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Hello,
Having real trouble trying to get the Garritan Vsti to play or associate itself with Realband, or BIAB, or PT. I've followed all the instructions, activated Garritan, then when I try to use it; press the Vsti button in Realband and it tells me that it's not activated. Been trying now for at least 3 days, tearing my hair (what little I have) out trying to use it.
Would really appreciate a step by step tutorial, preferably a video, to show me how to do it. I may add I've installed BIAB and other programmes on a separate hard drive.
Best regards.
Ken Matthews.
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Hi, Ken -
You mentioned RealBand, BIAB, and PT (which I presume you mean as PowerTracks, not Protools). Do you have all three and are you trying to get it to run in all three? Which version(s)?
BIAB/RealBand 2014 and later require activation; did you do that? You should have received a serial number when you got the program (it was not clear whether you meant Garritan or RealBand activation). You get 30 days of "free" use before you have to activate BIAB/RealBand. If you are having trouble with activation, I would suggest calling PGMusic support.
I'm assuming that since you said you activated Garritan, that you are aware it runs in the what is called the Aria interface. In BIAB and RealBand, you load the Aria.dll to access the Garritan libraries. Have you launched the stand-alone Aria player to make sure Garritan works there? Also, unless you have BIAB/RealBand 2015 with the jBridge extension, make sure you are loading the 32-bit version of Aria, otherwise it won't work.
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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Hello John,
I have all three, BIAB, REAl Band and Powertracks 2015.
My problem is, every time I click the Vsti button it tells me that Aria is not activated... and it is! So that's as far as gone with it, which is why I'm asking the forum if they've had this problem, or is it only me? Tried it in Powertracks and Realband, same result...
Best regards.
Ken.
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I tried to do a screengrab, but can't find a way to link it to the message, so... Here's the message: "Your copy of Garritan Aria is not activated for 'Acid Pro', saving instruments from this bank is disabled."
I have no idea why it refers to "Acid" although I do have it on the computer...
Best regards.
Ken
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Ken, As a doublecheck, login to you account at Garritan and see if your product has been registered. Something might have happened between your computer and Garritan. If the registration went through successfully, it will be listed under 'My Software'. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hello Noel,
Thanks for that, checked with Garritan and all's in order. It's also sitting on my desktop...
Best regards.
Ken
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Ken, What is your operating system and is it 32-bit or 64-bit? I just tried loading Aria into BIAB (2015) and it worked fine. I have a 32-bit operating system. I used the <ARIA Player VST_x86.dll> found under the Garritan folder. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Again, can you run Garritan in the standalone Aria Player? Did you buy GPO from MakeMusic/Garritan or did it come bundled with another program?
The first thing I would do is to try to run GPO using the standalone Aria Player, which should have installed when you installed GPO. Licensing for Garritan products is via a graphics image file that looks sort of like a credit card. You just drag that image onto the Aria player, and that library (in this case GPO) should be unlocked. The license is on a user basis, so you can unlock GPO on multiple machines.
If you can play instruments in the stand-alone player, then I would try running BIAB as "administrator" (right click on the BIAB icon and select "run as administrator". If that works, you can make that permanent by right clicking on the icon, selecting properties from the drop down menu, and then select the Compatibility tab and check the box "Run as administrator".
You might also try removing the VSTi from your BIAB list and then adding it again and see if it works.
After that, I'm not sure what to do. I have all the Garritan libraries running well on two different computers (Win7 and Win8.1), so I know it works.
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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Hello John,
I try to use Aria on the desktop but only get weird sounds (the same for everything, and I appear to have loaded woodwind ensemble or brass etc. Perhaps I should uninstall the whole thing, incidentally, I bought the programme from PG and I run Windows 7.
Best regards.
Ken.
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I have both 32 and 64, but only use 32 as advised...
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What kind of sound card are you running? Are you using ASIO or MME drivers? Did you try running BIAB/RealBand as "administrator"? Did it make any difference.
I suspect weird sounds in the stand-alone is because you need to properly set up your sound source.
I'll take a look at my configuration this evening after work and see if I can figure anything out. I'll try to post some screen shots then too, to see if that helps.
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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Ken, Even if you followed a similar procedure when you unsuccessfully tried to load the Aria player, can you please step through the below process and try it out. It will be very valuable in helping us in the forum here to isolate your problem. This is what I did when I loaded Aria into BIAB. I put a Garritan string bass sound on the Bass track (I have Garritan Jazz and Big Band). 1. Disengaged the auto-substitute Realstyles for midi following the #1, #2 on the image below.  2. Selected a midi style (I used J!EdLng2.sty and loaded the demo song for the style so that I'd have a chord progression in BIAB). 3. Clicked on the Plugins button and selected the option shown as #2.  4. Then I selected the Bass track (#1), clicked on the dropdown synth menu (#2) and clicked on "Add VSTi" at the very bottom of the list.  5. Now I navigated to where the Aria player was. Because I have a 32-bit operating system, it was under "c:\Program files | Garritan | Aria Player | VST" (numbers #1 - 4 below).  NOTE: If you have a 64-bit operating system, you'll probably have to look for the file in "c:\Program files(x86) | Garritan | VST" - "Program files(x86)" is the usual directory for 32-bit applications.6. Select the 'x86' VST player that's shown as #5 on the above image. The 'x86' indicates that this is a 32-bit player. (I did not use the player with "MULTI" in the name.) Does the Aria player now open? Please let us know. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Noel beat me to it (thanks, Noel). If it still doesn't work, there is something wrong somewhere, because we know it can and does work.
Give us as much detail as possible and post your own screen shots, if possible, to help us figure this out for you.
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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Hello John and Noel,
Thanks for the information.
Before I actually read your information, I was busily engaged in uninstalling Garritan AND Acid Pro.
Uninstalled Acid pro
Uninstalled Garritan for Acid Pro
Uninstalled Aria player
Uninstalled Garritan Aria player
Downloaded Garritan PO
Extracted to ‘K’ drive
Installed Garritan again.
I now have Garritan PO up and running... I downloaded one of my Orchestral pieces and where it should be lush, it was, however all of my other instruments were gone. I suspect that is because I've got a whole more lot to learn about the interaction between Garritan and the various PG programmes.
Your advice has been great and I appreciate it, one more question. Can you advise me on programmes (Garritan etc) which would be useful to me in getting all my instruments back, so I can include the best samples. That may sound a little confusing, I think....
Best regards.
Ken.
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That's a broad statement that all of your instruments were gone. Could you elaborate further, please? Are you talking RealTracks or MIDI? You mentioned you purchased Garritan from PGMusic in an earlier thread (or did you mean you purchased BIAB from PGMusic). I ask because you state you uninstalled Garritan for Acid Pro. That version, as I understand it contains sounds from GPO, but isn't GPO itself. It is a version of Garritan sounds that is licensed to Sony for inclusion with Acid Pro 7.
Please let us know.
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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Hello John,
When I say all the other instruments were gone, I'm referring to the fact that I'd loaded Garritan, the string section. I'd also loaded in an Orchestral piece that had drums and other instruments, along with strings... I know nothing (at present) how to go about marrying up Garritan with PG products, which is why I was looking for help... So, I surmise, I'd simply loaded Garritan string section, which took over all the Midi channels I was using, substituting its instruments for the original ones.
When I say I bought Garritan from PG, I did. I also updated, to 2015, all my other products. Band-in-the-Box, Powertracks, Realband etc.
And, as for Acid Pro, I assumed, given the error message, that somehow that was also associated/or interfering with PG products, and may be causing the problems. Although I uninstalled Acid Pro, it's not a problem, I can simply go to Sony/my accounts and download it again. So uninstalling it was an easy decision.
Best regards.
Ken
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Ken, in BIAB what is your default synth set up as? If you set up Garritan as your default synth, then songs aren't going to play very well, because Garritan is not a General MIDI compliant synth and you have to define all the instruments used for each appropriate channel. What you probably need to do is to define a default GM synth (BIAB comes with the CoyoteWT, which isn't the greatest, but works). Then, when you want a specific Garritan instrument on a particular track, you just substitute it for that track. That way guitars, bass, drums, etc will play through the default synth, and you can have (for example) the strings track play using Garritan.
If you are unsure of how to do that, look in the BIAB Help system under the Contents tab and check out "Getting Started (Installation/Setup)" and you will see two topics: "DX Synth (DXi plug-in)" and "VST synth (VSTi plug-in)". Those two topics discuss setting up your default synth.
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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Hello John,
I now have Coyote Forte dxi as my default, having just bought it yesterday. Slowly learning how to get it all integrated, having slight problems trying to get to terms with (possibly)having a separate VSTI for every midi track. Your input, and everybody else's, has been great, and is really appreciated.
I do think that a step-by-step video tutorial, would be a real boon for others wanting to have multiple VSTI's operational in their PG products!
Back to wrestling with that very thing...
Best regards.
Ken
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Ken, If you go to the below link, you'll find a video on VST plugins. This may help. http://www.pgmusic.com/videos.bbwin.htmIn the "Intermediate" section, look for ...  Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hello Noel,
Thanks for that, may be the very thing...
Best regards.
Ken.
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