Installation Disk Dilemma

Hello
A newbie who is rather lost here. I am trying to install BFD3 on a MacBook and a Win10 desktop. I didn’t realise how big the file set for this product is until the whole set was downloaded. In preparation for the installation, I upgraded my Macbook’s drive to M2.960Gb ssd, but I would still like to have the sound files on an external drive. Is there a “safe” way to accomplish this?

I am more used to deal with Windows and Linux, but not Mac. I just acquired MacBook for the music recording. I didn’t find any article partaining to what I am trying to do as far as I was able to. Can anyone point me to a good resource or articles?

Thank you in advance.

Satman

@Satman Yes, it’s very simple to change your audio content path. Just drag and copy the folder where the BFD3 Core Library is currently, to your external drive. I suggest putting that in a parent folder called, BFD Audio, etc. So that way when you add expansions, they’re all contained in one folder and not scattered.

Go into BFD3 Setup content locations under the Tools menu and select, Remove All Content Paths. Then, Search Folder and navigate to where the BFD3 audio content is on your external drive.

Verify that it’s seeing all the paths correctly by loading presets/kits. Then you may safely delete the BFD3 Core Library folder on the original macOS boot drive location. It probably defaults to users/Documents(?), but be careful because there is also your BFD3 user folder there with presets, grooves, etc. You don’t want to delete that.

@Fender_Bender
Thank you very much. I was successful with Mac installation although I need to “fix”, if possible, my Win10 installation. Currently the files in the Win10 are all over the places. I guess I must do the old “RTFM” as it has been the standard… :smiling_face_with_tear:

Content Loacation returns this… I must move the files. (Also, I noticed BFD3 Core Library is missing!) Oh, Lard!!! :pig: If anyone has any suggestion, please let me know.

Thanks in advance… m(_ _)m

C:\Program Files (x86)\BFD Drums\BFD2\System
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Crush
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Crush\Grooves
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Horsepower
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Jazz Noir
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Metal Snares
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Oblivion
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Oblivion\Grooves
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Crush\Installer\Payload\BFD2System
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Crush\Installer\Payload\BFD3System
C:\Program Files\BFD Drums\BFD Crush\Installer\Payload\Grooves
C:\Program Files\BFD\ Drums\BFD Horsepower\Installer\Payload\BFD3System
C:\Program Files\BFD\ Drums\BFD Jazz Noir\Installer\Payload\BFD3System
C:\Program Files\BFD\ Drums\BFD Oblivion\Installer\Payload\BFD2System
C:\Program Files\BFD\ Drums\BFD Oblivion\Installer\Payload\BFD3System
C:\Program Files\BFD\ Drums\BFD Oblivion\Installer\Payload\Grooves

I’m not really familiar with BFD3 on Windows systems, but those Installers\Payloads can probably be deleted, unless you want to keep them. Hopefully some users here on Windows can chime in.

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Sounds to me that you can do the same thing you did with your Mac you can do with Windows. You can do it by moving the audio content over to another drive and just direct BFD to the new location(s).

You can also use a junction/link to the new location without having to change anything in BFD. To do so just type:
mklink /j “D:[the BFD directory where your audio and grooves are stored]” “X:[new directory]”
(“D” being your present audio and groove drive and “X” being your new drive) in a command prompt as administrator.

Kind regards,

Living Room Rocker

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Sirs! @Fender_Bender @LivingRoomRocker
Thank you for your help. My gratitude to you two. BFD3 on Win 10 is working now although there seems to be a small glitch yet. Does this thing BFDLACTool work for you?

Thank you in advance…

BFDLAC_Path-Error

@Satman You probably don’t need that compression tool. All of the expansions downloaded now will already have used that codec to shrink the file sizes. I think that was carried over from the FXpansion days when early stuff wasn’t compressed. I remember, BFD2 was like 80GB iirc, but I never knew about/used that tool.

I have not tried to change compression over to the BFD Drums format. I have that tool under my Programs folder.

Kind regards,

Living Room Rocker

Kind Sirs! @LivingRoomRocker @Fender_Bender
Thank you for your kind replies. Although I understand the rational for this “tool” being irrelevant with the modern ssd’s and cpu’s, I find it annoying that they ship software with the unfunctional feature. Oh, well. It works fine on Mac OS; it invokes the right executable, no errors…

Maybe I’d post it as a bug… Anyhow, thank you so much for taking time to answer my seemingly silly question.

S^2

Without wanting to hijack the thread…
I’ve just recently migrated over from fxpansion, i had a real mix of BFD2/3 content in WAV and bfdlac formats, tried just updating the licence manager, then to the latest version of BFD3, but no luck, so decided to go for a fresh full install. It’s saved a HUGE amount of disc space with the audio library now all being in the bfdlac format, sound quality is equally as superb!

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As I said, any expansion you download currently from the inMusic LM will already be compressed to the BFDLAC format, so the tool isn’t generally necessary. They probably just still provide it, in the rare case users have any older uncompressed expansions that they may want to convert to the BFDLAC. Not sure why it’s not working though.

Thank you gents for your comments full of good information. I will “study” further which may incur more questions. :slightly_smiling_face: