I just upgraded to the 2010 UltraPak. I placed the order Wednesday afternoon. It arrived the very next day. Getting there so quickly I thought maybe it was drop shipped from a warehouse somewhere. But, it came from Canada!

Up til now I have been using 2008.5 PlusPak. This investment was one of the best I have made in some time. For $299 I was able to get the UltraPak. Just adding a few RealTracks to my existing setup would have pushed me close to that mark. Especially for all the ones I was interested in. Now I have everything and a 160GB hard drive as well.

Speaking of RealTracks. I only had sets 1-9 before. With all that I have now, I found styles and sound immediately that matched what I was looking to achieve. I primarily use BIAB to create backing tracks to play along with my guitar. I was amazed a few years ago when I first discovered BIAB. Even more so now. One interesting thing is that despite a real competitor as far as accompaniment software, PGMusic continues to innovate and bring new stuff to the table. That is rare. I use high end 3D software on a daily basis and the competition there really drives the market. If one company was as far ahead in that area as PG is in their area, it would be easy for them to rest on their laurels so to speak. Yet PG has this market to themselves basically and they dont seem to rest.

So, kudos to Peter and everyone at PGMusic. From the excellent service Will provided while ordering to the dumbfounded look on my face as I watched the RealTracks that now generate so quickly, it has been an excellent experience. I have yet to dive into RealBand. I also do recording and generally use CubaseLE which came with my Lexicon Alpha. I am looking forward to the flexibility I will now have with regard to trying different RealTracks after I have already recorded my guitar initially. That should be a major workflow enhancer alone.

Easily worth twice the price.

Great news. Wait until you see how easy it's going to be to take the arrangement you like and at one fell swoop drag the whole thing into Cubase, I think that works..most do. You then close Band in a Box and go to work duplicating tracks, adding, tweaking etc.

Not something I do.

You didn't mention where you live, but I've watched a product ordered in the afternoon cross the continent overnight and then land on my porch a few hours later, more than half way across the continent. Get a shipping provider that works and bingo. Good customer service, efficient ordering, and good shipping.

My advice is clone the drive, that's cheap, and put the original on the shelf as a backup. Those express drivers have to play football at night too!

Actually, my needs are modest. I am hoping that I wont need to jump into Cubase at all. The most I do now is export a wav from BIAB and import that into Cubase to play along with while recording my guitar.

I am hoping that I can just use the Lexicon Alpha with RealBand. Most of the time I am not even touching a fraction of what Cubase or any sequencer can do. As long as RealBand sees my Lexicon, which I didnt get time to test last night, everything should be good. I generally record "dry" and then add reverb, chorus, etc. after I have the signal.

So as long as I can do those basic things with RealBand, I will be pleased. I am doing some searches right now for the Lexicon and RealBand.

Drive has been cloned already and is put up for safekeeping.

Open Realband, go to Options - preferences- audio tab - then drivers button.
You'll see right away if the Lexicon shows up in Reakband already.
Highlight it, click 'move selected device to top' and give it a try.

You'll have to decide between ASIO and MME drivers; whichever one works the best is the one to use!

Thanks rharv. I have the asio4all that I use with Cubase. I will see which one works the best tonight. It was 11:30 before I knew it last night and was too late to reinstall the Alpha. Actually this a fresh install of OS and all, so I dont even have the Alpha loaded up yet.

In Cubase the asio driver seemed to work better to a degree. When trying to use real time VST's it seemed to work better than WDM/MME, latency perhaps. But shortly after I started using it I started recording dry all time and adding effects later. Again, I have a pretty simple setup that isnt too demanding. The Windows driver seems to work fine for that, so I will probably stick with it if everything works ok.

I will post to the RealBand forums if I run into any problems.