except for breaks while the generated solos got their own turns.
I'm looking forward to getting more and more into the feature-set. Until next time!
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Two quick thoughts even if you are resolved:
First, are you still running BIAB 2019? Version 2024 dramatically improved the time required for file regeneration, something you mentioned.
Second, is your external USB drive a SSD? That would also help.
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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Wanted to chime in now that the gig is completed. Thanks again to all. The suggestions helped make sure that BIAB didn't "get in the way" of success per schedule and allowed me to craft a good show for an hour of dinner music playing straight except for breaks while the generated solos got their own turns.
I'm looking forward to getting more and more into the feature-set. Until next time! Happy to help! Two quick thoughts even if you are resolved:
First, are you still running BIAB 2019? Version 2024 dramatically improved the time required for file regeneration, something you mentioned.
Second, is your external USB drive a SSD? That would also help. Both are great suggestions. 2024 is in fact a huge improvement in speed. Plus even an inexpensive SSD can be at least 10 times as fast as your average external hard drive. In this situation I don't think it would help much, as the "network adapter" in the virtual machine is probably the main bottleneck. If possible, see if the VM software lets you change link speed - 1 gigabit should be what I'd consider "ok", but something like 2.5gbps or 10gbps might speed things up.
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The external drive is indeed an SSD. It's a Samsung T7 Shield which claims to have very high performance as USB/Thunderbolt interface. I think it's about as good as I can get given my laptop is the same vintage as BIAB (2019 - Intel Mac).
I already have it on my list to upgrade because I like better push/placement granularity for chords in the later versions and I think other items like more stems and "every track acts the same" (just loose features I seem to remember from looking at this a while ago) were things I thought I'd get some milage out of. Still, 2019 is fairly new to me since my first BIAB version was DOS based.
Planning on pseudo-renewing at the end of the year so I get one more newer version. Half way there ...
I too think the bottleneck is how I have the "J:\" drive shared. I think I'm kind of shooting myself a bit in the foot here, so to speak. There are more virtually more direct ways to connect even this external drive. I've got other things happening in this VM that prevented me from making any changes to the VM. I will eventually experiment with modifying the configuration eventually when the other constraints go away. Certainly when I upgrade I'll need to consider to get the Mac version to avoid the virtualization layer. I did think at some point that the Mac version was trailing the Windows version in terms of feature-set.
1/1/2024 - Win 10 BIAB 2019 64bit Build (644), RealBand 2019 (4)
Prior - Sig can't fit a running list - so just showing current version
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JasonWhiteman,
Your assumption regarding the Mac version trailing the Windows version is correct.
There are some features in the Windows version that have never been available in the Mac version. Having said that, with every new release the Mac version gains features the Windows version has had for years.
Each Mac release lags the corresponding Windows release by about six months. Notice the current Windows release is 2024 while the current Mac release is 2023. If I was a Mac user I would consider the lagging Mac release to be a good thing. Each Windows release receives a bunch of updates after each new release. Mac users do not receive as many updates because the Mac version includes many fixes from the Windows updates.
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Your assumption regarding the Mac version trailing the Windows version is correct.
There are some features in the Windows version that have never been available in the Mac version. Having said that, with every new release the Mac version gains features the Windows version has had for years. This is correct, but in general the missing features are either ones that are not possible or not necessary on Mac or are very old and not often used features. For the most part, anyone who is happy with the Windows version will also be happy with the Mac version (or happier, given the increased stability of macOS and no issues with WAS/MME/ASIO drivers). Each Mac release lags the corresponding Windows release by about six months. Notice the current Windows release is 2024 while the current Mac release is 2023. If I was a Mac user I would consider the lagging Mac release to be a good thing. Each Windows release receives a bunch of updates after each new release. Mac users do not receive as many updates because the Mac version includes many fixes from the Windows updates. Also correct.
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