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Quick question for the usual aficionados: is it possible to do an Audiophile update without buying a new hard drive?

That is to say that the Audiophile disk 2024 that I have is barely 50% full and would therefore have plenty of room to receive the Audiophile 2025.
Do I have to buy the HD version again ??? Important question, my friends, because I have no intention of piling up hard drives that will gather dust


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Hi Moultipass,

This is a question that only PG Music can answer. To date, and as you know, the company has not created an update version of BIAB specifically for existing Audiophile installations. These days, though, internet connections are faster than they have ever been so downloading a terabyte or two of data is possible. I'm pretty sure that the folk at PG Music will have discussed this more than once over the years. Who knows what the future has in store? When 2025 is released, there is nothing stopping you from contacting PG Music directly, suggesting what you would like to be able to do and then asking if the company has any plans to create such an option.

--Noel


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Good advice above.

The best suggestion is to wait until 2025 is released and see if they offer a downloadable Audiophile version this time around. Only they know at this stage.
If history has anything to do with it, presumably the 2025 release will be announced in December.


BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Guys, thanks for your answers and yes, you are right, the fact that 2025 will be almost 90% 2024 makes me think that we could easily make up the difference with fiber or ADSL speed.
For a greener, more economical Society, this would be the ideal solution. Looking forward to next week!


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With increased download speeds becoming more widespread, and flash drive capacity and speed improving, this would seem to be the next step. It would also partially or fully solve the problem we have discussed of the European Union charging VAT on more expensive media.

I do remember a downloadable audiophile patch at one time. I think it was when many existing RealTracks were improved.

As suggested, let’s see what happens in a few weeks.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I received an update on July 27th, only 15 Gigas, less than 10 minutes to download :

Dear Audiophile Band-in-a-Box Windows Customer, We hope you are enjoying your 2024 Band-in-a-Box Audiophile Edition for Windows. Below you will find an update patch (15 GB) for your Audiophile Edition. This patch fixes some potential playback issues with some RealTracks.


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Yep, that's it.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted by MoultiPass
I received an update on July 27th, only 15 Gigas, less than 10 minutes to download :

Dear Audiophile Band-in-a-Box Windows Customer, We hope you are enjoying your 2024 Band-in-a-Box Audiophile Edition for Windows. Below you will find an update patch (15 GB) for your Audiophile Edition. This patch fixes some potential playback issues with some RealTracks.

Hmmm. I didn't get a 27 July email on this, but five minutes with the Live Chat straightened it all out. Gotta love Live Chat....


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I would *think that if you buy the new version (as an upgrade), you could be allowed to download the new version and any 'new' RT's from your account with fairly little additional bandwidth issues.

Just me thinking out loud, which sometimes gets me into trouble.
That said, maybe HD costs in bulk for PGMusic could actually be a cost compare factor.
They *may get the drives cheap enough that it is more economical for them as a business to just send a new drive.
This was an excellent question by OP at just the right time.

/but what about if I buy an upgrade from the standard WMA version and need to download ALL the RTs again?
//opens a can of worms

Last edited by rharv; 11/27/24 05:32 PM.

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A downloadable version of just the new/changed files would solve another problem that i can see looming.

the instructions that I have always received from PG is that the new version should be copied OVER the previous version. This requires that the target drive has sufficient free space to accept all the new files (because Windows doesn't know that most of the files are duplicates).

I have (a very expensive!) 4TB SSD Drive on which I store my Realtracks/Realstyles/ Realdrums. As soon as we have a BIAB version that occupies more than 2TB for these files I won't be have enough room on my SSD to copy across the next version.

I am speaking as one who WISHES the number and size of realtracks etc to grow (bring on 24 bit files and multi-tracked drums) but I really don't want to have to upgrade my SSD drive when it is almost half empty.

An incremental delta download would solve this problem.


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I would love to see a downloadable audiophile
collection of just the new or changed files.

I have a spare computer in another location. Each year when I get my new PG Music hard drive, I highlight and copy over only those RealTracks folders that I know I might use. Even if I selected all the files, the file manager program I use (Total Commander, for 31 years) does not require having as much free space on the target drive as the full size of the files being copied. It would, if I let it, just run merrily along until the target drive was so full that the next folder would not fit.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Incremental yearly downloadable upgrades for Audiophile edition instead of sending out HDs would definitely be a smoother, faster, less wasteful process. Both for customers and PGM.

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Downloadable might be problematic for any one on a metered connection.


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"Downloadable might be problematic for any one on a metered connection."

Partially true. When you consider how much time energy and effort goes into baking new content to HD, packing, shipping costs etc., a greener, faster and likely cheaper option would be to pay the guy at the "meter" for a day of unlimited fun and just download the chunks that are needed to be up to date.

Definitely not the case for everybody, but would be fantastic as an option.

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Thanks PG !! It's now POSSIBLE.


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Awesome


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Originally Posted by MoultiPass
Thanks PG !! It's now POSSIBLE.

This is cool, I think. What is the content difference between upgrading BiaB 2024 Audiophile to 2025 PlusPak for $149 vs 2025 Audiophile for $199? Studied the purchase page for a few minutes but couldn't figure it out...


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I think the PlusPak will supply the new RTs as WMA, while the Audiophile will provide the FLAC/WAV files.
Just a guess.

Last edited by rharv; 12/03/24 05:56 PM.

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I don't think that there will any more WAV files in the distribution. I think all newer files will be lossless FLAC, with the smaller footprint which largely contributes to the ability to provide a downloadable distribution.


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Originally Posted by DC Ron
Originally Posted by MoultiPass
Thanks PG !! It's now POSSIBLE.

This is cool, I think. What is the content difference between upgrading BiaB 2024 Audiophile to 2025 PlusPak for $149 vs 2025 Audiophile for $199? Studied the purchase page for a few minutes but couldn't figure it out...
I think, but am not positive, that the downloadable $149 package gives you the new RealTracks in Flac format, whereas the $199 SSD drive gives you all RealTracks (past and new) in Flac format.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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