BIAB 2018 now gives us the ability to select skins in Preferences, Display. As a starter, PG Music made some nice color icons available for the Toolbars. Perhaps they will release more skins in the future, but if you experiment, you can also make your own.
The steps below will give you color icons for the Transport control (Play, Record, Pause etc.) as well as color icons for the Toolbar that were provided by PG Music. Note this is for the newer GUI, not the older full-screen GUI. CTRL+T toggles between them. These steps assume some familiarity with creating and moving folders and files in Windows.
⦁ Using Windows Explorer or similar, navigate to this folder: /BB/Data/Custom Skins ⦁ Copy the folder PG_Color_right_toolbar to another folder in the same place, and give it a unique name (I called mine Matt_Skins). ⦁ Download my six files below and copy them into the PNL_TRANSPORT folder, which is a folder in your new skins folder. They will replace the files of the same name. ⦁ Then close and restart BIAB 2018, go to Preferences, Display, Choose Skin (lower left) and select your skin name. You should see color icons for transport controls.
Notes: feel free to use these, and improve them if you like. The original grey-shade icons appear to be made in Microsoft Paint, and use visible pixels, so I did some rudimentary pixel editing in MS Paint to add color. There is probably some industry color standard for these and I didn't use it. If you improve on my bad editing in Paint or decide on better colors, let me know and I'll replace mine. If you don't like the way these look, you can undo it by copying over them from the same-named files in the /BB/Data/Custom Skins/Factory folder. Or just select another skin in Preferences, Display.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Excellent! Much improved with the new skins. Thank you Matt.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Hej Matt! I tried to dwonload the files but.......... no. I understand the instructions but how do I get the files downloaded? Thanks. Spicing up BIAB is very enticing!
Hi. I’d forgotten all about this. It was really a proof of concept, but I do like having the colored icons.
I just checked and the files are still active on my website. Your browser should allow you to save each of these files. Perhaps right-click? Then move them to the proper folder and Restart BIAB.
If that doesn’t work, what browser are you using? And do you have a Mac or Windows version? I haven’t tried it on a Mac.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Hi Matt sorry for the response latency. I have been using Firefox which did not download the files. Having switched to Edge that part worked fine. I have downloaded the files and put them in a new map in biab´s data/custom skins called Mats skins. Having chosen this in the display of BIAB´s preferences, and re started, I was presented with the same icon colors I have originally in BIB 2019 that I had at start. I am obviously missing something, would sorely appreciate guidance. Regards Jim
Jim, I'm disappointed, as you must be. It's always chancy to give instructions to someone else when their computer organization and methods of copying files could be quite different. Did you follow the four steps above, especially step 3? In step 3, did the operating system ask you about replacing the files that were there?
Do you have a Mac or Windows version of BIAB?
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Hi Matt. Thanks for your willingness to help! Let me start with, i run W10, BIAB 2019. Let me try to recount my step by step:
-I have downloaded your files, - made a new map in BB/data/custom skins labeled Matts, into which I have copied the entire map PG color right toolbar fullscreen file, -thus replacing the content of the PLN TRANSPORT file with the content of your 5 files. -after which I have chosen in BIAB>skins Matts, Oked, closed and restarted.
The display I get in BIAB unchanged. Is the above clear enough to see what I am not getting right?
In the options>display section I now have several alternative skins 1. default, 2. factory, 3 pg_color_right toobar_fullscreen, 4.current color scheme, 5. Matts. I have just checked and I get no variation when chosing the different alternatives described above. This tells me something is amiss, though what/where is not getting through to me as clearly as I would like. Perhaps I should contact PG support, I admit that I earlier could have affected things while trying to make a custome scheme prior to finding your post, thus perhaps some how a digital clot?
Jim, I reviewed this and decided to revise and repeat the steps, since I cannot edit my original post. I'll post the steps below. I revised the bullets that should have been clearer, to put the new files (there are six, not five) into the PNL_TRANSPORT folder in the BB/Data/CustomSkins folder. HOWEVER - your description of what you did is correct, and should have worked. I have no idea why it did not. Perhaps go through these steps, below, again?
BIAB 2018 now gives us the ability to select skins in Preferences, Display. As a starter, PG Music made some nice color icons available for the Toolbars. Perhaps they will release more skins in the future, but if you experiment, you can also make your own.
The steps below will give you color icons for the Transport control (Play, Record, Pause etc.) as well as color icons for the Toolbar that were provided by PG Music. Note this is for the newer GUI, not the older full-screen GUI used exclusively in BIAB 2017 or earlier. In BIAB 2018 or later, CTRL+T toggles between them. These steps assume some familiarity with creating and moving folders and files in Windows.
⦁ Using Windows Explorer or similar, navigate to this folder: /BB/Data/Custom Skins EDIT: see next post if using other languages
⦁ You should see several folders, including Factory and PG_Color_right_toolbar
⦁ Copy the folder PG_Color_right_toolbar to another folder in the same place, and give it a unique name (I called mine Matt_Skins). You should now have several folders in the /CustomSkins folder, including Factory, Matt_Skins (or whatever you called yours), and PG_Color_right_toolbar.
⦁ Download my six files below. Save them somewhere you can find.
⦁ Navigate into your new Matt_Skins folder (or whatever you called it). Then navigate into the PNL_TRANSPORT folder. You should see six files with a date of November 2016. Copy my six downloaded files into this PNL_TRANSPORT folder. They will replace the files of the same name, and will have a new date, the date you saved the files to your computer.
⦁ To use the new icons, close and restart BIAB, go to Preferences, Display, Choose Skin (lower left) and select your new skin name (Matt_Skins in my case). You should see color icons for transport controls.
Notes: feel free to use these, and improve them if you like. The original grey-shade icons appear to be made in Microsoft Paint, and use visible pixels, so I did some rudimentary pixel editing in MS Paint to add color. There is probably some industry color standard for these and I didn't use it. If you improve on my bad editing in Paint or decide on better colors, let me know and I'll replace mine. If you don't like the way these look, you can undo it by copying over them from the same-named files in the /BB/Data/Custom Skins/Factory folder. Or just select another skin in Preferences, Display.
Last edited by Matt Finley; 10/04/1905:16 AM.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
Hi all, I use a localized Version (German). And so it's not The "CustomSkins" Folder, but the "CustomSkinsG" Folder. So anyone using a localized Version should look for his "CustomSkins" Version.
Thanks for the feedback on this. This can assist others in the future. Glad you got it working OK.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
Hi Matt, I have returned and it has worked like a charm. I dont know what exactly didnt go right previously, but the download/installation worked fine this time. Thanks so much for your patience as well as your contribution! Jim
Windows 10 (64bit) M-Audio Fast Track Pro, Band in a Box 2025, Cubase 14, Cakewalk and far too many VST plugins that I probably don't need or will ever use
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
Playable RealTracks Set 5
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
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With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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