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In 2014 when I was trying to assist Fiddler2007 with a problem ( original thread here), I accidentally discovered that when a corrupted or problematic BIAB SGU/MGU file was... - saved with a new file name in SGU/MGU format using Realband
...this new file, when opened in BIAB often then worked correctly. Over the years, a number of us on these forums have now recommended this solution and in many cases, it has solved the problem that the user was experiencing. Thinking about this, it seems that RB must strip away some file settings when it loads the file created in BIAB. Then, when the file is saved using Realband, it creates a songfile that no longer contains the problematic settings. Because RB is exclusive to Windows, any Mac users don't get the option to use this technique in an attempt to repair songfiles that don't behave properly. This leads me to make the following suggestion... Can an option be added to BIAB (Win and Mac) that removes all the settings from a songfile that RB does not load? This could prove to be very useful for songfile repair. Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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+1
Noel, your suggestion has saved some of my songs projects so I understand just how valuable the song repair function can be. In fact I wouldn't mind having the feature in the Windows edition too!
Last but not least, I like the name of the function. The Song Repair Function. Has a ring to it.
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+1
Noel, your suggestion has saved some of my songs projects so I understand just how valuable the song repair function can be. In fact I wouldn't mind having the feature in the Windows edition too!
Last but not least, I like the name of the function. The Song Repair Function. Has a ring to it. Jim, I noticed recently that you used the open/save-in-Realband approach when helping some users who were experiencing problems and it was successful. I'm really glad you remembered this strategy because it was not something that I thought about after I read those problems. A little while back, I mentioned the above thought to BIAB developers and it was Trevor (Videotrack) who came up with the name. He's the one who deserves that credit. This morning here in Australia I found myself thinking, "I wonder what users think of this idea?" so I thought I'd run it in the Wishlist forum and find out... hence the post! Regards, Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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I like this. Jim is also commenting in another thread about copying a song into another instance of BIAB. We are curious if this is implemented to know exactly what control we might have over what gets copied. That makes it related to this thread as another potential tool to repair the rare song that gets corrupted.
Lots of potential here.
Also, if copying a song to a second instance of BIAB could be used this way, it would help assuage the Mac users who don’t have the option of RealBand to repair a BIAB song file.
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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<<< "Also, if copying a song to a second instance of BIAB could be used this way, it would help assuage the Mac users who don’t have the option of RealBand to repair a BIAB song file." >>>
It seems the creation of an alternate saving option is where the magic happens that occasionally salvages a project.
I wondered if there may be such an alternate way to create a saved sgu within Biab that would produce the same result as the external saving does using RB.
I don't have a corrupt file to experiment with but if any of you guys have saved one of the corrupt files you've encountered, you may want to try this alternate method to create a new version sgu file to save I found if you haven't already done so.
{ Open the corrupt file }
{ File\Save Special\Email Song File(s) as attachment... }
{ Email the song to yourself and import that sgu file and determine if this method creates an alternate save of the file similar to the RB fix. }
I have no idea if this works but it appears to me that a sgu is created in a different manner than the normal saves that do not make the changes that strip the files in a manner to recover a corrupt file.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Good thought. I don’t think I kept a corrupt file - they’re so rare.
I suspect that no amount of testing workarounds by us is going to help unless we get really lucky like the RealBand trick, because the file description is proprietary. I was a programmer and systems analyst and I’m used to having a data dictionary. Without that, we’re just guessing.
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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Noel, definitely +1
I've used this trick before with great success.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Charlie,
That's a great thought. I hadn't considered the saving process at all.
My thoughts were focused on the opening process. Since RB does not do a lot of what BIAB does, my reasoning was that when a BIAB-saved SGU or MGU file is opened in Realband, Realband ignores any saved information that is not applicable to the RB software environment. Then when the file is re-saved, RB only writes the information relative to its own settings. This re-written file, when opened in BIAB is thus potentially stripped of any problematic BIAB setting that was recorded in the BIAB-saved file.
You've got me intrigued with the 'email' solution. I'm not sure that I've kept any users' files that were problems. I'll have a look and see.
Regards,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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My thought process was directed toward saving versus opening because in reading through this thread, I had a vague memory where a poster forwarded a file to PGMusic staff and they could not replicate the corrupted error when they opened the file he sent in. I could be completely wrong about that but it was enough of a memory for me to suggest emailing the file.
It's rare but will happen again and someone can give it a try.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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A few times I've used "Save as ...", saved a song project under a new name, closed BiaB, opened BiaB and then loaded the "Save as ..." song file and the song project is "repaired" but more often than not it doesn't have as much success as saving and opening in RealBand.
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For a newbie like me, that would be a great tool. I hope someone can make it happen.
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Forever Grateful, BUT, sometimes pissed of.  Trygve "Leo" Larsen BiaB 2020, Windows 8.1, Intel Core i5 CPU, 270GHz, 32 Gb RAM My OLD tracks on Soundcloud; https://soundcloud.com/trygve-larsen My NEW is unpublished The Universe = Uni-verse ie one song.
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Hi All.
Possible work around steps posted below.
I have had this same (or similar) problem in BIAB 2021 tonight: I had worked on an SGU file, exported the WAV files, worked in my DAW, realized I needed to make a change to the SGU, re-opened the SGU... and went wide-eyed when the drum track was all over the place: two drum tracks were playing with different BPM, etc.
BIAB was also giving a message "no drum style is loaded". No repair options solved this problem. I was using the default Drums within the Style. I checked: the impact was only for this single SGU file, not any of my other SGU files.
Steps to help with some recovery (some, if not all):
1. With the damaged file loaded in BIAB, choose File-->Save Special-->Save Song(s) to text on Clipboard or (files)
2. Using all of the defaults in the pop-up screen, choose "Save as .txt file" save the damaged file as a text file. Let's say you named it Damaged.txt. You can open that file in Notepad or equal.
3. Now create a New SGU (File-->New). Choose the exact same Style you were using in the damaged file.
4. With the new SGU, choose Fille-->Save Special-->Save Song(s) to text on Clipboard or (files)
5. Using all of the defaults in the pop-up screen, choose "Save as .txt file" save the new file as a text file. Let's say you named it New.txt
6. Close out of BIAB
7. I then opened the damaged.txt file in Notepad as well as the new.txt file and compared the two. I could then immediately tell a difference. The damaged.txt file had a line that read (amongst other lines) "RealDrums [in style:" and nothing after that. The new.txt file had the same text but a complete description of the style.
8. I copied the RealDrum line from the new.txt file to the damaged.txt file.
9. I then opened a brand new SGU file. From the updated damaged.txt file (with the change in the RealDrum line included) I copied ALL of the text. I then just pasted it into BIAB. A window popped up, and I chose all the default options: everything that was in the .txt file was represented in the pop-up window. BIAB pasted the correct chords, the BPM, even the panning.
10. One thing it did NOT do: I had added some other RealTracks on top of the Style tracks... those did NOT get pasted in, even though I could see them in the pop-up window. Not sure why, I am still looking into that. If I find a solution, I will reply.
Paul
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PS: I also think I found out what caused the SGU file "corruption"... which may or may not be a true corruption. I had NOT created a Performance Audio track, but I DID have WAV files I had exported from the SGU into the same folder as the SGU. Just now I read this from the SteelGuitarForum.com (see below in quotes). So... I ended up deleting EVERYTHING from the folder except for the SGU file. Voila. No more corruption. BIAB is a weird weird program sometimes.
"Yes you can share Band-in-a-Box SGU and MGU files.
If you are sharing files with other users it's possible someone may not have a RealTracks. There is still a way to share the track. The feature is called "Performance track".
Performance track saves a track as an audio file. You can send a Performance track audio file to your friend who will be able to play that track in a Band-in-a-Box song file without needing to have the RealTracks installed. Performance track radio button turn orange when the track is saved as a Performance track. The track patch name will be orange when the Performance track is loaded.
One way to save a track as a Performance track is to right click on the track patch name, navigate to "Track Actions" and select "Save track as Performance file (wav/wma)" then select wave or wma file format.
The audio file will be named as whatever is the name of the song and the track. The audio file is saved in the bb folder.
Any audio file can be a Performance track in Band-in-a-Box as long as the audio file title includes the name of the loaded song file and a track and the file is stored in the same folder as the song file."
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