I want to e-upgrade my Ultraplus 2016 pack to the 2018 version. Now I have everything installed on my internal drive. With upgrade I want to move BIAB to an external drive. - How should I do that, withouthaving to install the whole program and losing a licence - How much space is involved with the upgrade?
My records show I have an activation code for BIAB 2016, so they used the same system then as now. You get three activations with BIAB, so you could deactivate your existing copy, but I'm not certain if it matters since you are buying 2018. When you run BIAB from the PG Music-supplied external USB drive, it works fine but you do have to do what we call a minimal install. It is one of the (I think) four choices on Setup. It will write just a few files to your hard drive, including the activation status and some needed fonts, and a few other small files. Very little space on your hard drive is required.
If you are concerned about losing an activation, deactivate your 2016 copy first before doing the minimal install of 2018. You could give PG Music Support a quick call and verify what I'm saying. Go to the grey Support tab at the top of this page for their contact info.
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.
Also, I don't remember when the first XTRA styles PAK came out, so if you really want a complete package, make sure you pick up the ones you are missing along with your order.
One thing you didn't say was whether you wanted to have everything on the external drive you get from PGMusic or your own external drive. I highly suggest using your own external USB drive and keeping the PGMusic drive as a backup in case you ever need to re-install.
If it's your own external drive, here's what I would do, assuming you want to ensure you preserve everything you already have from 2016 (additional bonus paks, XTRA style paks, etc):
Copy your BB folder and any RealTracks/RealDrums folders (in case you installed them somewhere other than in the main BB folder location) to your external USB drive. Then, when you get your new BIAB USB drive, just run the installer and install as if you are installing to your local hard drive, but specify your plugged in USB drive instead and the appropriate folder names to install "over" BIAB2016. Once installed, make sure your desktop shortcut points to your external USB drive, not your main local hard drive.
Once you have verified everything works fine from your USB drive, you can delete the BB folder on your local hard drive.
If you want to install 2018 "over" 2016, but run it from the USB drive PGMusic sends you, then it's a little trickier, but doable. Let us know which way you want to go.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 8TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 11TB SATA
Thank you for your quick answers and additional questions.
I didn't buy the usb drive but the download 2018 upgrade. The 2016 program I have on BIAB disk. I installed that one on my laptop, but it takes a lot of space, and will even be more after 2018 upgrade. So that is why I want to transfer the whole program to an external drive when I upgrade. I only have one 2016 license left, so I want to keep that in case...
I am not sure what the upgrade does. Will it overwrite the 2016 program? If that is the case then it likely will not be a problem to assign a different location. But if it only adds new facilities to the existing one then it will be different, I guess.
I also don't know how much space the upgrade will need. I have read somewhere that the downloadable version will need 100 Gb plus 100 Gb for the instellment.
Not sure what you mean by the term 2018 upgrade. Did you arrange a "download only" UltraPak, or the PlusPak?
The total size is a little over 100GB (as I remember), but there is a lot of commonality between the 2016 files and the 2018 files, so it's not a matter of adding the two sizes together.
Assuming the complete download version (that will show up in your account), just download all the files. Then copy your BB folder from your hard drive to the external USB drive (again, don't forget the RealTracks and RealDrums folders). Then just run all the installation files that you downloaded and specify the location of your external drive. Since BIAB 2018 uses a new folder structure, initially, you will need a little additional space, but then make sure you run the "cleanup" routine once you are done.
John
Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 8TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 11TB SATA
Thanks, that will help. Indeed, it is the "download only" ultrapack.
Would it make sense/be possible to download the program files on the internal drive and run the core program from there and all the music files from an external drive?
I do something like that. The program is on an internal SSD drive. All the RealTracks and RealDrums are on a different very large drive. In Preferences RealTracks you can specify where they are; same for 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.
Thanks, does this mean you have the 100Gb on your ssd drive? If not, what part of the program?
I did as the both of you suggested. I copied the program from my internal drive to my external one and then installed the 2018 update. However, the screen is different, with everything hidden in the upper task bar. Not sure why...
That's the new screen you can revert back to the old one their is a small square box up on the top left corner to change it just under the boxes with wav,mid etc.
win 10 64 bit 16gb,i7 chip, ssd 500gb, m-audio air, ,Roland BK-7M, 1000,shure sm7b,sonar,acid,mixcraft, variety of plugins.Sample tank 3,Kontakt. TC Helicon Voicelive 3 2 . https://beatmaster1.bandcamp.com/releases
Matt, could you perhaps let me know how you organised BIAB on your computer? What part(s) did you install on your SSD internal drive and how many Gb does it include? Now I have everything on an external drive, but I am not sure f this is the best way.
Sure. Nothing difficult but probably extravagant, showing how important BIAB is to me:
I have two main computers for BIAB use. Both are I7 desktops I built. Side note: I was a comp. sci. prof.
My main production machine is at home. The boot drive is a 256 GB SSD. It has Windows and most programs but not BIAB.
I have a second 256 GB SSD for the BIAB program. I also keep copies of all downloaded software here. SSD drives are best when you read from them but don’t write as much. BIAB loads incredibly fast from an SSD, generally in about 2 or 3 seconds.
I have a Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, 2 TB, for just the RealTracks and RealDrums. Note, I have the audiophile version, which requires about 1.5 TB for everything.
I keep the PG Music external drive with the audiophile version in storage off-site as a backup. I also used it to load BIAB onto a second computer at my summer cabin which is setup similarly except I don’t run BIAB from an SSD there. I use this computer for composing but very little production, so speed isn’t as important.
I maintain two other ‘normal’ computers (one desktop, one laptop) I keep as emergency backups with all programs and all backup data including my BIAB songs. Overkill, I know, but even when lightning took out my studio four years ago, I was only out of business one day.
Does that help?
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.
Thanks Matt, I don't have so much disk space. I travel a lot, so decided to do everything with a i5 laptop with 256 Gb SSD, and a few external disks. BIAB 2016 I had on my internal disk. 2018 is bigger, so I want to split between the program itself on the SSD and all audio and video files on an external disk.
Yes, I would use the external drive for RealTracks and RealDrums on a laptop. My laptop is also an i5 with an SSD boot drive I put in, and BIAB runs very well.
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.
I have the whole BIAB 2018 program (100Gb) now in one bb folder on my external drive. This includes the folders Realtracks (80Gb), Drums (5Gb) and Soloists (11Gb). Do I understand it correctly that I should leave these folders on the external drive but better sh/could move the remaining program files (about 5Gb) to the internal drive?
The preferred method for many is to 'install' (not copy or move) the BiaB program to the main internal drive (C:) from the shipped hard drive.
'Installing' adds the fonts, PGMusic FX, etc. where copy/move would not. Leave everything else on the external drive and let BiaB read them from there. This is an option that can be set from both the Install and Preferences. During install just opt to install only the program on C: and locate the RTs elsewhere.
You can use whatever drive you want for the RTs and RDs pretty easily, using Prefs. Like Matt, my original external drives from PGMusic get used only when needed, like on a laptop. Otherwise I copy the RTs and RDs to a separate internal drive when possible. In this case 'copy' (as opposed to install) works; you can copy your RTs or RDs to any other drive and point the program there. But the program itself should be 'installed' to the C: drive, not copied.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome Make your sound your own!
Thanks, I did as you suggested, but somehow it doesn't work. BB is now on my internal drive and I tried to install RT and Drums on the external drive. Now the program can't find the RT folder (only midi sound) and there is no Drums folder created. I tried to install the program again, same result. I guess I must have done something wrong. Also my own songs are not connected and when I open them it's only Midi. Any ideas how to solve this?
in the options - preferences - Realtracks, you need to tell BIAB where the RTs are - see picture below. Then you need to do the same for the realdrums.
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
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SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Join Tobin as he takes you on a tour of the new user interface in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®! This modern GUI redesign offers a sleek new look with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, and a smoother workflow. The brand-new side toolbar puts track selection, the MultiPicker Library, and other essential tools right at your fingertips. Plus, our upgraded Multi-View lets you layer multiple windows without overlap, giving you a highly flexible workspace. Many windows—including Tracks, Piano Roll, and more—have been redesigned for improved usability and a cleaner, more intuitive interface, and more!
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Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
Introducing XPro Styles PAK 10 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
We've just released XPro Styles PAK 10 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) with 100 brand new RealStyles, plus 28 RealTracks and RealDrums!
Few things are certain in life: death, taxes, and a brand spankin’ new XPro Styles PAK! In this, the 10th edition of our XPro Styles PAK series, we’ve got 100 styles coming your way! We have the classic 25 styles each from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, and rounding out this volume's wildcard slot is 25 styles in the Praise & Worship genre! A wide spanning genre, you can find everything from rock, folk, country, and more underneath its umbrella. The included 28 RealTracks and RealDrums can be used with any Band-in-a-Box® 2026 (and higher) package.
Here’s just a small sampling of what you can look forward to in XPro Styles PAK 10: Soft indie folk worship songs, bumpin’ country boogies, gospel praise breaks, hard rockin’ pop, funky disco grooves, smooth Latin jazz pop, bossa nova fusion, western swing, alternative hip-hop, cool country funk, and much more!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the XPro Styles PAKs 1 - 10 are on sale for only $29 ea (Reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Order now!
XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
Introducing Xtra Styles PAK 21 – Now Available for Mac Band-in-a-Box 2025 and Higher!
Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Mac & Windows Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher) is here with 200 brand new RealStyles!
We're excited to bring you our latest Xtra Styles PAK installment—the all new Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box version 2025 (and higher)!
Rejoice, one and all, for Xtra Styles PAK 21 for Band-in-a-Box® is here! We’re serving up 200 brand spankin’ new styles to delight your musical taste buds! The first three courses are the classics you’ve come to know and love, including offerings from the rock & pop, jazz, and country genres, but, not to be outdone, this year’s fourth course is bro country! A wide ranging genre, you can find everything from hip-hop, uptempo outlaw country, hard hitting rock, funk, and even electronica, all with that familiar bro country flair. The dinner bell has been rung, pickup up Xtra Styles PAK 21 today!
In this PAK you’ll discover: Energetic folk rock, raucous train beats, fast country boogies, acid jazz grooves, laid-back funky jams, a bevy of breezy jazz waltzes, calm electro funk, indie synth pop, industrial synth metal, and more bro country than could possibly fit in the back of a pickup truck!
Special offers until December 31st, 2025!
All the Xtra Styles PAKs 1 - 21 are on special for only $29 each (reg $49), or get all 21 PAKs for $199 (reg $399)! Order now!
Note: The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 21 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version because they need the RealTracks from the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
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