Just got the Everything Pak for the Mac (2011.5) and started playing with it.

However, when I click on the Notation switch, I just get a single line of notation that scrolls very quickly. It's very hard to follow and next to useless.

How do I change the view to get the notation to take up the whole page like a real notation sheet?

In other words, to flow left to right and top to bottom, then flip to the next page, like it does in programs such as Guitar Pro or Sibelius?

Any help much appreciated.

Running on a 27" iMac with 16 gb RAM and i7 CPU etc.

Thanks team.

EDIT: I have a second monitor - the Apple 27" cinema display - running beside the main iMac. Is there any way to get the notation page to pop up on the second monitor, while keeping the regular chord sheet on the main machine?

I know little of the fruit type of computer, however there is a feature called Lead Sheet. Check it. I often print the sheet and have the scrolling. You can also change the number of bars that are scrolling so there are 5 or so.

If you are new to the tune, you can slow down the music by changing the bpm's until you are ok with the speed, or you slowly push it faster.

Thanks for the reply, John - appreciated.

I suspect, however, that the Lead Sheet feature is one of the things missing from the Mac version of BIAB

I was wondering though if there was another way to get the staves to spread out down the page instead of just having one across the top of an otherwise blank area.....

Any other Mac users out there who could help with this? Or someone from PGMusic?

Thanks in advance.....

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Pete, Brisbane
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Hi Pete,

Sorry, there's no way to get a full screen of notation in the Mac version of Band-in-a-Box.

Kent
PG Music

Ouch - thanks for he reply Kent

That's not good news - any plans to bring it in with an upgrade?

It's pretty useless without it.

Where would the problem be in implementing it? If Sibelius and all the DAWs can do it?

Especially as the Mac version costs the same as the Windows version, yet is missing such a key feature... (pardon the pun)

Hi Pete,

Not really sure, sorry. Features for future versions are never announced until they're released.

Feel free to post a request in the Wishlist forum, I know you won't be the first customer to want to see this feature get added.

Thanks
Kent
PG Music

BIAB for MAC

I have been buying Band-in-a-Box since the Atari version, back in the last century. The last version I bought for Windows was around 2004, it did everything I wanted. Then I switched to Mac and I found I had to keep my old PC laptop going to use the program.

I worked the piano bar on cruise ships and I had my laptop on the piano, BIAB running, earphone port plugged into an amp, and the display where the music stand would be. As it played the backing instruments the notation was presented to me with lyric and chord symbols close by the melody line. It was so easy to read and play that I could play anything! All the standards, Sinatra, Elton, Croce, Billy Joel, bossanovas, anything. (I turned so many passengers on to BIAB that I seriously considered becoming a rep and signed with PGmusic to do that. However, the ship frowned on it so that didn't go anywhere.)

The fly in the ointment was that I was using a PC, subject to annoying interruptions in service. So I switched to Mac and bought BIAB for Mac. The computer is steady as a rock but the program was rubbish compared to the PC version so I struggled on with the PC until I retired.

Yesterday I blew $89.27 usd and upgraded to the latest Mac version, highly touted on PGmusic's website. I thought surely in the last few years they must have fixed some of the most glaring deficiencies, and the price is the same as the full-featured Windows version. What a disappointment. The interface is still clunky, the lyrics still come up in a little box in the control area, hard to read and nowhere near the melody line, impossible to sight-read during a live performance. Basic conveniences that every other program now has, like "Open Recent" in the drop-down file menu, are missing. Yes, the RealTracks sound great but the old midi sounds were quite adequate for the piano-bar environment.

Apple is a major player in the sphere of music and so is BIAB. I am surprised and disappointed to find Mac marginalization at PGmusic.

London Bobby
Time traveller from the last century

Just a question to the PG Music guys who frequent here - Kent, etc...

Given the effort already spent in writing the Mac version, just what IS the problem with adding the full notation facility and lyrics that work the same way they do in the Windows version?

I am not a programmer, but given the sophisticated music notation programs that exist for the Mac, and given that the Mac is the premier computer used by the music industry, what is so hard about writing the code for this?

Is it simply the perception by PG Music that the Mac market is too small? (In which case - why the Mac version at all??) Macs now have almost 10% of the total personal computer market on the planet. Given that Windows machines have a huge percentage of their market share in the business field, I would suggest that the Mac share of the music field is possibly about half or thereabouts.

I know that you would have figures for sales of Windows vs Mac versions of BIAB, but really - how can you charge the same for the Mac version that is lacking such major features?

Please, pretty please - can we get full notation and lyrics on the Mac version A.S.A.P. - please???

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Pete, Brisbane
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I'm giving up on the Mac version. I am about to install Virtual Box with Windows OS on my Macbook Pro. This costs money and time. I plan to return the Mac version to PGmusic and ask for the Windows version in exchange.