1. Keep releasing new Realtracks! Realtracks are fantastic. They were introduced in 2009, and still there is no software in the world that can produce backing tracks with the quality BIAB can, thanks to the Realtracks. Realtracks are the single feature that makes BIAB such a wonderful and unique product for musicians, and I suspect the main reason why a lot of people upgrade BIAB year after year is to have new Realtracks. Just keep doing them!


2. No more "50 new features" each year! After more than 20 years adding 50 or more new features each year we have...well, just too many of them! I really don't want to sound offensive, but BIAB has a severe case of feature creep, and that's not good news:
https://www.techopedia.com/definition/4277/feature-creep
With so many features is really difficult to keep things simple. Most newcomers just find BIAB too difficult to use because of that, and even for experienced users, trying to find a feature that you haven't used for a long time is often a nightmare. New features add more complexity (and new bugs) each year, and still worst, with 50+ features being added every year, compatibility between old and new features is not easy to manage. Seriously, 99% of the users don't need 50 new features every year, they just need new Realtracks and...


3. Fix the bugs! Instead of adding new features, please, improve the ones that are already there. Fix the reported bugs, improve the program stability, make it solid rock. And make it simple: avoid windows / menus redundancy, hire a user interface designer who never used the program to get some fresh new ideas about what could be done with the GUI to improve the program's usability, etc, etc, etc.

+1,000,000 Excellent post!

The whole "50 new features" thing is an outdated marketing technique. Plus, lots/most of the "new features" are of little use to the majority of us. And the really cool new features like User Tracks and custom track names never seem to get fully implemented.

But the RealTracks are astounding...incredible...amazing...and every other positive word I can think of! This is where the product SHINES! This feature is better than anything on the market. Bar none. Hands down.

So yeah...keep the excellent work you do on RealTracks and fix the bugs and GUI.

+1

Im for all 3!!Especially the second. Im new last year to BB and the initial complexity (menus,submenus,subsubmenus) almost made me get a refund.and now weve got another 50 features!What! Will they ever get used.And nice easy features of 2017 like render to wav are now clunky and no longer user friendly.Defeats the object IMO.
If the programmers want something to do,get them working on away of being able to insert a midi instrument from a similar style into an otherwse RT style.And don't give me all that midi isnt RT guff.I know,I know.It seems daft to me that to maximise Style search you have to go midi first and then repopulate seleced tracks with RTs rather than finding a near perfect RT style that maybe just needs <M49 strings to be spot on.Current RTs like 1278 are so horribly wheezy that theyr unusable.Hence the sub.
Happy new year Biabers.
Wendy

Sorry Cerio, I'm a Mac users so I can't agree on your wish for number two. I would love to see more features, for BIAB for Mac, but that is a different topic for a different time. I love my BIAB for Mac and it does what I need it to do.

+1. Nice post Cerio.

All three suggestions are very worthy of consideration.

It would be great to see the Windows and Mac versions having identical functionality.

Program reliability is vital and better regression testing is definitely needed, so number 3 is particularly important in my view.

All excellent suggestions.

+1

I also fully, wholeheartedly agree with all 3 suggestions.

1. Re: Keep releasing new Realtracks!

RealTracks are great, no complaints here. BTW, what does everyone think about the Xtra Styles Paks being sold at extra cost? I wonder if PG has too much of an incentive to "hold back" with their best/freshest content so they can make some extra bucks.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for companies charging a premium for extra features that are truly supplemental--as in of a different character than the core program features, such as the instrumental studies, or the 101 jazz phrases or what-not.

By all means, PG, develop as much Realtracks as you like, and if you want to charge more for them, how about allowing the consumer to choose the core 202 new tracks they want for their $100 upgrades. I'd much rather have many of the styles I heard Demo'd in the YT vids than the Klezmer and Mariachi. Also the Americana tracks are not all that different from the excellent RTs released over that past decade. For instance, the Rock-Pop 4 styles are a lot more distinct (and more desirable from my perspective, than many of the other RTs which came with the std. 2017 to 2018 upgrade).

You know what I would shell out good money for? A well illustrated tutorial book with a CD and example files where you need to accomplish different things. Sell them as modules for all I care. There is no reason that I, and I'd wager a majority of other BiaB owners, should only be using less than 25 percent of the program's capabilities.

2. Re: No more "50 new features" each year!

I both agree and (respectfully) disagree. On the one hand, I LOVE the features. The ACW, the reharmonist, I could go on and on. Yes, a lot of them have a very steep learning curve, and I'll readily admit that I am barely proficient in 5 percent of all of them. However, suddenly you find a use for a given feature, and it suddenly becomes indispensable.

THAT SAID, the whole "50 new features each year thing" creates a tremendous disincentive for BiaB go 'hoard' fixes and updates that should really be released continuously throughout the year.

To throw out a few examples culled from the 2018 features--organizing the cluttered folders? Saving MP3 in a quality better than 64kbps? Skins? A floating mixer? Support for 12/8, 9/8, and 6/8 notation? These are issues that should be patched as a matter of course, not features!

Examples of genuinely new features (culled from updates over the years) would be the DAW plugin mode, the ACW, the ability to save mono audio as MIDI, the ability to open and save in ABC file format, usertracks, loops that transpose with the chordsheet, etc.

3. Fix the bugs!

+1,000,000,000 (and see regrading 2, above, as they are closely related). Can we drag Realband out of the 1980s please? Get an outside team and a technical writer or two if you must, say it costs you the amount of $ you would spend on developing, what 10, 25, 100 realtracks? Once done it's done, and can be updated relatively efficiently.

Would anyone here not sacrifice dozens or RealTracks for a decent GUI and coherent manual--a manual that isn't just the same one from the last decade with the upgraded feature text copy-pasted into relevant sections...

As a closing note, I would like to express my utmost respect and admiration for the folks at PG music and the incredible product they produce. You guys are cool af, but you need to listen, and respond to your consumer base more consistently (IMHO).

Peace to all, and happy new year!

Deacon

What I would love to see is a clear, well-written, and concise guide to the most used features based on the 80/20 rule for usability.

Don't get me wrong, I like the program, and have been able to figure out most of what I need, but guides targeted to different types of users would be so useful. I'll wager that jazz musicians are the power users, but people like singer-songwriters might need a completely different entry point, especially with emphasis on simple accompaniment styles, etc.

The basic principle for software usability is that it should be based on making software easy to learn quickly by the average user. That way, not only the 20 percent will grasp it, but 80 percent will also understand. It might take a third-party product to do this, but so far I haven't found one.

I think these should be included as a free bonus for loyal customers who upgrade every year. I remain unconvinced they are worth what they charge for them.


I am puzzled as to why so many of the new RealTracks are Klezmer. I cannot see this being a much sought after style!


I agree 100%!


I have completely given up on the manuals and mostly given up on Realband. I only use it to generate a few bars if I cannot get something to sound decent in BIAB. It has the potential to be so much better.

Good suggestions all, even tho’ much of it I don’t use or understand. I use BIAB for live gigs only. Love the real styles. No midi here. I’ve learned to freeze all the tracks, so the tunes load faster. No problem, except for loops. Any particular reason why songs with added loops take so long to load and play---even when frozen? Wish that could be speeded up.

Here's my take.
I think we should consider that people use BIAB in ways that are radically different from each other. If you are a pro composer, an amateur songwriter, a musician that uses BIAB for live gigs, a music teacher etc. I am sure that these people use BIAB in very, very, very different ways.
I also have the feeling that, for that reasons, many users use just a small minority of the MANY features that BIAB has to offer - but for each person, THOSE features are absolutely essential. I am an example of that. I think I probably use 5% of BIAB features, no kidding. But I am the happiest user in the world (thank you PG !!!!!!)
And yes, in my "ideal world", BIAB should develop only the features I use
But saying that would be quite silly of me, wouldn't it?
So, this is to say that we should be very careful in suggesting what is important and what is not, because what is important, or even crucial for you, may be irrelevant for many others - and vice versa. For example, I don't use at all RealBand. As far as I am concerned, if RB was abandoned tomorrow by PG Music I couldn't care less. But I understand that for other users RB may be crucial. I could go on with other similar examples.
So, what's my point, you ask?
My point is that I don't want to tell PG Music what specific features should be developed, which specific ones should be abandoned, which specific new ones should be introduced. I think only the folks at PG Music know this, better than anybody else.
However, there are some GENERAL issues that, I presume, affect most if not all BIAB users. And these are the ones mentioned in the first post of this thread:

1. RealTracks.
This is the "core" of BIAB. I cannot immagine any BIAB user who doesn't benefit greatly from having more / better realtracks. So, my feeling is that if PG Music develops more, better, higher quality, wider variety of Realtracks, all users will be happy.

2. Features: improve / fine tune / develop the features that are already there, rather than implementing new ones.
Now this could be debatable. However, BIAB is SO RICH already in features, that honestly I think that most if not all users would greatly benefit from a fine tuning of existing features (esepcially the ones that don't work so well - UserTracks comes to mind ...) rather than having a gazillion new features every year.

3. Bugs and Interface
Again, this is something that everyone would benefit. Who wouldn't want a better interface and a more stable program?

So basically, I'm repeating what the first poster said
As I said before, I totally agree with that first post.

And thak you again PG for this incredible product.

+1 for your post. I too use only a small part of BIAB for what I need to do. My number one request would be the ability to enter 8 chords to the bar instead of just the present 4.

Hi Wendy,

Let's get rid of the attitude......... Or I may have to tell Pepe about this!! LOL

The Jon Thomas post is spot on, in my view. I can think that, but not articulate it like that. Is it crazy to suppose, that as BIAB continues to develop, that different levels of the product might become available----such as versions/features appropriate for song writers, hobbyists, live play, etc.? Or, might that just create more confusion among consumers? Some DAWs offer entry levels, up to more advanced. Heck, I’d spring for a hardware version of BIAB, if such were possible, designed and built by PG Music specifically for live play-----that was rock solid, with high quality audio, and stereo outputs.

Yes, that to me is something that should have been done YEARS ago.

I suspect the reason it hasn't is because that 4 chords per bar limitation must be hard-coded deep within the bowels of BIAB and would require a major rewrite to fix.

Yes, also i think that all or most realtracks would have to be re-recorded. ... unimaginable ...
Anyway, just to confirm how much each user is different,having 8 chords per bar would not be something that I would need, hardly at all ... users' needs are very, veruy different ...

It's not so much that you need 8 chords per bar, not for me anyway. It is being able to place a chord on an offbeat, i.e. the 'and' of the beat.

Currently the hack workaround is to use the 'push' function so you can drop a chord on the 'and' (push by 1/8), but pretty much useless most of the time because you can't follow it with a chord on the next beat.

+1 I can think of only a couple of songs where I would need 6-8 chords in a bar. Your post, BlueAttitude, is spot on.

+1 also.

I would add three more requests:

1-have a MIDI only buying option with all of the MIDI styles and Super MIDI track included

2-become 64 bit

3-open all 16 MIDI channels for use with both MIDI and RTs.

A question I have is why would all of the RTs have to be re-recorded? If they could not follow an improved chord placement system then just leave them alone and start a new series of RTs. Maybe call them Super RTs?

You are right guys, of course.
And I could add a long list of my own favourite specific requests.
But I'll stick with the 3 general-purpose wishes of the original poster that would benefit 99% of users, not just me or a few others.
Just my 2 cents.

Wow, lots of great posts on this topic, here’s my 2 cents:

1. We need a stripped down, uncluttered, 64 bit hi res version of BIAB. The GUI still needs a lot of work.
2. After all these years, the Notation still has issues, the leadsheet advances awkwardly, the spacing still Isn’t even, inputting and recording Notation doesn’t work easily.
3. The 50 features concept is dated, we need less general features, and more work on making the features we have work with ease.
4. I suggest selling new RTs according to what styles we use.....Why should we be paying $$ for Rock/pop/folk styles I’ll never use and take up a lot of disk space? For example: Jazz 1 RT Pak....etc.
5. We need a way to create a special folder of our favorite RTs and styles, this way we can delete all RTs/styles that we do not us without getting the “Missing RT” message every time we start a song, also, those of us with the Audiophile version could cut WAY down on Disk space....

Hi Edward,

I agree... there are lots of good suggestions within this thread.

Also... I don't think that too many people are aware of this but it is possible to buy Realtracks sets just as you describe. Below is a link to the Jazz ones. (The set of 2018 jazz RTs is $79.)

http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.realtracks.jazz.htm

Regards,
Noel

I would add a fourth wish, closely related to my third point, fix the bugs:

4. I wish PG staff would respond to bug reports!

This is really, really, really important to me. Please, read this:
http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=409363

This is a great post. I've come back to BiaB after many years, and, boy, does it feel complicated! So many menus, toolbars, dialogs. It feels a bit like the Winchester mystery house with lots and lots of layers built on. Every single feature probably made sense in how it was implemented, but the result is an experience no one loves.

I know how hard it is to redesign software, so both going to 64 bit and tweaking the user interface would be a big tasks.

Nonetheless, it does seem like there is a pretty consistent desire among users to see improvements in these areas...