Hi all. I am using biab Windows 64 bit audiophile 2021, having previously used 2019 and 2020. I have only just started noticing audio pops on my rendered audio tracks. Mostly on drums and bass, but occasionally on guitars. Around 20 or so on each instrument track. When I open the wav file to look at it I see 'saw-tooth' wave peaks at the 'pop' sites. They mostly occur at bar breaks. I am having to manually edit all of my wav files to clean them up. Is this a normal artifact of rendering? Anyone else seeing this? Is there a way to eliminate it?

It happens to me occasionally, not systematically.
What happens if you render same track twice? Would you get "pop" in same places?

P.S. Maybe try a larger audio buffer on soundcard for rendering?

I usually run my Quantum 2626 tb3 interface at a buffer size of 512. I just re-rendered the drum track at the max size of 4096. Still getting pops. I don't recall having this problem on the 2019 and 2020 versions of audiophile, but I may have just missed them. It is now constant on every new song I create.

I am also getting unnatural audio on guitar tracks that sounds like they have been over-worked by pitch-shifting software. Doesn't seem to matter what level of transposition I use and happens at the original tempo setting. Very frustrating.

I am getting to the stage where I may have to stop using biab for song production.

Hi Walznhabibi,

I've been using BIAB's Audiophile version for many years and the only time I've had popping sounds is when BIAB tracks have been mixing then rendered in my DAW. It turned out that the popping was due to plugins and not BIAB.

We need to know a little more about to be able to being trying to solve the problem...

Please, can you step us through how you are rendering the audio? BIAB offers a number of ways.

What happens to the audio after you render it?

If the audio is taken to a DAW after rending, what is the software?

At what point in the chain do you first hear the pop sound?

Does the pop sound occur when Bar Settings are involved?

Are you using any plugins on BIAB's tracks?

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: I Will Always Be There

OK.

I render the wav files in biab, not in the DAW.
I render at the best quality and maximum buffer size.
The wav files go to a folder designated for them.
I import them from the folder into my song project in my DAW.
My DAW is Cubase 11 (I always update to the latest version).
The pops are audible immediately on playback. Always on a beat - usually a strong beat.
I do have plugins on the rendered tracks in Cubase, but the pops exist whether the plugins are on or off.
I am able to locate the source of the pops to 'saw-tooth' wave peaks in each of the wav files, sometimes as many as 20 or so in one instrument wav file.
When I manually repair the 'saw-tooth' peak with an envelope, fade, or silence (depending on the location of the peak) it is no longer audible.

I have noticed a reduction in audio quality from biab 2020 to the 2021 version. I produced 60 songs on the 2020 version without an issue. I have had issues with every song I have worked on with the 2021 version.

Gremlins somewhere that I can't locate.

I would like to post a pic of the 'saw-tooth' wave peaks, but I can't work out how to do it.

Here is a pic of the 'saw-tooth' wave peaks I get.

Have you been “slicing” the audio the knitting it together? If so you need to ensure you slice and dice at a “zero” crossing point. i.e. expand the area and make the cut at a point where the wave crosses the line. You also really need to check you are not slicing on waves going in the same direction,

It is also best to use a crossfade at the point of reconnection. Most good DAWs almost do this semi automatically but in some you really have to find the point of zero crossing.

Just a thought

Tony

Hi,

Thanks for all the extra information. It helps.

I can why you'd get a pop with that wave form. There's a definite jump from one wave to a whole new one. I can see that this could happen at bars when a chords a diced and sliced to create a playback track.

In relation to audio quality...

Under "Options | Preferencs | Realtracks" make sure that you have "Tempo/Pitch Stretching" set to High. The default is Medium.

About the popping... Is this happening with all Realtracks and Realdrums of just some? It could be an issue with new RTs.

Also, when you say that "I render at the best quality", what do you mean by this and how do you set it?

I'm sorry if these questions are frustrating, but I'm trying to get a clear picture in my mind as to what's happening. Attempting to do that using just text conversation is quite a challenge!

Regards,
Noel

This happens to the wav files in the biiab rendering process. I don't slice and knit anything.

In biab I go to:
Preferences > Audio > Audio Drivers > Resampler quality > Best.

Is there anything running in the background? If so maybe that is interrupting your rendering? I turn off all of my anti stuff (anti-virus, anti-malware, etc) and via device manager turn off my Ethernet card. I have has issues in the past when those were on. I have not had that issue with rendering, but most of my work is in MIDI.

I set "Options | Preferencs | Realtracks | Tempo/Pitch stretching" to High. Problem still persists.

I plugged the biab SSD into a different usb input. Problem still persists.

I rendered the wav files in biab using a different driver. Problem still persists.

It is looking more and more like a problem with the rendering process in the 2021 biab app.

walz.
process of elimination.
heres what i would like you to do.
1. open up a 2020 biab and a 2020 cubase song project.
write down your sampling rate and bit depth preferences for biab settings AND cubase settings AND quantum settings.
Now
2. open up a 2021 biab and 2021 cubase song project , and once again write down your sampling rate and bit depth settings as above for biab/cubase/quantum.

DO YOU NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCES FROM 2020 song project to 2021 ?
post back your 2020 and 2021 settings.

heres also an idea. does the audio exported from biab play ok without artifacts in win media player ?
ie BEFORE IMPORTING INTO CUBASE ?

if its not a bug in biab 2021 , then it might be a discrepency in settings.
best
old-technerd-muso

Thanks. This helps. For what it's worth, I find myself wondering is this is where the problem might be occurring.

I don't have the options for "Resampler quality > Best". This leads me to wonder if it might be specific to your soundcard.

My understand of Resampling is that it is used to convert the specifications of a sound (or graphic) from one form to another. I see this setting as asking BIAB to covert the sound to match your soundcard's settings.

What are the settings on your soundcard?

BIAB's WAV files are 16 bit and 44.1 kHz (44,100 Hz). I always render my waves to this. When I transfer the wav files to my DAW (Reaper), Reaper then automatically resamples them so that the playback is 16 bit 48 kHz. I have never had a problem with this.

When you render a BIAB track, what are the rendered track's specifications? (For comparison, when I look at the "Source Properties" of a BIAB track in Reaper, I get 16 bit 44100 Hz.)

Lastly, there's a setting under "Audio > Audio drivers" called "Display warnings for detected audio stuttering". I suggest activating that and seeing what happens.

Regards,
Noel

• my latest song: I Will Always Be There

I just checked and I can hear the pops in the drum track as I play it in biab before it is rendered and exported as a wav file. It happened at a buffer size of 512 and the maximum buffer of 4096.

I think that excludes anything to do with Cubase.

And because it occurred when I exported it previously using two different drivers (Quantum ASIO and Windows MME) I think that excludes the Presonus audio interface.

So... next I will hook up my 2020 biab SSD and see what happens.

I run Windows 7 and my settings are shown on the image below.

As you can see from #4, my soundcard is set at 16 bit and 480000 Hz. Because Windows audio is 16/44100, BIAB sounds need to be resampled and upscaled to become 16/48000. This could potentially create problems if it's not handled well.

The 16/48000 soundcard settings are constant whether I use MME, ASIO, WAS drivers. They're properties of the soundcard. The drivers provide the pathway for the audio to get to the soundcard.

By activating the option "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device", I just let BIAB make the decisions about what to do.

See if you can find this option in your soundcard settings.

I can access Windows soundcard settings by...

(a) right-clicking on Windows speaker icon

(b) "Audio > Recording mixer" in BIAB

Hope this helps,
Noel

I use Windows 10, so my soundcard options are a bit different. I can't find a way to alter the sample rate and bit depth. It is set at 24/44100 (studio quality). I assume it has always been this way even when I used previous versions of biab.

The 'allow apps to take exclusive control of this device' option is checked.

I just disconnected my 2021 biab audiophile SSD and re-connected my 2020 biab SSD.

I played the identical real drum track in both versions of biab. The 2020 version was clean. The 2021 version had pops.

I rendered and exported the real drum track in both versions of biab and imported them both into the same Cubase project. The 2020 version was clean. The 2021 version had pops - with 'saw-tooth' wave peaks at all the pop sites.

I am now pretty sure this is a problem with the 2021 version of biab audiophile. Whether it exists only on the SSD version or in other versions I don't know. FYI the biab style was _CLSFUNK.STY.

I will ask the PG Music boffins to look at it.

Walznhabibi,

The settings you're displaying are for a PreSonus Quantum 2626. The capability to change bit depth and sample rate settings depend on the capabilities of the hardware device and its driver.

According to the +++ technical specifications +++ the bit depth is locked at 24 bit depth but the sample rate can be set to 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176.4 and 192 kHz.

You may want to make sure you are using the most up-to-date PreSonus Quantum 2626 ASIO driver when recording in Band-in-a-Box, RealBand or a DAW. For audio playback in Band-in-a-Box you may be better off using MME or WAS.

Yep. Doing all that. I update everything as soon as updates are available.

As I stated earlier, it does not matter which driver I use (ASIO, WAS or MME) or what buffer size I use, the 'pops' and 'saw-tooth' wave peaks occur - but only in the 2021 audiophile version of biab. The same audio is fine in the 2020 version.

I have handed this problem over to PG Music to deal with. Hopefully they will have a resolution. They gave me pre-release version of an update to test and it did not solve the problem.

Latest advice from support people is that they think it is a bug and have reported it to the development team.

Walznhabibi - I think I've been emailing you about this. I've sent a bug report about it over to the development team, hopefully it's a quick fix.

Thanks Simon. I hope its a quick fix too. I have 10 current song projects using the 2021 audiophile version and would love to be able to move forward with them as the styles are unique to this version.

Walznabibi,

Have you tried running BIAB 2020 and pointing it to the Realtracks and Realdrums in the BIAB 2021 directories. This may allow you to access any of the RTs and RDs new to 2021 and to use them in BIAB 2020.

Regards,
Noel

Try what Noel says. Be aware there are some new RealTracks where the stated requirement is BIAB version 2021, but it's worth a try. You might not see them in the index, however.

I'll give that a go and let you know what happens. Need to plug in both audiophile ssds.

edit#1: I just tried opening biab 2020 and then opening the sgu file on the 2021 ssd, but only the 2020 styles came up as options. Not sure if there is another way to do it.

edit#2: I'm wondering if I can copy and paste the 2021 stx and sty files to the style folder on the 2020 ssd, plus the relevant real track files from 2021 to 2020 ssd? Anyone successfully done this?

edit#3; Just tried it. It doesn't work. Some of the real tracks were on the 2020 ssd for one of the new 2021 styles, but even just copying the stx and sty files didn't work, even after 'rebuild'. Just have to wait for the bug fix I guess or use 2020 styles in the projects instead of 2021. Not a happy camper.

When you opened 2020 and the 2021 SGU file, did you set the BIAB Realtracks and Realdrums preferences to point to files in x:\bb\Realtracks and x:\bb\Drums, where x: is the 2021 drive?

By default, 2020 will look for Realtracks and Realdrums on it's own drive. BIAB, however, is setup so that Realtracks/drums can be stored in any location. One only needs to modify preferences to point to those locations.

I'll try that one and let you know what happens.

edit: I tried pointing to the 2021 ssd in the prefs boxes for real drums and real tracks. No joy. It looks to me like the actual style has to be installed by the 2021 app as well as the new real drums/tracks files for that style. And I have a feeling that if 2021 installs it 2020 won't read it. I reckon there is no forward compatability. From a software licensing point of view that makes sense, otherwise people could share new styles for free.

Just installed the new 833 update to bb2021. It has not solved the problem. Still getting saw-tooth waves in real tracks which cause pops. The styles seem to play ok in the Style selector tab, but once I apply them to a chord sequence the problem appears - it is there when I play the song in bb prior to rendering. Once I render the files I can find the offending saw-tooth waves which coincide with the pops. So I think the problem is something in the bb 'file generating' code.

just a thought that might help as a short term workaround. if you are exporting the BIAB tracks to your DAW have you tried opening the BIAB song in RealBand and exporting from there?

depends how much work you do in BIAB before you export as RB doesn't keep frozen tracks apparently but you can regenerate in RB much the same as BIAB them save as a seq file which is unchanging. may solve the problem in the short term.

Are pops audible before you render or does it seem the issue occurs during the rendering process?

The pops are there before rendering. That is why I believe they are occurring in the 'file generation' process. This issue was referred to the development team as a 'bug', but it doesn't look like they have fixed it yet.

I might add that there is something strange going on in bb2021 audiophile with acoustic stringed instrument real tracks. The quality has deteriorated considerably from bb2020. They all sound like time-stretching and pitch-shifting has been exaggerated, even when played at their original tempos.

bb2020 still works fine, but I am at the stage where I can't use bb2021 on any projects and ready to ask for a refund. Not happy.