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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I've looked in the manual and on the forum and do no see clear guidance on this question -- if I create a BIAB song and freeze the RTs, can I then save as a new file and then in file #2 unfreeze the RTs without disturbing the original file's frozen tracks? More broadly, after freezing an arrangement I like, what are the recommended steps to create another identical file that will allow me to unfreeze the second file RTs without unfreezing the first file's frozen RTs? Does it need to be in a separate directory? Does it need to have a different song title? Thanks.
www.LawTunes.com: The LawTunes - The Musical Scales of Justice - Original Lawyer Rock & Roll www.SurfChords.com: The SurfChords - The Endless Summer Continues and The Wave Never Ends
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LT, I'm not sure that I'm understanding correctly but here's my take on what you've written... Files are independent. So if you freeze the tracks for my_file1.sgu and then save it, the tracks will be frozen. Now if you save it as my_file2.sgu, and the tracks are frozen, you'll have two files with frozen tracks.... namely: my_file1.sgu and my_file2.sgu. At this point in time, because the files have different names, the two files have no relationship to one another. Now, if you unfreeze the tracks for my_file2.sgu and re-save it, this second file will generate a different backing next time you open it because the tracks are no longer frozen. When re-opened, the file my_file1.sgu, on the other hand, will generate the tracks as they were frozen because that information was recorded with it. Hope this answers your question. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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The safest way to preserve the specific frozen files is to export each track as a wav file into a directory.
The files could then be imported into RealBand or another DAW and would be exact duplicate wav files produced from the frozen Biab frozen files.
But it is my understanding if you freeze tracks and save that file, you can at that point, unfreeze the tracks, change the chord chart, regenerate tracks and otherwise manipulate the project and when you have finished editing that work, do a Save AS rather than save and give this file a new name.
If you open the first file again. It should open with the frozen files intact.
BIAB 2026:RB 2026, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Dec 2004
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OP
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Thank you both. I had been doing as Noel96 suggested, but, not fully understanding how freezes were stored in BIAB file structure, I always had the nagging fear that possibly both my_file1.sgu and my_file2.sgu might look to the same single set of frozen tracks, and that unfreezing any would unfreeze them for both my_file1.sgu and my_file2.sgu. Relieved to hear that that is not the case. I also regularly save as WAV files for use in Sonar Platinum, but often need to go back to a BIAB version for a little RT tweaking in that realm. Thanks again.
www.LawTunes.com: The LawTunes - The Musical Scales of Justice - Original Lawyer Rock & Roll www.SurfChords.com: The SurfChords - The Endless Summer Continues and The Wave Never Ends
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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LT,
By piecing together snippets of information that Peter Gannon has posted on the forums, my understanding of 'freezing' is as follows...
As you are most likely aware, a Realtrack is a single audio file. This file contains many different chords played in many different keys. The audio co-ordinates for the different regions of chords and keys are stored in separate files. When a backing is created, a chord that is entered on the chordsheet is referenced against the stored audio co-ordinates and the chord is retrieved.
With freezing, a specific region of a chord is recorded and saved with a file. For example: let's say that your songs plays G7; in the RT audio file, there might be 16 bars of G7 and you only want one bar. When 'freeze' is activated, BIAB records EXACTLY which one of the 16 bars you used for your G7. This means that when you regenerate, the same bar of chord that you originally used is retrieved and inserted into the backing. This principle is applied to every chord and every frozen track. The information is written to the SGU or MGU file.
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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I think it might be doing more than recording pointers to the correct specific measure(s) of RealTrack(s), based on the dramatic increase of the file size. That leads me to guess the actual audio is saved. But I don't know.
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 don't think the actual audio is saved, Matt, since frozen files are still pretty small in size. If the audio were saved, the files would be much larger.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Yes, I agree John after taking another look. It appears to be a hybrid - larger than usual, smaller than audio.
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 think it saves the offset locations within RealTrcks when it's frozen; that way it doesn't have to spend any time figuring out which parts of the RealTrack to use and then regenerating the tracks, since that information is saved and it can just apply it right away.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thank you all. One follow-up: if I upgrade to Audiophile, will all my prior frozen tracks automatically upgrade to the Audiophile higher quality versions? I think the answer is yes; I just want to confirm. I presume that would occur when I accessed them in any manner, such as by playing them or exporting as WAV, and that I would not have to regenerate them. Obviously I would need to replace any previously exported WAV files with new versions.
www.LawTunes.com: The LawTunes - The Musical Scales of Justice - Original Lawyer Rock & Roll www.SurfChords.com: The SurfChords - The Endless Summer Continues and The Wave Never Ends
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That's a smart question I don't recall having been asked before. Given what we think we understand about how RealTracks work, the answer should be yes. BIAB looks first for .WAV files and if it doesn't find them, loads and uncompresses the .WMA equivalent. It might be best to call Support and verify, though.
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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LT,
I have the audiophile edition and, using this, I have loaded the equivalent of the UltraPlusPak on my hard drive (this is an audiophile edition option - mp3 version on the computer hard drive and wav version on the USB drive). I've frozen tracks in songs that were generated using the mp3 version and it translates to the wav version fine.
I seems that when the audio mapping occurs as a consequence of freezing, information for RTs in both wav and mp3 format is saved.
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
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- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
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— Team PG
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