Hi all,

Could anybody please explain what the various upgrade options are, as I'm finding it rather confusing.

I bought the 2011 Megapak for Mac - which arrived just over a week ago by airmail. I'm now working my way through both the manual and the program, trying to get a general feel for it reasonably quickly. It's been something of mixture of delight at what it can do and bafflement at some weird quirks (some of which are probably user errors, but at least one of which has been confirmed by support as a bug with the current version). That's not unusual with new software though. But what I am still struggling with is trying to figure out the details of the Real Tracks, and what the options are if it looks as if I could do with more.

The printed manual tells me that that I should be able to find some useful demos "from folders with names like Applications/Band-in-a-Box/RealTracks - Demos/RealTracks102 Demos" but no such useful sub-folders exist. Instead, there is one huge folder with over 300 files in, all of which have cryptic names that aren't very helpful and don't include the RealTrack set numbers. The only simple name among them was "RealSaxDemo.MGU" but when I clicked on it and opened it with BiaB it was a Jazz swing style track which didn't feature a sax at all??? The name that showed in BiaB was then "RealSaxdemo - see memo". Memo? What memo? There does seem to be a lot of loose ends with this current compilation and I'm having trouble finding the useful string amongst them all. I'm sure that the manuals and general layout and installation makes reasonable sense to users who are familiar with earlier versions and have been along for the ride as it grew. But to a newcomer it can be pretty cryptic.


Mostly the demo have names like:

Guitar,Acoustic,Rhythm,Jazz Freddie sw 140 A only #559solo.m4a
or
_BLSHUFF.SGU
=NEALGP Demo.MGU

There doesn't seem to be a list of what belongs to which pack or collection.

When I've looked at this site the options also seem hard to fathom. On the one hand there's a list of 120 RealTrack sets at $29 each (for a rather unattractive total of over $3,000 - plus 29 Real Drum set, which would cost over $800 more. There are bundles of sets available at less stellar prices, but these are far too big for me to download, and I can't spot any option to buy them on discs.

On the other hand, buying the UltraPlusPak on a hard drive would seem to give the lot for not a whole lot more than the cost of a Megapak and a hard drive.???

I gather than there is some kind of 30 day clause with BiaB and I'm still within that (order processed 16th May, received here on 27th May) but I don't know if whether that would apply in practice to overseas orders (I'm in Australia).

Could anybody please suggest whether there is a reasonable upgrade path other than downloading lots of small sets over a long period of time, at considerable expense, or having to buy the whole lot again on a hard drive?

Thanks for any help or enlightenment,

Chris