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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 6
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 6 |
So I load a song with the Song Picker, and it has an extension like .MG9. I change the style to a recent one and try to save the song, which now has the extension .MGU. This seems to confuse the Song Picker, which tries to save the song in a different folder. To avoid this, can I simply rename ALL the songs to a ".?GU" extension, so the filename isn't changed when they're saved? I don't want to have to rebuild the song list after every edit!
Using BIAB 2008-5.
Setup: BIAB 2008.5, Lenovo T-41 Laptop
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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If you are using 2008.5 your best shot is to make sure you have latest update from the support link at top of page.
Does anyone know if current version does this? (mg9 looks weird to me)
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 6
Newbie
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OP
Newbie
Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 6 |
I have installed the latest update for 2008.5. I'm asking whether BIAB will still properly recognize a song if I manually change the extension to end in a "U".
Setup: BIAB 2008.5, Lenovo T-41 Laptop
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 46
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Joined: Jan 2011
Posts: 46 |
Quote:
I have installed the latest update for 2008.5. I'm asking whether BIAB will still properly recognize a song if I manually change the extension to end in a "U".
That's easy to find out. Copy a song and rename it and try to open it. I'm sure it will work fine.
What I thought your original questions was about was HOW to do the renaming of a folder full of files. That can be done at the command prompt. For any who is interested, here's one way of doing that.
First make a copy of a folder full of files you want to rename so you can test out my commands without any risk. Keep that Windows Explorer open, so you can see the folder icon, for the next steps.
Open a command prompt by clicking the Start button > RUN. Type in CMD and press enter.
The first step in the Command prompt is to change directories to the folder you are going to rename. I use the pushd command because it works across different drives and even on network shares.
Type in the command PushD, followed by a space. Don't hit enter yet.
Now arrange your windows so you can see the folder in Windows Explorer (or on your desktop).
Drag the folder icon to the command prompt. So now the full command is pushd followed by the folder name.
Now, click in the command window and hit enter to execute the command. If the command succeeded, your command prompt will be the name of the folder full songs. (For example, it will say something like "C:\Users\Jim\Desktop\New folder>")
Now for the command to change the file extensions. Let's do it just for .SG? files first. Copy the following command and paste it in the command window by right-clicking in the command window.
for /f "tokens=*" %A in ('dir *.SG? /b') do rename "%A" "%~nA.SGU"
Press enter to execute the command.
If you have multiple songs with the same base name, the command will only rename one of them and it will give you the following message for the other files: "A duplicate file name exists, or the file cannot be found"
To rename your .MG? files, you only need to change two letters in the command:
for /f "tokens=*" %A in ('dir *.MG? /b') do rename "%A" "%~nA.MGU"
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 20,488
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Goodguy,
.MGU is the standard extension for BIAB is the song contains a melody (that's what the M stands for) so the song should open fine.
When you renamed the song, what happened was that a second copy was created. The .MG9 (which I guess is a custom extension because I've never seen it before) is one song. Then with the save when it became MGU, a second instance of the song was created. I always save multiple instances of songs so that I can get back to earlier versions if ever I want to. The song files are so small that the space they occupy is negligible.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 67
Enthusiast
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Joined: Sep 2009
Posts: 67 |
Noel,
Songs that ends with a number are songs that use built-in styles. You can see them in the menu "Styles" / "Choose from 24 'built-in' styles". (*.?g9 is a song with pop-ballad style).
I suppose that the latests versions of biab can read old songs even if they were renamed ?
(the first byte of the file is different)
My 2 cents.
Free tools for Biab: Biab Scales and BIArpeggio to practice scales/arpeggio Biab Explorer: the other song picker
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2008
Posts: 20,488
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ahhhh thanks, Chris. I didn't realize that  As I have never used the inbuilt styles as the basis of a song, I have not seen this extension. Makes sense, though. All the best, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Oct 2007
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Learn something new every day. I am in the same boat, Noel. So, thanks for the education on this one, Chris 
Cheers, Mike My Music * Asus ROG Strix G15CF 32 GB DDR4 4TB HDD + 1 TB SSD NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 8GB Win 11 AKAI EIE PRO Sound Interface. BIAB/RB 2024 UltraPak Build - Latest
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Feb 2012
Posts: 6
Newbie
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OP
Newbie
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I guess I'd better just rename one song and see if it works.
Setup: BIAB 2008.5, Lenovo T-41 Laptop
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jan 2011
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I have seen this before on some biab midi files with odd extensions from an biab user site that posted free fake book songs. Always wondered, nice to know what it was. Did it rename?
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