I want to e-upgrade my Ultraplus 2016 pack to the 2018 version. Now I have everything installed on my internal drive. With upgrade I want to move BIAB to an external drive.
- How should I do that, withouthaving to install the whole program and losing a licence
- How much space is involved with the upgrade?

Thank you for your help

Welcome to the forum.

My records show I have an activation code for BIAB 2016, so they used the same system then as now. You get three activations with BIAB, so you could deactivate your existing copy, but I'm not certain if it matters since you are buying 2018. When you run BIAB from the PG Music-supplied external USB drive, it works fine but you do have to do what we call a minimal install. It is one of the (I think) four choices on Setup. It will write just a few files to your hard drive, including the activation status and some needed fonts, and a few other small files. Very little space on your hard drive is required.

If you are concerned about losing an activation, deactivate your 2016 copy first before doing the minimal install of 2018. You could give PG Music Support a quick call and verify what I'm saying. Go to the grey Support tab at the top of this page for their contact info.

Also, I don't remember when the first XTRA styles PAK came out, so if you really want a complete package, make sure you pick up the ones you are missing along with your order.

One thing you didn't say was whether you wanted to have everything on the external drive you get from PGMusic or your own external drive. I highly suggest using your own external USB drive and keeping the PGMusic drive as a backup in case you ever need to re-install.

If it's your own external drive, here's what I would do, assuming you want to ensure you preserve everything you already have from 2016 (additional bonus paks, XTRA style paks, etc):

Copy your BB folder and any RealTracks/RealDrums folders (in case you installed them somewhere other than in the main BB folder location) to your external USB drive. Then, when you get your new BIAB USB drive, just run the installer and install as if you are installing to your local hard drive, but specify your plugged in USB drive instead and the appropriate folder names to install "over" BIAB2016. Once installed, make sure your desktop shortcut points to your external USB drive, not your main local hard drive.

Once you have verified everything works fine from your USB drive, you can delete the BB folder on your local hard drive.

If you want to install 2018 "over" 2016, but run it from the USB drive PGMusic sends you, then it's a little trickier, but doable. Let us know which way you want to go.

Thank you for your quick answers and additional questions.

I didn't buy the usb drive but the download 2018 upgrade. The 2016 program I have on BIAB disk. I installed that one on my laptop, but it takes a lot of space, and will even be more after 2018 upgrade. So that is why I want to transfer the whole program to an external drive when I upgrade. I only have one 2016 license left, so I want to keep that in case...

I am not sure what the upgrade does. Will it overwrite the 2016 program? If that is the case then it likely will not be a problem to assign a different location. But if it only adds new facilities to the existing one then it will be different, I guess.

I also don't know how much space the upgrade will need. I have read somewhere that the downloadable version will need 100 Gb plus 100 Gb for the instellment.

Not sure what you mean by the term 2018 upgrade. Did you arrange a "download only" UltraPak, or the PlusPak?

The total size is a little over 100GB (as I remember), but there is a lot of commonality between the 2016 files and the 2018 files, so it's not a matter of adding the two sizes together.

Assuming the complete download version (that will show up in your account), just download all the files. Then copy your BB folder from your hard drive to the external USB drive (again, don't forget the RealTracks and RealDrums folders). Then just run all the installation files that you downloaded and specify the location of your external drive. Since BIAB 2018 uses a new folder structure, initially, you will need a little additional space, but then make sure you run the "cleanup" routine once you are done.

Thanks, that will help. Indeed, it is the "download only" ultrapack.

Would it make sense/be possible to download the program files on the internal drive and run the core program from there and all the music files from an external drive?

I do something like that. The program is on an internal SSD drive. All the RealTracks and RealDrums are on a different very large drive. In Preferences RealTracks you can specify where they are; same for RealDrums.

Thanks, does this mean you have the 100Gb on your ssd drive? If not, what part of the program?

I did as the both of you suggested. I copied the program from my internal drive to my external one and then installed the 2018 update. However, the screen is different, with everything hidden in the upper task bar. Not sure why...

That's the new screen you can revert back to the old one their is a small square box up on the top left corner to change it just under the boxes with wav,mid etc.

Ahhh, thanks so much, life can be so easy!

Or use the keys Ctrl+T to toggle between old and new.

I encourage you to spend time learning the new GUI. After I added icons to the Custom Toolbar (upper right), I haven’t used the old in a year.

Thanks, I will do that.

Matt, could you perhaps let me know how you organised BIAB on your computer? What part(s) did you install on your SSD internal drive and how many Gb does it include? Now I have everything on an external drive, but I am not sure f this is the best way.

Sure. Nothing difficult but probably extravagant, showing how important BIAB is to me:

I have two main computers for BIAB use. Both are I7 desktops I built. Side note: I was a comp. sci. prof.

My main production machine is at home. The boot drive is a 256 GB SSD. It has Windows and most programs but not BIAB.

I have a second 256 GB SSD for the BIAB program. I also keep copies of all downloaded software here. SSD drives are best when you read from them but don’t write as much. BIAB loads incredibly fast from an SSD, generally in about 2 or 3 seconds.

I have a Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, 2 TB, for just the RealTracks and RealDrums. Note, I have the audiophile version, which requires about 1.5 TB for everything.

I keep the PG Music external drive with the audiophile version in storage off-site as a backup. I also used it to load BIAB onto a second computer at my summer cabin which is setup similarly except I don’t run BIAB from an SSD there. I use this computer for composing but very little production, so speed isn’t as important.

I maintain two other ‘normal’ computers (one desktop, one laptop) I keep as emergency backups with all programs and all backup data including my BIAB songs. Overkill, I know, but even when lightning took out my studio four years ago, I was only out of business one day.

Does that help?

Thanks Matt, I don't have so much disk space. I travel a lot, so decided to do everything with a i5 laptop with 256 Gb SSD, and a few external disks. BIAB 2016 I had on my internal disk. 2018 is bigger, so I want to split between the program itself on the SSD and all audio and video files on an external disk.

If that makes sense...

Yes, I would use the external drive for RealTracks and RealDrums on a laptop. My laptop is also an i5 with an SSD boot drive I put in, and BIAB runs very well.

I have the whole BIAB 2018 program (100Gb) now in one bb folder on my external drive. This includes the folders Realtracks (80Gb), Drums (5Gb) and Soloists (11Gb). Do I understand it correctly that I should leave these folders on the external drive but better sh/could move the remaining program files (about 5Gb) to the internal drive?

The preferred method for many is to 'install' (not copy or move) the BiaB program to the main internal drive (C:) from the shipped hard drive.

'Installing' adds the fonts, PGMusic FX, etc. where copy/move would not.
Leave everything else on the external drive and let BiaB read them from there. This is an option that can be set from both the Install and Preferences. During install just opt to install only the program on C: and locate the RTs elsewhere.

You can use whatever drive you want for the RTs and RDs pretty easily, using Prefs.
Like Matt, my original external drives from PGMusic get used only when needed, like on a laptop. Otherwise I copy the RTs and RDs to a separate internal drive when possible. In this case 'copy' (as opposed to install) works; you can copy your RTs or RDs to any other drive and point the program there. But the program itself should be 'installed' to the C: drive, not copied.

Thanks, I did as you suggested, but somehow it doesn't work. BB is now on my internal drive and I tried to install RT and Drums on the external drive. Now the program can't find the RT folder (only midi sound) and there is no Drums folder created. I tried to install the program again, same result. I guess I must have done something wrong. Also my own songs are not connected and when I open them it's only Midi. Any ideas how to solve this?

Thanks and a great 2018!

in the options - preferences - Realtracks, you need to tell BIAB where the RTs are - see picture below. Then you need to do the same for the realdrums.

Thank you, this works. I am missing a lot of the 2016 RTs in the folder so I guess I will need to download and install these again.

Do the RT and RD demos also be moved to these folders?

First, Happy 2018 to all of you!

Last few days I have been struggling to install the BIAB 2018 update for my current 2016 version. I purchased the dowload version, not the physical disk. Part of the struggle was due to the fact that the complete BIAB 2016 was on my internal SSD, while I now wanted to have 2018 program on my SSD, and Drums and RealTracks files on an external drive.

Thanks to the assistance of several people on this forum I think I managed to do that properly. After a few mistakes I finally downloaded the program to my internal drive and then moved RealTracks and Drums folders to an external drive. The program on my internal drive is now only 15Gb. I am about to activate the 2018 update. In light of this I have a few additional questions:

- I made a backup copy and a full copy of BIAB 2016 before upgrading to 2018. Do I still need these? Or will a backup of 2018 overwrite 2016 anyway (and how to do this?)
- Would it make sense to download and install all RT and RD files again to be sure I am not missing any of these during upgrade? Or does the program have a facility to check for this?
- BIAB 2018 has video’s etc. now. Should I install these in a separate folder again?
- Does the 2018 program have three activation codes again? And if so, how does the 2016 activation relates to the 2018 one(s)? Will activation 2018 replace 2016? I have only one left for 2016.

Thank you

Thank you, I have downloaded and installed all the new 2018 Realtracks, using the BIAB download manager. The program works, though I am wondering why I don't see all the RT numbers listed in the Set#** column of the Style picker. Many tracks are listed as 'Misc.'(Miscellaneous),or MST. Many real tracks also have the same number. Is this how it should be?

Also, when I start the cleanup routine I get a whole series of logs like this one:

>>>>>> mergeFolders
source = C:\bb_2018\Soundtrack MIDI Fakebook
dest = C:\bb_2018\Songs and Lessons\Soundtrack MIDI Fakebook
backup = C:\bb_2018\Data\Backup\Misc\
ERROR: source dir does not exist: C:\bb_2018\Soundtrack MIDI Fakebook
<<<<<< mergeFolders errorCount 0

And at the end this one:

Files with STY extension are absent in folder C:\bb_2018\
Files with STX extension are absent in folder C:\bb_2018\
There are no files found by mask C:\bb_2018\unins*.exe
There are no files found by mask C:\bb_2018\unins*.dat
work completed

What do you think about this?

Thanks

There were some minor issues showing the correct number and content of styles. Have you downloaded and installed build #508? Go to the Support gray tab at the top of the screen.

I just installed the build update, regrettably it didn't change the set# numbers nor the error logs I showed here. Perhaps I should ask the BIAB people?

How many times have you run the cleanup routine? If more than once, those errors are most likely telling you the files aren't there because they have already been moved. Did you look at your backup of 2016 to see if those source files were there in the first place? And have you looked at your current installation to see if the files are present in the new destination?

I guess that may explain it. I have checked a copy I made of the 2016 program before upgrading. It indeed includes the original source folders and files. And 2018 has the new destination folders. So I assume cleanup has already been taken place earlier.

As to the listing of styles on the Stylepicker under the Set# column, some styles are labeled as Realtracks (e.g. RT295); many however as Miscellaneous. Does this stand for a mix of Realtracks and Midi?


Thank you--Fred

When you install anything earlier than BIAB 2018, files go to the old locations in /BB. You have to run Cleanup after that.

Ah, yes, thanks, I changed the name of the 2018 folder... See if I can fix that