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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581 |
Hi all,
I own 2012 EverythingPAK and am considering switching to the Audiophile version at some point. Is there an upgrade path at reduced expense, or do I have to buy the entire thing as if a new purchase ?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,114
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Jun 2003
Posts: 1,114 |
They don't have a specific upgrade path listed so you probably should contact sales. I would think that it would be just a little bit lower than the upgrade price from 2011 to audiophile which is listed at $479.
Keith
2026 Audiophile Windows 11 RYZEN THREADRIPPER 3960X 4.5GHZ 128 GB RAM 2 Nvidia RTX 3090s, Vegas,Acid,SoundForge,Izotope Production,Melodyne Studio,SONAR,3 Raven Mtis
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475 |
Yes, you should call PG Music Sales. I recall it's been addressed before but I don't remember the answer, and it was a while ago.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581 |
Chatting with PG sales as we speak. A nice offer they have made.
OK, so will I need to uninstall my existing version and totally reinstall the Audiophile ? Or is just the Real Tracks that need to be replaced ?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
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Joined: Jul 2000
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The program is the same. The only difference is the presence of .WAV files along with the .WMA files in each of your RealTracks and RealDrums folders. If there are .WAV files present, BIAB uses them. Otherwise, it decompresses and uses the .WMA files. Thus, you will notice a small performance increase loading the audiophile tracks.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
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OK. Done deal. New USB hard drive on the way !
So Matt, you use Audiophile right ? I'm counting on you to guide me through the upgrade process then, OK ? When the drive gets here, just do a normal install over the top of my existing 'regular' version ?
What about all my BIAB / Real Band tunes ? Will they just now use the .wav versions of the tracks or will I need to regen them all ? etc ?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
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Congratulations!
I can help a little, Mitch. I don't use RealBand; my advice only applies to BIAB:
Your songs do not change in any way. When you load and Play the song, it will regenerate anyway, this time using the audiophile tracks and doing so a bit faster than before. I imagine if you had frozen tracks, you would want to unfreeze and regenerate.
About installing, I have used only the audiophile version for many years so I'm not a good resource on installing over the regular version. Plus, don't listen to me because I don't use the installers given. Instead, I copy the RealTracks and RealDrums folders I want, plus the .ST2 and .XT2 files in the main /BB folder. This way, I have only the RealTracks I know I will use (none of the soloists, for example; that's my job). I do not recommend following my method unless you are very comfortable with file management.
I do recommend you contact PG Music if anything is uncertain when you look at the choices in the Install routine. I believe there are four. Of course, no harm will occur if you install everything right over what you have. The install leaves your own songs alone, and you would still have any bonus pak stuff.
Tip: From now on, watch carefully when updates to the RealTracks come out. Wait until there is a separate link for audiophile users. Sometimes it takes a few hours after the patch is posted.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jan 2007
Posts: 583
Journeyman
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Journeyman
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Posts: 583 |
Picking up on Matt's point about only loading what you want or need----I sure wish I knew how to manage that, rather than loading the entire (everything) program. How about a video or tutorial on that subject? Maybe this needs to be on the wish list. I don't need any of the soloist, as Matt stated, "That's my job." Also, the program has expanded with real tracks and stuff I'll never use. I hate scrolling through miles of real tracks that don't apply to my music market. I'm afraid to start messing around and changing things with my current setup, for I'll screw it up for sure.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
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I don't mind having ALL the Audiophile Real Tracks installed, I would just like to avoid having the .wav AND the .wma files for the same tracks. But as I understand things, SOME RT's ie the bonus sets etc are ONLY in .wma format, so how does one know which ones to delete and which ones to keep ?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
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J. Larry, when one gives advice on this type of modification, one runs the risk that someone will actually follow it and mess up.
Given that caveat, I don't think there's too much mystery here, especially since the Registry is not involved. The safest way is to keep your supplied hard drive from PG Music and put it away after you have installed everything to your internal hard drive. You always have it if you mess something up.
Then, if you don't want a whole class of RealTracks, go to the /BB/RealTracks folder on your internal hard drive and delete those folders you won't use.
Because I had a smallish internal hard drive at the time, I started doing it the other way: only copying those I wanted. This involved manually copying the individual RealTrack folders from the supplied hard drive to my internal hard drive. Note that I did copy all of the RealDrums; they are much smaller files and I might sometime need any one of them. The only other 'trick' is that there are files in the main /BB folder with the extensions of .ST2 and .XT2. You must have those on your main /BB folder for the RealTracks you need. I don't think there is any easy way to correlate them, so I copy them all. Then I tell my RealTracks picker to ignore the N/A. That's it.
But PLEASE don't do it this way unless you are very careful and skilled with a Windows file manager, and understand /BB, /BB/RealTracks, and /BB/RealDrums.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
Veteran
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Mitch, you are correct. I don't think there is any way to automate that; you would have to look in each RealTracks folder, one by one, and delete only the .WMA files after seeing that there are .WAV equivalents. If you use a Windows file manager, just sort by name and it becomes obvious.
Note that there isn't a lot of savings to be found, relatively speaking. It varies, but overall, the .WAV files are roughly 10 times larger than their .WMA equivalents. So, if you manually deleted all the applicable .WMA files, you would only save something like 9% of the total space taken up by your RealTracks. I determined long ago it was not worth the effort.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581 |
Thanks for the tips Matt. So I'm going to follow your lead and if I mess things up, it will be totally YOUR FAULT !  ..just kidding of course.  So I think I'll just install the Audiophile over the top of what I've got, make sure the builds are current after that and not worry about the dupe files. I have 1TB of storage so not an issue.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
Veteran
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Sounds like a plan.
One thing to keep in mind, since you've only been around here for six months: the method I have described dates back to a time when hard drives were smaller and RealTracks were a LOT bigger. From version 2011, when PG Music shrank the total size of the files by 2/3 because of the Elastique algorithm, it was no longer as important to try to find enough space for the whole installation. The audiophile version used to fill a 1.5 TB drive!
By the way, on the BIAB forum, there is a default value for fault = 'rharv'. Comes in handy at times like this one. Just don't tell him.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,475 |
ps Mitch, if I haven't said it before, I wanted to compliment you on how quickly you have come up to speed with this program and started helping others. That's the way it should work. Nice job.
BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581
Journeyman
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OP
Journeyman
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 581 |
Thanks again Matt. I've received SO much help here, that wherever possible in my limited experience, if I can help others, glad to do it. Just need to be careful that what is offered is accurate and really helpful.
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