.....please tell me the UI functionality improved since. A lot? I'm sorry but so far I am well disappointed in how unintuitive it is. Again: functionality, not look n feel (which is also ancient-looking, even for 2008, but I digress).....ie how the menus/buttons are arranged, how things are arranged within a window that pops up etc......clearly whoever designed this is more of a musician than a developer. Yikes. For example:

- most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what? And do they really need a button to click to go to the PG site?
- how to select/change the various voices (instruments)? I've changed every one at the top of the main window, but the (rhythm) instrument ie playing the chords remains the same when I retry.
- how the flip to turn off the flipping solos? I tried one and now no matter what I try in the solo window, no dice. You'd think there'd be a simple (and more to the point, very conspicuous) check box to turn it on or off.

And so on.

I'm sure I can/will find at least some of this stuff out eventually, but again the point is it shouldn't be a serious hunt n peck; it should be obvious. So please......tell me these user-unfriendly things are WAY better in 2016. I've such high hopes for this, clearly it's a powerful tool.....but if I'm going to pull out my hair just trying to change even basic settings like this, it might not be worth the coin. My sanity is dicey enough as it is.

Joe5 " it might not be worth the coin."

Well with an attitude like that. Save the coin.

Joe:

"I understand the situation, I just fail to see the problem" <grin>.
Since PGMusic allows a 30 day money-back guarantee, I'd say buy it and try it.
If it doesn't suit your needs, you're not out any coin at all.

Good luck!
LLOYD S

On the other hand, with all your questions in this forum you already could have investigated that PGMusic offers an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee.

Take a 30 day vacation when you receive the package and never forget: The tools are for musicians. That is the realm where vocabulary and pracitces are derived from.

Both programs, Band-in-a-Box and RealBand, require you to follow a learning curve. Depending on your tolerance level as well as your present understood musician's knowledge it might be steep or shallow.

The user interface has definitely improved since version 2008; there was a major revision to the main screen a few years ago. But can we say to you "a lot"? That's too subjective to answer. If you're looking for examples of things to find wrong, you will find them. If you approach it with a positive attitude, it should be different. You are correct, the program is written by a very capable musician, for which I am grateful.

I concur with the suggestion to try it, knowing you have the PG Music 30-day money back guarantee.

You may have noticed some of the long-time PG fans are prone to taking offense when someone calls their baby ugly!

But here is the straight scoop...dunno about 2008 but I've been using the program since 2012 and it has been improved some since then. They removed lots of those buttons and streamlined the main GUI. It still has a ways to go to be a modern GUI and honestly some of the popup windows, dialogs and documentation are so complicated, dated and hard to figure out that I mostly give up and come here and ask these nice people when I am trying to figure out how to do something!

There is a small but vocal sub-group here who loudly advocate for significant GUI redesign but honestly we have not received any indication that such efforts are underway.

BUT, as a user now for over 4 years I will say that in spite of my grumbling about the GUI I love this software and more specifically, I LOVE these RealTracks! Again I dunno how far along they were in 2008 but in 2016 what you can do with RealTracks is astounding! Beyond compare! Just really mind-blowing!

So I will agree with what others have said and suggest you give it a try! They usually have really great special pricing starting around December 1. Be sure and buy the package with the complete set of RealTracks. And feel free to join in with the please-fix-this-GUI sub-group!

It's OK, I'm (almost) used to hypersensitive hissy fits these days, it's all the rage after all. But OMG....you offered further criticism! Do you have a death wish?

Appreciate the info (and level-headed replies from those who were capable). And glad to join the "pls fix the UI" crowd. Re. the money back thing, for one I don't exactly have 24/7 to spend with this (yknow the job etc), so even 30 days, esp based on what I've seen, may not be sufficient to get a definitive feel for if it's worth it. Hard to say, given what I'm looking at is numerous versions behind. Further, I have to wonder if they offer that on a download-? Not that I would, but how do they know I wouldn't just keep it anyway?

Who knows......I'll keep an eye out for the possible end of year buys, thx for the tip...if it's cheap enough, maybe I can just take the plunge and pray.

Just an opinion, but I wouldn't expect someone who knows BIAB 2008 to find it all that difficult to get a pretty good feel for 2016 quickly. Sure, you'll find lots of new features and especially tons of new RealTracks, but you should feel at home quickly. If you hit a few snags, just ask us.

I don't know if I should dare bring this up again...

Absolutely you should keep bringing this up! Good ideas sometimes need to be seen several times!

For some time now they have an activation procedure. Well you could maybe hack this but...

The larger packages come on a USB hard drive, they're too large for a download.

For the price you will have to decide your limit. I don't know about the discount for the first time purchase. (I wasn't interested the last couple of years.) It used to be attractive in 2009 when I bought it. But there have been some changes made...

Depending on what you want to do with Band-in-a-Box it might be worth it. Practice with what you have, don't bother with what could be better, use what the program offers. It is a lot. If you can get some decent results with 2008, given that it is Midi only, then 2017 should be easy enough to use and time should be sufficient to evaluate the (new) possibilities within the thirty days money back guarantee period. Also, taken from the statements here on that forum, there probably will be no surprises regarding the compatibility of your work until then.

What I would do, if I was in your position right now.
(Back then there was an evaluation package available without the ability to save your work. What I wanted to keep I had to play through the stereo and record it. Nevertheless after I bought it I did have to enter the songs again.)
I would prepare certain songs that I would like to do. I would not care about the current sound possibilities. I was a software tester for some time, not beta test -- the real thing, testing even before the coding started. I would prepare some scenarios that I would want to try. Not the very complicated stuff like a Zwiefacher, a South-German folk dance with time signature changes between a 2/4 and a 3/4 every measure, or the Unsquare Dance by Dave Brubeck. (BIAB can handle both, provided you're ready to devote the time.) I would choose songs that benefit from the main capabilities of BiaB to create different backing tracks very easy, for instance.

Good luck with the decision process.

I think I started with 2008 or 2009 and yeah, there's been some updating since then.

I like what I saw on that video in Videotrack's post.

Again, great ideas here!

Yes, indeed. But: This defers from the original poster's question.

Well I don't think it totally defers, as the O/P was commenting on the user interface, and wrote (in part):

I think it helps the OP to know there are BIAB fans here who are actively promoting product improvements! And Videotrack's demo certainly shows some nice improvement opps!

- most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what? And do they really need a button to click to go to the PG site?
- how to select/change the various voices (instruments)? I've changed every one at the top of the main window, but the (rhythm) instrument ie playing the chords remains the same when I retry.
- how the flip to turn off the flipping solos? I tried one and now no matter what I try in the solo window, no dice. You'd think there'd be a simple (and more to the point, very conspicuous) check box to turn it on or off.

And so on.
---------
))) tell me these user-unfriendly things are WAY better in 2016. I've such high hopes for this, clearly it's a powerful tool.....

Yes, every one of those items that you mentioned have been much improved since 2008.

Specifically...
-completely new toolbar, organized into functional groups, buttons are no longer "crammed to the right"
- main menu reorganized, into functional groups
- on screen mixer allowing control of voice selection and mix.
- chordsheet window redone, lots of new features

But the obvious difference between 2008 and 2016 is RealTracks, which were only in early days in 2008. Have a listen to the songs in the User Showcase forum, from BiaB you will mainly hear RealTracks.

Regarding "turning off the flipping solos", just don't choose styles that have soloists in the first place. Or you have chosen such a style, click on the track with the soloist and disable that track from the on-screen mixer.

Joe5 my take on this is sure I can pick the program apart with the best of them on all the UI things. Totally agree with the complaints. But...

Biab is completely unique, nothing else does what Biab can do.

What it actually DOES is the reason I jumped in 10-12 years ago which means at the time I used 2008 extensively. Yes, I saw immediately the look was archaic, the menus were a mess, the Help files need help, getting around the deeper/hidden parts of the program was a pain and some still are but they're making progress.

If you're asking are all those things now fixed the answer basically is no. There have been incremental improvements but long story short the program really needs a complete rewrite to bring it up to the present including making it 64 bit. But in the end, it's what it actually does right now that matters to me not all that other stuff which means I'm not bailing on the program until it's all cleaned up. I'm a smart guy, I managed to figure all that stuff out with some help from my friends here. You can too, just focus on the job at hand not the limitations of the tool because there is no other tool available that does what Biab does.

Biab is a very deep program. It's much, much more capable than what it looks like from the chord grid. Power users can do amazing things with it.

My suggestion to you is use the program for what it can do for you immediately and you can still discuss how these various things can be improved. However there's nothing new you can say about that that PG isn't very well aware of. There are huge threads on this forum where certain people just have a great old time tearing the program completely apart, ripping it to shreds, Biab looks like the biggest pos in the history of programming, if it's not 64 bit RIGHT NOW they're complete idiots etc, etc.

If you get off doing that, have fun but I don't have time for it, I just open Biab and start making some music with it.

As for how it works and sounds now Biab is all over YouTube and there's a ton of vids right here too. Check them out, decide what interests you. Like the rest of us you'll probably decide the full UltraPak is the best deal because you get all the Real Tracks. You may look at some RT categories and think you'll never use those but trust me, that can surprise you. That's what the new Xtra Styles are all about, they spent hundreds of hours putting different RT's together from these different sets and came up with some amazing stuff.

Bob

Thanks Bob. I don't disagree it has a lot of capability, and as with you, that's clearly made it worth putting up with the frustration of poor design. And based on what I have seen of the new one, it does seem improved in some ways. I wish there was some kind of trial or limited version of 2016 I could give a look.

I think the biggest problem is that, near as I can tell, they don't really have any competition, so they can frankly afford to be complacent/apathetic about improving things that never should have made it to production in the first place (what I call the "Microsoft Syndrome"). I can tell you that in many corporations building apps, such things would never fly and whoever was in charge of design would be probably seeking employment elsewhere.



Thanks! I will definitely keep that mind if I take the plunge.

))) I wish there was some kind of trial or limited version of 2016 I could give a look.

There is a 30 day money back guarantee. We've offered that same guarantee for 28 years.

And what's cool about this place Joe is how many well known software companies do you get to talk to the big guy directly?

Bob

Joe,

Like 99% of us on these forums, I am a user. I've been using BIAB since 2006. It's because of my years of experience as a PG Music customer that I cannot let your below comment pass without my thoughts being added.

When you say...


... I just want to point out that the above is both incorrect and unfair. PG Music are a very progressive company. Peter Gannon and his team have created an outstanding product that has made significant developmental strides in music and backing track production as computer technology has grown. As far as I can tell, 'complacency' is not in Dr Gannon's vocabulary.

Comparing the 2008 version of BIAB to today's version is like comparing 2008 computers to today's computers. Similarly, trying to fully appreciate the abilities of 2016-generation computing power by only using a computer from 2008 is paralleled in trying to fully understand Band In A Box 2016 by only using Band In A Box 2008.

Regards,
Noel

lol - true. Although I doubt Bill Gates would want to hear it either. And again, it clearly has a ton of capability, and it sounds like it's made great strides since 08, design-wise.


For the sake of argument, I'll concede that I can't say the whys and wherefores, and that certainly wasn't meant about any one person.....it was just an initial impression based on what I saw of this version, and my impression is there are more than a few (including avid users) who would not disagree. Maybe it was simply a lack of good UI (or as it's called now days, "UX") designers....

Ah, not really. 2008 computers were well designed, given the technology of the time. In fact, they weren't all that far behind today's PCs.

Anyway, enough on all that. It's certainly worth a look, regardless of the UI, and I have already said so to others. See I'm not all bad.

Joe,

I never thought you were bad at all!!! LOL I think that once you start using the software you'll be impressed.

Even today, 10 years later, the program amazes me. That all I need to do is to enter a chord progression and click on a button to generate a backing seems incredible.

Regards,
Noel

Yeah, I hear ya. In fact I can see how this would be an invaluable tool for a solo act to have a "backing band"....but for my needs (composition), not so sure. For ex a concern is it sounds too "canned" and there would be a zillion other people with something that sounds almost exactly the same out there. Probably what I would use it for mostly would be backing percussion, which needn't really be "original."

))) Yeah, I hear ya. In fact I can see how this would be an invaluable tool for a solo act to have a "backing band"....but for my needs (composition), not so sure. For ex a concern is it sounds too "canned" and there would be a zillion other people with something that sounds almost exactly the same out there. Probably what I would use it for mostly would be backing percussion, which needn't really be "original."
-------

Joe, have you listened to some of the 4,000 original compositions posted to the User Showcase forum? http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=cfrm You can try listening to some of the radio stations we made - these are all user compositions, For example, here is one of the stations with 132 songs on it https://soundcloud.com/bandinaboxradio/sets/50-featured-songs

They are all original compositions that use Band-in-a-Box to some extent. If you listen to them, I'd be surprised if you still say "it sounds too "canned" and there would be a zillion other people with something that sounds almost exactly the same out there"

since there are over 2,000 Realtracks representing 2,500 hours of studio music recordings,it isn't likely that there are zillions of similar arrangements. That is one reason we are encouraging you to move up from the 2008 version, which was MIDI, and not real musicians,

Joe,

I'm not a performer. I only ever use BIAB for composition. I love the freedom that the program gives me in that I can compose in whatever genre I want - even if I'm not experienced in that genre. My writing ability has increased hugely thanks to BIAB.

Here's a link to my latest song. It was a collaboration with other BIAB users. The backing is entirely BIAB (finger-picking guitar, strumming guitar, bass, drums and cello).

Also, if you go to the audio link in my signature, you'll be able to hear some of the songs I've put together. They all involve backings created by BIAB. Sometimes those backings are exactly as generated and sometimes I've taken generated tracks and used copy and paste in a DAW to isolate instrumental hooks etc. The bottom line is that BIAB produces amazing audio material to work with in whatever way a user wants to.

Because of the way that PG Music's technology works, chances of a backing that anyone creates sounding exactly like someone else's is slim. This is because each time a track is generated, there's an algorithm that's applied that creates independent variations.

Quite honestly, creating music has been a huge part of my life since BIAB gave me musical freedom. Most days, I will spend around 2 - 4 hours composing, arranging or refining my songs.

Regards,
Noel

if "it sounds too "canned" and there would be a zillion other people with something that sounds almost exactly the same out there"


then it is a 'radio' ready tune....

This was discussed recently in another thread where I explained how I used the RealBand multiriff feature on a single track for guitar solo/fills choosing 18 selections from the track each generating 7 multiriffs. That is a total of 126 distinct and different phrase generations. Some of those 126 selections were then chosen and using cut/paste technique - grafted into a singularly unique phrase that does not exist in the 2500 plus hours of recorded audio RealTracks.

I will leave it to you to calculate the odds that another forum member could duplicate that track. But, to satisfy your curiosity, choose a top quality sounding User Showcase forum song and even with having much of the BIAB information used to create that song, see for yourself how accurately you can duplicate that song note for note or phrase by phrase.
It is more difficult than it would seem when we all are using the same material. That is also not accounting for the addition of live recorded instruments, loops, samples and pre-recorded material.

The bottom line is that you can produce as professional and unique quality music as you are willing to take time and effort to put into it.

BIAB/RB is a trade skill that can be learned the same as carpentry, auto mechanics, playing piano or guitar. Some will learn more quickly, some will have more natural talent but everyone can obtain a working level skill with the software.

Joe, if you are using the latest BIAB with all of the RealTracks to choose from I think this is a very small issue! You might happen to cross paths with another BIAB user and then an even smaller chance that they would also use the same style as you and then even smaller chance that all settings (tempo, key, pan, f/x, etc.) would be the same, and like someone else said, even for identical parameters BIAB will produce differences in the tracks it outputs.

But, just for a minute let's entertain the idea that maybe there is a chance your choice of RealTracks would sound similar to another users. Why would that matter if your needs are composition? I find that I can site down with a basic idea on guitar and quickly flesh it out using BIAB. Because I can try so many things with BIAB it actually assists me in composing the groove and feel for my song. Then, once I get close to something finished (are they ever finished?) I have the choice of removing one or more or all BIAB tracks and playing those myself!

And I have not even touched on the fact that you do not have to accept what BIAB generates! You can go into RealBand and use multi-riff feature to generate tons of alternatives. Then you can even export any or all of the RealTrack riffs or smaller pieces and bring those into your DAW for assembly into something completely unique.

Simply put...BIAB, using RealTracks, does not produce music anyone will think is "canned"!

What strikes me as ridiculous is - here is a guy using someone elses 8 year old version not even his own and dare I say cloned/copied to his machine and daring to whinge about lack of modern features.
Put your money where your mouth is, buy the 2016 ULTRAPLUSPAK on a 30 day money back guarantee.
What's to lose?

Well said Ian. Well said!

What strikes me as ridiculous is someone who can't spell a complex word like "whine."

And I dare say that even if you knew how to spell, you post indicates a severe lack of reading comprehension. I have borrowed someone else's laptop with BIAB on it and I'm not "whinging" about a lack of modern features. But thanks for the snotty reply, and pardon me if I didn't pay homage to the BIAB God properly like the rest of you groupies.

Apologies to those of you who are worth apologizing to for this silly sidetrack; I'll reply as applicable later, getting a bit late here.....but bottom line, "will sound exactly the same" was definitely over the top on my part and poorly worded; obviously the overall songs won't be the same. More of a general concern about the tracks I'd be using that are used by so many others and therefore still too similar in that way for me.

"most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what?"

Not sure what use you need biab for, instant fast song generation, live accompaniment, songwriting, making up songs out of the box for the user song showcase, hobby, studio work to add track/s to a session, CD's.

BIAB is a six shooter, it will quickly shoot out six tracks, if you don't like a track you can have another shot but it's the whole track you get each time, you can't change some bars or chords you don't like without having to shoot out another complete track/s.
It was originally designed/made by musicians for musicians for auto accompaniment for them hence "Band in a Box", it runs 100% in ram.

There is another program that is included with the purchase called "RealBand" that not many people even know or bother to get to know as all the promotion and neon is all about "BIAB" as the be all to end all.


Real band contains biab that it calls on to generate up tracks or any sections.

You can have as many tracks as you like (48), as many bars as you like.
You can see and edit the wavforms of every track.
You have node control of the waveform like fadein/fadeout.
You can change any/all section/chords of any/all audio/midi track/s without having to re-generate the whole track/s.
You can have as many realdrum tracks as you like, no need to request more percussion tracks for BIAB crammed GUI.
You can have multitrack drum stems.
You can import a midi and it will split the instruments to separate tracks.
You can split a midi drum track to separate hit tracks.
You can make the tracks unique more so and using direct input instruments add your FX/modeling to get the sound you need, and https://www.kvraudio.com/product/redshift-pickup-replacer-by-acmebargig on the DI

I started with biab but I found real band and could see and edit everything without having to type a lot of numbers in to change things and going deep within the many menu and page trees.

There is an actual site www.realband.org that has so much info on the unknown app.

If you want more creative control then Real band.

But if you like things done automatically for you, happy to take what you get and auto accompaniment is what you need by all means BIAB.

So, Joe5, if you are going there...



I will presume that you meant "your post", not "you post" and it was just a simple typographical error, as opposed to a "severe lack of reading comprehension".

And by the way, just because Americans say whine, doesn't mean that's universal for all English speakers.

It might also be time for a few folks to read the Forum Rules as a refresher.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=boardrules&v=1

You'll see words like disruptive, offensive, and inflammatory.

:nod: touche, I stand corrected. Anyway....


Composition only. ie to create backing tracks (mostly percussion, probably, perhaps with some rhythm/comping stuff).

Yep, that was pointed out to me earlier, but thanks the same. Might be enough of a DAW for me; I haven't really checked it out yet....

By the way, for those who weren't around at the time, or need a refresher, here's the BIAB 2008 New Features Video that Peter Gannon did. This was the version that introduced RealTracks, and contained ... drum roll, please ... a total of three, yes, three soloist RealTracks. You got a Pedal Steel, a Sax soloist, and an Acoustic Guitar. That was it. It wasn't until 2008.5 that we got more RealTracks, and of course, now we have thousands, plus UserTracks.




And BIAB 2008.5 introduced RealTracks sets 2-9, which then gave us a total of 63 RealTracks. We've come a long way since then:

I do not normally chip in but personally I am only fixated what BIAB and RB does for me ...

Create GREAT backing tracks

I have been using it for over 10 years now ...still very happy with it.

Even though many moan about its clunkiness I am still amazed at the sheer brilliance of what it actually achieves for ME.

Yes John, I remember the 3 realtracks, I could not believe at the time what they did ... who remembers how long it actually took those first few versions to render?

I am far more happy with the LOADS of realtracks and performance improvements, the way that you can regenerate pieces of RB tracks to audition solos to make the Real Track artists do for free (and with pleasure) what we used to coax fellow musicians to do when I was younger.

This tool allows me to have more fun and pleasure that even Peter Gannon ever thought I could get from this software.....

IT DOES WHAT IT PROMISED ...

(this is my opinion only and I cannot speak for any one else)

If I discovered it only today and could wrap my mind around the surrealistic job that it does and the quality that it outputs , I WOULD BUY IT AGAIN , no questions asked.

John,

Thanks for those clips from the past! The program has certainly grown exponentially since then. I remember those three realtracks and I couldn't believe how awesome they sounded.... musical innovation at the cutting edge of technology. Back then, who could have predicted just how far that initial technology would progress by 2016.

Noel

Well, there are way too many people who prefer the shine over the funtionality.

Thx John, but the links didn't appear to come across, at least for me........can others see/click on?

Why not strive for both? Lots of products deliver both!

Well, of course Captain Obvious (just getting into the mood here <grin>).

Salesmanship 101: "Sell the sizzle not the steak."

Joe5, there was a pretty famous user here named Harvey Gerst but he hasn't posted in a while. He's famous enough you can Google him. He's a big time recording engineer and studio owner. He uses Biab all the time to add tracks for clients who've used up their budget for studio time.

Mixing live players with some Biab tracks is probably the best way to produce an original song for distribution. But there are folks here who've done it with all Biab tracks.

And yes you MUST get into Real Band at the same time you're learning Biab 2016. Don't overlook it.

Bob

As I recall, Harvey Gerst produced some of Buffalo Springfield's work.

They're just YouTube videos. Where are you, because Noel indicated he could view them (from Australia).

John, I certainly had no problem with the links either.

Maybe the O/P has restricted access to YouTube. I wonder where from.

I tried Realband the first time it came up, years ago. I was (and still am) using Reaper flawlessly, but I really tried to learn RealBand because the idea of combining a DAW with BIAB functions seemed fantastic to me. But after some experimentation with the program, I just gave up, because it was extremely slow and buggy.

A couple of years (and versions) later, I tried again: the idea was still fantastic, and after all I had only tried the first version, so supposedly the program should be much more solid now. Unfortunately, RealBand still was extremely unstable on my system (a system, btw that runs all kind of audio software without any problems).

After reading this thread, I've just installed v2016 (build 9) on my system, to give RB a third chance. After installing the program, the first thing I literally did was pressing on the "Style" button. Guess what? The program just freezed, and the only way to restart it was closing it through the Windows Task Manager.

Uninstalling the program now...

Sorry Cerio but you seem to have no idea how to set it up or how RB works. Read the docs and watch the YT videos.

At some point when you do NOT SEE tons of posts here from folks with the same problems as you have, it's time to look in the mirror and just figure it out...

Look at my sig, I have the same computer you do except I have 16 gigs of ram which shouldn't matter. No program is perfect but I've been using RB since the first day it was released and so have many, many (did I say many as in a whole lot?) of other users here.

It's on you. If you're serious open a thread on the RB forum, explain what you've been doing and what your RB config windows look like and we'll get you going.

Bob

I find RealBand to be slow and buggy too! Tried using a mirror but it was still slow and buggy! I cannot imagine trying to use it for actual production. It has not frozen on me but then all I use is for it to generate RealTracks when I can't get what I want from BIAB.

"I tried Realband the first time it came up, years ago. I was (and still am) using Reaper flawlessly"

That's it RealBand's great when it's working but when you say it needs a rewrite in a new language out come the knives, so you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
I got endless attacks from stating the bleeding obvious, it's like being in a time warp in a hidden corner of the internet.
The bugs, errors and unfixed problems keep on for years and years, and the "Expert Programmers" come on here and say the "the old Delphi program from the DOS days is fine, you are crazy, deranged, let's stick with it for another 50 years".

RealBand should work flawlessly, I see so many user put off because it don't.

As you say Reaper don't have all these problems, why ? is it a baffling mystery ? really ?

"They would not listen, they're not listening still
Perhaps they never will"

I'm at work and they seem fine. Weird. At home they looked like these rectangular black boxes and nothing to click on. #$# gremlins. Will try again tonight

FWIW When RB launches, it does a bunch of behind the scenes stuff before it is ready.
I always watch the CPU meter in RB in upper right.
Once it settles down after a few seconds it's good to go. These few seconds are well worth it to me.

The initial launch after an install takes even longer, as RB is building some files, checking Realtrack locations, style locations (which are often different) creating a few config changes and doing a small test.

You may get a pop up saying RB can't find the realtracks, etc.
When RB first looks like it is ready, it isn't.
They should add a spin icon, or somehow indicate to 'hold on a sec' before clicking stuff.

You may have launched stylepicker while RB was still checking if it knew where the styles were or something ..
This is one of the GUI things that few talk about but is important. More than the shiny mixer stuff ...

Only other thing i can think of is, on first launch of stylepicker you should get a flashing Flash message about the style list getting built.
Did you see the yellow box? If not my above scenario seems even more likely. If so, this can take a bit. And if you click around and change the focus, the stylepicker may end up popping up behind the main screen, which creates a situation where you appear to not be able to click on anything and in reality RB is waiting on a response from you, but the window needing the response is hidden behind the main screen.
I've seen people do this more than once.
Patience, especially first launch until everything gets built.

Luanch RB
Wait 10 seconds after it launches, look at the CPU readings in upper right.
If RB says 0% and the total CPU use looks pretty stable and low; it's probably ready.

Exactly. A DAW should be, first and foremost, fast and rock solid, and RB isn't. This is obvious for anybody with some professional experience in studios (or at least, some familiarity with modern DAWs), but sometimes the forum is too much "fan oriented", and saying certain things that are obvious to everybody else (out of the forum) is just too much politically incorrect here.

Pipeline, you really need to settle down and stick to facts.

I did a search for the words 'deranged' and '50 years' in the past 12 months, and the only time those words were used on this subject matter were in comments made by you.

You mentioned 'deranged' in your post suggesting to close the thread. But you keep coming back to the topic. As has been said by others, the choice of Language is not the issue, and no one is programming any of this with a DOS version of Borland Pascal. I know that and you know that too.

Everybody wants continual improvements - nobody commented otherwise. But you need to be accurate in your statements. None of what you said above is true.

Thanks for the hints, Rharv, probably I will try the program again in the next days. It's only that the first impression after a few years wasn't exactly impressive...

Cerio,

When you run Realband, also try right-clicking on the shortcut and set the properties so that the program runs as administrator. I've done that since I first installed it years ago and it's always worked fine.

Regards,
Noel

"Thanks for the hints, Rharv, probably I will try the program again in the next days. It's only that the first impression after a few years wasn't exactly brilliant to me."

Make sure you have the latest bb427, I have RB on another pc and the stylepicker would not come up after bbw2 opened, but after updating bb to 427 it worked.



"Pipeline, you really need to settle down and stick to facts."

100% accurate, read between the lines.

I know the story sooooooo well.

As said earlier it is Fan based, protective culture, tonne of bricks scenario.

You would not want to come up with an idea like a new GUI and they all do the protective culture, tonne of brick scenario "That ain't never gonna happen !" ?

You need to aim a bit higher don't limit yourself to others limits, look at all the "That ain't never gonna happen !" ?
Do you yourself think now that it ain't never gonna happen ?

Knocking things is easy, coming up with ideas, solutions and encouragement would be better.
Maybe it's why the software is still where it is because those that speak out for the good of the product are put down by the fans, feel they are fighting a loosing battle and give up and leave.

Pipeline
Please unblock your PM setting (even if only temporary) and we'll discuss this at a gentleman's level in more detail off site. In many ways you actually don't know exactly how much I agree with you, and certainly support your intentions.
If you do unblock, send me a PM and I'll reply.
(Peace)
Trevor

Any software should be fast and rock solid. But today's culture often prohibits this. Sometimes it seems that a large portion of our population craves for green bananas. Many users here have grown accoustomed to some of the perceived inconveniences. It is not that we like them, but the conveniences outweigh them. The vast majority of the regular forumites is friendly, helpful and positive. And we all want the software to improve. There are many fields where improvement would be welcomed openly.

When it comes to "fast", most modern programming environments contradict "fast" in the first place. There is too much overhead created that makes programs large ("They load slower") and the computer has to administer too much in its working memory ("They run slower"). Most of today's programs are snails compared to the programs of the 70s and 80s. Only today's computers are so fast that these facts seem not to be existent. (The current version of Excel wouldn't even fit on my harddisk of the 80s that had the then breathtaking size of 30 MB and did cost a fortune. And at 25 MHz processor speed this thing would take forever to load -- neglecting for a moment that it was a 16 bit processor and here I'm taking a 64 bit software as a role model.)

As rharv said, RB is more than just a DAW. Look at RB as a close cousin of BIAB that wants to behave like a DAW. If you don't have a DAW, RB will happily jump in as a substitute.

Ah Joe, being British we have a complex vocabulary so include words like "whinge", an ancient English word that means to moan for no good reason.
I suggest you close the lid of your friends laptop and go find something, ANYTHING, that will do what BB/RB can do.

Joe,

Numerous people have tried to help you. The CEO of the company even tried to help you; and you continue with the insults.

Being an avid proponent of the program does not make one a 'groupie'. Besides, I'm too old to be a groupie.

As for “whinge”; this is an international forum. We have everything from “Y'all” to “G-Day” to “Whinge”, and the ubiquitous Canadian “Ay”?

In the immortal words of Sgt. Hulka...

“Lighten up, Francis!”


Regards,


Bob

OK, so we're all mindless fanboys. Let's analyze that for a minute.

How does someone become a fan of anything?

Because they like it.

In this case of using a computer program, why would they like it?

Because it does what they need it to do.

Nobody says anything about these programs being the picture of bug free perfection, or that they're easy to navigate or they're telepathic and just seem to know what I'm trying to do.

If RB was a crashing, locked up pos I wouldn't like it very much and neither would anybody else.

Pipeline and Cerio, ask yourselves this one question.

If it's so damn bad, why do we bother with it?

Have you guys spent any serious time on the RB forum? All these little things that Rharv talked about is there. Everybody it seems gets a new program and simply opens it and starts to work with it without reading the slightest thing about how it works. They think they're smart enough to figure it out by running it and working with it. How I wish that were the case.

I guess I'm not as smart as you guys because that never, EVER works for me. At the office it's Word and Excel. For a noob, the Word menu bars are useless POS's to me without some instruction which I've managed to get over the years. Then there's Excel. Oh. My. God. If you've never worked with that before good luck simply opening up a new workbook and what, you're just going to intuitively figure out how to create a formula to combine columns and rows? Riiight. I get emails all the time from companies who want to sell me an online course in Excel for a couple of hundred bucks. How would you like to need that? Buy some music software then spend $200 to learn how it works. Oh my, what would the fanboys think then?

Compared to Word and Excel, Real Band is a simplistic piece of cake yet some so called programming experts can't seem to get past the splash screen.

Go onto the RB forum and read how it works. That's what I do for ANY new computer program. I've learned over the years that a new piece of software is going to kick my [*****] until I can learn how it works and I do that by finding a user forum and reading all the FAQ's and little hidden quirks about it.

There's no difference between a casual user and a power user any more. I've have to turn myself into a power user to even get to first base most of the time with this stuff and THAT'S JUST THE WAY IT IS.

Bob

I'm trying to figure out if I'm one of the fanboy programming experts being insulted here. True, I taught programming starting long before Borland introduced Turbo Pascal (which I loved). But Delphi, which Turbo Pascal morphed into, is still a solid development program under its new owner. It supports 64-bit Windows and Mac OS, and even iOS and Android platforms. Those who know it love it and are productive. Dr. Gannon has stated that at some point BIAB will go to 64-bit, and this can be done in Delphi. So, what is the basis for criticism of using Delphi?

I get the impression that there is a belief from one poster that if you write it in Delphi it will have bugs but if you write it in C it will be bug free. I just can't figure that one out. I actually don't care what it's written in as long as it works and works properly. This comment is totally different to feature requests, bug fixes and improvements. They still need to occur.

I've used RB hard since it's inception, and also used PT (it's predecessor) long before that.
If I appear as though I am 'defending' I apologize. That is certainly not my intent. My natural inclination is to share any help I may have from years of working with the 'quirkiness'.

So at times, when people complain, I offer a tip that may help as a workaround, or new process flow.
It doesn't mean I don't think a bunch of things can't be improved, just trying to help.

That said, the above doesn't apply to the programming language being used. That's quite different. It isn't the issue at all IMHO.

I know Pipeline really wants to make RB better. I've seen him put 'behind the scenes' effort into helping push some long wanted fixes along with the developers (with some progress but not what we all hoped for yet, so not ready for prime time) Pipeline was instrumental in some of this.

He's on our side.
Maybe he ruffles some feathers sometimes, but with good intent. Ruffled feathers get attention.

Thanks Pipeline.


/* 'Let's all just let the programming language thing die now, OK?' */ ;

Yes, fully agree, that's exactly why I wrote in a different thread re: Pipeline
"In many ways you actually don't know exactly how much I agree with you, and certainly support your intentions."

I've personally, never had any problems with BB or RB not doing what they're supposed to do. Mostly, (99.9%) of the time, they both run flawlessly as does Sonar.

They are, however, windows based programs (all 3) and as such, suffer the consequences when the zero's and ones get out of sorts in the underlying OS. (XP Pro 32)

Any time I notice abnormal things going on, I shut down and restart with a cold boot.

If you, on the other hand, are having issues with Real Band always glitching or crashing, I would suggest looking at the issue with the assistance of the PG technical staff. I'd wager, it's a setting or perhaps some other program or driver that's interfering with RB's proper operation and not the bugs in the program. I've run these programs on several computers and all without issue. A Dell off the shelf laptop, and a custom machine that I bought the parts for and assembled myself. I'm not a computer guy, and I managed to get it running and it works pretty smoothly if I do say so myself.

So... in a nutshell, before you disrespect the program, and those of us who use it and love it, tidy up your own house a bit and see what the issue is in your machine. As far as the GUI.... where the buttons are and such things.... learn the program. If you're using a version that's 8 years old, do an update rather than complain about the lack of features in the one you have. A lot has improved during that time.

...or at least take it up and in a thread where that's the topic. amen



Before you disrespect those of us who think the program design is lacking or poor in this or that way, actually listen to, comprehend and consider what they're saying vs complaining about/snipping at the comments. We've been down this road and I've already explained and caveated more than enough, not about to do it any more. PS: I've also put in a fair # of hours on it to date so spare me the "learn the program" BS. You disagree or don't get it, fine, move on.

I thinks if Steve Jobs came on here not using his real name trying to bring about change taking things to a whole new level the status quo would be on him like a tonne of bricks, gang up, and chase him off because the level they see things from can't be any higher as it is the highest level and understanding they can conceive of.

I can see where every user is coming from and the level they are on.
To see where the problems are and speak up to bring about positive change.
The low level responses has taking a too much of energy out of me.
For me to stay here would serve no purpose as I would have to force myself to stay on a lower level of understanding and make nice, agree and don't dare rock any boat.

It might sound hard and ruffle feathers but I did tell the truth in order to to take the software onto a whole new advanced level for all those on the planet, not just the old Win Fans but for all the MAC users ALSO.

With all the Expert Delphi Programmers here I thought for sure they would of uploaded the vst synchronization fix for pg by now, how many years has that been now ??

If someone else comes on here telling the truth that is hard to understand, just don't gang up on them anymore and drain their energy.

Adios..


"How you tried to set them free.
They would not listen
They did not know how

Perhaps they'll listen now ???????"

Well, I for one, hope you stick around! You gave me an excellent tip on how to convert from a RealTrack with fx to the exact same one as DI and it saved my bacon by letting me immediately use the exact same riffs but with my own fx! Everyone else, including long-time PG users were quick to tell me it was impossible!

And I appreciate the suggestions you make here along with your matter-of-fact opinions about how the GUIs need work! Lots of us agree with you 101% on that!!

The active group here in these forums probably represents a very small percentage of the overall PG customer base. And there are some very loud voices here who are appalled when someone dares to offer even the slightest criticism of PG software! They love the software and take it very personally when someone does not show "proper respect"! I noticed this within days of arriving here! But I stuck around because there are also some folks here who love the software AND understand it needs improvement to keep up with the rest of the software world!

And I believe there is another group of people, especially young people, who take one look at the software and never even give it a chance! I have read comments in other music forums where people trash these products mainly about the GUIs but clearly they did not know what is possible if you can just get past that aspect! If I were in charge of PG this would be the thing I worry most about. Us old-timers will continue to send in our upgrade $$ every year and have a grand old time with the software (even while complaining about the GUI!) But the music market at large, including lots of young people, may never give it the chance it deserves because it is not as cool as the latest DAW or looping SW. And that is a missed opportunity for those people and for PG!

And hey, who knows? Maybe BIAB 2017 will be 64-bit with a shiny new DAW-like interface and multi-riff built right in! And even if not, there will be lots of tasty new RealTracks available in the upgrade so I'm budgeting for it right now!

I hope you stay!

Someone's been reading that Dale Carnegie again!