Thank you for the BR Explorer

[T.C. Elliott]

Thanks 64guitars, for the BR Explorer. It saved my ass again today. Memory card full, I backed it up and initialized and realized I hadn't WAV converted some demos of songs I've been working on this month and the WAV button on the BR Explorer worked beautifully. I did have some trouble with the BR Song program, but I think mainly because of they way I saved the files (file path is a pain) and not having patience to set it up properly.

Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you again, even though I've said it in the past. But you deserve it. so, thank you.

[Vanncad]

I've got to second that thank you 64.

I used the Song Librarian last night to back up some tunes so I could make room for a new one.
It's so easy to use, it's great.
It saved me a ton of time, aand organizes things very well.

These programs aren't things we use every day, but when we need them, they really save a ton of time.

So - thanks from me as well!

You build good stuff!

[64Guitars]

Thanks, guys. I appreciate the feedback. It's good to know someone's using my programs and finding them useful.

I did have some trouble with the BR Song program, but I think mainly because of they way I saved the files (file path is a pain) and not having patience to set it up properly.

Not sure what you mean by "file path is a pain". Can you give me more details? Maybe I can help.

[T.C. Elliott]

Umm.. I backed up the whole card instead of just the songs I needed and to put them back I couldn't seem to get the songs to load from where I put them to put back on the recorder. However, I just imported a WAV version of the already mixed song and re-recorded guitar parts to them then sent them back to Reaper to mix. And I also used your handy feature to make wav files out of the saved files so I could hear the demo tracks on the songs not yet finished. In other words, I didn't use the librarian properly, but the BR Explorer came through marvelously.  I've got 13 ideas/songs in various states of completion since the beginning of November and simply don't have the time to figure out the librarian right now. (Actually, I think I figured it out, just too late, but I've not tried...)

At any rate, without the explorer my life would have been hell for a while. Well, more hell than it is right now.

And as a P.S. I sure wish I would have grabbed some 1GB cards when you were linking them a few years ago. It would have totally saved my ass since I'm down to one working card. *sigh*

[64Guitars]

If I understand correctly, you used BR Explorer to do a full memory card backup, then you wanted to use BR Song Librarian to restore one song? If so, the two programs weren't meant to be used that way, though it is possible with a bit of file copying and folder renaming.

BR Explorer only backs up and restores entire memory cards. It's not designed to work with individual song backups (at least, not in the current version). However, you can restore the backup to any memory card that has a normal BR volume label such as "BOSS_BR-900", "BOSS_BR-800" or "BR-80 eBand". It doesn't have to be an actual 1GB CF card from your BR-900. For example, you could take an empty 4GB SDHC card, put it into a USB card reader, set the volume label to "BOSS_BR-900", and restore a backup to it using BR Explorer. Why would you want to do that when you can't put the SD card in your BR-900? Well, now you can start up BR Song Librarian and it will treat that 4GB SD card in the USB card reader as if it was a BR-900. So you can copy individual songs from the backup into BR Song Librarian. Then you can remove the SD card, connect your BR-900 (or put its card in the card reader), and use BR Song Librarian to copy the song to the BR-900.

If you don't have any memory cards handy, I think the same procedure will work with a USB flash drive. Just insert the drive into a USB port, change its volume label to "BOSS_BR-900", then run BR Explorer and restore your backup to the USB flash drive. Then run BR Song Librarian and copy a song from the flash drive to your song library. Now remove the flash drive, connect your BR-900 or its card, and use BR Song Librarian to copy the song to the BR-900.

I should add the caveat that this is just theory at the moment. I'm unable to test it because I use Linux with Wine (for Windows compatibility) and, at the moment, Wine isn't detecting the volume labels properly so it tells me it can't restore because a BR memory card was not detected. But I think it should work as I described on an actual Windows system. If I get a chance, I'll try it on my old Windows XT computer later.

[T.C. Elliott]

Thanks much. Yes, you accurately described my fumbling about. In other words, I didn't use the programs as designed (or intended) although your work around (if it works with a flash drive) might be a nice option in a moment of panic. I just haven't had the need to use the librarian when I had the time to mess with it. In short, yes, it was user error. But so far the worry level has been reduced from 'panic' to 'get off your lazy arse, you dimwitted goose and start working or you'll never get this crap done.'

Thanks again.

[64Guitars]

I just tried restoring a backup to a USB flash drive using BR Explorer in Windows XP and confirmed that it works just fine. I was then able to copy individual songs from the USB flash drive using BR Song Librarian. So it's something to keep in mind in case you ever need to retrieve a single song from a backup and it's not convenient to restore the whole backup to your BR.

[T.C. Elliott]

That's great news. And will likely be useful as I've done full backups of the 1gb card at least 30 times in the past five years or so. And there are actually some recordings that just need a bit here or there to make pretty decent. Wow, I just gave myself a whole new 2013 to do list *sad face*

Erm, thank you.... I think.

[LDBluz]

First off, Sixty Four Guitars makes the BR line functional in my book, at least for easily addressing what seem to be problems. The biggest problem is the 1 GB limit, and before I got Song Librarian I had built up a number of BR0 folders in different parent folders corresponding to different 1 GB cards. I got the bright idea from another 64 guitars suggestion to put all the BR0 folders in ONE big ROLAND folder on a flash drive, but to be clever, rename all the folders from my first card as SONG1xxx.BR0, those from my second card as SONG2xxx.BR0, those that I had "offloaded" as SONG9xxx.BR0. Sounds ok, right? BR Explorer notices the ROLAND folder on my flash drive just fine, but chokes when it starts hitting the SONG3xxx.BR0 folders. Some of these it gives no name, a file size of 0.00 MB, a data type of Type 48, Protected Yes and created with ??

So this is a typical case of getting too smart for my own good, but any ideas on what's happened?

Rock on,
LDBluz

PS I'm using a Win7(64) Asus, and a MBR.

[64Guitars]

I got the bright idea from another 64 guitars suggestion to put all the BR0 folders in ONE big ROLAND folder on a flash drive

How many BR0 folders are in this one big ROLAND folder?

, but to be clever, rename all the folders from my first card as SONG1xxx.BR0, those from my second card as SONG2xxx.BR0, those that I had "offloaded" as SONG9xxx.BR0. Sounds ok, right? BR Explorer notices the ROLAND folder on my flash drive just fine, but chokes when it starts hitting the SONG3xxx.BR0 folders. Some of these it gives no name, a file size of 0.00 MB, a data type of Type 48, Protected Yes and created with ??

I don't think it's because of the folder names. I just created a couple of test folders named "SONG3210.BR0" and "SONG9875.BR0" and BR Explorer had no trouble showing the correct song data for those folders.

It sounds like there might be some data corruption on your flash drive. The Data Type is stored in the "SONGINF2.BR0" file as a 1-byte number where 2 is HiFi, 3 is STD, and 4 is LONG. Any number outside that range will be reported by BR Explorer as "Type: " followed by the number. So, at the very least, the data in your "SONGINF2.BR0" file seems to be corrupted or is being misread. That suggests that the flash drive contents might be messed up. What do you see in those song folders if you view them in Windows Explorer? How do they compare with the other folders on the flash drive that are being displayed normally in BR Explorer (ie; SONG0000.BR0 through SONG2999.BR0)?