It's a while since I did this so I want to make sure this will still work to copy an installed 2018/516 to another computer.

1) I have de-activated a previous installation to make room for another one.
2) BIAB is installed completely in the bb folder including all my songs. I have never specified any other folders while installing.
3) I have the complete bb folder already backed up onto an external HD.
4) I intend to simply copy the saved bb folder onto the new computer and create a desktop icon for the bbw.exe file.

This has always worked in the past - any problems with 2018?

Thanks
Tony

Here's what I would do.

1. Copy the BB folder over from the old computer to the new computer.
2. Run the installer you originally received with BIAB, but just select the minimal options (don't copy the RTs/RDs etc, since you already have done that), but you want to make sure you get the fonts, the DX effects, the Coyote WT, optionally the PDF driver, the IK multimedia files such as Amplitube, and the Sforzando plugin, etc. These files must be "installed" on your computer and you can't just copy them over from your old computer.
3. Run the latest update patch to make sure everything is up to date.
4. Create your shortcut icon on the desktop and set it to "run as administrator".
5. Optionally exclude the BIAB folder from you anti-virus protection to get much faster startup times.
6. Launch BIAB and set your sound card settings and make sure it is pointing to the correct folder for RTs/RDs.
7. Go into RealTracks picker and rebuild the database.
8. Go into RealDrums picker and rebuild the database.
9. Go into Stylepicker and rebuild the database.
10. Make sure you have registered IK Multimedia Amplitube files on the IK site for your new computer.
11. Probably something else I'm missing, but I'm sure you'll figure it out.

Hope that helps.

John,

That's an excellent summary! It's what I do too.

Noel

Quite a job, i'd rather keep my old PC, maybe program this song instead:


John L.

Thanks for the suggestion everything seems to gone OK.

When it came to running the installer I actually declined most of the "extras" - Amplitube, Sforzando etc - as I use hardware for everything.

Tony

Tony,

While sForzando doesn't need to be installed to run MIDI (it is used as the software synth for HiQ MIDI sounds), a number of electric guitar Realtracks do use Amplitube to enhance their sound.

If you want to get the best out of BIAB, an installed and registered version of Amplitube is needed (the free version that comes with BIAB is fine... it will still need registering, though).

Regards,
Noel

What do you mean by "get the best out of BIAB"?

I have found that any problems with BIAB or the computer running it are always related to software so I use an Roland external synth and a Focusrite sound module. This combination is bullet proof and suites my simple needs perfectly.

Tony

Tony,

If your set up works for you and gives you all you need, that's fine. There's nothing that you need change.

What I was trying to explain in my above post is that some of the Realtrack electric guitar sounds use Amplitube in addition to the recorded guitar audio to give the final sound that comes from the speakers. This is true of a lot of Brent Mason electric guitars, for example.

If you haven't had Amplitube installed and you've never missed the addition of these effects then simply leave everything the way it is now. As you say, it's a perfect fit with your needs. At the end of the day, that's all that matters.

Hope that explains things a bit better.

All the best,
Noel

Tony,

In addition to Noel's comments I'd like to add PG Music creates and assigns high quality sounds (Hi-Q) to each of their MIDI SuperTracks. Likewise, PG Music assigns Sforzando as the Hi-Q sound module. So, if you use the PG Music MIDI SuperTracks, you will need to have the Sforzando sound module installed.

Honestly, I've always found it is easiest to just re-install it from the original media rather than trying to manually move everything. It leaves a lot of potential room for something to be missed, whereas if you install everything from scratch again you'll know it is there

This means you have to install from scratch all the RT's and extras that you may or may not have bought and may or may not have saved over many years. Not only is this a huge, time consuming job but prone to all sorts or errors and mistakes. It is much better to keep a backup copy of the bb folder and simply copy it to the new location. This is the main reason I keep everything in the bb folder. Perhaps it is a good idea to re-install the latest (2018) files, as advised in this thread, but I dread to think of the alternative.

Tony

I have moved my BIAB installation around between different hard drives and computers over the years. Like others have suggested I just copy the bb folder to wherever I want it and then just reinstall the latest version without contents to get BIAB to point to the correct new location and be able to find all the necessary files.