PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows What Happened???

Greetings all… I’m not sure if I’m posting this in the right forum, but if not, I apologize in advance.

I am at a total loss trying to figure out what happened to my BIAB setup and am hoping that someone may be able to help me clear up the problem.

It has been a few months since I last used BIAB due to health issues. I recently bought a bass guitar and wanted to set up some practice exercises because my bass playing abilities are somewhat primitive as of yet.

The last time I used BIAB everything was working well, but for some reason things went south when I fired it up yesterday. I primarily use BIAB to set up all my songs with the styles and chords, export them as a MIDI file and then open the file in Sonar Platinum. Once in Sonar, I usually end up using only the drums and bass by the time my song is finished. I use a MIDI keyboard to enter the rest of the instruments used in the song. I usually only use MIDI. I have 2 MIDI modules that I have been using for years without any problems – a Ketron SD-2 and a Roland JV-1010. But now with my wanting to just practice and learn how to play my new bass I’ll only be using BIAB to play along with and will not be using Sonar at all.

Here’s my problem, that started yesterday; When I first opened BIAB yesterday and hit “play” it sounded like all of the instruments were totally out of whack. They sounded like a mish-mash of old “general MIDI" sounds. Almost like some badly tuned toys.

I went to the styles screen, picked a different style, played the audition and everything sounded great. I loaded it into the song and it seemed to be ok – until I pressed the “play” button. I spent a lot of time looking over and trying different settings in the “options” menus but coming up with the same results.

And so I decided on a complete reinstall, and after doing so I opened up the program and found that there was no default “C” in the first bar. It was blank. I tried to enter it from my keyboard but it wouldn’t do so. In fact, I couldn’t enter anything on any other bar in the song either. And once again, the styles played well in the style picker audition screen. A picked style also correctly loaded into the blank song. But, no “C” in the first bar and I couldn’t enter any key from my keyboard.

My software: “BIAB 2009 UltraPak with RealBand”. A couple of years ago I updated to “2017 BIAB with RealBand Upgrade” with three discs. There has been virtually no hardware ha been changed in my computer within that time. I'm running Windows 10. Keep in mind that this whole setup worked fine – until yesterday.

And so yesterday I went to the PG live chat for some help and started chatting with Ember. She told me to reinstall the 2009 program and after that reinstall the 2017 upgrade. Again, after doing so the default screen didn’t have the default “C” in the first bar, nor could I enter any chords from my keyboard. The style picker sounded as it should both in the style picker screen and after loading into the main song screen. I just can’t enter any chords.

I was toying with the idea of buying another upgrade but I’m afraid to do that if I’m still going to have the same problem. I’d like to get my current software working properly – as it always has up until yesterday – before trying to put in another upgrade.

It’s a totally frustrating situation as I’m sure some of you can understand. Has anyone else ever run into this problem and if so, how was it corrected?

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Bobby

Bobby, I have never had that problem but here are some thoughts that may have caused the problem.

1-Did you have anything running in the background when installing BiaB? Things like anti-virus, anti-malware or anything in the background can cause installation problems.

2-You are infected with a virus or some kind of bug that is causing havoc with your install.

3-Maybe your hard drive is failing? Have Windows check your hard drive for errors: right click on C:/, properties, tools and then error checking.

Good luck.

Hi Bobby,

Can you give our tech support line a call this week and ask for me? The number's 1-866-983-2474, I'll be available 11-5 PST.

If you install TeamViewer first (www.teamviewer.com), that might make troubleshooting this issue a bit easier.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

Hello Bobby,

Regarding the chords not appearing, I think you just need to reboot your computer. Sometimes if a font needs to be replaced by the installer but is currently in use by the system, it will have a "pending" state until a system reboot. This might be the case with the currently selected chord font. You could also just choose a different font for now in Chord Display | Choose font.

Hi Kent...

Thanks so much for your speedy comeback!!! So very appreciated. I will give you a call tomorrow for sure.

Just as an update... I reinstalled my BIAB 2009 and it seems to be running fine. I haven't installed the 2017 Upgrade as of yet.

Correct me if I'm wrong - I should be installing the Upgrade on top of my 2009 version, right? I shouldn't be installing the upgrade on it's own after getting rid of the older version, right?

Again, thanks so much for your offer of help.

Bobby

Hi Andrew... thanks for the comeback...

I really don't think I tried the reboot. I also haven't tried to change the font. I will give that a try as well.

As I told Kent - My 2009 version installed without issues and it is running as it should. I don't remember if I leave this older version installed and then install the 2017 Upgrade on top of it. It does say "Upgrade" on the newer version.

Thanks again!!!

Bobby

Do Not uninstall the 2009 version first.
Just install the 2017 version over the top of the 2009 version.
That is the correct way to upgrade versions of BiaB

Trev

There is some great news - of sorts - to report!!!

I reinstalled my BIAB 2009 and then installed my 2017 upgrade. I didn't install the other two DVD's that came with the 2017 upgrade. I then opened up BIAB and lo and behold, it is running as it should. My plan is to try installing them later on today and will keep you posted.

Bobby

With all that good news, no wonder your horse is smiling too!

Horse??? That's not a horse!!! That's a picture of me, taken on the day I announced my retirement.

I worked on a song this afternoon in BIAB 2017 - I still haven't installed the other two DVD's yet. Actually, I'm kind of afraid to do it because it is running so well as it is.

Truthfully, 99% of what I do musically is done in MIDI, in Cakewalk. I only use BIAB to lay down my chords and quite often I only end up keeping the drums and bass tracks once over in Cakewalk. And now, with my new bass guitar, I may only be using the drum track. But I have to learn how to play it first. This is where BIAB is going to come in handy... it's really great for practicing.

If I do work up the nerve to install the other two DVD's at some point this week I'll let you know the results.

Again... thanks for all the comebacks!!! Much appreciated.

Bobby

Bobby,

Before you install the DVDs why not use Windows Explorer to view the DVD contents? Make sure you temporarily turn off the "Auto play when a DVD is inserted" feature first.

Update...

And so I sucked it in and held my breath and installed discs two and three that came with my 2017 BIAB upgrade this morning. I'm pleased to report that everything seems to be running fine. I opened it up to find the default "C" is now there. I added a bunch of chords, ran it and and found that this is working as it should.

I'm still baffled as to why I was having problems with the two complete re-installs that I did the other day. I did everything exactly the same way this morning. The only difference was that I installed the 2009 version and actually ran it. Everything was fine.

I then installed the first disc of three of the 2017 upgrade over the 2009 version and again, I ran it. Everything was fine. I even did a song with this setup yesterday.

I this morning I installed the second of three discs and then ran it. Everything was fine.

I then installed the third of three discs and then ran it. Again, everything is fine. This was a real head scratching situation for sure.

That being said, I did notice that when I was using the style picker I got a yellow message box on the right bottom corner saying that two or three drum sets couldn't be found for a couple of styles that I picked at random. Dunno why because aside from this the style auditions still work fine. Oh well...

Thanks to everyone who weighed in on my initial problem!!! Much appreciated.

Bobby

After all the installations, you should do a full rebuild of the StylePicker (if you didn't).

Hi John...

I sound like a complete newb when I ask you how to do a complete style picker rebuild. Think you could help me out on it?

I would be forever grateful..

Bobby

I don't have the 2017 manual handy right now, but if you just open Style Picker, at the bottom of the screen there should be a button to rebuild the styles list. There is a Fast Rebuild (which just rebuilds the styles provided by PGMusic) and the Full (or Slow) Rebuild, which rebuilds both the PGMusic Styles list and any user styles you may have copied to your BIAB installation. I would start with the Fast Rebuild first and see if that helps.

Hi again, John

Thanks so much for your help!!! I did the "Fast Rebuild" and everything is now working great. No more messages telling me that it can't find such and such drum sets. In fact, the rebuild found 217 new sets. Wow.

Thanks again

Bobby