I upgraded from v2019 to v2022 yesterday and just a few minutes ago installed the Build 914 update. I was hoping this update might take care of the problem I'm having, but no joy.

First off, let me state that I was NOT having this problem with v2019. It didn't appear until just a short while ago when I loaded an existing tune and tried to change an instrument. Specifically, in the bass track, "Finger Slap Bass" was selected and I wanted to change this to "Slap Bass 1". When I did so, the bass channel's instrument remained unchanged BUT the melody channel's instrument was switched to Slap Bass. WTF. I tried again just to make sure I hadn't made a fumble-fingered mistake, but nope. Just now, to see if this sort of thing was occurring with any other channels, I tried the Piano channel, and changed its instrument -- or tried to. Sure enough, the instrument didn't change, but the melody's instrument did. Next, I tried changing the melody instrument. Well, at least this channel works as intended. But apparently, none of the others do.

Just in case it should matter, although I don't see why it should, I have Cakewalk's TTS-1 indicated as the default synth.

I went to Options>Preferences and looked around in the MIDI File, MIDI Options, and Overrides tabs, but the settings there -- which I'm assuming are 2022's default settings? -- all looked reasonable. At least nothing jumped out at me as being obviously wrong.

So, anyway, I'm hoping one of you can point out what BiaB is doing wrong here. It ain't me, because I haven't changed a thing. This is all BiaB.

Hi Michael,

Does it do it on all existing songs?

Are those tracks frozen?

IF time permits I will try to duplicate this later today.

Wish I could help you Michael, God knows I have tried to figure this all out since I use a lot of midi. In the past I have opted to take the midi out of BIAB as quickly as possible and figure it all out in my DAW, which has worked well for me. But I would like to do more in BIAB with Midi. However, my conclusion at this time is that this is a bad time to try to figure out the midi routing and patch assignments in BIAB due to the recent update. I have just seen the strangest stuff, similar to what you are reporting here. All I can offer is, keep reporting and things will get fixed or someone will come along who knows a lot more about this then you and I.

Dan

Mario, I've tried it on two songs so far, and it's doing the exact same thing with both of them. No, the tracks aren't frozen. They're MIDI. What's the point?

If you could duplicate this, it would be most helpful. Oh, one more thing I didn't mention earlier -- both tunes I tried this out on are MIDI only. No Real Tracks, just in case that might matter for some reason.

Dan, like you, I export my BiaB files to my DAW (Cakewalk), where I do most of my production and edits, including final instrument assignments. But still, when working in BiaB, I like to have things sound as close as I can to the way I'm picturing it. I don't know about the rest of the folks here, but when I select a style, to me that's just a starting point. I will almost always change instrument assignments as I develop a song. It would be extremely limiting to be stuck with a style's default instrumentation.

At this point, I'm convinced this is BiaB problem, since, as I mentioned above, I haven't changed a thing. Prior to the upgrade, I could change instruments either on the fly or with the song idle, didn't matter. Hopefully, the staff will find a workaround to this and will include a fix in an upcoming Build.

I got some unexpected available time so I ran some experiments. Here is what I found:

1- using both versions 912 and 914 I changed instruments and the change worked as expected. BUT I reread you message and found out that you had a melody track whereas I didn't in these experiments.

2 - using only version 914 I changed instruments but they did not change! They stayed the same sound even though the track IDs changed. The melody track was not affected like in your case.

Note I mostly work in MIDI and all of these experiments were MIDI only with no frozen tracks. Also I tried the above on 3 or 4 different existing songs and the results were always as stated above.

The conclusion is there is a bug in 2022 BiaB version 914 and maybe other versions. You may want to report this to PGmusic and reference this thread.

Like Dan I get out of BiaB as fast as I can. I do all of my instrument changes in my DAW, Studio One Pro 5.

(edit) would others please try this and report what you see. Thanx!

I love that Mario used the same wording as I did: "..as fast as I can" . We both appreciate the sense of urgency for taking the midi into our DAW to process further. There is definately a lesson to be learned by our common experience.

Hey guys,

as already reported in several other threads, I also still have that Midi patch problem - on the Soloist track, on the Utility Tracks and sometimes also on the Melody Track. It's definately a bug (since BiaB 2022, no matter which patch) - and unfortunately there has not been much reaction from PG to this, so far.

Since I use BiaB as a Playalong Tool and not for creating backing tracks or other kinds of music production, leaving BiaB as fast as I can is no solution for me :-)

Since the beginning of December, I'm quite patient on this, but a "We're working on it" from PG would really be appreciated by now.

I wanted to throw this out there as it may explain some of the things being reported.

I don't know this for a fact, but I believe some of the PG "demos" in recent years have essentially hard-coded the arrangments in such a manner that you can't adjust them fully. I think we have seen this with multistyles and/or multidrum demos. So while some of the demos are good starting points for our own arrangments, it could be that others are not so flexible. This is just fodder for thought until someone who knows better comes along.


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Dan, it doesn't happen only with the Demo Songs, and it worked fine in BiaB 2020 (I skipped BiaB 2021, but I think others have reported that also it still worked fine in BiaB 2021).

Dan, interesting your observation, but in my case, no demos, or portions thereof, were used.

I haven't read up on any of these past experiences with MIDI tracks being locked -- or situations to that effect -- but it sure seems high time to me that PGM should have addressed this.

I can't seem to duplicate this problem. Does this happen with the ZZJAZZ demo song?
-If so, can you tell us the specific steps you are using to change the patch?
-If not, what style/song does it happen with?

I've had this happen to me before (and reported it, just to be told, by PGMusic support, that it was by design)...

When I right click on the description of a track that I want to change, instead of right clicking on the track name... The focus of the track doesn't shift.

However, the right click menu does come up, on the track that you right clicked on, and it makes you think that you are changing instruments on that track. But you are really modifying the track previously highlighted (because to focus didn't change when you right clicked on the track that you thought you were modifying.

Apparently this is "By Design"... See attached screen shots...

Andrew,

I attach a video with a little "medley" of my midi problems:

Example 1, after File - Open:
Melody should be Vibraphone, but plays Piano.
Example 2, after loading Demo Song
Soloist should be Guitar, but plays Piano (some other times horn)
Example 3, after Drag&Drop a midi:
Imported tracks all play Piano

MoveToGroove,I did exactly the same manipulations as you and everything worked. So I can't help, just understand that you're disappointed, at the very least. I will rather think of a bad config. You must have already returned to the basic parameters, so that's not it. Really weird. Good luck! What is your Vsti/Dxi by default?

These are quite often due to embedded patch changes imported with MIDI. You could try step-editing the MIDI and deleting any you find.

I believe I've had cases in past versions where it isn't embedded CCs, though.

Salut MoultiPass,

thanks for feeling with me, it's really annoying, since more than half of what I'd like to use BiaB for doesn't work.
My Settings are as follows:

Gordon,

this happens with many demo songs and with literally all my midis (no matter if created earlier in BiaB by myself or bought from whichever Midi Shop), and I didn't have any problems with midi patches before I installed BiaB 2022, and there are also other users that have these problems.

My advice would be to go back to your old version (which worked) by monitoring the forums for a possible fix. A very sad solution, but which would undoubtedly allow you to take advantage of the software? Because you could enjoy 100% of the old version? They will necessarily release a fix since there is a referenced midi problem.

Moulti,

yes, I have already installed my old version on a second computer. However, I hope that the issue will be fixed soon by PG, since I'd like to use the new features as well, for sure.

groovy move bass.

i got exactly same problem.reported to support early december but getting nothing back except the usual ...return to factory settings run as admin delete the Mysetup.dk
intrface.bbw files, roll back to previous year that it worked(making my latest purchase of bb pointless (haha)

i have given up on this problem now and have to rechannel all midi which goes on to utility tracks everytime. im exhausted the amount of times i have re booted and rolled back and tried all combinations of drivers for something that definatley worked on the 2021 version.

i dont mess around with settings on installs, i just let everythin default so everything should be as last year.

anyway, my heads in the cuckoo nest now and im done.

pauly,

I've also kind of given up in the meantime: Although I've installed my old version on the other computer, I don't want to work on that PC more than really necessary, and therefore I'm playing along the demo songs only atm. Also, my old version was 2020. So you at least could use the utility tracks in 2021, which I can't. Rechanneling would work only for my 3rd example, but that's quite an annoying work and therefore not really acceptable.

I've just thought that maybe this is a chance to catch Andrew, since he had replied in this thread, other than the PG staff did in one of our about 10 former threads about this problem (except for one irrelevant reply, to be precise).

From what I've seen in your examples of the other threads, we both want to do about the same stuff with BiaB. A lot of other forum members have quite other interests in BiaB, and therefore they seem not to encounter our specific issues as soon as we do. So if we can't reach the PG staff, they might even not get aware of these bugs.

Groovy move

I reported it to support in early December.

I know. Just wanted to explain, why I have still posted about it in this thread, although I've also already kind of given up ;-)

Thank you for the video. I could duplicate #3, not #1 and #2, but they might be related.

Et Voila ! Andrew in the place !

Hi Andrew,

thanks for the feedback! Good to hear!

Andrew,

There might be some further clues in the following posts, though as they're back in early 2021 and I knew very little about BiaB, it may all have been operator error (though the various twists and turns within BiaB don't help). I'd posted the song, but it isn't there now. Anyhow, the thread is here on the offchance that it may help:
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=89028&Number=644769#Post644769

Just now getting back to this discussion. Posts after this one I still need to read more thoroughly. Anyway, Thunderthud, thanks for pointing this out. BTW, I don't "right click" to change instruments. Right or left clicking, it doesn't make a difference, so I'm usually left clicking. Anyway, I tried it with the track that I was originally having issues with -- a bass track. So I clicked on the Track Name, then clicked on its description and changed the instrument, and Yay! It worked. So that puzzle's been solved at least.

BTW, I disagree with the coder's reasoning here. They've just made it so that I have to perform an extra step to get done what I wanted to get done. I don't see the advantage they're claiming.