56. What is the difference between the Audiophile editions of Band-in-a-Box and the regular Band-in-a-Box packages?

Windows:

The Audiophile editions ship pre-installed on a portable high-speed USB 3.0 hard drive, and has everything that the "regular" versions of Band-in-a-Box and RealBand have, plus all the uncompressed audio in WAV file format for ALL the RealTracks and RealDrums, so the highest sound quality is preserved. We normally ship RealTracks audio files as compressed WMA files (usually 128 or 160 kbps) instead of WAV files. The WMA files are excellent quality, and make the program MUCH smaller (roughly 120GB). With a typical setup at home, many people would not be able to hear a difference, but some advanced users prefer to have the original WAV files. Note that it is possible to uncompress the 'regular edition' M4A files to AIFF, however these will not be the same as the original WAV files, having already been compressed once. Also, please note that the 'Audiophile editions' do include the WMA files as well, which gives you the option of installing the program on your computer the same way as with the 'regular edition'.

Macintosh:

The Audiophile edition ships pre-installed on a portable high-speed USB 3.0 hard drive, and includes everything that the regular Band-in-a-Box packages have, plus all the uncompressed audio in AIFF file format for ALL the RealTracks and RealDrums, so the highest sound quality is preserved. We normally ship RealTracks audio files as compressed M4A files (usually 128 or 160 kbps) instead of AIFF files. The M4A files are excellent quality, and make the program MUCH smaller (roughly 120GB). With a typical setup at home, many people would not be able to hear a difference, but some advanced users prefer to have the original AIFF files. Note that it is possible to uncompress the 'regular edition' M4A files to AIFF, however these will not be the same as the original AIFF files, having already been compressed once. Also, please note that the 'Audiophile editions' do include the M4A files as well, which gives you the option of installing the program on your computer the same way as with the 'regular edition'.

Very good summary!

For more info on this topic, you can read this thread: http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=378939#Post378939

Is the bitrate mentioned above still correct? I was hoping the compressed versions would be at least 320kbps m4a. 160kbps WMA quality seems to be what we would have used around the year 2001-2005.

If you already have the WAVs on hand (since you sell Audiophile Editions) it would be great to replace the old WMA's with higher bitrate versions now that our computers have much more storage.

Ryan_P,

First welcome to the PG Music forum.

There has been a long standing request for the Audiophile edition to offer RealTrack and RealDrum files with 24 bit depth. +++ HERE +++ is one request from 2015. If you like the idea you can add your support for the idea with a +1 post.

A +++ related +++ request is to have 24 bit RealTracks and the capability for Band-in-a-Box to render 24 bit tracks.

However the fact that RealTracks and RealDrums are 16 bit does not reduce the quality of the recordings. Listen to the raw files and you'll find all are professionally recorded.

I made the requests because 24 bit files allow a user to use more of each track fader while mixing. Many Band-in-a-Box users including myself are inexperienced at mixing so any advantage that will make mixing easier I want.

Listen to some of the compressed RealTracks and RealDrums. I think you'll discover whatever compression algorithm or algorithms PG Music uses does a really good job.

Also, don't forget some of the tracks using the lower bit rates are monaural.

The Audiophile version does not get a discount on upgrades, unless you're going to upgrade every year.

Keep that in mind if you're considering upgrading.

And, while 24-bit would be great, I'd be happy with upping the sample rate to 48k. Higher sample rates would help generate far fewer artifacts with all the time shifting the program is doing. Audiophile version or not, some of these tracks sound just horrible when they pitch-shift and/or time stretch. It's a physical limitation of 16/41.1 audio.