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If BIAB were redesigned, or underwent a major facelift, does anyone know how much effort it would take? As someone who knows zip about designing software, my thoughts were: How many people would it take to undertake such a rewrite? What skills do they need? Are they readily available? How long would it take to reach a marketable product? What would it cost to undertake such a project? Maybe it doesn’t get done, because it’s too big of a project for the existing staff.

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Hi Larry

Yes, I would be interested in understanding this. Was rather hoping VideoTrack might be in a position to give a rough idea .. ?

Tom


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Originally Posted By: Tom0016
Hi Larry

Yes, I would be interested in understanding this. Was rather hoping VideoTrack might be in a position to give a rough idea .. ?

Tom





OK, ball's in my court, so here goes:

Well, it's really difficult to state what effort is involved, but let's think about the main two issues and corresponding approaches

1: the User Interface

2: the Menus

What remains constant is the underlying engine driving it all. Very little of that probably needs to change. What needs to change is the interface, with the addition of new presentation layers that then integrate into the existing substrate code.

The menus are programmatically probably not difficult. I think the most tenuous part is establishing a redesigned model that is pragmatic and more realistically categorizes functions, and clears up naming conventions. This is not a criticism, and I have stated that online and offline to Peter himself many times: I fully understand how the program got these problems in the first place - it's because it has evolved and delivered amazing features that could never have been anticipated during its earlier ongoing development. It's because sometimes there was no logical place to put 'this and that' new feature, so we put it 'here and there', and this happened multiple times, and eventually some of the delivered menu functionality at these locations started to make less and less sense.

So it's time to step back and study the structures, probably with the assistance of new, fresh, independent participants who don't automatically know exactly where to go to select a feature, or what 'Force Track to Simple Arrangement : Strings' means, when the track is actually a RealTracks track with Guitar. Get independents to use it and analyze and state clearly what they don't understand.

The User Interface also is not impossible. Presuming (and I'm being simplistic here) there is a reasonable disconnect between things like the button 'Click' events and the 'OnClickEvent' code, other newer buttons could call the same underlying code. These other new button 'click' events could be coming from a new fresh interface (a different 'skin').

Yes, it's easy to just say 'do it', but I know and Peter and his Team knows there are many hidden challenges. Nevertheless, it really has come time to embrace this, even if it requires an ongoing staged implementation.

There has been an indication that work is already being done on the interface.

So to answer the question: How much effort is required? I can't really say as I don't intimately know the code. Days? No. Years? No. A few months would be my guess to deliver something that new and potentially new users could start to be really excited about.

I for one would be thrilled to see changes implemented like I have tried to identify. There would definitely be "No Strings Attached" if they decided to take on some of those ideas.

Hope this assist in some way. I'm really pleased to see this thread get traction and enthusiasm from all parties. It's definitely needed.

Trevor



BIAB & RB2024 Win.(Audiophile), Sonar Platinum, Cakewalk by Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M Monitors, Pioneer Active Monitors, AKG K271 Studio H'phones
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Brilliant post, Trevor. Especially this part:

Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
So it's time to step back and study the structures, probably with the assistance of new, fresh, independent participants who don't automatically know exactly where to go to select a feature, or what 'Force Track to Simple Arrangement : Strings' means, when the track is actually a RealTracks track with Guitar. Get independents to use it and analyze and state clearly what they don't understand.


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Originally Posted By: Cerio
Brilliant post, Trevor. Especially this part:

Originally Posted By: VideoTrack
So it's time to step back and study the structures, probably with the assistance of new, fresh, independent participants who don't automatically know exactly where to go to select a feature, or what 'Force Track to Simple Arrangement : Strings' means, when the track is actually a RealTracks track with Guitar. Get independents to use it and analyze and state clearly what they don't understand.


Yes, this is the only way to get an unbiased opinion of the GUI IMHO.


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Cop, that's not how field sobriety tests work.

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Originally Posted By: VideoTrack

OK, ball's in my court, so here goes:

hi Trevor - and thanks!

Originally Posted By: VideoTrack

I fully understand how the program got these problems in the first place - it's because it has evolved and delivered amazing features that could never have been anticipated during its earlier ongoing development. It's because sometimes there was no logical place to put 'this and that' new feature, so we put it 'here and there', and this happened multiple times, and eventually some of the delivered menu functionality at these locations started to make less and less sense.


Yes - I think that puts it very precisely. To me, with a very small amount of project management background (even picked up a qualification at one point), this is not unusual ... it's actually absolutely the normal course of any product which doesn't precisely know what it will look like when it's complete. Be it software, a house, a city. Projects, I learned, can be either be executed in 'controlled', or 'uncontrolled' environments. But ultimately 'controlled' ones are better because they work towards peoples interests in defined ways, and therefore are also more profitable.

Originally Posted By: VideoTrack

Hope this assist in some way. I'm really pleased to see this thread get traction and enthusiasm from all parties. It's definitely needed.

Trevor


yes, absolutely. thank you.

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One idea I liked was the idea of developing the GUI around different "personas". Although you can broadly state everyone uses Band-in-a-Box differently some common ways of using the program have been noted. Some users develop song structure, some backing tracks, some use the scoring and printing feature, some the Jukebox or Conductor feature while others as a practice tool.

I think it would be useful for PG Music to run two polls. One poll would be to have users list every feature each user can think of. A poll like this would help PG Music understand what features users use enough to list versus all the features that are actually available. I'm sure there maybe questions about if "so and so" is a feature or not but defining what is a feature actually may be part of the problem. After poll 1 has named the features that users use, it would be time to release poll 2.

Poll 2 would be to take the list of features and separate the features into 3, 4, 5 or even 10 "personas" or have a feature be common to all "personas". Each feature could be ranked in importance by the user. This poll will help PG Music understand how each user uses BiaB.

The software the forum uses supports polls. Online outfits like SurveyMonkey will let you set up a poll for free.

PG Music could use use the mailing list they have to send an invitation to participate in each poll.

Just an idea I think is worthy of consideration and discussion.


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I guess if I had one wish (in general) it would be for a "Tablet/Touchscreen" friendly "Performance Mode" with functions only pertinent to live playing with something like a Surface Pro.

The number of features required for content-creation/composing/arranging are vast compared to the "pick a tune-pick a key-pick a style/tempo" used live. Also a "favorites" for upper level patches in "Thru" would be great here. Just my $00.02 .. Otherwise, I've been using this so long, I can find pretty much ANYTHING if I don't have to do it in Real Time.


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Hi Peter,

I noticed that you kindly responded with a number of 'Thanks' and 'Good Ideas' to 40 or 50 posts in the wishlist. I think you might have accidentally missed this important one, which as a result has now been pushed back in the list 3 pages or so.

I'm just checking to see if you have seen the recent comments on this thread and if you have anything to mention in reply to this one also?

We appreciate your response.

Thanks Peter
Trevor


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Peter, just in case you heed Trevor's excellent advice and revisit this thread, I wanted to pull out one particularly good post by a 35-year old BIAB user.
Originally Posted By: Tom0016

hello users

I am not a forum user really, but read this thread with interest. As a 35-year young casual but long-time user of biab (long for me, perhaps 7-8 years now) I thought I'd chip in a perspective. I write as someone in the UK, not a formal music student but in touch with a number of people who might use BIAB as students, or otherwise be appropriate audiences.

First, I've been so attached to the program I've used it constantly, if irregularly, that I considered creating one of the 'endorsement' videos people have made. However, I realised for all my basic instinctive enthusiasm for BIAB, I felt I'd end up being tempted to implore PG to do a number of the things raised in this thread. I don't think therefore that I'll go the extent of creating a video, but will instead throw in my reflections here.

Yes, the interface is a huge 'turn-off' even as someone relatively seasoned in using it. Especially so because I come to BIAB only once every often, when I have a specific task that I often end up struggling to figure out (e.g. finding a soloist that sounds appropriate to my tune has taken me hours recently). I'll come back to my instinct for what would help, bearing in mind the needs of the different user groups.

To me, the single most glaring oversight, should PG wish to reorientate at all to a younger or unfamiliar crowd, is to explain why the program exists. While it's clear what it can do (e.g. generate backing tracks), and how is does it (e.g. amazing quality realtracks) it's not necessarily obvious WHY you'd want this particularly, it seems to me - or how in various ways the product might be useful to a keen student.

In other words, I would think the videos and other marketing don't adequately answer the question 'What's the point of this product? How will it easily make me a better guitarist/singer'? Demonstrating exciting realtracks does not achieve this goal. Another way I've heard this put is the 'what's in it for me?' test for product description - I think biab could REALLY benefit from a series of vid tutorials showing off how e.g. a guitarist could strangely turn up to a band rehearsal with a new solo already learned for some chords, or a bunch of new rhythmic ideas. For that matter, given that the prog is much a swiss army knife of assisted practice techniques, I wonder what other inventive ways other users have. Would be great to emphaise the variety and creative possibilities I presume are out there (nb. can't claim I have devised creative/advanced ideas myself, but I do find BIAB very helpful to propose ideas to bandmates for example, and this kind of application would be a far stronger selling point than new features. With due respect, I wonder if new feature videos may be even be rather boring to some new or even existing users).

My background is in publishing, both editing text and graphics, and its interesting to consider how BIAB might be approached were it a book going out to market. I'd picture:

- the text content being scrutinzed for errors and consistency
- the text being scrutinzed for ease of use
- visuals being added that enhance the experience of using the content

In BIAB, as a youngish and mobile phone orientated person, there are whole areas I avoid due to its technical language or presentation. BIAB would come back with a lot of comments from our proofreaders. Take the addition of 'Xtrastyles' in the latest version. My issue is this is not a self-evidently descriptive word. It could mean anything really, and therefore is just an arbritary label, meaning its a missed opportunity to guide the user towards a feature (e.g. 'curated realtrack combinations' would do this, albeit in an excessively wordy way).

Same goes for the way the colours and underlining is used to indicate which instruments are 'real' or MIDI, or whether they have notation. In book editing practice, simple is always preferred, and compared to the standards of iPhone and even android apps, the colours/terminology PG has added over the years actually amount to a kind of foreign dialect of software conventions. The inclusion of odd, non-musical terms in the settings menu (like 'ASIO'/'MME' for example), only further force the user to confront alien techy language; personally I've got lost on the audio settings screen more than once, and it's taken days to establish what influence 'latency' and other gremlins might be having. This, I would suggest hugely detracts from the users basic expectation that they can achieve certain goals simply (e.g. record themself soloing over a backing track). And therefore is the stuff that risks causing people to walk away.

Perhaps it's unkind, but I would describe BIAB's visual presentation as 'terrifying'. BIAB has obviously evolved through many iterations, but like any project without a finite end, it risks obscuring the original and inspired ideas behind the product. With each new year, I think, this becomes a greater risk.

For whatever it is or isn't worth, my (yes, unsolicited) recommendations would be:

(in the following sequence)

1. to consider completely suspending development of new features and commit to delivering BIABs huge existing range of possibilites in the most accessible and direct ways possible.
> This could be part product design, part reinvestment in training videos or help functions (but no referring us to the manual, please)

2. to rationalize the primary applications of the product, and reorganise buttons and menus into hierarcies around very simple and basic uses (e.g. creating a backing track, or printing a tune).

3. to commision user experience testing, and to tackle design informed by this but independent of it

4. to embed 'classic' biab into the new design, perhaps with the use of skins, as has been proposed by others.

5. this may seem rather provocative but I even wonder whether 'band in a box' remains the best name for this product. following the principle of more self-evident language, i'd think 'Realband' is now the more descriptive name, and since that product (the existing realband) is bundled, that could simply become e.g. 'Realband Sequencer'. Of course this may be marketing suicide, and alienate many. I can't really comment on that - am just wondering what title might best incite someone in a music shop to take it down from a shelf to look more closely (or by parallel, look more closely online).

This may have seemed an odd way to endorse this product, but I write this much because I think of BIAB as one of the most imaginative and unique ways individuals at home can improve the ability and enjoyment of music. Thank you if you've made it this far. I don't expect to be on the forum regularly, but hopefully the post will suggest there are at least a number of us semi-devout younger people on board. (*although underpresented in the forum, I wonder if as a group we're simply less proactive in terms of posting online).

many thanks to all involved
Tom

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Trevor,

Thanks for posting that video, lots of great ideas in that!

We do plan on addressing the top toolbar and the menus.


Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
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hello JohnJohnJohn

just happened to log on and see you post - many thanks for this. is great to see the interest out there and follow the conversation.

cheers smile
Tom

Last edited by Tom0016; 10/07/16 11:12 AM.
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Good to see the 2 themes Classic & New, I use them both, well done.
This post got over 40,000 views same as Not Buying Another Upgrade Until BIAB is 64 Bit.

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thanks for sharing this Pipeline, have read with interest.

I think one point that emerges is that the frustrations do not always result from users finding function X (whatever it is) difficult to figure out, but rather that it's the cumulative time involved trying to guess the rationale for various design details. If you see what I mean.

A consequence of this is while the forum is generous in offering help and finding solutions to better understand function X, the original issue remains somewhat unaddressed - namely how long is basically takes to work things out.

Last edited by Tom0016; 04/14/17 10:08 PM.
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This thread spreads over the decades and there are more like it.

As I read through all the years it's the same recurring thing, that's why I keep saying the BB Plugin/Standalone Win/Mac/(Lin) I think will be the new Biab going forward, though you will still have the old Delphi version released at different times for Win/Mac. It could also be used for the Live Arranger version being light weight.
Non Destructive Editing will give better editing control and faster generation than the main Biab app.
Allowing real project time signatures, 2550+ bars, real tempo maps and 48khz 24bit audio.
It can be released at the same time for Win & Mac (not 6 months apart).
Band In A Box Lite® a self contained Plugin or Plugin Standalone.

Let's see what happens less than a few weeks from now, Dec 2022.








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