PG Music Home Forums FAQ and Knowledge Base Band-in-a-Box for Windows FAQ When I render a song to wave, why do I not hear my audio track in the rendered wave file?

103. When I render a song to wave, why do I not hear my audio track in the rendered wave file?

There are three methods you can use to render your song to wave:

1. You can record the MIDI performance in real time as a stereo .WAV file ("Re-Render to WAV file").
2. Rarely used anymore: You can "Direct Render" the performance to .WAV using the RolandED VSC-3 ("Render [Save WAV] w/Roland VSC").
3. You can Direct Render to WAV using a DXi synth ("DXi-Direct Render [save WAV file]")

We have a tutorial explaining in detail how to render MIDI to wave using each of these methods. This also covers the most frequently encountered problems. Click here to read this tutorial.

If you have recorded an audio track with your Band-in-a-Box^® song (for example, you may have used a microphone to record a vocal track), Band-in-a-Box^® can merge the audio track with your rendered wave file. If you do not hear the audio track when you play the rendered wave file, or if it plays back at the wrong speed, here is what you need to do:

• First, make sure you have the latest update patch for Band-in-a-Box^® installed. You can check your exact version by going to Help | About Band-in-a-Box^®. Update patches for Band-in-a-Box^® can be downloaded here. If you have an earlier build than the latest available, download and install the update patch. In some earlier versions of Band-in-a-Box^®, *stereo* audio tracks were merged at the wrong speed (you can check to see if your audio track is stereo or mono by going to Opt. | Preferences | Audio). There were some other improvements to the "merge audio" routines that improved compatibility on certain systems and added a progress indicator to the Band-in-a-Box^® title bar.

• In the Render to Audio File dialog, make sure that "Merge in Audio Track" is checked. Also, if the problem is that the audio track volume is too low relative to the MIDI, use the "Adjust Audio Track volume by" setting to correct this. For example, a setting of 6 dB would make the audio track twice as loud.

• If you are using method 1 or 3 to render your song to wave, the audio track will be merged automatically at the end of the rendering process. While this is happening, you should see a progress indicator in the main Band-in-a-Box^® title bar showing the percentage of the audio merge complete. If you are using method 1 (Re-Render to WAV file), you *will not* hear your audio track while the song is being rendered. It will be merged at the end.

• If you are using method 2 (Render [Save WAV] w/Roland VSC), the audio track *is not* merged automatically, since this feature uses the Audio Conversion utility in the Roland VSC-3, and that utility does not merge audio. You must merge the audio track manually after audio conversion is complete by pressing the [Merge Aud.] button and selecting the rendered wave file. You could also install the DXi version of the VSC and use DXi-Direct Render instead.