PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Short Question: BiaB 2024 Audiophile Edition, How much content?

Hello community,

Here an user of BIaB Ultrapak+ 2021, 2022, 2023 and now considering 2024... Possibly the Audiophile version, I am still debating what to get.

I learnt from different pages that the Audiophile Edition contents (Real Tracks, Real Band) can be directly accessed from the 2.5'' HDD delivered, there is no need to copy to a faster 3.5'' HDD or much faster SSD.

To what extent this is working well? Do I need to back-up the delivered HDD locally or can I download any missing file from the server if accidentally deleted (as in Ultrapak+ versions)?

Finally, how large is the audio contents of the included .wavs on disk? I mean approximate GBs. If it is smaller it is easier to put in my existing disks, if larger I'll need to consider to use directly... but then I must know how to deal with back-ups.

Sorry if this information is somewhere in the forum or FAQs, but I could not find it. I only got the information that the HDD delivered is 2.5'' USB3 and 4TB (but I have no clue if contents are 1TB or 3.5TB).

Thanks

Firstly, welcome to the Forums.

The Audiophile drive storage contents are as follows:


I run the program directly from the Audiophile drive (after having performed a minimal install of the necessary files to the computer itself, which is one of the setup options).

I’ll look for the size of all the RealTracks and RealDrums in my 2024 audiophile version, but right now I can say they take up a very high percentage of the total space. All the WMA files are also there; they take up roughly 1/11th the size of the corresponding WAV files. The audiophile version used to run on a 2 TB drive. With BIAB 2024, it goes just over so it now requires a 4 TB drive.

Yes, BIAB runs fine from that drive.

Thanks a lot both for your help, this is exactly what I needed to know.

@ Matt Finley, there is no need to look for more information, it is clear. ~1.85TB (just above 2e12 bytes), ~1/12 of which is WMA and a small part (probably 2....60GB, I do not care at all) for the smaller files.

I'll make a decision before the deal expires

I moved the slightly over 2T+ content to a 2T (slightly under) M2 drive but in order to do it I had to hand select and copy the RTs (about 95%)
It took like a day to do it that way.
I run two version from the Task bar. The full one (slow) and the fast one (95%)
I will try moving the drums to a separate drive from the RT someday to see if I can get a little better solution.

Finally I bought Audiophile... well, not exactly: I bought OmniPAK! I will receive it next week, but I already downloaded the WMA version to try the new features in BiaB standalone and VST3 plugin.

Deciding between WMA and uncompressed WAVs was not easy. Because I think it depends a lot on the type of track. I think sharing what I found could be useful for BiaB users. Very summarized:

1) For real drums (no pitch stretching, and cymbals sound much better in WAV than in WMA), there is a real gain. None will notice in a car or in music shared through WhatsApp in a cell phone. But there were projects where I decided to substitute the drums at the end... just to have some contents beyond 14 kHz : )

2) For organs, some synths, even pianos the differences I expect are less. But it is nice to have higher quality. Especially if the other tracks sound well.

3) For some guitars, especially overdriven guitars... well some of them sounded really bad to me. Even inside a car or through WhatsApp + Mobile. The "voicing" was so different depending on the chords. I suspected this had to fo with pitch-shifting on an instrument "with a strong voicing" (like human voice, we can hear formants). Then someone helped me to run a render of these guitars with the Audiophile version... and as I suspected it was equally bad. Unusable for me.

But then reading the manual of the 2024 software (I was serarching for something totally unrelated) I realized that there might be an easy solution: The DI version of the suspect tracks is available!

So there is no problem, the strong voicing in the overdriven guitars is coming 90% from the FX chain + amplifier + CAB. This takes really bad the pitch shifting. But pitch-shifting the clean guitar (not so problematic) and then applying the "channel" (any VST combination of my choice) this 90% of the voicing is not altered by the pitch-shifting. This converts my "unusable guitars" (same with WMA or Audiophile version) in something really nice and flexible.

Once I could improve by leaps and bounds some guitar tracks (really the weakest link of the chain even in the WMA versions), I was totally motivated to go to Audiophile version. Well... OmniPAK!

To hear what I mean you can listen to anything with some variety of chords in style: _PUNKRK1.STY (Punk w/ Held and Muted Guitars)
If you solo Real Track 2585:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm PunkHeldPlus Ev it does not matter much if it is WMA or WAV.

This one is not much better: 2584:Guitar, Electric, Rhythm PunkMuted Ev 165

Using the DI version and any guitar amp VST (in my case I quickly tested a preset from Guitar Rig 6 that sounded similar to the original track).

My advice: Use DI + guitar channel emulation (after pitch shifting!) and not "amplified" or any overdriven Real Tracks. The cost is like 4...10x more processing power (it added like ~2.1% CPU load in my old 6-core computer, who cares?).

By the way, this works exactly the same with sampled guitar libraries. Add, combine the multiple notes first, then apply FX or amplifier. Never get a chord like the addition of a few overdriven samples. Instead first sum the clean samples, then overdrive them with any model of the amplifier / FX chain.

I hope it helps. Looking forward to receive my OmniPAK. I'll need to finish the other project before I start playing again with BiaB

Congratulations on your upgrade.

You might enjoy comparing notes with the article I wrote about the differences between the audiophile and ‘regular’ versions. It’s the first post, a sticky, in the Tips and Tricks Forum. Your observations about Direct Input instruments are valuable.

I did indeed! It was very useful. Thanks! Then Thomas S helped me rendering some tracks, this helped a lot. And then looking at the 2024 manual... I found the unexpected availability of the DI version for reamp! So, problem solved! First "play" (with pitch-shifting), then reamp. And it gives me the flexibility to decide which kind of guitar channel I am using (including my Helix Native that emulates my Helix pedalboard for live gigs!).

I mean, once the weakest link of the chain was improved it is worth it (for me) to get Audiophile level.

...plus, by choosing to go with the OmniPAK Audiophile Edition, you also receive all of the XPro & Xtra Styles Sets!

Don't forget to check out the other programs that will be in your OmniPAK - you might stumble on a program that you never thought you needed!

-Callie

Yes! I bought OmniPAK to have all Xtra Styles after 11 (I already have 1....11) and the pro styles. I knew some of the VERY old music teaching programs and I have some limited interest. But I installed all the contents and I found lots of really good stuff, at least for me:
Songs and lessons PAKs, loops & riffs, instrumental studies, "modern" MIDI styles (normally released as bonus PAKs), fakebooks...

Now I understand better the different contents and the way they are released, it is not trivial.

Totally worth it for me to pay the extra for OmniPAK. Actually what I am enjoying now is the program and VST new features and the contents you mention because I'll receive the HDD in 1 week (so I cannot render anything in "Audiophile quality" yet).

Thanks for the tip.