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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65
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OP
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65 |
I just installed the 2013 UltraPlusPak on my Windows 7 PC from the USB hard drive that was FedEx'd to me (amazing delivery speed by PG Music -- ordered Thursday evening and got it Friday morning in Indiana, USA. Thanks!)
I chose installation option 4 and told it to install Real Drums and Real Tracks to a hard drive other than my C drive (which is a small SSD). There was a third component that it also allowed me to direct the installation to a non-C drive, which I did. I don't recall which component that was.
Nevertheless, BB ended up using more than 10GB of my small SSD. It seems to me that much of what was installed there could have been installed on a different drive, but there was no option to do so. I am referring to things like Styles, demo songs, tutorials, etc. I would want the actual program components (exe, dll's etc.) installed to the C drive so they can be included in a weekly back up of that drive. But for all the other items, seems to me, the user should be offered a choice of where to install them, just as it does for Real Tracks and Real Drums. Many people are using small SSD drives for their boot drive, so offering such an installation option would seem to be beneficial to many.
Anyone have any thoughts on this - pro or con?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,576
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Joined: Jul 2000
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I understand this observation, as I also use a SSD boot drive. You could post this idea on the Wishlist and I'll give it a +1 there.
Technically, if only the .ST2 and .XT2 files (which are related to RealTracks) could be moved to the same drive as the RealTracks, that alone would free up a great deal of space on drive C very quickly.
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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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65
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OP
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65 |
Thanks, Matt. I posted to the Band in a Box wish list as you suggested. If you want to add something about the .st2 and .xt2 files, feel free. I don't know what those are, so I didn't mention them.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2000
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FYI, The total size of all .ST2 and .XT2 files in my bb folders equals a little under 3.3MB. There's a bunch of 'em, but each one is relatively small in size.
Don't know if that's really worth the effort, but hey, The Wishlist Forum exists for a reason, right?
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65
Enthusiast
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OP
Enthusiast
Joined: Jun 2009
Posts: 65 |
Hi Mac,
I was not familiar with .ST2 and .XT2 files, but after Matt mentioned them, I checked the BB program folder on my SSD and there are 7.67 GB of .ST2 and 296 MB of XT2 for a total of about 8 GB. I wonder why mine take up so much space and yours so little?
In addition to the ST2 and XT2 files, there are 1.65 GB of Real Tracks demos. Added to the 8 GB of .ST2 and .XT2, that's about 9.6 GB, and that's not even counting the tutorials and other "content". If these could be installed elsewhere it would save over 90% of the 10.2 GB of space that the BB program folder now takes up on the boot drive.
I can perhaps manually move the Real Tracks demos, but I don't know what the implications are of moving the ST2 and XT2 files. The program might not run properly.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,576
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 27,576 |
Yes, this is why I mentioned them. On my audiophile system, they would indeed save 90%. But I don't think the program would work if they were moved manually (not sure I want to try).
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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Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: May 2000
Posts: 38,502 |
Quote:
Hi Mac,
I was not familiar with .ST2 and .XT2 files, but after Matt mentioned them, I checked the BB program folder on my SSD and there are 7.67 GB of .ST2 and 296 MB of XT2 for a total of about 8 GB. I wonder why mine take up so much space and yours so little?
I wouldn't sweat it, all I did was a quick Windows search for the wildcard and two suffixes and had Windows add the total found. I do keep BB 2012.5 around in a differently named folder, maybe that is what I had it count. Or maybe I just managed to screw it up. In any event, the total size is still rather small, comparatively speaking.
Quote:
In addition to the ST2 and XT2 files, there are 1.65 GB of Real Tracks demos. Added to the 8 GB of .ST2 and .XT2, that's about 9.6 GB, and that's not even counting the tutorials and other "content". If these could be installed elsewhere it would save over 90% of the 10.2 GB of space that the BB program folder now takes up on the boot drive.
It might be apropos for you to run the whole shebang from USB drive at this point. I do that with my laptops anyway, it allows me to have just one bb folder with all my songfiles in it, I found out a long time ago that attempting to work with the program on desktop and laptops while everything is on c drive was a nightmare in keeping things up to date, show up to a performance or recording date somewhere only to realize that my precious songfiles were still on the other puter. Use of the USB drive has eliminated that for me. The only things that need to be installed on c drive are the Fonts, Plugins and any softsynths needed.
Quote:
I can perhaps manually move the Real Tracks demos, but I don't know what the implications are of moving the ST2 and XT2 files. The program might not run properly.
I don't know for certain but have always figured the same thing. Likely bb looks in the bb folder for them when they are needed. But Peter G himself or somebody from pgmusic should confirm that or let us know if it can be done otherwise, of course.
Running from the pgmusic supplied usb hard drive works pretty well, actually. I think that is because there really isn't any realtime disk streaming going on, all that gets loaded into RAM when you hit GENPLAY and plays from RAM. Or so it seems here. Loading of realtracks songs is seemingly a tad slower here using usb drive, but nothing I can't live with.
If your machine can take a second standard hard drive, that would be the way to go, and install all of bb on it.
Anybody into music making on the puter should have that second drive anyway, especially if also trying to do multitrack DAW work using programs other than BB.
--Mac
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Holiday Weekend Hours
As we hop into the Easter weekend, here are our holiday hours:
April 3 (Good Friday): 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM PDT
April 4 (Saturday): Closed
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— Team PG
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