PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Prospective purchaser not sure which Pack to get - advice please

I want to buy BiaB to assist with music writing and recording. I use Logic but find I don't get enough control over loops etc and Drummer is good, but I never find the exact beat I want.

If I purchased the MegaPAK would I be disappointed and wished I'd bought the UltraPAK? Or does the UltraPAK give a lot more but less useful mainstream stuff? Money is tight so anything higher would be difficult. Many thanks in advance.

Hello Skidders,

I think that really depends on what you're looking to work with genre-wise. If, for example, you're a big Jazz or Country fan, and you want all the RealTracks you can get for that, I highly recommend the UltraPAK or higher.

The best way to think of it is that functionality is the same across all packages, but what changes is the amount of content. You can always take a look at our overview pages and see exactly how they differ.

MegaPAK: https://www.pgmusic.com/bbmac.packages.mega.htm
UltraPAK: https://www.pgmusic.com/bbmac.packages.ultrapak.htm

With the MegaPAK you can see it comes with around 520 RealTracks. You can see the exact breakdown of what you get for various genres if you continue to scroll down the page. The UltraPAK comes with around 2,900, so it's a pretty big difference.

If you have further questions, let us know!

Standard answer to this question is to get as much as you can afford.
It is much cheaper to buy in volume, and moving forward it also saves in upgrade prices years later.

If you can afford the Ultrapak, do that.
It saves money in the long run.

As mentioned, go for the highest Pak that your budget allows is always my advice.

agree about the highest pack you can afford. i bought a basic pack and within a week or so upgraded to the top pack - and PG Music allowed me to upgrade just by paying the difference. so maybe you get a pack and play with it for a week or so and see what you think.

maybe, just maybe, your best course is to buy what you can afford now and wait for the december/january sale of BIAB 2021. that will save you some cash when you upgrade. or if you want total gratification now PG do easy payments.

I started with the Mega and upgraded to the Ultra the next day.
More choices = more creativity/options. My plan was to start easy and wait until a sale to upgrade but I didn’t even last 24 hours. It’s just so good you want more. YMMV:)

Agree with the other members. I bought BIAB Pro 2018, and got it at discount from Amazon around a year and a half ago. There was no 30 Day guarantee, and I decided to chance it because I was pretty sure I would want to keep it after hearing what it could do.

I first heard of it on SoundCloud - a pharmacist in Japan was creating just beautiful and fully professional sounding tracks and mentioned that he used it. Then I spent a fair amount of time on the site, reading about the features, then watching some of the excellent videos that PG Music produces which show how the product features and tutorials. After that I spent some time hanging around in the forums, and got a great vibe from the community here and at the same time felt not a little intimidated by the amount of talent, and what people were able to produce, but I felt I just had to give it a shot. This was at a time when I didn't even have a MIDI keyboard.

So I took the plunge and put it on my Windows 10 laptop, and I was hooked. At this point, I knew I wanted to use the heck out of BIAB, but I wasn't sure if I really needed all those extra tracks. After a few months of learning the ropes and figuring how to basically just scratch the surface, I was able to create some very satisfying tracks. Eventually I discovered there were a lot of tracks in the set that just didn't suit my needs, but also quite a few that were pretty awesome (including some Jazz, Bossa Nova, Brit Rock, Country, Soul and Rock). So I tried an Xtra Pack (it was on sale) for around $35, and there was some good stuff in there - that's an advantage of those - they are more modern and mostly RealTracks. A lot of the included stuff is based on MIDI and some of the Styles and tracks go back to the 2000's, and I don't have a great MIDI rig, so that meant I had to rely more on the RealTracks. I spent a couple months really trying to exhaust every single style in the Pro version, but I finally reached a point where I just had to get a taste of that next level. So I sprung for an upgrade to the 2020 version and the Ultrapack+.

I've been using the Ultrapack since around Christmas last year, and I'm very happy that I got it. I've become serious enough about BIAB that I know I'm really going to get my money's worth out of it. Realistically, in terms of dollars you can spend on digital music software and related equipment it's a steal for the price *if it suits your needs*. One thing to keep in mind is that the product is very powerful, and so any limits you encounter are likely to be in your willingness to learn how to get the most out of it. Some products have very enticing features with all sorts of bells and whistles. In my opinion BIAB is more like a Volvo S90, and some of the other music production products are like a Testarossa. Each one is stellar at what it does. But if you do want to give BIAB a try, you can buy it direct from PG Music and get that 30 Day money back guarantee. If you do go for it, I strongly recommend that you give it a good shot and really spend some time with it before you make up your mind.

Finally, I've heard the PG Music sales and support people are pretty flexible at helping you find the product that's right for you.

P.S. - I'm just a plain old BIAB user, no special benefits here, just posting my thoughts and my occasional song in the forums, and trying to get just a little better every day.

Like many others within a very short time I went to the UltraPak and have not been disappointed. The UltraPak should deliver everything you need (and then some). I found lesser packs left me wishing. The extra $s are worth every cent in my opinion.

Go out and enjoy (well you know what I mean).

Stay healthy all.

Tony

Skidders...

Just get in there. If you don't feel comfortable going full boar, then opt Pro or Mega Pak for now, you can always upgrade later.

Listen to some of the samples
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.packages.mega.htm#megacombos
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.realtracks.htm

See if any of these are something you can work with or appeal to you. Also, bear in mind if you really like SOME of the instruments on a sample, you can always replace or add new instruments from a huge data base.

Just my opinion, but it's an AWESOME program. I love it...