Band in a Box requires audio and midi input and output. The installation program makes intelligent guesses as to what I/O to use based on your system. In many cases this will be the best choice for an average user. However, many users will need to make changes to accomodate their more advanced requirements.

To reach the I/O setup dialog choose the menu item Opt|Midi/Audio driver setup. This will open the Midi/Audio Driver Setup dialog seen at right.

Contents 1 MIDI Setup 2 Audio Setup 3 Common Problems & Solutions 3.1 Setting ASIO drivers - infinite loop 3.2 midi driver installed correctly but may be in use by another program - Error message 4 References 5 External Links

MIDI SetupEdit

If you have an external midi instrument, such as a keyboard, you should see that listed in the MIDI Input driver box to the upper left of the dialog. Select the relevant input.

You probably have a number of midi outputs available. These will be listed in the MIDI Output Driver box near the center. Most systems will have at least the Microsoft MIDI Mapper and the Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth. Generally, if these are the only synths installed on your system, you will not want to choose either of these. The reason is that the supplied Roland VSC DXi synth sounds better than the built in synths. Additionally, the VSC DXi is less complicated to use.

If you installed the VSC DXi, or another DXi based synth you should check the Use VST/DXi Synth checkbox. This will open the VST/DirectX Instruments/Plugins dialog where you can select an installed DXi or VST synth. If you wish to use an external midi device and you want it to play through a selected midi output check the Route MIDI Thru to MIDI Driver checkbox.

Any other software or hardware synth you may have should also be listed in the MIDI Output Driver box. If you have a midi output listed and you would like to use it then select that output and don't check the Use VST/DXi Synth checkbox. This will route any midi produced, or passed through, by BiaB to the selected output.

Audio SetupEdit

As mentioned, the installation program will make intelligent choices with regard to audio setup. This should usually be sufficient for the average user. However, you may have more than one audio input and output source and you may wish to change which is used. To make changes to the default audio I/O you need to click the Audio Settings... button near the bottom right of the MIDI/Audio Drivers Setup dialog. This will bring up the Audio Settings dialog seen at the right.

The current Audio Driver Type is shown in the dropdown at the upper right of this dialog. If MME is the current driver type then you may want to change this, especially if latency is an issue. Click the dropdown and select ASIO if you wish to change the audio driver type.

If there are no ASIO drivers installed on your system BiaB will notify you with a message dialog. In this case you can either leave the MME driver type already selected (MME is a stable system and the sound quality is virtually as good as ASIO) or you can download and install the free Asio4All drivers and install them. After installing Asio4All you can return to this dialog and change to the ASIO type.

If you do have installed ASIO drivers you will see a dialog listing all ASIO drivers installed on your system. Select the driver you wish to use and close the dialog. There are a number of settings possible with ASIO but those settings need to be discussed in an advanced topic.

Common Problems & SolutionsEdit

Setting ASIO drivers - infinite loopEdit

Prior to the release of BiaB 2010 there was an infinite loop in the code if you attempted to use ASIO drivers and none were installed on your system. An unpopulated dialog of ASIO drivers would appear. You couldn't exit from the dialog without selecting a driver, but since there were no drivers you couldn't exit at all. You needed to use the Task Manager to close the program.

This seems to be fixed in version 2010. The system now displays a message dialog imforming the user that no ASIO drivers are present. Exit from the message dialog is trouble free.

midi driver installed correctly but may be in use by another program - Error messageEdit

If you have no other midi output besides the Microsoft Midi Mapper or Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth then you may encounter this problem if you try to use ASIO drivers. After setting the ASIO drivers by the method above an error message appears when you close the Opt dialog. The message disappears after a set time period. Unfortunately the message appears again when you click Play.

You can get the message to disappear for the session by changing the midi output selection (say from midi mapper to GSWavetable) but the message will reappear next time you start Band in a Box.

Everything works properly if you ignore the message but it is quite annoying. The workaround is to install the Loopbe1 driver. Loopbe1 is used for routing MIDI to other applications. When you select the Loopbe1 driver inside of Band in a Box the error message disappears. Just make sure that you do not select it as the input driver as well as the output driver (it will warn you if you do), because you will get a MIDI feedback loop.

Interestingly, if the Microsoft GS Wavetable is selected as you default midi device in Start|Settings|Control Panel|Sounds and Audio Devices on the Audio tab then any midi device playing Thru BiaB will work correctly because Loopbe1 route the midi data to your default device.^[1]

ReferencesEdit

1. ↑ PGMusic:Forum Message:Blake

External LinksEdit

Forum discussion of error