PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Video RealTracks - Your Opinion 9 Months Later and Questions for PGM

PGM presented Video RealTracks as a big new feature for 2018 BIAB (it is still listed as the first new feature on the BIAB page.) Out of 2500+ RealTracks 40 are available as Video RealTracks.

Since 9 months have passed and we are still 3 months from a likely release of BIAB 2019, I am curious about how Video RealTracks have been received, used, ignored, etc. As a technical achievement I must say it was an impressive thing. As a practical matter I have personally yet to find a use for them. How about you?

Are Video RealTracks,
A) great and something you are using
B) great but you are not using them yet
C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other

If you chose A or B would you care to elaborate on how you are using Video RealTracks and why they are great?

If you chose C would you share why and maybe elaborate as to whether improvements to Video RealTracks or the availability of more of them would change your answer?


==========================
These questions are for PGM if they would be willing to answer them,

What are your plans for Video RealTracks?

Will all RealTracks in upcoming releases have Video RealTracks or a similar percentage as 2018?

Will new Video RealTracks be added to existing RealTracks or will they only be available for new RealTracks?

Will all or even most RealTracks have Video RealTracks some day?

Will there be any technical improvements such as reducing/smoothing the abrupt movements between riffs?

C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other

Further improvements or developments are unlikely to alter my opinion.

regards
Vintage

+1

No interest whatsoever

I watched them a couple of times and have never used them again. PG Music needs to discontinue this folly and start concentrating on making the program ready to enter the 3rd decade of the 21st century. I absolutely see no use in watching a series of video pictures which really amount to a bunch of 32bit video flash cards appearing before my eyes.

Concentrate on RealStyles, not gimmicks.

I emphatically chose without hesitation: C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other.

C)

C - seems like potentially a good learning tool for those who want or need that. No interest in them here.

C) No interest, here.

C) No interest for me. I did not install them at all. What a Waste to develop this feature.

C)
Sorry PG, I have no practical use for them as I use BB purely as an arranging tool and not as a video maker. I dont ever intend to play what the 'performers' do so its not even a learning tool.
Cheers
Ian

c no interest

C
C
C
C
AND C

C.

But I am mindful of RealDrums then RealTracks, which no one anticipated nor requested, and they changed everything. With all the cries here for PG Music to attract new younger users, perhaps this is on a path to do that.

Interesting point. Since you were here then, do you believe that 9 months after the release of RealDrums and RealTracks a question like I posed would have 12 out of 12 (so far) responses saying the RealDrums/RealTracks feature was of no interest? I get your point but I don't see how Video RealTracks even remotely approaches the breakthrough of RealDrums/RealTracks.

I intentionally didn't state my preference in my original post but now that we have a few responses I want to say I am most definitely,

C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other

Well, I voted C. But since you cited nine months, I will point out that nine months after RealDrums, we didn’t yet have (nor even imagine) RealTracks. I’m keeping an open mind that video may yet become something more, and something useful.

But you see my point, right? It didn't take 9 months for either RealDrums or RealTracks to take off. I'm guessing they were popular almost instantly.

Another key thing to understand is RealTracks are incredibly versatile. Ten users could create ten songs using the same RealStyle and they would be very different from each other. A casual listener may not even notice similarities.

However, if those same 10 songs used Video RealTracks all 10 videos will be way too similar and, frankly, boring! Video snippets of a closeup of a guitar player's hand are not likely to pull any views on Youtube. And even if you used it once I cannot imagine using it a second time. So it really is not apples to apples to compare Video RealTracks to RealTracks/RealDrums.

Maybe if PGM would share their plans we could find some optimism. But short of that all we have is a novelty feature and a small handful of compatible tracks.

C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other

PGMusic's effort would be better spent on catching up on the 'Wish List'

Making the 6/8 'workaround' more usable, there are hardly any true 6/8 RealTracks and Realdrums in even time (not swing).
Also more true RealTracks Strings

Brian

C)
for me it's without interest
PG music should solve the problems related to the user track and be more dedicated to the program in the field of audio / midi and realtrack good day to the whole team.

C) unimportant or you simply have no interest in them one way or the other

Never use them. I do not need them. Realtracks and supermidis are important for me.

C)

and many +++++++++ on that. PLEASE use these efforts, time and investments for better use, like improving BIAB, REALBAND instead of this unnecessary crap, sorry, but IMO. F

I'll have to agree with many here, after first looking at the Video RealTracks, I've never looked at them again. Seemed like a bit of a marketing hype more so than a real addition to the capabilities of the programs.

As someone else mentioned, I have no doubt that many hours of collaboration, work and testing went into the development of the videos. For me personally, I would have thought that the work direction would have been better served focusing on new RT's, new styles and xtra styles as well as fixing the notation problems with missing highlighted notes at the end of the lead sheets.

Perhaps, in a round about way, this was the purpose of the Video RT's: to get users to help direct PG in the direction they really need to go. Seem there are many good suggestions here and scattered throughout the forums, Video RT's doesn't seem to be one of them.

Jeff

C) I wondered why PG Music ever did this in the first place. So does anyone actually find them useful? It seems to be more or less unanimous vote for C) here on the Forum so far.

Definitely C)

After reviewing them I wondered "Whatever were they thinking? !!"

Clearly a significant effort went into developing these. I've explored them but can state that I'll never know of a practical worthwhile use for them.

Sadly, so many other issues need resolving, there is a huge list of known bugs, and instead the resources were spent developing this (pretty much useless?) feature.

I'm at a loss as to how the think-tank works.

No interest here. The time /money spent on this should have been used for improving BIAB. A dockable, dynamic & fully customizable front end (interface) for example.

C) No interest. Because this feature don't add any musicality item to our BIAB productions.

PGM wasted much time and money to pay the musicians for a feature which has never been requested by users.

As I stated at the top of this thread, I have no interest in this function and I agree with others, in that the development of it has probably taken resources away from more important improvements.

I seem to recall, earlier this year, several posts from people who had tried out video. It would be interesting to hear their views on it today.
Also interesting will be PGM's response to this thread, if any.

Vintage

Good points, especially the final sentence. The O/P sensitively and sensibly proposed a number of quality questions, one of which remains with no response still. I too am interested in the developer's perspective. They are reasonable questions.

I personally have no use for them, but isn't it possible that as a teaching tool they have value?
You can see voicings etc.

I understand most of us will not use them, but I do not think they were a total waste from this point of view. I know PGMusic is a proponent of music education/teaching.

I'm at +1 with rharv on this one.

A "teaching tool" is what I see them being used for. If PGMusic think there is sufficient demand for it to warrant putting mega resources toward it, then perhaps they know something that we don't, namely, that there is an existing or growing market for "video learning".

As for "not being requested by users", that may also have been true when they introduced "Real Drums" and "Real Tracks". We hadn't asked for them but PGMusic took a chance on them, and we (well, some of us) ended up fully embracing something that we didn't know we needed!!?!!

If they choose to continue adding to them for the 2019 version, I'd have to think they figure on the market being there, and they're not just "beating a dead horse".

My 2 cents CDN.
LLOYD S

I thought I had clarified the origins of Real-Video long ago

Dec 03, 2017




That is a good question many are asking right now. At first I thought, "what? - I didn't see that on coming". One thing for sure it tells me, PG has a vision for what he wants to market in BIAB and he is going to pursue it. I think a lot of folk don't fully appreciate how innovative this guy is. They keep asking for one thing or another that they think should be added. But we see here, the Boss ultimately decides.


_________________________

late responding and too late to halt any effort already used by PG this year but

C!

Larry

If BB transposes the RealTrack to fit it's not an accurate representation as it comes up on the the video "Transposed x semitones" you would have to have it set to "Avoid Transpositions in RealTracks" in the song settings, but I'm not sure if that always works as it says "...will try not to transpose"

Maybe it should be a product that you buy separate if you use it as a teaching tool, maybe that's what they will do as they would of put a lot of work in it already.

What frustrates many of us is this "innovation" you speak of 1) appears to have wildly missed the mark with Video RealTracks and 2) comes at the expense of fixing existing limitations that would universally benefit ALL users (regenerate bar by bar/track by track or have more than 4 beats in a bar for example)! Most of us acknowledge that Video RealTracks are innovative and probably took a lot of effort and clever programming to implement but we're still looking to see who wants or needs this!

And while you may be right that "the Boss ultimately decides" on the features, it is ultimately the CUSTOMERS who decide whether or not those features warrant their spending money on!

Maybe video tracks will turn out to be PG Music’s “Edsel car”. Who knows? I watched one video for a short period, realizing that it didn’t offer anything of interest, or practical use for what I do with BIAB. In fact, I don’t use any of the solo instruments/styles provided, since I play my own solos in live settings. Is that an unnecessary feature for live players?

Let’s keep an open mind and see where PG Music goes. There is no point in attacking the program for what it has that you don’t use, because maybe someone else does use it and need it.

I think this thread has more than made its point. Unless we hear from PG Music about its vision (which would be out of character), or we have posts that say someone IS using the video capabilities, then this thread might as well cease. It’s starting to sound ungrateful and I doubt anyone really thinks that’s a productive thing to do.

I disagree Matt. The point is for paying customers to give feedback. What you are calling attacks are IMHO just expressions of frustration at having longstanding issues going unaddressed and pretty much ignored while puzzling new "features" are added.


Again I disagree. I'd like to hear from more folks about this. So far the response has been pretty much unanimous but if there is anyone who has used or uses the feature it would be great to hear from them. And regarding your suggestion that this conversation sounds "ungrateful" I'm not sure I understand your point. I'm not getting BIAB for free. PGM provides me software and I give them money. Every year this happens. How is a customer voicing concerns ungrateful?

Lol, how about Tesla? I'd vote A for some nice publishing rights & royalty free video material to use on Youtube, f.i. of some Hawaiian Ladies dancing when you play Blue Hawaii. -F

Well C, I did try them out, and was a little impressed. Saying that, If given the option whether to have or get rid of them, I would probably want them to stay.

If given the choice I would probably like PG to focus its energy on other things, rather than develop video tracks, but I suspect a good few more are in the pipeline.


Now if PG were to develop some sort of video tracks like a real live stage setting, where the real musicians could be viewed in total, with the camera's zooming in and out like a real live youtube video, and there was some way of superimposing your own video of simply yourself playing then that would be worthwhile.


This I don't think is doable as it would require a lot of green screen effects, but I would certainly vote for that one.

"The point is for paying customers to give feedback. What you are calling attacks are IMHO just expressions of frustration at having longstanding issues going unaddressed and pretty much ignored while puzzling new "features" are added."

Whose point is it for paying customer to give feedback? PGMusic hasn't requested this feedback nor participated in this thread. All these "expressions of frustration" mentioned have everything to do with "longstanding issues going unaddressed..." and pre-exist any video tracks released. This thread is unsolicited feedback from what has so far been folks feel videoTracks are unimportant or they simply have no interest in them one way or the other and some are even "puzzled" to what they are and what PGMusic's vision for them may ultimately be. The RealTracks and RealDrums we use today are more versatile and are better quality, have had the addition of effects, amp modules and much more over the short period of years we've been graced having them.

Remember, video killed the radio star and initially came in two colors, black and white. The model T Ford changed the world with just one color, black. So the 'Black' days many here are suffering may just be a precursor to some amazing things we'll be thrilled with.

seeing as I just got mentioned, my two pennyworth is still a C).True its innovative and clever if ina clunky kind of way on some of the videos Ive tried.But as Im never going to make video-Im an arranger/performer-any such add-ons are a waste of money.
And speaking as one who holds the purse strings here-I would be less than happy if I found that 2019 pricing went up to cover the costs of produing these videos.
So there!
Wendy

Oh,and why the deafening silence from PG?
Wendy

If the 2019 edition comes with 'minor' updates and more R/Videos I will probably give it a miss.
Brian

I agree, the annual "50 exciting new features" has become a bit of a farce,
BIAB2018 was decidedly underwhelming.

I tend to upgrade in December because it's usually the most economic way to acquire the new RealTracks, but at a current count of around 2400 I probably have more than I need for my purposes.

Having said that, BIAB is now a very mature programme, so it's difficult to see where it can go from here. In my view and for my uses, Video is a blind alley.

Vintage

Yep, I have to agree that biab is definitely a mature program now. I quite like the GUI now as well.

Though most of us see little purpose in the new video features in biab, I think we could all agree and thank PGmusic for bringing us this far on the journey with biab, at the moment there is not another software package to match it.


And saves an absolute fortune in studio time as well, as regards making a demo.

Maybe it should be a product that you buy separate if you use it as a teaching tool, maybe that's what they will do as they would of put a lot of work in it already.


Why doesn't someone from PG music respond to threads like this.

Or why doesn't one of the veterans here on the forum, ask out right to peter himself, am I missing something here, are we not all adults..?.

I don't know why PG add this feature in their product?
Meanwhile, a lot features users asked for but PG ignore.

I mostly agree with you but there are places BiaB can improve. 64 bit, a more modern GUI, and opening all channels (so the user can use them as they wish like having 16 RTs/RDs playing in one song) are only a few. But even if BiaB ignores them they could add more RT, MIDI, and combination styles using what they have now: they have proven they can do that with the Xtra styles.

They could have better purchasing titles like Program only, Lite, Pro, and Ultimate and maybe selective packages like MIDI only, RT/RD only or both.

I think that there are a lot of ways PGMusic can improve.

Note: I am not a PGMusic hater. About 99% of my music starts in BiaB and I think it is a fantastic program that could improve. YMMV

I would be fairly certain that the staff at PGM know of this thread.

So lets vote again, , for all the unhappy C voters:

D) No more videotracks we're forced to pay for, and all these (financial) PG efforts spent on a better BIAB/RealBand thing.


E) Or as such a cheaper BIAB without being forced to swallow a sour pill. And (partly) our moneys worth of unneeded paid for videotracks value back in cash or even useful freebees. (Well, lets face the music; you had to pay for them separately .... i looked at the videotized videos demo once, and decided 'not for me').

F) oops, that's me, sorry ..... however BIAB is a great thing, indeed the more if all the RT issues with those occasional appearing blackholes, malfunctioning holds, and measure-count errors among things are finally fixed ASAP ... so you can vote F too LoL.

Just what I was thinking.My worry is that if 2019 has lots of (in my case unwanted)VRTs at what I perceive to be at the expense of more real and decent RTs and product fixes,I would give it a miss.Surely that is defeating the object PG.Give theCustomers what they want.
So,split the VRTs off and make them a Buy item.Those who make vids,and I wouldnt think there are that many compared to Arrangers,will then happily pay for them.If it turns out that the uptake is LOW then PG have to assume it was a mitskae in the first place and dump the concept.My hubby says it reminds him of the Edsel. (I had to go and look it up! D'Oh!)
Wendy

If a newbies opinion matters, I probably have no use for the video RT at present. It wasn't the addition of same that made me so desirous of buying the program. I only waited so long for practical reasons and financial reasons.

I wasn't in the market in 2017, but did the cost of upgrades or new products in 2018 vastly outstrip the cost of same in 2017?

Still, isn't there a function in BIAB at present (or maybe it is in RB) for the insertion of user video? How long has that been available?

I'm not a mind-reader. but all this may be leading into territory incorporating video and music (scoring?). Maybe this is the first few baby-steps into that arena to work out the kinks and further improve over time.

If that's the case, then more power to them. There is a "market" for prosumer music/video integration and if PGMusic can make it easier than existing products then I think they may have a winner on their hands eventually.

Just to add, I will likely "use" the video at some point, because there probably isn't a function of BIAB that I won't want to explore. Admittedly, though, at present it is down the list of things I want to try.

There have been a few changes in names of packages making a direct comparison inexact, but basically prices are the same.

It's still quiet out on the Western Front. Must be a long PG staff meeting, maybe about firing a General? LoL. F

Hi there,
I followed this lively discussion. I've hardly looked at the video functions so far. To join in the discussion, I have now taken some time to explore this function in more detail. But in the end I didn't really make any progress, because there are practically no video tracks for my main music genre Jazz, except for a few guitar and drum tracks.

Generally I find the idea of the video tracks exciting. I play the double bass as my main instrument. And, of course, I do watch Youtube videos of good double bassists to check things out (e.g. in which positions they play certain lines). I think a lot of musicians do that, because there's always something to learn.

There are now no double bass video tracks in BiaB anyway, that will be difficult because of the necessary portrait format. But even if they existed: The technical conception of the video tracks in "Band in a Box" hardly takes into account (for the time being) exactly such contiguous positions of fingerings. The chords are more or less only arranged one after the other according to musical criteria, not according to playing technique. At least in the accompanying guitar tracks there are sometimes very abrupt changes of position visible, which a guitarist would rather not play like this.

If the video concept would actually be optimized in the direction of realistic chord or fingering sequences, I could well imagine a benefit. So I am quite curious if there will be anything else in this view.

P.S.: I dream that Band in a Box could, say, generate a double bass solo played by Ron Carter as a video. But this will probably remain a dream of artifical intelligence.

BIAB 2118 has a steep learning curve if you have upgraded from 2008 as I have.

Video takes a bit of work to get it going and as a guitarist its easier to learn the solos by ear than try to generate a RealTrack to watch it played - if that's even possible.

Choice of tracks is limited and when i experimented and fond a solo with video i was told i did not have the video although I thought I had bought the whole lot with the latest upgrade.

Too much trouble and too little benefit.

Brille, thanks for your report. I think BIAB does what you refer to as ‘realistic chord sequences’ pretty well, especially in jazz if you allow it to use Natural Arrangement. But as to ‘realistic fingering sequences’, I think there is a difficulty. BIAB stitches recordings of measures together if you’re using RealTracks. There can be awkward changes in register as well as voice leading. Video of the playing will expose this even more.

I didn't upgrade my BB 2017, so I can't comment on the video tracks. Having said that, now that I think of it, I fail to see the appeal or advantage of having such a product.

However, PG Music does not owe a response to a thread that are basically unrequested personal opinions.

However, I'd bet a Franklin that we'll see some kind of feedback from a PG Music's spokes-man/woman in the near future, though.

I believe this concurs with many users' perspectives. The fragmentation in the results of the produced video significantly compromises the usability. I have produced and reviewed many instances. The percussive videos are possibly the most usable, but melodic instruments are challenging and mostly so difficult to follow as to be unusable. I'm trying to keep an open mind - but would still prefer the effort went into bug fixing.

I noticed, even in the PGM examples, hand movements that would not likely be possible for a real player. This makes the videos jerky and unusable for either learning or production. And it draws attention to a potential weakness of RealTracks...the fact that a generated audio sequence may not even be possible/practical to play on an actual instrument.

That is also a good point. How practical are they as a practice tool when some of the disjointed articulations don't actually match the playing techniques a musician could generally deliver.

OK, well so much for my teaching tool theory then.
In that case I got nothing.

I actually liked your point, Rharv. It’s just that I think it would require new recordings and new technology. But I hope PG Music can figure this out.

So let us vote for a different kind of video stuff if there should be at all: Copyright free for PG clients, to enhance the music coming out of BIAB and RB. Useful when you want to publish your stuff on f.i. Youtube, Vimeo etc. Items that could work: Hula Dancing 'Ladies', Nature & Animals, Underwater Scuba Scenery, Russian Dashcam stuff, Animations, Fishing Trips, Ducks on the Pond, you name it. Issue every PG employee with a camera & send them on an extra holiday trip, WHEN THEY FIXED ALL THEM DARN ANNOYING RT ISSUES FIRST , or organize an X-Tra style X-Video type contest for the users ... -F

Hi Fiddler
You are aving a tin bath! (Laugh)
My word your asking for a fully functional video timeline editing plug in now.
I sure that sort of thing is much better achieved out side of BIAB on your completed mp3 / wave file, even if you only use a simple tool like windows movie maker.
Youtube is quite happy with WMV file uploads,
Mike

I would strongly disagree with PGM getting further into the video business! There are plenty of online sources doing it way better and I hope PGM focuses on what they are great at...RealTracks!

https://videos.pexels.com/

I'll make one more comment in the direction the thread is taking.

Editing video to a piece of music can be cumbersome. Transitions/cuts on certain beats/bars is time consuming, even if the music is at 60, or 120, or 180 bpm. If it is at 76, or 135 bpm? It's impossible to do the math. Beat mappers in most consumer level products are wonky and inaccurate at best.

So I could see the value in a program that already is capable of making transitions on bar and beat potentially being handy to pull various clips into position. Sounds like what it is doing with the Video RT now.

Video can be slowed down or sped up to fit precise periods of time with maybe even lesser limits on viewability than time-stretching music clips has on listenability. This also seems to be what BIAB is doing with Video RT now.

Thanks, JohnJohnJohn for that link. I didn't even know such a thing existed. Even if you had a basket full of those clips though, editing them for precise periods on video editing software would be a challenge that automation could assist.

Free and therefor worthless advice to PGM, but maybe it will inspire some creativity in users, even if it isn't the future of VRT.

Listen!!!

Did I just hear a huge sigh of relief from Cadillac Avenue now that this thread has gone quiet?

Vintage

Nope, can't be: they're busy moving to Edsel Road ... F

I'm with everybody here, I don't get it and never did.

As to the tons of comments that they should fix all the stuff we've been harping about for years. To me it's obvious those seeming simple things, like more than 4 chords in a bar, odd time sigs etc simply cannot be done using the current code. It it can they would have done it by now. It appears adding those things would require a complete rewrite which would certainly be time consuming and expensive. Which brings me to...

Rewrite it already. It's time. BUT for everybody who want that because it would probably include making it 64 bit, I'll bet all of our existing songs would NOT be compatible and that's where the hang up lies. Think about that one...All the gazillions of Biab songs on the internet that we've used for years would be dead.

Bob

In my mind, I would think that all the original songs could be accommodated, even with a higher resolution (8th note chords, for example), as it's all just simple math. You may have to save your song in a new format after loading it, but I would think that a rewrite should accommodate loading the older format. You may not be able to go back to an older version with the new format, but you should be able to at least load and resave your old songs into the new format.

Likewise, for long style file names (to get away from 8.3). The existing files know the current 8.3 style used, so at least for PGMusic styles (and Norton could probably provide it for his styles), there could be an easy lookup table from old 8.3 name to new long name (which could still be an 8.3 name).

I’m actually going through that with another software program. I’ve used Serif’s Page Plus (a Pagemaker clone) since 1990 for posters, flyers, and newsletters. It’s indispensable like BIAB.

They reached the point where a total rewrite was needed, to make it fully cross-platform including iPads etc. and integrated with their other software (photo editing, vector drawing etc.).

Point being that the new program I am beta testing will not read the old program’s data files. For some projects, I will just start new. For other projects, I will open both programs and copy/paste the old elements into the new and easily recreate the design.

As long as PG Music gets it working where we can copy/paste between two instances of BIAB and makes that minimally compatible with their newly rewritten program, I’d be ok with that. Just imagine the legacy limitations that could be overcome, like 255 measure limit etc.

An example of what John F just said is already in BIAB. The MIDI resolution used to be set at 120 parts per quarter. Some years ago (at our suggestion in the Wishlist) they made higher resolutions possible to match whatever your DAW used. Simple math as John said. No files became incompatible.

Remember, PG Music did not ask for our opinion on any of this. They know their goals and, in this case, I suspect their limitations. That’s above my pay grade, programmer notwithstanding. I’d be surprised if they didn’t desire exactly what we’ve been saying but are limited in some way of reaching it.

I would think they would welcome the opinions of their customers.

Looks like we've strayed from the original topic, but I'll carry on.

- JJJ: I think PGMuisic DOES listen to their customers, AND welcomes their opinions. Some of our suggestions of the past have been incorporated into new releases.

- I got to thinking about "the numbers". The info on the right sidebar says there are about 28,000 "Members". I assume that means "members of this forum". What would be the estimate of "registered users" of BIAB? Or even "number of sales" of BIAB, since not everyone "registers" their copy. Would it be 10x the number of Forum members, or 100x? I couldn't even hazard a guess!

- Then how many people who own BIAB really care if it's 64 bit (let alone even know what that means)? Or how many need more than 4 chords to a bar, or different time signatures or more available bars, etc. etc. In other words, what percent of users need something "different" than what PGMusic provides every year?

- Not sure that "needing an update" or "needing a rewrite" is valid, if it's to either "attract" new, or "keep" existing members. For all we know, PGMusic is expanding their user base by leaps and bounds every year. And perhaps the majority of them are perfectly happy with the program the way it is.

Just sayin'.
LLOYD S

Lloyd, you make good points. Dunno about that 28,000 number as it likely includes everyone who ever created a forum account since the forum was launched whether they bought BIAB or not. But they certainly must have thousands of customers in order to staff their company and pay musicians for those amazing RealTracks!!

Regarding the 64-bit I'd agree that most users prolly don't care and won't until that fateful day when it becomes an issue! But things like more than 4 chords in a bar seems like such a basic musical requirement I'd bet lots of folks would notice and appreciate that improvement.

Plus, I would think that anyone who understands and loves RealTracks would appreciate being able to exercise more control over their generation. Or maybe that is just for hardcore types!

Getting back to this thread's original topic, I know the number of users who voiced their opinion on Video RealTracks is probably anecdotal compared to the bigger picture but if I were PGM I'd certainly pay attention to the fact that the consensus here is not positive for Video RealTracks.

JJJ

"Getting back to this thread's original topic, I know the number of users who voiced their opinion on Video RealTracks is probably anecdotal compared to the bigger picture but if I were PGM I'd certainly pay attention to the fact that the consensus here is not positive for Video RealTracks."

----------------------------------------------

Don't hold your breath on that one,

I can already hear the opening lines to the 2019 biab new Feature List video,


"Welcome to band in a box 2019, we have been busy, we have added 200 new realtrakcs, 40 of them Video tracks, and have added 50 hew features to band in a box 2019"

Here is my two cents on these issues. Those working with RTs and using maybe a little MIDI would care less about 64 bit. They will be happy until their new computers will no longer support 32 bit programs if/when that happens.

Those that use mostly MIDI will want 64 bit as all of the good sound source programs are 64 bit.

More chords to a bar are a necessity in my mind. For example having chords on the 4th, 4.5 (eight note chord) and the 1st beat of the next measure is something that I do a lot.

Different time signatures are another necessity. Real 6/8, 12/8, 5/4 etc styles would have the correct number of measures and beats in both notation and exports. BiaB has those styles now but they only show up in 2/4, 3/4, and 4/4 time signatures.

YMMV

PS- I will take these improvements over cosmetic changes any day.

As I said earlier I just don't believe those things are possible as Biab is now, they're so obvious and have been talked about for so long that if it were possible it would have been done already.

As far as compatibility with old vs new we're going through that now. The office moved and they took that opportunity to upgrade our system workstations to Win 10. The IT company has been pushing us to do that for several years. The problem is we have a very extensive Access database and use it for all kinds of things. Access is not easily compatible with Win 10 and we've known that for years too. Supposedly we were prepared for this, our programmer has some ideas how to make it work without having to recreate everything in Win 10's new data base program. Well, it's been two weeks now and it's a mess. The old Access is partially running, some things work but a whole lot of other things don't. I'm told it is "mostly" doable, it will just take time but we will permanently lose some functions.

As for this thread going off topic a bit, I think that's ok, the point's been made.

Bob

Dang, you are almost certainly right on that! Arg!