I was really pleased to see the stems feature in band in a box 2025 but I have some questions about lining up the stems perfectly with a new style.
For my first experiment I took a song that I had previously recorded, where I used band in a box to create some backing tracks, so obviously I already had band a box version of the song.
When I extracted the stems of the mix as part of an experiment to get used to the tool for the future, I found that the stems would not precisely line up with the new style that I chose.
They were ever so slightly off and not lining up with the one, so to speak.
However I was extremely meticulous and putting the first bar line as close to the beginning of the first tick in the audio file as I could hoping that I would bring it close when I was using ACW.
But still it was too far off to use and I couldn't find any way to adjust it.
Has anyone found any other tools or approaches within the program to get the stems to line up so that you can use them inside of band in a box to generate new tracks to go with the stems?
Or is this a function you have to do in something like real band where you can take stems and move them to the left or right with precision until everything lines up?
This is one of the things I like about real band by the way. It's really easy to slide things to the left or the right with little tiny ticks, and some of the other DAWs that I've used don't make that as user friendly as real band.
Anyway I really enjoy the stems feature but was wondering if anyone had figured out any tools or techniques or other goodies inside of the new version of band in a box to address the issue I raised above.
Thanks in advance. (I am trying to get the techniques right before I move to songs not recorded with BIAB but still using a click.)
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
David, I can’t solve that one because I haven’t yet worked with the stems feature, but I have a thought that may be related. One time I recorded a BIAB acoustic guitar track and took it into a recording studio to use as a click track for the session. I recorded it from BIAB with a tempo of q=140.
The engineer loaded my audio track and pronounced it was actually running at 139.8 and change.
My point is, if the tempo BIAB gave me in that case was not precise, trying to play it back with another audio file was futile.
Probably unrelated, but this is one of the reasons I want support for non-integer tempos.
You mentioned ticks and adjustment. Do you have a playback setting of plus or minus some ticks not being zero?
Sorry if my thoughts here may be completely off the mark.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
< However I was extremely meticulous and putting the first bar line as close to the beginning of the first tick in the audio file as I could hoping that I would bring it close when I was using ACW. >
What was your procedure to putting the first bar line as close the beginning of the first tic in the audio file and define what you're calling the first tic. I ask about the tic because using the ACW, it's important to align the first beat and not necessarily the beginning of the audio.
Since the 2025 version for Mac isn’t out yet, I’ve not had the chance to look at this. Nearly everything I’ve been doing lately gets exported to Digital Performer—either complete tracks or using the plug-in. I then slice, dice and align to the gnat’s whisker as I please.
I’m hoping that 2025 lets me streamline this process a bit.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac 24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
I have it and RePitch. Neither are cheap @ $199 and don't work on everything (senior citizen choral tracks, unfortunately no). Can only be used in VocAlign Supported DAWs that support ARA3 which is most of them nowadays. Pretty sure that it cannot be used in BAIB but should work those DAWs that support the BIAB plug-in. Uses iLok protection.
BIAB 2025 Audiophile Mac 24Core/60CoreGPU M2 MacStudioUltra/8TB/192GB Sequoia/Tahoe, M1 MBAir, 2012 MBP Digital Performer11, Logic, Finale27/Dorico/Encore/SmartScorePro/Notion6/Overture5
Charlie I will answer your question in a second, but first I will have to say I am more confused than ever now I checked the original BIAB tempo.
The song was recorded at 90 BPM.
The stem maker when I chose "create new song" and "stem" and "import" did all of that and set the tempo at 110.
When I play the stems and new generated tracks back they sound fine, but it is definitely playing a song at 90, not 110 bpm. even though BIAB is showing 110.
When I let the "master stem play" (the original) it also seems to be in 90 bpm like the stems, but comes in 2 beats later than the stems.
You got me.
Now for Charlie.
Charlie, in using the word "tick" it is something I have heard but it may not be the right term.
Somewhere in each DAW you will have two measurements.
2.) Measure, Beat and a number after that from 1-120. I have heard that number described as "tick"--like measure 5, beat 4, tick 78...
If that is not the right word, I would love to know the right one.
Anyway, when I am cutting and pasting I always want to paste to the exact "tick."
In the song I described above, the beginning of bar 1 lands perfectly on the 1.
Therefore when I used ACW and was very careful to put the line at the beginning as close as I could to the exact beginning of the audio sound. I do not believe I could have made it more precise.
However, when I had the stems in place, and then generated new tracks with a style, it did not line up right. It was slightly off.
Also, I think there is a switch someone to get BIAB to ignore the 2 bar click as part of the equation, and if you don't the new generated tracks come in 2 bars later than the audio. I used to know where that was but I can't remember where that is now...
Thanks if you have any ideas!!
David Snyder Songwriter/Renaissance Man Studio + Fingers
Can you imagine if BIAB had done it this way....? All the stems remain on the same track, you just mix what you want to here. No trouble aligning things up with this workflow. I have not even tried the stem splitter in BIAB since these synch issues which are being reported should simply not be there. Now I am wondering if this REMIX VST3 would work in BIAB??? [[EDIT: I tried but BIAB would not load the VST3 - it just didn't see it.]
I tried it in Reaper and sure enough it is in Real Time. Wow! Fastest splitting I have ever heard. The real question will be, how good is the splitting. Like all these splitters there is differing quality. I could mute or solo the vocal likely as good as any of the rest. But Bass and Drums and Piano would need more testing. And of course nothing does guitar. Too bad BIAB will not load this VST3.
Dan, I’ve seen different results in my limited experiments. Sometimes Studio One sounded better (with fewer stems) and other times Song Master Pro was better. I haven’t yet had a need to try the splitter in BIAB.
David, “tick” to me means two specific things in BIAB. You can move a track forward or backward by a number of ticks in, I think, the Play menu (used to be Play in the Edit menu); I’m not at a computer to check. The other use is setting the number of ticks per beat for export of tracks from BIAB. This feature was added maybe less than ten years ago. I am pretty sure it’s only for MIDI. The default in BIAB, the last time I looked a few years ago, is 120 ticks per beat. Several of us requested higher resolution to match that of our DAW and BIAB now offers up to 960.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
David. First, you're using tick term correctly as it's used in BIAB and as Matt noted, 120 is the default.
When you open your song using the ACW or using the Stems option, the first bar is set with the first Bar placement followed by the 2nd bar placement. When you use the ACW to create the tempo map of the Master loaded onto the Audio Track, the Stems program will also align and synchronize the other stem tracks to the tempo map. Create a tempo map of the complete imported song.
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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