Has Anyone Upgraded BIAB 2020 to 2021 for Mac?

[Maroonblazer]

I bought the 2020 version of BIAB for Mac last year and am enjoying it, but really only use a small fraction of the features. Namely, just the Jazz real tracks.

They emailed me about an upgrade to 2021 and there's some additional jazz realtracks added, however it's unclear exactly how many. There's also a lot of features I know I'll never use.

For $149 I'm wondering if it's worth it. I know the price will go up each year if I don't upgrade.

Has anyone purchased this upgrade and can recommend it (or not)? Alternatively, has anyone purchased an earlier version of BIAB and never upgraded and not run into any issues (e.g. compatibility with new macOS system software, etc)?

Thanks!

[grahambop]

I don’t know anything about Macs, but I am still running an ancient (2011) version of BIAB on my windows 10 PC.

All I did was copy the whole lot, i.e. all the BIAB folders and files, from my old Vista PC to my new PC. The program doesn’t appear to use the windows registry, so it was that simple.

Initially the core program installed ok onto my new PC from the original CDs, but a lot of the supplementary CDs with tracks etc. were degraded and failed to load. So that’s why I tried a straight copy from one PC to the other, and to my surprise it all worked ok.

Of course I have no idea if you could get away with this on a Mac!

[ElRay]

Disclaimer: I've not worked with BIAB since software was shipped on 3.5" Floppies.

Have you looked at what GarageBand and/or MainStage can do? GarageBand is free and MainStage is only $30.

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[Maroonblazer]

Disclaimer: I've not worked with BIAB since software was shipped on 3.5" Floppies.

Have you looked at what GarageBand and/or MainStage can do? GarageBand is free and MainStage is only $30.

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I'm very familiar with both GarageBand and MainStage. They don't come anywhere near BIAB in terms of functionality. They're great pieces of software in their own right but aren't in the same category as BIAB.

[floatingpickup]

I'm very familiar with both GarageBand and MainStage. They don't come anywhere near BIAB in terms of functionality. They're great pieces of software in their own right but aren't in the same category as BIAB.

I upgraded to 2021 biab for Mac yesterday. I am enjoying it a lot. I had a 2018 version previously and so far I haven’t noticed a lot of difference. The problem, however, was that the 2018 version wouldn’t run on my newer macs, so I had to upgrade. It was only $69 and I had a 25% off coupon, so it was worth every penny. The real instrument tracks are pretty impressive. I also discovered something today that I wasn’t aware of before. Not sure if this was there with the older version or not. After you create a biab backing track with the real instruments, you can use the DAW plugin to export the individual backing tracks to wav files and then drag them right into GarageBand. This is nice because you can make changes to the mix in GarageBand at any time and even replace a biab single track (rhythm guitar for example) with your own recorded track.

[grahambop]

I think you've always been able to do something like that on the Windows version. You can render the backing to separate WAV files (i.e. one WAV per instrument) then import them into any DAW software (Reaper in my case). As you say, gives you great flexibility when recording. I usually go through and chop out any of the piano chords I find too clunky or annoying!

[floatingpickup]

I think you've always been able to do something like that on the Windows version. You can render the backing to separate WAV files (i.e. one WAV per instrument) then import them into any DAW software (Reaper in my case). As you say, gives you great flexibility when recording. I usually go through and chop out any of the piano chords I find too clunky or annoying!

I often do the same…removing the piano track, leaving drums, bass and Freddie Green. I just checked my previous version (2018) and it also had the DAW export capability. I just didn’t know how to do it before.
Keith