PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here Using Win Audiophile Drive On Mac (Crossgrade) & Win

If you want to use your Win Audiophile drive on a Mac you will first need to do MacBB Crossgrade

(See https://www.tonymacx86.com/ to run Mac on your PC.)

*NOTE if you only have wma files/drive you can copy them to a larger driver and use decompress.exe decompress.zip to convert all the wma RealTracks/Drums to wav.

Get FormatFactory *Don't install any extra software only the program.

Click the Audio Tab > M4A > Quality > Medium
Add Folder > Check "Entire Tree" > Browse
Set it to "Output to source file folder"

(or use your own batch Audio Converter or RealBand > Render > Batch Convert WMA > M4A "leave filename the same, no Suffix")

You will need to convert all the wma files in these folders on the Audiophile drive from WMA to M4A so you will have the WMA & M4A in the same folder.

\bb\RealTracks - Demos
\bb\MIDI SuperTracks - Demos
\bb\RealTracks\Data

After Encoding copy
\bb\RealTracks - Demos
\bb\MIDI SuperTracks - Demos
to Mac /Applications/Band-in-a-Box/
replace or backup the existing ones.

Copy all the \bb\STY,STX to Mac /Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Styles
Copy all the \bb\XT2,ST2 to Mac /Applications/Band-in-a-Box/Soloist

Get http://www.softpedia.com/get/PORTABLE-SOFTWARE/System/System-Enhancements/Portable-Symbolic-Link-Creator.shtml

Rename the Audiophile drive Holds folder.
?:\bb\RealTracks\Library to ?:\bb\RealTracks\LibraryM
?:\bb\RealTracks\Direct Input\Library to ?:\bb\RealTracks\Direct Input\LibraryM

Now create a Library Symlink for both LibraryM folders (see pics below)


Get http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html#download

Windows XP64
Windows Vista64
Windows Server
2003/2008/20012 64bit
Windows 7/8/10 64bit
This version contains the 64bit version of Link Shell Extension, but also contains a 32bit version, which is installed in parallel to the 64bit version, to satisfy third party filemanagers/explorers like total commander.
Please make sure that the necessary runtime .dlls for 64bit and 32bit are installed on your system.

The x64 prerequisites package can be downloaded from Microsoft:

vcredist_x64.exe for VS2005 SP1, version 6195/June 2011 (3.0 Mb)

The x86 prerequisites package can be downloaded from Microsoft:

vcredist_x86.exe for VS2005 SP1, version 6195/June 2011 (2.6 Mb)

Afterwards install the
Link Shell Extension (3.83Mb)

(see more on the bottom of the above link)



This will give you a "Link Properties" Tab in File Properties (right click)
that you can edit out the "Target:" drive letter X: of the Library Symlink, from X:\bb\... to \bb\... so no matter what drive letter the drive is under Win the Symlink will still work (see pics below).

Will update if I have missed anything.

This works better http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html to batch covert between formats. It will save in the same source folder and convert to same channels stereo or mono. You can use FastCopy to copy selected files and folder to another drive. So you can copy all but wma.

Make sure you use VLC or Media PlayerX as the default player on Mac to play the RealTrack/Drums and styles demos that are in wma format or convert the to m4a with http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html

X:\bb\RealTracks\Data
X:\bb\RealTracks - Demos (if you are running the main app from the OS drive then convert that folder in /Applications/Band-in-a-Box/RealTracks - Demos).

This way the Audiophile drive will work on both Win or Mac.
Mac will need NTFS write enabled to write to the drive, you only need this to create usertrack or loops as it need to create the .bt1 beat files.