PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Questions Re. Thinking About Buying Band in a Box

One advantage to mp3 over wav is upload time. Also, some sites require mp3 only. I don't think Herb meant that he uses mp3 exclusively.

Donny, Guitarhacker, DeaconBlues09, floyd, and anyone else whom I have missed naming here,

Many, many thanks for the continued help, suggestions and links.

I will check out Joanne's stuff.

Don, if you get back in touch with Mr. Zimmerman, please ask him to make good on the wish that he expressed about four years ago to work with McCartney. I would love to hear what the two old croakers come up with.

In answer to Tangmo's question,people say that the kind of rock that I do sounds like Dylan - he is my second main influence, with The Beatles being my first. Indian Classical Music is next, although I do not seek to integrate that into my music in any way (I am a bit of a snob about keeping the purity of that music, although I love The Beatles' songs that combined rock with ICM).

I am a complete Beatles nut, actually, and at 55 years old am just a little too young to remember them and to have seen them (arrgh!).

However, I have seen both Paul and Ringo in concert (Paul many times), and - frustatingly - know, or used to know people who have worked with them or who know/knew them.

Despite the above influences, I would not say that I sound like either The Fabs or Dylan (although I have put some musical 'references' to The Beatles into a couple of songs).

Although I love playing guitar, I am not very technically adept (that is why I gave up sitar lessons), but my playing is relatively poor, but I think I am a fairly good songwriter.

Unfortunately, I stopped singing (but kept playing) for about a year and a half from mid-2016 until a few months ago, and I now cannot even sing some of my own songs properly. I am going to post separately about this, as it scares the hell out me.

Sorry if all of that was too much information.

Hi Rustyspoon,
I just wanted to let you, and others here, know that I took your post as encouraging, and as a user's actual experience of BIAB.

Thanks for that.

Believe me, as someone who used to load computer programs (pre-DOS!) from a cassette recorder, and who has bent various early word processor and current graphics programs to my will, I am used to clunky interfaces, and to the learning curve.

I even spent two stress-filled weeks a couple of years ago teaching myself the forum-management end of Phbb from scratch. I found the learning curve to be very, very steep, but it was worth it. I could not code this site, but I could do the behind-the-scenes management (setting up forums, and the like).

I hate all of that, but am used to it, so the BIAB interface does not intimidate me at all - but I am sure that I will have questions!

Thanks again for your post.

drutgat, in that case I think every post made stands.

I'm not sure I would recommend BIAB as an easy tool for people doing any type of prog, or for some types of metal. Since I don't do those things, I can't "recommend" (or discourage either). However, I have enough experience with the program to say that it can be useful in any genre...it's just there are few "easy" style choices in odd time signatures--"pick style, get basic backing" type of thing. I'm convinced that a more "advanced" user could create a backing, but not convinced that it would be easier than other methods. I just don't know.

I've given up in trying to reconnect with Bob Z. I even emailed his brother David who obviously mistook me for yet another autograph or memorabilia collector which I am not.

His hometown, Hibbing, Minnesota, is currently working on a big bash for Bob but he didn't show up for many earlier attempts. I think that his privacy has become more precious to him in the Autumn of his life.

I am sorry to hear that. It's a real shame that Dylan is so hard to contact. You could always try writing via that boxing gym / club that he owns (if he still owns it). Or, his agent - although maybe you have already tried methods like that.

I read last year that he and David had bought a place in Scotland, outside Inverness somewhere. I think that the article I read had a more precise location for it.

Where there's a will, there's a way.

Our forum friend "Furry" lives in Inverness, maybe he can confirm Bob's whereabouts.

Furry, it would be a great segue to meet Bob if you would mention me from Keewatin, Minnesota. I'm the guy who taught Bob that long, descending intro run by Luther Perkins in Johnny Cash' "Home Of The Blues."

Drutgat, everybody has given you lots of Biab info but I want to make one point and that is generation times. The time it takes to generate is completely dependent on the horsepower under the hood of your PC. Somebody mentioned the generation times for 4 or 5 Real Tracks as 20-30 seconds. That is very slow, he must be using either an older system or a weak new one. A $400 laptop can run Biab just fine but not very quickly while a $1,500 i7 desktop will singe your eyebrows off. Look at my sig, that system will generate 7 RT's in maybe 8 seconds max and mine is mid level to low high end I guess. I bought it used off Ebay for $625. A hot system will cut that time in half.

Bob

Hi Bob. Very interested to know how you achieve these speeds... After your post, I went and timed regeneration times on my computer. For me, each re-generation takes 12-15 seconds. And I have an i7-7600U CPU / fast SSD and computer cleaned of all bloatware. Realtracks are on internal SSD, not external HD. Nothing heavy running on background, no VSTs.

Very roughly, my computer is 20% faster than yours, what am I doing wrong to have nearly 40% speed drop in RT processing? Did you tune something in Windows like HD access or memory allocation?

Sorry to jam in this thread like this, but I honestly think this might be very important for some users.

Thanks.

Hmmm, I don't know Mike. When I got it it had Win 7 and that summer was when MS had their free upgrade to Win 10 which I did by doing the complete installation not just the upgrade. It never had any bloatware to clean.

My stuff tends to be AABA jazz tunes with 3 choruses and those go quick. If I were to change to say 7 choruses with a full soloist RT that would take a bit longer. The soloists RT's seem to make a significant difference and since I'm usually the soloist I don't do a whole lot with those at least not in Biab. RB is different, I'm known to go pretty crazy there...

Alanah has been a regular here for many years but she doesn't post much in the regular forums any more but she's been a beta tester forever. A few years ago during testing she had just bought what sounded to me like a $2,500 system. I remember she set up a very complex song with all RT's and she had style changes and RT changes every few bars just to do a total stress test. She said her generation time was 6 seconds! I had my old system then and my usual time with my much simpler songs was in the 20-30 sec range and that's what prompted me to upgrade.

Just so I know I'm not smoking my socks here, I just opened Biab, set up a 3 chorus jazz ballad and selected the Trepid Jazz ballad multi style, this has Bass, Strings, Drums, Guitar and Horn Section RT's along with a midi melody track. Exactly 8 seconds to the first drum stick countin. I just created another one, 16 bars for 12 choruses 5 RT's and I added a Medley soloist making 6 for the entire song. That's 192 bars and it took 21 seconds. Not surprising when I think about it. From what you've been writing about you're doing these big complex things so 15-20 seconds sounds about right then. Now that I'm getting into this I just did a further test. I nuked the soloist track and it took exactly 10 seconds to generate 5 RT's for 192 bars. One RT soloist track doubled the time. I think it's because the soloists have many more individual licks and phrases for Biab to apply it's smarts to.

Here's the thing when you do audio rendering in any DAW including Biab it takes time. I'm sure you know when you create a midi track in Sonar, Studio One etc it's creating an audio track while the midi track is playing. At the end if you have a bunch of midi tracks and you didn't create audio tracks as you were going, how long would it take that program to render your song to a wav? I don't know but it's certainly more than a few seconds. Biab is generating a brand new audio track from multiple RT's all at the same time. I think 8-20 seconds is pretty good given the variables.

You know enough about computers to know if someone is doing that with an old Core Duo with 2 gigs of ram, it's called good luck. It will do it all just fine but it could take a minute and a half to generate.

Bob

Time taken also depends on many aspects beside the processing performance.
- How many tracks
- What is the overall length of the song
- Setting of the Disable Fast Generation option
- Any frozen tracks in the song
etc

So it's difficult (impossible actually) to make an accurate generation time comparison just based on processing performance.

Bob, thank you for long write up.

I got 7 RT, one style change in the middle. 2 RT tracks are only present for 10 bars. No soloist RT. Total 60 bars. This theme should "fly". Not sure why it takes so looong.

I tried muting/freezing all RT except one... That single RT takes exactly 8 seconds to regenerate (60 bars, half time muted).

There are many articles on the net how to optimize SSD performance. Not sure if these sort of things will help.

The regeneration time is one of my biggest nemesis with BIAB

P.S. Would be nice to have sort of "sticky" list "How to optimize your computer for BIAB" for new and possibly seasoned users. Given, that it will speed up things, even just a bit.

drutgat, I am sorry to jump into your thread in such manner, it is just when I saw the regeneration time Bob posted, I got all nervous.

Mike.

Hi Don,
The Zimmermans' house is called Aultmore House, near Nethy Bridge, near Inverness.

If you google it, there are quite a few articles from around 2007 when Mr. Z and David bought the house, to around 2009.

The house itself has a website devoted to it, because it was the location of a TV series for a number of years, and according to the articles, the Zimmermans rented the house.

If you do a google map view, you will be able to see/find the house.

Here is a link to one of the results returned by a google search

Dylan Buys A House in Scotland

Mike, Bob and Videotrack.

Thanks for your posts.

This is all good information for me.

Part of the reason that I asked about running times is that I anticipate that I will be running BIAB from an external source, rather than from the internal SSD, when I get my new computer.

This is because I will be using the SSD to run video editing software, and the fairly substantial number of music apps that I use, so - if I am correct - there will not be that much room for much else.

If the higher capacity SSD's worked well, I would be less concerned about this.

Bob, that was probably me you were referring to with generate/regenerate speeds. I never put a stop watch to it, just a good guess, and conservative rather than bragging. I also said midi was faster, when it fact it's all but instantaneous. Mine was a good machine a few years ago, but not top o' the line. So I estimate it's a mid-range machine today. Highly rated AMD processor, quad-core with 8 gigs of ram.

Any "issues" I've had with BIAB stem from the speed of my former usage (midi only) not matching the regeneration speeds of Real Tracks. I'd have to exercise a little more patience even if regeneration speeds were 6 seconds. For me, they're not. But even if I over-estimated, I think that's a realistic ball-park and certainly not too long to wait.

Bob,
I think that the 16GB's of RAM you have is a prime factor in being able to get the results you are getting.

Could be but I've read conflicting posts about how much ram is needed to generate RT's. All I know for 20 some years now is put in as much ram as you can afford.

A few more points to make. Years ago I found out about all the bloatware the PC makers put on their machines so I started building my own. Then I found out the guys at all the independent computer stores will take your components and build it for you pretty cheap. I'll read about different combinations of CPU/Mobo/Ram along with the case and buy what I think is the best bang for the buck from Tiger Direct or somewhere at the time. I just had a brand new machine built at Fry's 3 months ago for business. If you buy everything from them they'll put it together for you for $85. It's an AMD Ryzen with a gaming mobo and 16 gigs ram with room for 64. I also bought the enterprise version of Win 10 Pro. I'm not an enterprise but I simply asked the tech about it and he signed a paper that let me pay a discounted price. I don't have any music stuff on it but I can tell just for my business and using the internet it's quite a bit faster than the one I just tested. I should switch machines but that's a hassle and my music PC isn't exactly a dog.

The next point is both machines are clean installs of Win 10 Pro and I don't optimize anything and I mean NOTHING. Lots of folks like to mess with their systems and for me I've learned to leave them alone. When I did this little Biab test the internet was running, my AV was running, everything was running and my audio was perfect, no glitches and you read the generation times.

Is leaving it stock really necessary, I have no idea. Just as an observer (backed up by a comment from Kent a while back) it seems those with the most problems are those who are constantly messing with their systems because they read a tech article. Or, maybe it's just coincidence but my systems work well so why mess with a good thing?

My best advice to folks having these problems is wipe the hard drive, reinstall windows and make the first thing you try out Biab and see what happens. That's your baseline. Clone the HD and then CAREFULLY start reinstalling what you really, truly need and pay attention. Then, don't change a thing leave it alone.

One more thing about generation times. I tested installing everything onto my SSD system drive which of course worked great, then I deleted all the RT/RD's leaving just the Biab program itself on the system drive and running all the RT's from the external drive. Zero difference so may as well save the space on the system drive. Again, the idea is keep the system drive as clean as possible.

One thing rharv talks about and he is a guru on these forums is to point all the DAW/Biab apps to an external drive for rendering audio. He gets much deeper into live recording/mixing and all that than I do but he says it does make a difference.

Bob

Hi Bob,
Many thanks for your reply, suggestions, ideas and the energy you are putting into helping to shepherd me along as I prepare to buy BIAB.

Yes, in my experience, there is a tipping point of sorts regarding the amount of RAM needed to accomplish any intensive task, such as video editing, and audio tracking/editing.

After one reaches that specific point, then adding more RAM is redundant. However, the difference between having too little and just the right amount of RAM can be huge, in my experience.

Great minds think alike on the having-a-computer-assembled front. I used to do this a lot - seems that was what one did all the time in the late 80s and 90s, but I do not know many people who do that nowadays.

However, I am a bit of a control freak, and research things painstakingly, so dictating the contents of my own system is a must for me. There are a couple of guys where I live who have a YouTube channel on which they test all manner of computer hardware for gaming. I am quite impressed by how rigourous these fellows are, and I am going to approach them to see if I can pay them to consult a bit (even though I have a rough idea right now what I want), and put together a fairly sophisticated PC for me.

The 'extra' factor in all of this is that I also require the computer to be capable of video editing. Not only does that require more system resources than audio tracking and editing, but we are now living in a time in which each of the main video editing software applications work optimally with different hardware than the others.

Why can't life just be simple?

Regarding optimizing on the PC, although I do not leave things alone totally in that respect, what I tend to do is to change various settings. For example, I make the computer notify me if a Windows update is trying to install itself, so that I can choose to install or not install the update.

I also create System Restore Points before I install any programme or app, and that has saved my bacon on a couple of occasions.

Thankfully, on the one occasion when System Restore did not help, reinstalling Win 10 was relatively painless, and I have to say, very, very quick.

I completely agree with rharv about rendering audio (and video) on a separate drive - that is actually faster, and puts a lot less strain on each drive than trying to run everything from one drive.

Thanks for mentioning that, though - I only discovered that a year or so ago.

And yes, rest assured that I will completely wipe and reformat my HD, prior to re-installing Windows, if the need arises. Cloning the drive is a great idea.

I wonder if it also makes sense to partition the System drive because it might keep the information in various partitions safer - I will ask rharv about that. Then again, it might lead to more trouble than it is worth.

Thanks, too, for letting me know about the results of you testing leaving BIAB on your SSD drive and running all of the RT's and RD's from the external drive. It is very useful for me to know that there was zero difference in the regeneration time of those tracks when you did things that way.

Thanks again for all of this.

drutgat and maybe others who are interested to know.
I have a fast NVMe SSD, which is several times faster than standard SSD SATA.
For the sake of the test, I made a partition with 30 GB overhead and moved RT and RD to new partition. Made no difference at all in render times.

Within 14 second rendering time my CPU and HD did not peak over 35%. Memory used by BIAB did not exceed 310 megabytes under the stress test.

I am not too tech savvy, but from the information I gathered it has to do with how the RT/RD files are handled. From my understanding, with every rendering/change BIAB goes to original source files and does does something inside the program, not utilizing computer resources well. So I believe, you can have a rocket fast computer, but render speeds would not change much until PG changes code to optimize how RT/RD are handled.

P.S. drutgat, If you are planning to buy external SSD for BIAB, look into NVMe SSD, not a regular SATA SSD.

Thanks drutgat, interesting article.

Rumors abound that Bob was interested in buying Merle Haggard's ranch which is nearby. I was hoping to simply 'drop in' on Bob but Merle's death dashed all hopes.