Have just purchased subject. Having Biab/RB on a HD pre installed is new to me. Need some hints,
#1 where is best to place files I work on?
#2 is it ok to delete all the old program files?
#3 When I am to upgrade my UltraPlusPak, does it mean that I need to replace the HD completely?
Strat
1. Fastest is a local drive, but USB drive can also be used until it fills up. One of the cool things about the drive is you can save your project to it, go to a friends, plug in the USB drive to his system, open your song and get to work on it.
2. Any important ones will be moved to a backup folder in BiaB/RB when you install the new version over the old one. It is safe to delete this backup folder once you are happy using the new version.
3. You don't have to, but it sure is nice.
A year later the price of an additional backup (and eventually just extra drive space) is kind of nice. The way PGMusic offers upgrades, once you have UltraPlus you can just buy the program for the new features at upgrade time .. or just the realtracks .. etc. They do leave lots of options open.
Tips I would offer:
IF your system has additional drive space there are optimizations that make a bit of difference.
For instance, on my favorite machine I have 6 physical hard drives plus the USB drive.
I run Biab and RB main executables from C: (and often save current projects there)
I run Realtracks and Realdrums from E:
I keep USB drive unplugged except to update occasionally.
I also have my 'Temp Audio Directory' for RB set to F:
Reasons for my setup are below (if you are bored or interested)
C: drive is meant to run programs. Even though the only things that actually 'install' in the OS are fonts and PGMusic Plugins (DirectX FX), they take very little room and I just go ahead and install them.
E: A local drive for Realtracks and RealDrums is faster than the USB drive for generating and loading (and Initiating Accompaniment, etc). Plus it is a current copy of the whole EverythingpaK USB drive (including accumulated add-ons), should anything happen to the USB drive.
F: This is the one most people over look.
Your Temp Audio Directory is where the system does all the hard drive work it needs to do. When you actually record Audio, it gets written here until you Save. When you make Edits, all the 'UnDo's are stored and streamed from here until you Save. I see a performance increase when the OS drive is not asked to do these tasks.
But that's just me.
If one drive is running the OS and the program, plus generating Realtracks, plus writing any Audio for the session (including incoming tracks and Edits) it is likely jumping all over the place to read data.
This can cause stutters, slow response, and other performance issues.