Hi, I've installed BB & RB on my Lenovo y580 Win7 laptop, leaving the videos and practice items that came with the Everything Pak on the USB drive. Using the BB Practice window doesn't seem to know to look at the USB to find the apps or content, how do I make this work?

Frank,

Which installation option did you choose when you ran the setup program?

Also, which practice files in particular are you trying to access? (e.g. Flatpick Guitar, etc.)

Regards,
Noel

Hi

One of the problems using USB drives to store anything ,
Is the way Usb drive letters are allocated by windows your drive takes the next available drive letter when it is inserted.
So lets say you have a usb drive in your machine at start up depending what other drive letters have been used D for cd drive etc the first usb will be E.
You plug in your biab stick it gets the letter F
You do your installation and tell biab what drives to store what,.
Fine .
As long as tomorrow when you switch on conditions are the same and no drives have been moved, or added with the biab drive removed.

However if you have used the pc in between and removed usb drives and inserted others for say photos or docs etc, and left them in, your biab usb will get the drive letter available now if you had taken it out and reinsert it today
Which will not be the same. Thus confusing the biab paths set in instalalation

The answer in part is to choose a skt for your biab drive and leave it in.
This can be a problem if you are short of usb sks
Just my thoughts
Mike

You can solve that problem with a few steps. Once done it's over.

See screenshots.

DE

Update screenshot for Windows 10. This is so much easier.

DE

Hi, I used Full installation which included BB & RB 2017 including Real Tracks files, Real Drums, MIDI SuperTracks, Artist Performance Sets, and all other BB add-ons, HI-Q Intruments for Sforzando. I installed the IK Multimedia AmpliTube on this past Saturday 1/14.

I'm not having any success via the Practice window:
> 101 Riffs - brings up a MGU file selection pop-up though selecting a file seems that nothing loads
> Master Solos - again set the list of MGU files to show for all, Flatpick Guitar, Blues Piano, Jazz Guitar v1-2, and same story for remaining selections, Jazz Guitar v4, Country Guitar, Swinging Piano
> Lessons for Guitar, Piano, Sax, Vocal - all N/A
> PowerTracks not installed

Frank,

I might be wrong but I have a feeling that the folders for the practice material need to be off the installation \bb folder.

To check this, try manually starting BIAB from the USB drive rather than the shortcut for the installed program. To do this...

1. Plug in the USB drive.

2. Use file explorer to navigate to \bb on the USB drive.

3. Locate and double-click on the file BBW.EXE in the \bb folder on the USB drive.

4. Now try the practice material.

Does this work?

Regards,
Noel

Those missing apps need to be purchased. They are there in the menu for convenience.

Check the PG web site, they're either $19 or $$29.

DE

DE,

You are correct. Some need purchasing but some are also included in the EverythingPak. According to the reference page at the below link below, the Master Solos are included and should be able to be played (rightly or wrongly I'm assuming that version 2016 was similar to 2017).

http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.packages.every.htm

Regards,
Noel

Hi Noel,

I get the same result when running BB from the USB, nothing loads. I am able to open up the MGU files on the USB and have them play, from either the laptop's HD or when running the EXE from the USB.

I was hoping that there'd be a config setting on the local BB.EXE (laptop) that would point the practice app to the USB drive for its associated files.

Noel: another good tip I didn't know. Next upgrade might be the Everything PAK.

DE

Frank,

As far as I'm aware, only Realdrums and Realtracks can reside on independent drives. They have separate path options that can be set-up in their respective preferences.

All other BIAB files need to be in the \bb folder that's used for running the program.

For what it's worth, because the practice files are entirely midi, the folders are really not all that large. For example, the Flat Guitar folder "bb\fgsolo50" is only 1.09 megabytes; "Jazz Guitar Solos - Swingin Vol 4" in 877 kilobytes; etc.

If you copied them across to the program directory on your hard drive, the impact on space would be small.

Lastly, you might need to click on the the "Update" button at the bottom of the window to make sure that BIAB has the path loaded. It might be that the information that's being used to drive the practice programs is that these practice folders are not present in your hard drive's \bb folder.

DE,

I'm always learning new things about BIAB/RB. It's rare that a day goes by without something else being uncovered!

All the best,
Noel

I just installed the Flatpick and Jazz Master classes to the HD and opened up BB and again get same result, can pick any of the files but nothing loads. It's probably something I'm not going properly to load these, I'm simply selecting the file with 1 click.

I don't see any "Master Flatpick or Jazz Guitar Solos" files (expecting an EXE for them like what's in the PGMusic folder on the USB) in the C:\bb directory even though I installed them just today.

I'm not sure that all the add-ons are being detected when installed from the USB.I can see the Master exe's on the USB, in the PGMusic directory and can run from there.

The instrumental studies, which I assume are the "lessons" are on the C:\bb\Instrumental Studies\Instrumental Studies 1 - Guitar Studies\Guitar, Electric\Blues and Rock\Blues Rock Shuffle, Sw 130.

Frank,

I did nothing special to get things working. What I don't understand is that you can manually load one of the practice files into BIAB and it plays but you cannot get it to play by using the practice window.

For me, the practice window is simply a way to load the file. If I click on Flat Guitar, select a song from the list, it loads, generates and plays.

Correct me if I'm wrong but how I'm interpreting your posts is that if you (say) click on Flat guitar and select a song, there's no sign of any activity in BIAB.

I'd drop support@pgmusic.com an email and include the URL for this thread. I can't think of any other solutions.

Where I'm at in my thinking at the moment is...

1. Because you can navigate to one of the SGU/MGU midi-based files using "File | Open" within BIAB, load and play the file... this means that your midi driver set up is ok.

2. The folders are now located off the installation \bb directory; this is correct. I wonder if there is some .exe file that is missing from the installation that the practice function calls on.

When you get an answer from PG Music, please add it to the thread. It might help someone else in the future.

All the best,
Noel

Hi Noel, thanks for your sharing your experiences. You're correct, when I click on any of the files that show in the Practice pop-up nothing happens. I will try to reach out to the help desk for assistance.

I'm still doing much exploring with the latest BB and RB, looking to leverage more functions, particularly with my song writing and recording.

I did some looking around folders and files today. See that much of the Riffs, Performance Sets and such are quite dated. Any, guess what I found, a patch for my BB 2017 Everything, see here: http://www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm#456 includes a bug fix for the lack of the Practice window not launching the files. I installed and Practice items are now working, LOL and YEAH!

Lessons is still showing N/A for everything and a bunch of the Jazz Master Solos files seem to be corrupt, start to play, hum for a bit, then pick up after a couple minutes.

The Instrumental Studies seem to be a little bit updated from the 2016 version so now copying those over, so much work to get all this release together.

Thanks for passing on the information, Frank.

All's well that ends well.