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I'm experimenting with a small Intel SSD boot drive. The installation of 64-bit Windows 7 went very quickly, and the installation of individual applications is incredibly faster than with a normal hard drive. Applications load much faster. BIAB runs fine. So far, knock on wood, no glitches or driver problems. And NO SOUND at all from the drive, even with the case open.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Matt,
Because of pricing issues and storage space issuse, SSD's aren't in my budget, or plans yet. When I can get an SSD drive comparable in space and pricing for a standard SATA drive, which when you think about it is a lot more complex than an SSD, I'll start buying them.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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I agree. I had a credit that was expiring, so it was an opportunity to experiment. The future looks good!
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I've had experience with SS drives for over a decade at the day job, we started using them in certain applications where vibration, dust, etc. was not the best thing for the mechanical disk drives.
They are indeed FAST at everything, as you note.
BTW -- the Failure Mode is another thing that is extremely fast. We haven't experienced a lot of it, but in those instances where the SS drive fails in the field, there is no warning, no funny noises at bootup or spinup (because there isn't any spinup), the things just fail at the speed of solid state devices. Nanoseconds. Poof. All gone. This is not a fault of the drives. Everyone should make backups in digital storage, regardless of the platform technology.
It is good to see them getting into the mass-production arena now, with prices starting to come in line such that the things may get a foothold in the consumer marketplace.
Still, I intend to wait for the prices to come down a bit more before going ahead and installing on one of my personal machines. But the plans for my next DAW include an i7 processor and may just include a SS drive or two...
--Mac
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Prices for a 500GB SSD are still above $1,400. I remember my first 1GB drive, at $1,000. That was back in the early 90's. I hope that it won't take that long to see pricing come down to a reasonable level.
I think we can expect to see 500GB SSDs at a 'reasonable' level inside of 5 years. But, that's my opinion, nothing else.
Gary
I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!
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Quote:
I think we can expect to see 500GB SSDs at a 'reasonable' level inside of 5 years. But, that's my opinion, nothing else.
It may well be much sooner. There are a lot of consumer electronics out there these says that use HDD's and where the noise of a spinning HDD is undesireable - Video cameras, Digital Video Recorders, Digital Audio recorders and the like. Demand will create economies of scale that should reduce the prices fairly quickly.
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya  --=--You're only paranoid if you're wrong!
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Well, no way would I put $1,000 or more into a hard drive. You can get by with a boot drive of 120GB just fine, maybe even as small as 60 GB if you install some apps on other drives in your system.
Anyway, after a day, I'm really liking the speed.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I had wondered off'n'on about a RAID of pretty high-capacity SD cards. RAID 10 maybe, to avoid data loss if an SD goes bad. Just plug in a replacement and keep on going. Raid 10 is both striped for speed and also mirrored for security, with auto-rebuilding if a drive goes bad. Googled it today, and the idea has been discussed for years, generally discounted as not fast enough and too fragile with too-few write cycles before failure. But then discovered the Panasonic P2 video storage card format (released 2004) which is a RAID of SD cards sturdily sealed up inside a PCMCIA format memory card. Betcha they are expensive though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P2_(storage_media)
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Yes, Matt.
About a year, now, with a little Asus "EEE PC 8g". 8 gigabyte flash memory storage, 1 gig of memory. With optional SD card storage for a bigger operating system, or just more data. Solid and reliable. Memory upgradeable to 2 gigs.
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Things are still going quite well with the SSD.
Along with the SSD, I installed Windows 7 64-bit. This is my first foray into 64-bit.
I had been running BIAB from the external drive. I just installed it to the SSD boot drive (option 2, program only) and pointed the Real Tracks and Real Drums back to the external drive. The program loads faster than I've ever seen it.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Peter Gannon Talks Band-in-a-Box with zplane
zplane recently interviewed Peter Gannon, the founder and creator of Band-in-a-Box, about the software's early days, what sets it apart from AI, how zplane's audio algorithms are used in Band-in-a-Box, and more!
Special thanks to the team at zplane for their continued support.
Check out the full interview here: https://products.zplane.de/blog/peter-gannon-interview-pg-music
Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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Another exciting new addition is the amazing new AI-Notes feature, which can transcribe polyphonic audio into MIDI. View the results in notation or play them back as MIDI, and choose whether to transcribe an entire track or transcribe specific parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's over 100 new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®.
There's an amazing collection of new content too, including 202 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two RealDrums Stems sets, and much more!
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There are over 100 new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®.
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Holiday Weekend Hours
It's Victoria Day Long Weekend in Canada. Our Customer Service hours are:
Saturday, May 16: Closed
Sunday, May 17: Closed
Monday, May 18: 8:00am - 4:00pm
Regular hours resume Tuesday, May 19th!
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202 New RealTracks Released with Band-in-a-Box 2026!
With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
Jazz, Funk & World (Sets 468-475):
Our new jazz, funk & blues RealTracks include a groovin’ collection of RealTracks and RealDrums! These include more requested “soul jazz” RealTracks featuring artists Neil Swainson (bass), Charles Treadway (organ), Brent Mason (guitar), and Wes Little (drums). There are new “smooth jazz” styles (4), which include a RealTracks first: muted trumpet, as well as slick new smooth jazz brushes options for drums. Blues lovers will be thrilled—there are more “classic acoustic blues” styles, including guitar (5), bass (4), and drums (10) with blues master Colin Linden, featuring understated and tasty background acoustic soloing, plus brushes drums and acoustic bass. There are also new electric blues RealTracks, including electric blues with PG favorite Johnny Hiland (3) and soulful electric slide guitar from Colin Linden (4). If you love funk & gospel, there are great new options this year, including gospel organ (3) from Charles Treadway, as well as new funk, tango, and rock ’n’ roll drums (3) and bass (1). And for big, bold arrangements, we have uptempo soul horns (4) featuring a three-part hip horn section with options for a full mix or stems of each individual horn — plus an accompanying rhythm section (4) of drums, bass, guitar, and electric piano!
Rock & Pop (Sets 476–482):
Our new rock & pop RealTracks bring a powerful mix of requested favorites, fresh genres, and modern chart-inspired styles! We have more of our popular “Producer Layered Acoustic Guitars (15)” featuring Band-in-a-Box favorite Brent Mason. We’ve continued our much-requested disco styles (10), and added new Celtic guitar (5) with a more basic, accessible approach than our previous Drop-D or DADGAD offerings. There are also highly requested yacht rock styles (17), inspired by the smooth, polished soft-rock sound of the late ’70s and early ’80s — laid-back grooves, silky electric pianos, warm textures, elegant harmonic movement, and pristine production aesthetics. Fans of heavier styles will love our new glam metal (13), capturing the flashy, high-energy sound of ’80s arena-ready guitar rock. We also have a set of rootsy modern-folk rock (18), with a warm, organic sound combining contemporary folk textures and driving acoustic strumming. And we’ve added lots of new modern pop styles (16) — the kinds of sounds you’re hearing on the radio today, featuring exciting new drums, synths, and cutting-edge RealTracks arrangements.
Country, & Americana (Sets 483–488):
Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
Check out all the 202 new RealTracks (in sets 468-488)!
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
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