Any rumors on what's new for BIAB midyear?

Getting close to the midyear upgrade for BIAB/RB.
Any clue as to what to expect from yooose in the know?

Band-in-a-Box 2012.5 for Windows® with over 50 cool new features and 101 new RealTracks!

There will be:

-- tower of power real track horn sections
-- The ability to define sections A, B, C, D ... and repeat, mix and match with no worries.
-- There will be native support for 3/4, 6/8 any time signature that you can possibly think of.
-- you will be able to define your own chords and name them, if they are missing from BIAB -- want a Cadd9+27 -- you got it!
-- all BIAB songs will now have a single extension called MXML (though it will continue to read the SGU, MGU and MoogieBoogie extensions from years gone by.
-- partial regeneration of realtracks and melodist/soloist is now implemented in BIAB
-- Chords can now be entered every 8th note or 16th note per measure, no more 4 chord maximum!

... and that is only the first seven of the 50 new features!

Oh, I know exactly what it's going to have. It's going to have more stuff.

I'm guessing it will be geared toward MIDI enhancements. After the release of 2012 the MIDI crowd raised enough fuss to justify a dedicated thread asking for everyone's MIDI enhancement wishlist. I'm thinking that any of those requests that don't require a total rewrite of the core program will have a pretty good chance of being included in the mid-year release.

I bet reading through this list will reveal at least some of what's coming soon.

http://www.pgmusic.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=342842&an=0&page=0#Post342842

Quote:

-- tower of power real track horn sections
-- The ability to define sections A, B, C, D ... and repeat, mix and match with no worries.
-- There will be native support for 3/4, 6/8 any time signature that you can possibly think of.
-- you will be able to define your own chords and name them, if they are missing from BIAB -- want a Cadd9+27 -- you got it!
-- all BIAB songs will now have a single extension called MXML (though it will continue to read the SGU, MGU and MoogieBoogie extensions from years gone by.
-- partial regeneration of realtracks and melodist/soloist is now implemented in BIAB
-- Chords can now be entered every 8th note or 16th note per measure, no more 4 chord maximum!

... and that is only the first seven of the 50 new features!

Well, the truth is that many of the features you're speaking about have been asked many times by different users who, in most cases, know very well the program and its limitations. There's no doubt that true odd time signature support, MXML support, partial generation or realtracks, etc, etc, etc would be nice aditions, and would make of BIAB still a much more flexible and powerful music program.

I'm still hoping at some point they break the internal 8-bit barrier and give us more than 256 bars. More rock piano and guitar RTs would be sweet, and some classical MIDI (I hold out hope that PG gets a copy of Garritan's Instant Orchestra and does some MIDI styles specifically for that). Apart from that, I'm still thinking for stuff in farther-future versions: maybe a visual rest/hold/shot for each part in each chord space (radio buttons, or dropdown, or tooltip, or somethin'), cleaner interface overall, and applying effects on a bar-by-bar basis.

What I heard was that BB will have the ability to insert 8 chords per measure without tying two measures together, the ability of the AutoChord Wizard to read all types of files, Brent Mason will have another 101 Guitar Riffs, plus 47 other cool features.

I imagine Obi Wan Kenobi waving his hand at us while saying "These aren't the updates you're looking for..."

I'm hoping everything can be run easily with a finger in play mode. The future, que sera and all that.

I suspect that windows ate, and the following version will go big time into swipe with the finger to tally me bananas. Dey lite crum and me wanna go hame. Day old, Day eh old, eh?

whatever is coming in 2012.5, it's closer than before. June is just around the corner.

Something tells me that, with Summertime just around the bend, wouldn't it be nice finally to have the longed-for Super Surfin' Endless RealTracks set, with a PG-palette of all the classic and bouncy '60's instrument tracks and lush harmony vocal tracks (ooh, aah, woo, wah, etc.-ooo) you could ask for to make all the sun, surf, car, and significant other rockin' tunes and lovely ballads trapped inside your (or at least my) winter-battered, pavement-bound, mass-transit dedicated, and "still searchin'" existence come alive?

Pleeeeeease?

Sounds like someone wants to go on a surfin safari...

This would be a good one for the RT styles wishlist.

Bob