Originally Posted by Notes Norton
I'm glad BiaB has prioritized back-compatibility, and don't mind the creative hacks needed to get it to work the way I want. I've done 51 fake disks with hundreds of songs in each one, and have never been unable to enter a song. That speaks well for the versatility of this app.
That is important, though there are several ways in which it can be handled.

One is to keep everything as it is, but that does cause some upset.

One is a migration strategy, whereby files to an older standard are migrated to a newer standard, perhaps "on the fly" as I imagine is done with SG1, SG2...SGU, SGX, etc., or perhaps as a batch process.

Notes' Expanded Styles highlight both some of the issues of making BIAB work as one sometimes needs, and also give some insight into how and why such migration can be tricky. I presume(!) that his method also has the usual side-effect of halving the number of available bars in a song due to BiaB's 255-bar limit.

One of the reasons I favour a batch process is that one can run tests on old format files converting to new-format files, independently of the program that eventually will work with those files and only roll out the new program once the issues are resolved. I have little doubt that there would be quite a few such issues. One of the reasons is that the new program need not have the code for handling the migration built-in, though it certainly could call the batch program when a file needs migrating.

My strategy for embedded systems with stored parameters has long been similar to this. The data contains a version number which is checked at start-up and whilst the stored number is older than the new, I apply each data upgrade in turn, updating the version number at each step, until I'm at the most recent. By doing it in steps, I need not test previous upgrades each time, just the latest.

Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11
BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software.
Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts
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