PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist User interface and notation

This is my first post here, so please don't be harsh with me.
I have not used Band in a Box in about ten years. I just purchased the 2013 Mac version.
There are some things about it that I find disappointing.

I know that I'm making some broad, sweeping comments that talk about things that would be very difficult to implement in BiaB. I am just making suggestions here.

First, BiaB 2013 makes music that sounds a great deal better than the version I worked with ten years ago. RealTracks is a huge innovation. BiaB is an astonishingly good and rich and powerful product for what it does, and I am going to use it and get a lot out of it.

However, BiaB 2013 has the same cluttered and awkward user interface that it had the last time I saw it ten years ago. It has the same ugly and incredibly dense and complicated button bar, and the same crowded dialog boxes that use lots of plain text in a mono-spaced font, displaying the contents of text files in a very awkward layout. But a larger problem is that BiaB does not conform to the conventions of the user interfaces that people expect in 2013. Visually and in the user interface it looks neither like a modern Mac OS X 10.8 program nor like a modern Windows 8 program, and doesn't behave like either. You may think this is only cosmetic, but for a new user coming to Band in a Box for the first time today, all this is a big turn-off. Although people who have been using BiaB for fifteen years don't notice anything amiss, beginners don't respond well to something that is so awkward in its presentation.

Eventually you are going to want to make an iOS/ iPad version of BiaB, and when you do, I imagine that's when you'll get serious about streamlining and revamping the user interface, because you'll have to conform to Apple's iOS developer and useability guidelines, not to mention something that is operated by touch and not by a mouse. None of the developers I know are thrilled about everything you have to do to conform on that platform, but it's inevitable.

Second, I'm not impressed with the notation view and features. It seems to me that you have not taken into account what the rest of the computer music software industry has been developing in recent years. Have you examined and used recent versions of Finale or Sibelius, the industry standards? I would like to suggest that BiaB's notation capabilities and the way it displays notation should incorporate some ideas gleaned from studying those programs.

I think it's time that Band in a Box supports MusicXML, the open-standard cross-platform system for interchanging music notation files amongst different programs. Band in a Box should be able to import lead sheets and melodies that are created in Finale or Sibelius or similar programs, and then exported as MusicXML files. BiaB should be able to import a MusicXML file into a BiAB arrangement. It should also be able to output BiaB standard notation into MusicXML so that Band in a Box lead sheets and arrangements can be sent to Finale or Sibelius or one of several other professional programs for professional-quality editing and publishing.

http://www.musicxml.com

Hello Wheat, and welcome back. I just wanted to comment on Music XML, which I am using in some other music programs. Support for Music XML in BIAB has been requested quite a few times over recent years. It would certainly help my work if I could export a BIAB song to a dedicated notation program.

+1 for Music XML support.

Wheat,

I would also like to welcome you back, especially as a fellow Atlantan. (Well, Norcross actually, but I've been in the area for well over 30 years.) You sound like a competent and interesting individual. I'd like to know more about you and your work.

Yours is a particularly articulate request for changes in the interface that continue to be voiced here. There is a lot of resistance from older users, with some good reasons, but many think it is long overdue in terms of functionality and of attracting new users. Some have suggested two versions of the program: BIAB "Classic," which would preserve the present features and appearance, and a complete rewrite which would address things like the interface, the 255-bar limit, notation, Rewire, and other features that may not be possible to implement in its current form.

I hope others will add to or at least bump this thread.

Richard

+1 I don't particularly care how BIAB looks as long as it works the way I need it to. The interface works fine for me as I have only the icons I use showing, so my BIAB doesn't look cluttered. I don't see anything wrong with the "retro" look. As you suggest, an option to have retro or modern would be good. Later, Ray

No disrespect at all intended...but beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all functionality comes at a price. While the scaled down Sibelius First sells for "only" $120.00 the full version Sibelius 7 is a $600.00 product so comparisons to BIAB are not apples/apples.

And speaking of Apple...the Mac OS after ALL these years still has only a single digit share of the worldwide market so suggesting that its appearance ought to be a standard for any other software product isn't substantiated by MAC OS installations.

Windows 8 sales have also been less-than-expected since its touchscreen capabilities haven't been as popular as Microsoft thought.

Personally, I would vastly prefer PG to continue to work on music-related functionality features and not cosmetics which...again from my own personal point of view...are fine.

What I mean by that is whether the BIAB interface resembles any other interface...Mac or Windows...is irrelevant to me.

Regards,

Jim

this gets brought up from time to time and I agree with the OP! BIAB is absolutely amazing in what I can achieve but has such an outdated interface. I find it to be,

1) cumbersome to use because it has not kept up with user interface guidelines (which are not just "eye candy" and are proven to improve user satisfaction when properly implemented)

2) overly complex which makes it hard to remember how to do things and wastes time as I click here and there and finally come to the forum to ask "How do I..."

3) inefficient to an organized workflow because sometimes I need to search menus and sometimes I need to click buttons and sometimes the solution is buried on a dialog window.

4) not as much fun to use as some of the slick looking modern software like the newer DAWs

If I were in charge of PG Music I would make a complete GUI redesign my highest priority. I would bring in qualified consultants to review the program and outside GUI programmers to implement (or at least advise) the new GUI. I would integrate all of the latest bells and whistles from the native OS's and I would make a scaled down mobile version for iOS and Android.

Then I would market the crap outta this amazing product and feature the slick new GUI in every ad in every industry mag, every music store, every music school, etc. This product is so amazing already that if it had an equally amazing interface it could be 100 times more popular and successful! I have friends who are so thrilled with GarageBand but BIAB blows that program away! EXCEPT for the GUI!

And to those who say GUI is unimportant, I'd say you are simply wrong! People spend big bucks on stories. They walk past the free water fountain to spend $4.00 on a bottle of fancy water with a lovely package and a story of artisan wells! They ignore the cheap but delicious cup of joe at their local convenience store (or their house) and instead pony up $6.00 for a cup of magic at Starbucks.

Maybe it is flaky and lame but people care (deeply) about such things. If PG Music decided to own this market for the foreseeable future they already have the product with which to do it but they need a pretty face and a great story!

<steps off podium and awaits the inevitable cries of heresy and calls for his head for daring to speak it>

Quote:

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I would bring in qualified consultants to review the program and outside GUI programmers to implement (or at least advise) the new GUI.

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Well said

And please don't waste time asking forum members to suggest changes like the last time this subject came up. You will just get a long list of pet peeves that confuses the issue. You need PROFESSIONALS to re-design the interface.

Tony

Thanks for the supportive comments. I have some more observations based on continuing to work with the program.

First, if you look at new computer sales today, month-to-month, Macs account for 7% to 12% of the market in the US and in most countries in the world. Mac sales are way, way up today. But besides that, I'm talking about features that ought to be in both the Windows and the Macintosh product. So the platform is irrelevant to my discussion.

I'm not *comparing* BiaB to Finale or Sibelius. I'm talking about using the BiaB *in conjunction with* either Finale or Sibelius, as many arrangers doubtless are already doing. But there is no way to get a "workflow" going between one and the other.

More about MusicXML.

In BiaB 2013, once I make a song and generate a version of it, I can freeze the notation. Then I can get notation displays of each musical part *individually*, viewing only one track at a time, and I can output a PDF of each.

But what I want is to export all these notation views together on a multi-stave conductor's score in MusicXML, so that I can get the arrangement into Finale or Sibelius, and then start editing and arranging it based on the ideas that BiaB has given me.

The only way to work with this now is to create PDFs from each individual track's notation view in BiaB and then create a blank score in Finale or Sibelius and, in one of those programs, manually key in all the notes from the individual notation displays generated by BiaB. This seems to be a tremendous waste of effort since BiaB has already created notation for me. It's just that there is no way to get this notation from BiaB into Finale or Sibelius.

Of course I could export a Standard MIDI File from BiaB and import that into Finale or Sibelius, but that never works very well, particularly with guitar tracks, and a lot of notational information is lost that way.

This is what MusicXML is all about--it is designed to enable musical projects to be moved between different software programs as a kind of lingua franca. It is much more useful than MIDI files, because MusicXML preserves the elements of music notation that are not represented in MIDI files--key signatures, clefs, beaming, ties, stem directions, multiple parts on one staff, fermatas, and all the rest. If you don't know about MusicXML, you ought to read up on it.

After working with BiaB for a week, I decided to also purchase iReal b, the Mac OS X and iPad app. For a lot of what I want to do, iReal b is a better product than BiaB. Now of course BiaB produces much more detailed and realistic playback of musical arrangements than iReal b does, by a long shot. iReal b is downright primitive in comparison.

iReal b allows MusicXML output, but only of the basic lead sheet chord progression, not of the actual full arrangement, which is far short of what I need. However, when one creates a chart in iReal b, at least one has something that one can immediately take to a gig and perfrom from, as an iReal b chart live in the program, or as an output PDF file which can be easily printed. iReal b's printed chord charts are much more elegant and legible than BiaB's.

Furthermore, creating and editing new chord charts is, to me, much easier with iReal b than it is with BiaB, because iReal b works like standard music notation with regard to repeats, first and second endings, dal segnos, etc. BiaB's ancient grid view that you have to use to enter a chord progression, and the method for indicating form (such as AABA, and how many measures in each section) just doesn't work like standard music notation and seems very awkward to me. You who have been working with this for many years don't think of it as awkward, but I sure do.

I know that for the programmers, incorporating MusicXML into Band in a Box would be a huge, expensive task. I'm asking for a great deal here, and I may be unrealistic in asking for it.

But I think BiaB is not going to get beyond its current market niche, and is going to continue to lose ground against the new wave of programs like iReal b, which serve a useful function that many musicians appreciate. Well, so be it then. For now I'm going to need to use a bunch of different programs and cobble together what I want to do.

I fully realize that what I want to do with BiaB is not what most of its users seem to want to do with it. But I wanted to express my thoughts all the same. Thanks for listening.

With all due respect, John, you can't speak for everyone, only yourself. I don't buy "designer water" or Starbucks or Dunkin'Donuts. I like 7-11 coffee and the coffee I make at home. If something works the way I need it to I don't care how it looks. I'm speaking for myself only. I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 for my lead sheets on the gig and there is no difference between my tablet and my bassist's iPad as far as display of tunes. In fact I can usually pull up a tune quicker than he can. The argument here is probably pretty well evenly divided. Using generalities is "generally" not very accurate. Happy playing, Ray

+1000

Hi everybody,
you all seem to be concerned about the GUI and so am I.
In particular the size of the lap countdown, really I mean really
so much too small. I don't really care about the old fashion interface,
I use it since the old Atari where BB started its career. But the size of the countdown needs a special resizable window NOW. This is the main thing we look at in a live condition. I purchased BB 2013 and still the same small number ... I use a Mac now and I have to add that I am disappointed not to see the sheet marks like Coda and so on
available in the PC version.
Hope you'll consider all this ...
Duke

+1 on the dated messy GUI.

I finally bought BIAB 2012.5 despite the mess and it has been a very steep learning curve. Just levelling out now.

The GUI has the appearance of a cross between Disney and Early Learning Centre(UK)stores. But appearance is secondary to the menu/options mess that has no similarity to any other Windows GUIs I've ever seen. I have to resort to Google, Youtube or the Forums on most sessions in order to find out where some command or option is buried. Please re-do it.

Welcome to the forum. You need to read the manual and a lot of things will become clearer. BIAB is unlike any other program and therefore will not act like any other program. Ray

The manual is not good; hence my heavy use of Google and Youtube. Also see my other post about the manual search results!

The manual is very good at explaining many basic operations, unless English is not your primary language. I have found 95% of what I need to do in the manual. The other 5% from our resident experts on this forum. If you haven't read the manual all the way through, then don't trash it. Later, Ray

one thing people tend to forget is if the interface seems cluttered you can actually remove pieces to it that you don't use... I have never really had a problem with the gui interface, and finding how to do things in biab is half the fun of the program. It is a tool and a damn good one at that but being said it aint everything.... but then again find a tool out there that is... i do not think anyone on here uses just biab and real band to make songs its usually a combination of different tools ie daws, synths controllers ect... for me the main thing biab does is it is hands down one of the better bass and drum machines out there.. Just that alone has saved soooo much time for me to be more creative....just saying