RE RULES OF ENGAGEMENT OF BIAB AS A PLUG IN USED IN A HOST DAW.

due to a thread on here i was recently involved in where i was trying to help a user new to biab and other threads in the past ive seen on use of the biab plug in a host daw
(eg cake/tools/reaper/cubase/mixcraft/studio 1 and other daws etc etc.) ..

i would like to know /have clarified the rules of engagement of loading up the biab plug in, in a host daw.
because as an ex-tech i'm kinda confused myself on this subject so i'm sure some new users will be also.

i feel some CLARITY is needed on this subject as follows...
1. in the host daw are there any bit depth and or sampling rates that might mean a crash/problem could occur useing bb plug in ?
and in the host daw are there any other factors that could cause a crash situatio eg some daws like reaper allow recording to flac and other formats.
in addition should a daw always be set to asio drivers ? reason i ask is i notice one pg vid shows daw set to waveout.
IN SUMMARY WHAT SETTINGS IN A HOST DAW COULD PRECIPITATE
THE BB PLUG IN NOT WORKING OR A CRASH SITUATION ?
WHAT SHOULD THE HOST DAW BE SET TO ?
DOES IT MATTER ?
2 the users external (eg usb) sound device.
modern sound devices are useing asio and are controlled by a IN SOFTWARE ON SCREEN USER CONTROL PANEL OFTEN.
with various settings like bit depth/sampling rate/buffer and other settings possibly.
once again i ask....
WHAT SETTINGS IN A MODERN SOUND DEVICE USER CONTROL PANEL COULD PRECIPITATE THE BB PLUG IN NOT WORKING OR A CRASH SITUATION ?
WHAT SHOULD THE CONTROL PANEL BE SET TO ?
DOES IT MATTER ?
3. in pg's software products themselves (eg biab or realband )i ask.....
WHAT SETTINGS IN PREFERENCES COULD PRECIPITATE BIAB
NOT WORKING OR A CRASH SITUATION ?
4. and in windows itself in its sound device settings ....
ARE THERE ANY SETTINGS THAT COULD PRECIPITATE BIAB NOT WORKING OR A CRASH SITUATION ?.
5. finally are there any other situations/settings that i havent mentioned where the end user of a pg product might come across a problem or a crash situation ?

the reason i'm asking for clarity regarding the above is every year there are many new user posts through the year relating to settings issues often. and user problems.
i DO realise this is not unique to pg ; and one can see same issues being raised on various recording and gear manufacturer forums. i also realise its a complex subject. thus how about pg make some vids to show the best settings approaches ?
in closing as an example of one issue ...as biab likes 44.1/16...
IS IT SAFEST TO SET EVERYTHING AT 44.1/16 ?
ie the asio external (eg usb) sound device and the host daw and windows ?
i really believe CLARITY is needed regarding this subject.

best and thanks in advance.
oldmuso

I second the move!

With the last PlugIn (of which I needed to use the VST2 as my DAW Reason did not accept VST3) I had loads of trouble. Often accompanied by messages like "mismatch". I was asking support many times the same questions you did above. Thanks to Pipeline I found a way to use the VST3 and the problems disapeared. Now that I had a workaround, Support lost focus. Now with 2021 and the latest PlugIn and Studio One being my main DAW (and ocassionly with Reason still) no more problems so far.
But I still would like to have these questions answered.

Uncle Paul.
i hear you.
one of the reasons i exited tech was need for a simpler life and to spend much more time with my lovely wife and my music.
i wasnt in anything to do with music software.
but in a typical large organisation with large complex operational system environments if a system crashes, everyone from the ceo (who doesnt have a clue often bout tech but wants systems implemented in 3 months that should take 3 years) down to the large number of end users are on the back of the systems and tech people.

who then move on to an org that realises large systems implementations DO in fact take 3 years lol. !
the other aspect often is that because large organisations have problems recruiting certain very rare tech disciplines ; the people they DO recruit are often overworked and highly stressed.
you have no idea paul the crazy stories i could relate from my time in tech. whether big systems development or small.

thus i DO have a degree of sympathy paul for developers like pg.
because as a developer one is always bound by the base tech platform one is working on and its limitations.

frankly i laugh when i see many mac/pc debates on various recording forums. because the truth is every platform has its plusses and minuses.
the other day i was checking out the raspberry pi platform in much more detail and its plusses and minuses just for giggles and how developers work on it etc cos i like to root for the underdog lol. ! and well i'm a nerd at heart lol. and i'm interested how traction waveform and reaper
and other software is working on the pi 4 which i think might become a competitive threat once the processor moves up to 3ghz plus etc.

yesterday i added up the number of settings in a typical recording daw rig paul. i added up a minimum of 50 or more i think it was between the daw host settings and plug in settings and sound card settings and windows settings etc etc . so obviously users new to setting up a recording rig are often befuddled.
thus my request for CLARITY and a set of rules that new users can be pointed to via easy step by step pg videos.
because i like to see pg do well. and because their products help musicians create songs.

frankly paul the only way to solve this issue is all music software and hardware devs need to come together to define common protocols/standards. but then of course it might get stifled, as these things often are by bureaucracy lol.

best
been there done that oldmuso.

1: The BIAB plugin can work at any standard sample rate from 44.1khz to 192khz at 16-24 bit (at least from my testing, since my Focusrite supports 44.1khz, 48khz, 88.2khz, 96khz, 176.4khz, and 192khz at 16 and 24-bit, and yes I've personally tried all those settings). Not all devices capable of higher sample rates will work at those sample rates in BIAB or RB, usually due to driver issues. Driver type selected in the DAW will vary from one computer to the next as not all computers will work the same.

2: Those settings exist because not all computers are the same - if they were all the same, we wouldn't have options. If you've ever used a Mac with BIAB, you would know that our audio settings in the Mac version have way fewer settings - this is because there are only a handful of computer types for Mac where there are hundreds of thousands for Windows.

Sample rate and bit depth aside (as mentioned in #1), buffer size is entirely dependent on the computer and software. One will work fine at 32 samples, another one will require 2048. Other plugins in your DAW can and will affect this too. You'll have to explore these settings to find out what works with your computer as we cannot predict how hardware and software we don't own will perform.

3: Within Band-in-a-Box, RealBand, PowerTracks, etc, we do not have any settings that cause crashes in and of themselves, otherwise we would not have those options.

4: That is another situation we can't control, as Microsoft can at any moment make a change or update that causes something to stop working. This is unfortunately how computers work.

5: There are definitely situations that can lead to crashes, but we cannot predict them without experiencing them ourselves - at which point, we would figure out how to avoid that crash and adjust the program code accordingly.

It is "safest" to set everything to 44.1/16 or 44.1/24 (bit depth doesn't really matter) and this is often a troubleshooting step we take. Otherwise there is no clear answer to these question, as it is entirely dependent on audio and computer hardware and drivers.

Simon.
HALLELUJAH ! that helps a lot.
dont get me wrong i KNOW its not easy for devs.

some ideas i had... maybe pg might consider is some sort of added faq's/vids that would help a brand new user.
showing say a few example set ups of host daw/usb interface/win 10/biab/rb settings etc .
sorta like a few example "templates" that are known to work well.
this way when a new user might encounter a problem
other pg users could point to the standard settings templates to try.

best
oldmuso

Thank you for this answer.
But I miss some other important information that may be indipendent of all this varieties in Hard and Software.
While it is safe to set everything to the Basic sample rate of 44/16 you point out as a measure for troubleshooting; do the Software packages involved in a given setting need to be set to the same driver?
To clarify: I refer to Band in a Box (in the background), The plugIn and a DAW. If there is ASIO available, doe all 3 need to be set not only to 44/16 but to ASIO as well.
If one of the does not support ASIO, do all 3 need to be set to, say, WAS?

Is it safe to set everything the same, sample rate and Audio driver?
Or is it not only the safe way to go, but absolutely necessary?

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Why do I even ask? just to give some background for those wondering.
I ask this, because as I mentioned in my post I had this "mismatch error", but was not able to find a setting that was available in all of the 3 Components.
I had this strange behaviour (still no answer if this is intended) that when selecting a style in the PlugIn a small window popped up which I could grab (if fast enough) an view the settings in bbw-64.exe. And the settings differed from the settings in the PlugIn, but could not be altered.

Hi Paul, the VST does not need a driver as it is a plug-in for your DAW and the DAW has the needed driver. In other words the VST piggybacks on the DAW's driver, thus it does not need its own driver.

ASIO is a one trick pony; that is it will only work on one program at a time. So if you have ASIO on both your DAW and BiaB then you would have to turn one off to run the other. The best way to have both active simultaneously is to have your DAW on ASIO and BiaB on either MME or WAS.

It is best to have the sample rate the same in BiaB and your DAW. BiaB is 44.1 KHz by 16 audio bits depths, the same as all CDs. However you can have higher sample rates and bit depths in your DAW but not only do they take up more HD space the returns don't justify that space. I keep my DAW at 44.1 x 24. You may select other settings.


I hope this helps.

Uncle Paul,

Band-in-a-Box (BiaB), the BiaB plugin and your DAW are three separate and distinct audio applications. When you use an external hardware device with an ASIO audio driver, only one application should have it's audio driver set at ASIO.

Most ASIO audio drivers support use by only one application at a time. Unfortunately, as long as an application is open, even if it is minimized and in the background, that application may retain access to the ASIO hardware audio driver and block or prevent other applications from accessing the driver.

Generally speaking the only time an ASIO driver is needed is when you are recording. So set whichever application you're recording in to ASIO and set the other applications to WAS, WAS Shared, Windows Direct or MME or another available audio setting.

The BiaB plugin can be used inside a DAW track eliminating the need to export audio or MIDI from BiaB and then import the audio or data into the DAW. When you're using the plugin you don't even need to have the legacy BiaB application open.

The sample rate mismatch message commonly happens after a Windows update resets the Windows audio driver sampling rate to 48Khz while the Band-in-a-Box audio sample rate setting remains at 44.1Khz. +++ HERE +++ is a post that provides the steps you can take to verify the audio samples rates.

There aren't really any standard settings to try - every computer is unique. It's a matter of trying all the audio related settings until you find what works with your computer/hardware/software combinations. We've found some hardware/software combinations only work at 48khz, so in that case telling the customer to set to 44.1khz as a "guaranteed thing" wouldn't work there. Everything has to be considered on a case-by-case basis.



You don't have to match WAS/MME/ASIO in all your applications, and in fact it can cause problems if you do. ASIO, WAS in Exclusive mode, and WDM-Kernel Streaming are "exclusive" protocols that allow one app to use the driver at a time, meaning that no other app can output sound. It's best to use those exclusive modes ONLY in applications where it is necessary - for example your DAW when you're recording (and then no other audio app should be open).

Hardware and software always need to match sample rate, otherwise you'll get no sound or sound issues (cutting in and out, distortion, etc). The only "exception" so to speak is when using WAS/MME/DirectSound in a non-exclusive mode, because that goes through the Windows audio mixer which I believe can resample any incoming audio to match the hardware (which is part of what creates latency when using those modes). This can allow multiple programs to output sound with non-matching sample rates, though in practice it doesn't always work.



Correct - the VST pipes the audio directly into the DAW, which then outputs the audio through whatever audio driver it's using. And also mostly correct that ASIO only works with one app at a time - I say mostly, because multi-client ASIO drivers do exist (my 3rd gen Focusrite Scarlett, RME Fireface, and multiple MOTU interfaces all have multi-client drivers) although the majority are single-client.

I personally keep my DAW in 24/96 as that typically increases the accuracy of the mix, and hard drives are cheap. When I render to the final master though, I tend to bring it down to 44.1/16 or /24 as it doesn't matter as much there for what I do - who needs high sample rates when death metal is just noise???

Kidding - I do death metal, jazz, funk, rock, electronic, and everything else (except country).


Exactly!

A big thank you to all responding. That clarifies a lot.
This is still a complicated matter, yet much clearer now.
There was much useful information to sort through this.
My NI Komplete Audio 6 has a multi client ASIO driver and I have set Windows to non-exclusive mode (should consider to change that for recording, thank you again).
The most useful information was that I should not match formats but have, say, ASIO on my DAW and WAS on Band in a Box.
To quote justanoldmuso: "Hallelujah"

Uncle Paul.
Re: COMPLICATED.
that about sums it up accurately.
frankly (haveing worked in crazy tech for a few years) i feel the tech industry has done a very poor job on the human to computer interraction.
But there is hope.
the reason the amazon fire tablet impresses me is its not only "fun" but very easy to use and affordeable.
it boots very fast and i can get around the net very fast to get the info on a new recording product fast that i'm researching.

frankly i started this thread because i was VERY CONCERNED bout the struggles that people new to recording have.
i STILL believe PG would get a lot of kudos with some , what i might call "set up vids" as i mentioned earlier.
ie addressing common problems a new user comes across.
as well as "what do all those audio/midi preference settings" mean in biab and rb ?
just simple stuff like "what do those little boxes all mean that are in the audio settings dialog of bb" etc etc

yes i KNOW there are manuals/faq's.
but how many people bother to read them ?
hopefully people might watch vids.
We had EXACTLY THE SAME PROBLEM TIME AFTER TIME IN INDUSTRY with loads of end users.
we would create beautifull manuals that cost big bucks but only a few hard core users bothered to read them.
its human nature eh ?

but even with such vids provided, it is very difficult to deal with users who just refuse to learn even the basics of their computer.
i ACTUALLY have known many many end users over the years who refuse in win to learn even the very basics of things.
same on mac. if the user wont learn even the basics of MAC OS use and its features. there will be problems.

(dont get me wrong i think the new m1 macs are nice except i would like more ports )

in summary the uppermost question in my mind is how does tech industry deal with the above type of user ? how does tech industry make it easier for the above type of user to learn ?. who refuses to even learn the basics ?
THIS HAS BEEN A LONG TIME CHALLENGE for tech industry.

its ok for people like simon or myself or lots of pg users on here that are tech savvy and can solve a tech issue.... but what about people who are not ? how does tech address that type of user and help them ? tis a QUANDARY. that i dont think is easily solved.


best
oldmuso

From my perspective, the part that computer technology and/or the various standards never got right was the “chair to keyboard interface”.

The “chair to keyboard interface” is still responsible for somewhere close to 90% of computer related issues. If only there was a way to fix that.

You're very welcome! Exclusive mode can help with recording, worth a try. As far as mixing/matching formats, just to clarify for everyone it should be fine to have any amount of apps using WAS (non exclusive) or MME simultaneously.



Two ports on my M1 Macbook Air is not enough, and one of those ports is shared with the charger so it's more like 1 port!



Shhhhh, don't tell them that, or they'll fix it and I'll be out of a job!

I can't speak for your other end users, but I can tell you that for me, it's not a matter of not reading the manual or even of not watching the videos, but of not comprehending them--to the point that it's taken months and a lot of very patient explanations from you and the rest of the guys for me to be able to read those words in the manual and believe they're in English. Honestly, it's been like trying to read a foreign language, and I've only got about half of it decoded. **sheepish smile**

I know that BIAB works properly. I know it's operator error on my part. Add in a fussy computer with a wonky soundcard, and trying to understand everything at once just fries my brain almost every day.

Hi Cathie, if you ever have trouble or just need something explained differently, feel free to hop on chat! We're available there weekdays from 6am-6pm Pacific Time, as well as Saturday from 8am-4pm. Simply click on the green button at the top of the PGMusic webpage that says "Live help"!

I have talked about this for close to 20 years on these forums. What we're talking about here is digital audio which is using a computer for music production. Every nooby on this forum including me 20 years ago knew nothing about this stuff in the beginning.

Recording software is designed to emulate all the hardware in a professional recording studio. The reason we didn't understant a fraction of what we read in the manual is it's written in the language of the recording studio just like medical software is written in the language of the medical profession, legal software the same, photo editing same thing and on and on with all the different industries that software was created for. All written in the language of that industry so guess what? You need to learn the language of a recording engineer. Why can't this be simplified? It's because there are full blown expensive university courses in music production and anybody getting into this needs to have at the least a basic understanding of the unique language being used.

Whatever field a user is working in now or maybe retired from required certain levels of education, some very specialized, plus experience. Can some nooby come into your office today and just take over your job? Music production is no different.

That means you MUST learn that language first and you MUST be very proficient in how Windows and your computer hardware works. It goes hand in hand. In other words you MUST become a computer nerd. I've read articles talking about what you should and should not put in a resume used for getting a new job. One of the things to NOT bother with is saying how good you are with Windows and MS Office. In the modern world it's just assumed EVERYBODY knows all that. If you don't you're just wasting your time even applying.

The problem here is this forum is filled with older users who never had to learn much about Windows. Wait! you say. All I want to do is make music not become some flippin computer nerd. All I can say is that's the name of the game, don't want to do that then don't try to play the game. Give it up now before you waste any more money because you'll just frustrate yourself. I'm using the generic "you" btw not talking about any one person.

I don't usually like to preach but now I'm preaching because I know PGM and all the other DAW companies won't tell you this because they're in the business of selling software. They'll deal with all the tech support later. To PG's credit Biab is very easy to use even for someone with minimal knowledge of this stuff, BUT as soon as they want to go a bit further than simply entering some chords, pick a style and hit Play, they hit this wall with the terminology, using a DAW for the first time and Windows.

Bob