Hi, I did some entry of notes using Editable Notation Mode. Upon play back there is quite a delay from the normal time the note should occur. You can see if very clearly on the piano roll I attached. Sounds pretty bad. Is there a cause and solution to this. Its BIAB 2018.
In Options > MIDI/Audio Drivers setup, check the Latency value.
From the help: "Software synthesizers have some inherent latency, which is the delay between the time a note is played and it is processed by the computer. Older softsynths had noticeable latency, whereas a VSTi/DXi synth using ASIO drivers has very little. This setting is used to synchronize the visual display (notation, chords, virtual piano etc.) with the sound you hear.
Band-in-a-Box automatically sets the latency for VSTi/DXi and some other softsynths.
The [Latency Adjust…] button in the MIDI/Audio Drivers Setup dialog opens the SoftSynth Latency Adjust dialog where you can manually adjust the latency."
There's a video that might help, here:
Search help for 'Quantize', also.
BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
I watched the video. I suspect that is not the issue because my latency reading is 30 but it is a theory :-) I attached the "Midi/Audio Drivers Setup" screen.
I did the quantize at 100% and it fixed the piano roll. Now that is a huge time saver over what I have done with manual snapping. Thanks so much VideoTrack! It was the 100% that did it. I attached the screen. I am helping a vocalist in our jam group. Here are the instructions I gave him.
To quantize to 100%, Click Melody on the menu. Click Edit melody track, Quantize time adjust, choose Quantize Melody, then set the % strength to 100 so it forces perfect on the beat timing (choose quantize start times only because you need a bit of a gap between notes if they are the same note such as the "One Note Samba" Song). I also left the Resolution per bar at 16.
But ideally it would be better if the delay did not exist. Here is the interesting part. The lead in bar and the 1st bar were entered a long time ago and the delay was not noticeable with my ear. The 2nd and 3rd bar were entered recently and the delay is a lot larger as you can see on the Piano-roll. I am wondering if I may have been running another software at the time and if it is better to have nothing running but BIAB when entering notation. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?
Regarding latency it would be nice to have a latency analysis software that can give a report. Does this exist? I tried google "computer latency analysis software". Its a deep dive :-)
John every time I work with BiaB or my DAW I always disable anything that can work in the background (anti-virus, anti-malware, ccleaner, etc) as well as disabling my Ethernet card.
Me, it's not about how many times you fail, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Wow MarioD and thanks. I should try that. I need to be sure I get get all that back :-) Caution is the word :-) I guess the software would come back with a restart. Not sure about the card :-) I often have 2 computers running on my home network. Turning the other one off may help.
The way I see it latency should have zero impact on this issue because it is where we click on the screen that determines the time allocation for the note (not when we click and how much time it takes to get to the disk drive). Since PianoRoll mode has a snap mode this should have a snap mode (click behind the line - to the right - and it places it perfectly at the location the line suggests). It seems very strange to me that this idea could have been missed. So maybe there is a snap mode.
Hi Noel, great minds think alike :-) I actually did something similar (see prior post and picture).
I checked for a snap mode. Nothing found. I will probably create a feature request for it. I am not sure why anyone would not want this so it seems more like a bug fix to me.
... snip ... Regarding latency it would be nice to have a latency analysis software that can give a report. Does this exist? ... snip
John,
If you using a non DXi soft synth, try the Latency Test. It's a style that runs audio on one side of the stereo channel and the midi soft synth on the other side of the stereo channel
Thanks Jim. According to the video I watched my Synth is a DXi. The popup on my BIAB shows CoyoteWT. My understanding is this overrides the "MS GS Wavetable Synth". Is this not correct?
But again as per my last post the entry of notes should default to snap and not be effected by latency at all. The only latency should be on playback if any. Here is an analogy. Would you like going to a banking machine and finding you had less money deposited because the machine was slow one day. No. If it takes longer to get there you should still get the same deposit amount. I think like a programmer because am a programmer :-)
Wow MarioD and thanks. I should try that. I need to be sure I get get all that back :-) Caution is the word :-) I guess the software would come back with a restart. Not sure about the card :-) I often have 2 computers running on my home network. Turning the other one off may help.
You're right, every thing will come back except the Ethernet card. Disable the Ethernet card via the Device Manager then minimize the Device Manger window and it will place it on the taskbar. Prior to either powering down or doing something else other than music just click on the minimized window and activate the Ethernet card. Easy-prezzie!
Me, it's not about how many times you fail, it's about how many times you get back up. Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Thanks MarioD. Maybe I will do some speed tests to see if I can actually cause a very large delay by running a boatload of software in loops. Fifteen MS-Access programs all in an infinite loop. This would be handy because it would prove that latency is in fact the problem.
Yes, I used the piano roll snap mode. So in total what I did was this. The song style is Latin giving 1/16ths in the editable notation mode. I entered the straight 1/8ths only for the first chorus using editable notation mode. I then quantized the melody in 1/16th at 100% to get those to perfectly line up. I tested this by listening and it worked. I then went back to editable notation mode and used this jump to video method to enter the first set of triplets. I then went to piano roll mode using the triplet snap to fix the triplets. I then copied the triplets out to other parts of the 1st chorus to complete the chorus. ----Again the editable notation mode needs a snap to fix to avoid the extra piano roll steps. ----It may have been too tricky for them to program the reading of the screen to do the snap to. ----At least the visual notation snaps to the vertical lines in editable notation mode. I then used the copy special process to copy the 1st chorus to the 2nd chorus then again to the 3rd chorus. (see the attached copy special dialog box settings I used).
In the copy special dialog box it shows something I can not figure out. The only other way I have figured out to copy to the other choruses is to set the choruses to one then set the choruses to a higher value and enter yes to copy the melody.
For swing tunes to quantize you need to humanize to swing feel. This fixes it except it is a tiny bit late. After you have fixed it this way, if you want to make the start times to start exactly on the triplet go to the Quantize melody dialog box, choose a Resolution of 12 to get you 4 beats of triplets per bar and choose 100% and only quantize the start times so that songs like "One Note Samba" do not get screwed up such that the rhythmic same notes do not sound like one long note. See the attached picture.
That's very impressive problem solving! As I read it through, I picked up a few things about BIAB that I didn't know. Thanks for taking the time to write it up so clearly.
Recently I have been reminding myself on a daily basis to see every frustration as not a challenge but rather a fun game. There are in fact no exceptions to this including both the game of trying to maximize the length of life and the game of minimizing or even eliminating the pain of death itself. This approach to thinking makes everything easier and more fun. I don't always play the game(s) well but it gets better with practice. Even loosing a game can be treated as a fun mental game it itself. This was just another fun game for me. It made finding the best solution I could find easier.
Interesting. I just entered the notes to another swing song using the editable notation mode. I checked the piano roll and it literally entered the start of every single one perfectly (just as if I was using snap mode). The end times could be better but they are often dead on and even when not dead on not a problem. I as usual have a lot of other programs running. Might this be a random bug? Did my quantize work on the prior song do something?
Like you, I get caught up in the problem solving because it's fun for me.
Over the years, I've noticed with BIAB that a couple of settings don't seem to kick in until the second use. I'm not sure why that is and I can never remember which ones are involved. I've come across this phenomenon with other programs too (not just PG Music ones).
Yes it is very possible that BIAB remembers the last quantize settings and uses these settings for the editable Notation entry process. As I enter more melodies using this if they also snap automatically then we have to conclude this. Again assuming this is true I have to assume that a factory reset will remove this setting from BIAB's memory. So I have updated my factory reset list to todos.
These days, BIAB stores many more settings from song to song and it's possible that the settings you refer to are amongst those. I can't offer any insight into this.
I wonder if the checkbox option "Snap to grid lines" in Notation View Opt is causing this? That might now be active when it was inactive previously.
I don't know. That checkbox is unchecked. I attached my settings.
I am glad you mentioned this dialog box because it just made me realize I need to learn this through reading and experimentation really well seeing as I am using this "editable notation mode" so much now.
After looking at your settings in "Notation Editor | Opt", what could have impacted on your recording is down the bottom of the middle column: "Auto-set Tick Offset". I always have this disabled.
When it's enabled, BIAB relaxes/humanizes timing of notes and it's determined by which style is loaded. I know this affects the Melody track because I write melodies for all of my songs. I haven't investigated other tracks.
I read somewhere above (if I recall correctly) where you mentioned that the notes weren't playing as long as you'd like them to. To fix this, click on the "More" on the bottom right of the "Opt" window and set the note duration to 95 (this is what I use).
I have set up a database reminder entry to systematically experiment with the ideas you have suggested in conjunction with what I did as well as investigating whether the particular song file has any impact in this issue.
However I can't wait...lol.
I tried a new song and entered some notes using "Staff Roll Notation Mode". I tried entering two notes without doing anything. After viewing the piano roll it actually timed them to start a bit early. So I entered two more the same but in the next bar after un-checking the Auto-set Tick Offset check box. It was a bit better but not 100% dead on. So I ran the quantize humanize to swing. It set them all up with the standard humanize delay. I then ran quantize with resolution 12 and 100% strength. If fixed all of them to be perfect except the very last note (which is exactly what it did the last time I did this process).
So the most interesting thing with this new song file test is the fact that they were early rather than late. So I went back and entered the exact same two notes but in the next bar but this time I used "Editable Notation Mode" rather than "Staff Roll Notation Mode". So this time the two notes were entered late rather than early (significantly late). This occurred even though the Auto-set Tick Offset check box was un-checked.
So this experiment suggests that the only way to get a perfect line up is to go back and use the process I used except that maybe having the Auto-set Tick Offset check box un-checked is good enough for my ear and thus would save time. However maybe the notes were a bit early because I used "Staff Roll Notation Mode" and maybe that is good enough. I can't do the good enough experiment at the moment (people sleeping in the house).
So I went ahead and did the experiments except for what is asked in the final question in the picture. Right click on the picture and choose "open image in new tab" to see the picture larger and clearer.
Based upon the above set of experiments I would say the best solution to the problem I was having is to have "Auto set Tick Offset" unchecked and to also have a setting of zero in the "tick Offset" check box.
However upon looking at the results again it appears that the first note entered in "Staff Roll Notation Mode" is not effected by the value in the "tick Offset" check box. The question them becomes is it only the very last note entered that is not perfect when using "Staff Roll Notation Mode". Give me a moment :-) Okay finished. I added more experiments to the picture and updated it in the above post rather than this one to avoid confusion.
I think my original problem was probably caused by having a tick offset of -12. I checked my old notes which go back to my use of BIAB version 2012 and someone told me to have value 0 in tick offset. I just checked. It was you Noel...lol. I copied you entry into the notes of my reminder database. So for some reason this text box got a different value but I don't know from where. I don't ever remember someone telling me to set it to -12.
Final conclusions: Make sure "Snap To Grid Lines" is checked to ensure that "Staff Roll Notation Mode" has accurate entries. Make sure the the "Auto Set Tick Offset" check box is unchecked and the text box called "Tick Offset" have a zero value so that "Editable Notation Mode" has accurate entries.
However, what happens when entering the melody of a Bossa tune (even 1/8ths) and you enter triplets by right clicking on the "current Playback Location Bar" and entering values 3 and 3. The results are shown in the attacked image. These settings make both modes of entry work properly it seems. I attached a picture of the corrected settings.
Thanks again for pointing the "snap to grid" check box out Noel.
It kind of bugs me that I wrote this "Again the editable notation mode needs a snap to fix to avoid the extra piano roll steps." and I did go looking for the snap mode but did not look far enough (I looked very carefully at the notation window but did not think to look at the opt button and thus did not think to click it and carefully inspect the options dialog screen).
The good news is I know how to fix BIAB files that already have errors :-) Often an error can lead one down a learning path that provides very useful skills. I can think of another very significant example. A pattern emerges.
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