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.....please tell me the UI functionality improved since. A lot? I'm sorry but so far I am well disappointed in how unintuitive it is. Again: functionality, not look n feel (which is also ancient-looking, even for 2008, but I digress).....ie how the menus/buttons are arranged, how things are arranged within a window that pops up etc......clearly whoever designed this is more of a musician than a developer. Yikes. For example:

- most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what? And do they really need a button to click to go to the PG site?
- how to select/change the various voices (instruments)? I've changed every one at the top of the main window, but the (rhythm) instrument ie playing the chords remains the same when I retry.
- how the flip to turn off the flipping solos? I tried one and now no matter what I try in the solo window, no dice. You'd think there'd be a simple (and more to the point, very conspicuous) check box to turn it on or off.

And so on.

I'm sure I can/will find at least some of this stuff out eventually, but again the point is it shouldn't be a serious hunt n peck; it should be obvious. So please......tell me these user-unfriendly things are WAY better in 2016. I've such high hopes for this, clearly it's a powerful tool.....but if I'm going to pull out my hair just trying to change even basic settings like this, it might not be worth the coin. My sanity is dicey enough as it is. smile



Last edited by joe5; 08/11/16 02:00 PM.
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Joe5 " it might not be worth the coin."

Well with an attitude like that. Save the coin.


Win 10, 64 bit, love my Lenovo T420, BIAB 2019 (613), RB 2019 (2)

Short term memory is getting shorter.
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Joe:

"I understand the situation, I just fail to see the problem" <grin>.
Since PGMusic allows a 30 day money-back guarantee, I'd say buy it and try it.
If it doesn't suit your needs, you're not out any coin at all.

Good luck!
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On the other hand, with all your questions in this forum you already could have investigated that PGMusic offers an unconditional 30 day money back guarantee.

Take a 30 day vacation when you receive the package and never forget: The tools are for musicians. That is the realm where vocabulary and pracitces are derived from.

Both programs, Band-in-a-Box and RealBand, require you to follow a learning curve. Depending on your tolerance level as well as your present understood musician's knowledge it might be steep or shallow.


Last edited by GHinCH; 08/11/16 02:31 PM. Reason: Lloyd was a little faster posting...

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The user interface has definitely improved since version 2008; there was a major revision to the main screen a few years ago. But can we say to you "a lot"? That's too subjective to answer. If you're looking for examples of things to find wrong, you will find them. If you approach it with a positive attitude, it should be different. You are correct, the program is written by a very capable musician, for which I am grateful.

I concur with the suggestion to try it, knowing you have the PG Music 30-day money back guarantee.


BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted By: joe5
.....please tell me the UI functionality improved since. A lot? I'm sorry but so far I am well disappointed in how unintuitive it is. Again: functionality, not look n feel (which is also ancient-looking, even for 2008, but I digress).....ie how the menus/buttons are arranged, how things are arranged within a window that pops up etc......clearly whoever designed this is more of a musician than a developer. Yikes. For example:

- most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what? And do they really need a button to click to go to the PG site?
- how to select/change the various voices (instruments)? I've changed every one at the top of the main window, but the (rhythm) instrument ie playing the chords remains the same when I retry.
- how the flip to turn off the flipping solos? I tried one and now no matter what I try in the solo window, no dice. You'd think there'd be a simple (and more to the point, very conspicuous) check box to turn it on or off.

And so on.

I'm sure I can/will find at least some of this stuff out eventually, but again the point is it shouldn't be a serious hunt n peck; it should be obvious. So please......tell me these user-unfriendly things are WAY better in 2016. I've such high hopes for this, clearly it's a powerful tool.....but if I'm going to pull out my hair just trying to change even basic settings like this, it might not be worth the coin. My sanity is dicey enough as it is. smile



You may have noticed some of the long-time PG fans are prone to taking offense when someone calls their baby ugly! smile

But here is the straight scoop...dunno about 2008 but I've been using the program since 2012 and it has been improved some since then. They removed lots of those buttons and streamlined the main GUI. It still has a ways to go to be a modern GUI and honestly some of the popup windows, dialogs and documentation are so complicated, dated and hard to figure out that I mostly give up and come here and ask these nice people when I am trying to figure out how to do something!

There is a small but vocal sub-group here who loudly advocate for significant GUI redesign but honestly we have not received any indication that such efforts are underway.

BUT, as a user now for over 4 years I will say that in spite of my grumbling about the GUI I love this software and more specifically, I LOVE these RealTracks! Again I dunno how far along they were in 2008 but in 2016 what you can do with RealTracks is astounding! Beyond compare! Just really mind-blowing!

So I will agree with what others have said and suggest you give it a try! They usually have really great special pricing starting around December 1. Be sure and buy the package with the complete set of RealTracks. And feel free to join in with the please-fix-this-GUI sub-group! laugh

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Originally Posted By: JohnJohnJohn

You may have noticed some of the long-time PG fans are prone to taking offense when someone calls their baby ugly! smile
It's OK, I'm (almost) used to hypersensitive hissy fits these days, it's all the rage after all. But OMG....you offered further criticism! Do you have a death wish? wink

Appreciate the info (and level-headed replies from those who were capable). And glad to join the "pls fix the UI" crowd. smile Re. the money back thing, for one I don't exactly have 24/7 to spend with this (yknow the job etc), so even 30 days, esp based on what I've seen, may not be sufficient to get a definitive feel for if it's worth it. Hard to say, given what I'm looking at is numerous versions behind. Further, I have to wonder if they offer that on a download-? Not that I would, but how do they know I wouldn't just keep it anyway?

Who knows......I'll keep an eye out for the possible end of year buys, thx for the tip...if it's cheap enough, maybe I can just take the plunge and pray. smile

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Just an opinion, but I wouldn't expect someone who knows BIAB 2008 to find it all that difficult to get a pretty good feel for 2016 quickly. Sure, you'll find lots of new features and especially tons of new RealTracks, but you should feel at home quickly. If you hit a few snags, just ask us.


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Absolutely you should keep bringing this up! Good ideas sometimes need to be seen several times!

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Originally Posted By: joe5
... Further, I have to wonder if they offer that on a download-? Not that I would, but how do they know I wouldn't just keep it anyway? ...


For some time now they have an activation procedure. Well you could maybe hack this but...

The larger packages come on a USB hard drive, they're too large for a download.

For the price you will have to decide your limit. I don't know about the discount for the first time purchase. (I wasn't interested the last couple of years.) It used to be attractive in 2009 when I bought it. But there have been some changes made...

Depending on what you want to do with Band-in-a-Box it might be worth it. Practice with what you have, don't bother with what could be better, use what the program offers. It is a lot. If you can get some decent results with 2008, given that it is Midi only, then 2017 should be easy enough to use and time should be sufficient to evaluate the (new) possibilities within the thirty days money back guarantee period. Also, taken from the statements here on that forum, there probably will be no surprises regarding the compatibility of your work until then.

What I would do, if I was in your position right now.
(Back then there was an evaluation package available without the ability to save your work. What I wanted to keep I had to play through the stereo and record it. Nevertheless after I bought it I did have to enter the songs again.)
I would prepare certain songs that I would like to do. I would not care about the current sound possibilities. I was a software tester for some time, not beta test -- the real thing, testing even before the coding started. I would prepare some scenarios that I would want to try. Not the very complicated stuff like a Zwiefacher, a South-German folk dance with time signature changes between a 2/4 and a 3/4 every measure, or the Unsquare Dance by Dave Brubeck. (BIAB can handle both, provided you're ready to devote the time.) I would choose songs that benefit from the main capabilities of BiaB to create different backing tracks very easy, for instance.

Good luck with the decision process.


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I think I started with 2008 or 2009 and yeah, there's been some updating since then.

I like what I saw on that video in Videotrack's post.


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Add nothing that adds nothing to the music.
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Again, great ideas here!


Latest BIAB version, latest build.
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Originally Posted By: Cerio



Again, great ideas here!


Yes, indeed. But: This defers from the original poster's question.


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Originally Posted By: GHinCH
Yes, indeed. But: This defers from the original poster's question.

Well I don't think it totally defers, as the O/P was commenting on the user interface, and wrote (in part):
Quote:
Again: functionality, not look n feel (which is also ancient-looking, even for 2008, but I digress).....ie how the menus/buttons are arranged,...clearly whoever designed this is more of a musician than a developer. Yikes.


BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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I think it helps the OP to know there are BIAB fans here who are actively promoting product improvements! And Videotrack's demo certainly shows some nice improvement opps!

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- most buttons, including ones most people would rarely use, crammed to the right in the middle of the screen....um.....what? And do they really need a button to click to go to the PG site?
- how to select/change the various voices (instruments)? I've changed every one at the top of the main window, but the (rhythm) instrument ie playing the chords remains the same when I retry.
- how the flip to turn off the flipping solos? I tried one and now no matter what I try in the solo window, no dice. You'd think there'd be a simple (and more to the point, very conspicuous) check box to turn it on or off.

And so on.
---------
))) tell me these user-unfriendly things are WAY better in 2016. I've such high hopes for this, clearly it's a powerful tool.....

Yes, every one of those items that you mentioned have been much improved since 2008.

Specifically...
-completely new toolbar, organized into functional groups, buttons are no longer "crammed to the right"
- main menu reorganized, into functional groups
- on screen mixer allowing control of voice selection and mix.
- chordsheet window redone, lots of new features

But the obvious difference between 2008 and 2016 is RealTracks, which were only in early days in 2008. Have a listen to the songs in the User Showcase forum, from BiaB you will mainly hear RealTracks.

Regarding "turning off the flipping solos", just don't choose styles that have soloists in the first place. Or you have chosen such a style, click on the track with the soloist and disable that track from the on-screen mixer.



Have Fun!
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Joe5 my take on this is sure I can pick the program apart with the best of them on all the UI things. Totally agree with the complaints. But...

Biab is completely unique, nothing else does what Biab can do.

What it actually DOES is the reason I jumped in 10-12 years ago which means at the time I used 2008 extensively. Yes, I saw immediately the look was archaic, the menus were a mess, the Help files need help, getting around the deeper/hidden parts of the program was a pain and some still are but they're making progress.

If you're asking are all those things now fixed the answer basically is no. There have been incremental improvements but long story short the program really needs a complete rewrite to bring it up to the present including making it 64 bit. But in the end, it's what it actually does right now that matters to me not all that other stuff which means I'm not bailing on the program until it's all cleaned up. I'm a smart guy, I managed to figure all that stuff out with some help from my friends here. You can too, just focus on the job at hand not the limitations of the tool because there is no other tool available that does what Biab does.

Biab is a very deep program. It's much, much more capable than what it looks like from the chord grid. Power users can do amazing things with it.

My suggestion to you is use the program for what it can do for you immediately and you can still discuss how these various things can be improved. However there's nothing new you can say about that that PG isn't very well aware of. There are huge threads on this forum where certain people just have a great old time tearing the program completely apart, ripping it to shreds, Biab looks like the biggest pos in the history of programming, if it's not 64 bit RIGHT NOW they're complete idiots etc, etc.

If you get off doing that, have fun but I don't have time for it, I just open Biab and start making some music with it.

As for how it works and sounds now Biab is all over YouTube and there's a ton of vids right here too. Check them out, decide what interests you. Like the rest of us you'll probably decide the full UltraPak is the best deal because you get all the Real Tracks. You may look at some RT categories and think you'll never use those but trust me, that can surprise you. That's what the new Xtra Styles are all about, they spent hundreds of hours putting different RT's together from these different sets and came up with some amazing stuff.

Bob


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Thanks Bob. I don't disagree it has a lot of capability, and as with you, that's clearly made it worth putting up with the frustration of poor design. And based on what I have seen of the new one, it does seem improved in some ways. I wish there was some kind of trial or limited version of 2016 I could give a look.

I think the biggest problem is that, near as I can tell, they don't really have any competition, so they can frankly afford to be complacent/apathetic about improving things that never should have made it to production in the first place (what I call the "Microsoft Syndrome"). I can tell you that in many corporations building apps, such things would never fly and whoever was in charge of design would be probably seeking employment elsewhere.


Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Just an opinion, but I wouldn't expect someone who knows BIAB 2008 to find it all that difficult to get a pretty good feel for 2016 quickly. Sure, you'll find lots of new features and especially tons of new RealTracks, but you should feel at home quickly. If you hit a few snags, just ask us.

Thanks! I will definitely keep that mind if I take the plunge. smile

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))) I wish there was some kind of trial or limited version of 2016 I could give a look.

There is a 30 day money back guarantee. We've offered that same guarantee for 28 years.


Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
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These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!

This Free Bonus PAK includes:

  • The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK: -For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles. -For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles. -For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
  • MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
  • MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
  • Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
  • Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
  • Playable RealTracks Set 5
  • RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
  • SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
  • iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
  • 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
  • FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
  • MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
  • MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
  • Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
  • Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
  • RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
  • SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)

Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!

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