Hello, I have a question. I purchased a speedy, big and impressive external SSD disk. Do you reckon BIAB will function well provided I install it with all the realtracks on this external drive? Besides, will BIAB operate on other computers once I connect the SSD with BIAB already installed? In other words, is it achievable to turn BIAB into a portable program on SSD?

Yes, Yes.

Yes.

It will need to be activated on any computer on which you run it and you can have up to three concurrent activations. If you want to use on further machines than that, you will need to deactivate an earlier activation to do so.

Edit: Activations are managed via the Help menu.

Gordon is correct. Install onto each of three computers using the minimal install option, that says the RealTracks etc. will be on the external drive.

Another trick I use is, in Windows, rename the BIAB USB drive to the same high drive letter on each machine (ex. I use drive R for RealTracks), so plugging in other devices doesn't bump up the drive letter. Otherwise, your drive is E sometimes, or F, or ... One reason I do this is to use SyncToy to back up any of my song files, and I never have to create new folder pairs to accommodate changing drive letters.

If you go to a friends house and you both want to jam to Biab you can plug it into your friends PC and it will still work in 30 day trial mode before having to activate, and you won't be locked out if you have no internet to activate.

Good answers above. There's no reason that it should not operate for you in this way.

Thanks to all

All excellent advice in this thread and I can vouch that it's accurate. I just wanted to mention that we introduced an SSD option for the UltraPAK this year, so it's now possible to purchase BIAB pre-installed on an external SSD! This option is available at checkout when purchasing the UltraPAK or UltraPAK+, and it should automatically prompt you.

Over the years, I’ve installed each new band in box over the existing version as well as any additional add-ons that I have purchased.
What happens to those add-ones if I choose to run band in the box from that external ssd ?

I save every install EXE file.

If you did not, log in to your BIAB account (different from your Forum account) and everything you registered is there.

When we ship out hard drives or SSD's, these contain only the new BIAB version you purchased. Any add-ons, past or present, are a download only.

As Matt mentioned, you should be able to log into your account and download your past add-ons. If for some reason you can't find the downloads there, feel free to contact us and we'll look into it.

I pretty much have every installation media archived back to BiaB-12. But the most recent I got was BiaB-2019, and I bought it on the external USB drive. How do I use that External USB Drive, transfer ALL of RealTracks and historical stuff to it, and combine it all on the external drive? (Or, do I need to take one of my reformatted USB 1TB drives from a previous laptop and somehow reinstall it on to that drive and basically start over? If I'm reading Simon's previous reponse correctly, I CAN combine all of my stuff on that 2019 HardDrive install disk?

Sorry to be such a luddite. I can usually figure these things out. But I just got a new gaming laptop and it is scary-fast and 32GB memory, but the C:\ drive is an SSD, and I want to run BiaB from that 2019 USB harddrive if it's possible. Can I just copy the BB\ folder from my old laptop onto the 2019-Install drive, and it will find all of the styles from the previous installs when the StyleManager updates?

LJ

Yes, in theory you can combine all your existing material by copying it to another location where BIAB is installed. Make sure whatever copying software you use will overwrite only older dated files.

I do this every year.

HOWEVER in BIAB 2018 they substantially changed the folder organization. If you are trying to recover files from 2017 or earlier onto a drive with BIAB 2018 or later, it won’t work directly. I urge caution and suggest you call PG Music Support for guidance how to proceed. Be prepared to detail everything you have and exactly what you want to do.

While I and several other fellow users have the experience and skill to do this, we cannot take on the responsibility of guiding you here in case something goes wrong.

ps ever run into Steve Dillard in San Diego? Great trumpet player.

Thanks! I will contact them.

Yes!

The process is similar—nut not identical—for the Mac.


Some versions only ship on external media. Audiophile ships on an HDD. Once received, I install everything into my Mac — Drums and Real Tracks are about 1.5TB so they go to a TB3 SSD*. I have to remember to reinstall all of my Extras packs both onto my computer and again onto the drive that I got from PGMusic. Same thing with Updates—both the Mac and HDD. Since I do everything twice, I find it faster to just run the individual installers than use the Install Manager though that is getting better.

*Is this really necessary? Not really as the overall speed and loading from the HDD is reasonably fast; my iMac Pro and Mac Studio are a lot faster, no denying that. There are reasons I prefer to do it this way, however. First is that I dislike the noise from the HDD. It's easier and faster for Time Machine & Backblaze to back it all up. I like having everything up to date on the HDD in case I ever had to restore from it.

That's helpful to know that the advice applies generally to the Mac version also. The small SSD drive mentioned above that they are shipping now is only for the Windows version, since BIAB 2024 for Mac has not yet been released.

But that points out that posters in THIS forum should identify whether they are working on a Mac or a Windows machine, since this tech-topics forum does not differentiate. For other questions it may make a difference in the answer.

Not having seen it yet, I'll assume it's one of those inexpensive USB 3 flash drives that are now available up to 2TB. I've tested a few and they're slower than SATA SSDs but about the same speed as the HDDs. These should save a fortune on shipping costs and be silent (which checks one of my boxes). With shelf space at a premium in my studio, I just sent seven of those 2TB HDDs to eWaste recycling a few weeks ago — otherwise, I can't give them away here in the Silicon Valley.


Amen!

Everyone should add their essentials to their signature and keep it up to date as Matt and I do. No one needs to guess your setup this way.

Current drives are USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 over USB-C, up to 1500MB/sec. My laptop was able to sustain about 1000MB/sec, though it only has USB 3.2 Gen 2x1. WAY faster than SATA, which would top out around 450MB/sec.

Mine's up to date

Good info on speed.

About your signature, you're a funny guy. Since you have no details, I assume you have access to everything!

Yep!

Mac Mini M1 2020 16gb 1tb Monterey
Mac Mini 2012 i7 16gb 1tb Mojave and Win10
Macbook Air M1 2020 8gb 250gb Sonoma
Macbook Pro 2012 i5 16gb 500gb Mojave and Win10
HP laptop i5-1135G7 8gb 1tb Win11
Dell i5-7400T 32gb 1tb Win10
Lenovo i5-3550 16gb 500gb Win10
Custom i5-11400 64gb 2tb Win10

I don't really need these in my sig though.

The MacOS has never supported USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 over USB-C by the way. 2 Lane data transfer is only supported over Thunderbolt 2 and TB3/4 based on the USB4 spec. Unless the drive it ships on also supports USB4 or TB3/4, the max transfer on a Mac is 1000MB/sec.

Otherwise, nice to know there's a speed bump coming, I suppose. I would still prefer a direct download of the Audiophile version. It's not my issue whether or not the physical media is available but I wouldn't order it if given the choice.