PG Music Home Forums User-to-User Post your own Tips and Tricks here Changing Styles

How to change styles when working outside of Biab's "home directory.

I frequently compose tunes in "MySongs" folder, so changing styles in a song can be a pain, requiring the temporary movement of my styles to the Biab home directory so I can make those changes. When I finish the song and save it to "MySongs" folder, I would then have to locate and delete those styles I was temporarily using from Biab's home folder. (Once the style changes have been saved, Biab finds the styles in "MySongs" folder so they do not need to in the cluttered Biab folder.)

If you work in a similar manner, the following technique may ease that pain.

Background:
Location of MySongs folder: C:\MySongs
Location of my styles: C:\MySongs
Location of my composition: C:\MySongs
Location of the Biab home folder: C:\bb2009

Additional files needed in MySongs folder:
CopySty.bat
DelSty.bat
DosCmd.bat

You will have to create these simple batch files.
Note: For accuracy you can copy and paste the paths from Window's Explorer.
1. CopySty.bat
a. Open Notepad
b. Type: Copy C:\MySongs\%1 C:\bb2009
c. SaveAs: CopySty.bat

2. DelSty.bat
a. Open Notepad
b. Type: Del C:\bb2009\%1
c. SaveAs: DelSty.bat

3. DosCmd.bat
a. Open Notepad
b. Type: Cmd
c. SaveAs: DosCmd.bat

Operation:
To copy the style to the Biab folder:
01. Open Window's Explorer to the MySongs folder.
02. Select the bar in the Biab song where you want to change styles.
03. Determine what style to change to.
04. Copy that style's name from the Window's Explorer, (say BR549.sty).
05. Double-click DosCmd.bat to get a Dos window.
06. Type CopySty and a space ("CopySty ")
07. Right-click and paste the style's file name (BR549.sty)
08. Hit Enter. (The style is copied to the Biab folder.)

To change styles:
09. In Biab, use the F5 key to change styles.
10. Save the song. (Important before deleting the style from the Biab folder.)

Deleting the style from the Biab folder.
11. Return to the Dos window (or double-click the DosCmd.bat)
12. Type DelSty and a space ("DelSty ")
13. Right-click and paste the style's file name. (BR549.sty is still in memory.)
14. Hit Enter. (The style is deleted from the Biab folder.)
15. Reload the song from the MySongs folder so it will find the new style change.

I certainly hope this is not too confusing.

Hello, greetings to anyone. My problem in reality, when I change a style, if the style has only one real track as default, I have to wait 3 to 4 minutes before to use the program again. As I don't know in advance if the style that I will choose has real tracks inside, I receive a yellow pop up message who says to me tha the file has an incorrect beat map and the quality might not be optimum...While the computer is working to build the real instrument.
So, this is really not a progress. Of course, I can change in the preferences in the options and not to enable real tracks but I have to do that everytime I reopen BiaB. I have a damn stupid Vista with a damn new Dell XPS.
My BiaB version is the last of 2008 and I don't want to have any new version since real tracks is slowing incredibly down the use of BiaB.

2010 BIAB has an option to speed up generation of RealTracks. I have Vista on a 2 year old laptop and typical generation time is about 5 seconds. Also, 2010 has tempo swapping which automatically swaps most RealTracks if you choose one with the 'wrong' tempo. It may be worth it to consider an upgrade.

As far as the beat map problem, try re-installing the offending RealTrack or just delete the .bt0 files from the specific RealTrack folder. A new one will get generated the next time it is used.

RealTrack styles are preceeded with _ such as _SLOWBAL. This will help you determine if a style has a RealTrack.

2008 is a distant memory but I think the above will apply.

R

p.s. You may want to take this issue to the BIAB forum. More people will read it.

You are happy with the way this works. It is a clever thing, and it must have been fun to work out the system. But it is a little complicated for some. BiaB has a simpler alternative programmed in, should anybody want to use it.

If you move all your styles into a directory called Styles, under the main BB directory, Band in a Box will always find them when loading songs, no matter where the songs are. The messiness of the main directory is relieved, but you don't have to shift styles around nor point to style locations, because the program will search in Styles if it exists.


The new directory must be called Styles, and it must be located right in your main BiaB folder. Other names and locations will not be searched. Songs can always be stored anywhere that's convenient.

Blisco -

The RealTrack generate times, as Rachael pointed out, is much, much faster in 2010 (and 2010.5) than in 2008. You'll find find that you can generate your whole song (with multiple RealTracks) in probably half the time to generate a single track in your current configuration (assuming you have a fairly recent computer).

Larry -

What I do with styles is to keep all the styles provided by PGMusic in the main folder (because that's where updates will go), but to keep all the styles obtained elsewhere (Norton, Finetuned, the web, etc) in the Styles folder.

No problem with that idea, John. It has organizational advantages. It does leave the main BiaB folder as chaotic as ever, which I sense jblatz finds annoying.

But if you put all styles into /Styles, you do have to clean up annually, after an update. Updates are not smart enough to find a /Styles folder, just as you imply.

how can i change my style ?????? please tell some styles which are should be suited on me share with me your taste ??????????????
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