The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi Guys, How much laptop do I need to run BIAB. I would like to get by as inexpensively as possible. Was planning on running the laptop into a guitar amp or pa head. Any specs would be appreciated.

Thanks

Tom, on BIAB's website they say you need the following.


"Band-in-a-Box runs on Windows 98/NT/ME/2000/XP/Vista, and requires a minimum of 256MB available RAM. Without RealDrums or RealTracks, you need a minimum of 300MB (for the Pro version), 500 MB (for the MegaPAK/SuperPAK versions), or 1 GB (for the UltraPAK version) of free space on your hard disk. More hard disk space is required for the RealTracks and RealDrums, about 100 MB for each RealDrums Set and 1 GB for each RealTracks Set. A MIDI sound source is required. This could be a sound card, a MIDI keyboard, MIDI sound module, or software synthesizer. We include a software synthesizer (Roland VSC-DXi) with Band-in-a-Box".

A good sound card doesn't hurt either.

Tom:
I am running BIAB on an Acer Travelmate 4202WLMi laptop. 100 GB hard drive, which I partitioned to run programs on C and keep files on the rest. Has 1GB of memory. I also use a Soundblaster Audigy2 pcmia card which you can still find for sale on Ebay.

The later upgrades from BIAB take a LOT of space.
On my desktop, I ran out of room with version 2009.
I switched to a larger computer and glad I did.
I just received the 2009.5 upgrade and several more DVD disks with files to install.
I started with BIAB when it was DOS based, before Windows.

Thanks guys, I am will start trying to find something like the travelmate. Just basically wanting something that is portable and not to expensive.

Thanks Again

Tom,

You could drive a pickup and put a large computer in the back.

Almost any laptop will run BIAB. It you want to install a lot of the real tracks, which are wav files, you'll need the storage for that.

I carry a Dell laptop all the time. This week in KY, IL, IN. I've got a little Asus netbook at Best Buy for $250 just to take on my motorcycle to do Internet and a BIAB song if something creative should hit me. Any questions, give me a call.

I bought a outboard hard drive that is the 2 1/2" disk with 320GBytes and I have enormous room to store my files without bothering the computer on-board storage.
I paid about $89.99 for it. The best thing about is is that with BIAB also installed on it, you can put it in your shirt pocket and take it with you and use someone else's computer to play thru or simply take your own.

Charles, that's a good option too. This stuff is just so good. I don't think electronic devices are replacing live musicians, but it's opening up opportunities to play that would not have been possible without BIAB, Garage Band, etc.... I record things now that I would not have bothered with if I'd had to try to get a band together to do it.

Tom, as long as the pc has enough smarts to run biab without losing time on playback (which even my core2 duo dell does if it's trying to do something else, like updating the anti-virus, at the same time (grrrrr)), you'll be fine. Costco was selling a 500 gb usb hard drive (passport drive) for $79 a couple of weeks ago.. that's more than adequate storage space so don't worry about that problem...