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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14 |
I know this might sound like whining, but I need to say it.
Band in a Box is up to 120 gigabytes of sound files for all kinds of styles. But many of the workflow features seem primitive.
I am looking forward to using the VST version, this is a nice advancement in workflow. But way past due.
There remains many seemingly obvious workflow and usability features that are left unchanged for decades.
How about allowing song structure with verse, chorus, bridge, intro and outro, and having two endings to the verse? I have used BiaB since almost the beginning and still I cannot structure a song. How about cleaning up the ending so you have more control over it? Really there is very little control over the song ending. Same with breaks and stops. How about a timer display that looks like it there on purpose? How about the ability to print chord sheets with lyrics in a manner that actually functions, so you can hand out chord sheets to your band? How about an Android playback version for use in live performances? How about adding features I can't even think of and surprise me?
Why does PG Music come so close to these features, like the printing function, and then does not complete the equation? I guess this is my biggest frustration, the opportunity lost when they could do these things but instead spend their resources on more styles in the database. I really wish they would adopt an aggressive and progressive attitude about adding workflow features that really are advanced and cutting edge. It would be great to be pleasantly surprised instead of frustrated when you want to do something like print a song.
When Cakewalk went out of business I was forced to move from Sonar to the newer and more progressive Presonus Studio One. It really opened my eyes on how workflow, usability, "look and feel", and stability have progressed in the world of DAWs. Why not PG Music?
Until lately Band in a Box was the only game in town. But now Ireal Pro is available for 13 bucks and in many ways is more progressive. For instance it has the ability to have ending one and ending two to a verse, and it is not difficult to do. It is my sincere hope that PG changes its outlook and starts surprising us with new workflow and usability features.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
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Greg,
I am not usually the one who defends PGmusic when discussion is about workflow, interface or "innovations", as you mentioned, long passed due.
I strongly support some of ideas you mentioned. Such as having musical segments that are specifically designed for intros, bridges, breaks and interesting endings, without jumping to other styles or some unusually "creative" methods, just to get there. Also some other points you made are very true such as the workflow.
However, I disagree on some things, such as 120GB of content is a lot.... These are live musicians playing! Not arranger midi styles (which I have nothing against too) By today's standards, 120gb is very affordable. You can get 256GB SSD drive for $40-$45 with a 5 year warranty.
I know that some people are not happy with recent 2019 version, but looking at the big picture, we are 64 bit now!!! I believe that is a very good start and a huge step to bring BIAB to place it deserves to be.
I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,426
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,426 |
Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 1,541
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 1,541 |
Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree. +1
Latest BIAB version, latest build.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 23,216
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Joined: Dec 2003
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Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree. +1
Whenever I get something stuck in the back of my throat, I dislodge it by drinking a beer.
It's called the Heineken Maneuver.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 3,790
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Joined: Jun 2012
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I know this might sound like whining, but I need to say it.
Band in a Box is up to 120 gigabytes of sound files for all kinds of styles. But many of the workflow features seem primitive.
I am looking forward to using the VST version, this is a nice advancement in workflow. But way past due.
There remains many seemingly obvious workflow and usability features that are left unchanged for decades.
How about allowing song structure with verse, chorus, bridge, intro and outro, and having two endings to the verse? I have used BiaB since almost the beginning and still I cannot structure a song. How about cleaning up the ending so you have more control over it? Really there is very little control over the song ending. Same with breaks and stops. How about a timer display that looks like it there on purpose? How about the ability to print chord sheets with lyrics in a manner that actually functions, so you can hand out chord sheets to your band? How about an Android playback version for use in live performances? How about adding features I can't even think of and surprise me?
Why does PG Music come so close to these features, like the printing function, and then does not complete the equation? I guess this is my biggest frustration, the opportunity lost when they could do these things but instead spend their resources on more styles in the database. I really wish they would adopt an aggressive and progressive attitude about adding workflow features that really are advanced and cutting edge. It would be great to be pleasantly surprised instead of frustrated when you want to do something like print a song.
When Cakewalk went out of business I was forced to move from Sonar to the newer and more progressive Presonus Studio One. It really opened my eyes on how workflow, usability, "look and feel", and stability have progressed in the world of DAWs. Why not PG Music?
Until lately Band in a Box was the only game in town. But now Ireal Pro is available for 13 bucks and in many ways is more progressive. For instance it has the ability to have ending one and ending two to a verse, and it is not difficult to do. It is my sincere hope that PG changes its outlook and starts surprising us with new workflow and usability features. I generally agree with you. Things like track naming was never implemented throughout the program so I just turned it off. I never bothered with UserTracks since there were so many issues and limitations discussed here on the forums. And the VideoTracks idea was a great example of a "feature" with limited to no practical application that certainly consumed lots of dev time and now has apparently (and appropriately ) been dropped. The jury is still out on the new VST but based on what I've seen so far it seems like a lot less than I would have predicted as a cool new feature. I'm not sure they are able to implement these complex feature. With that said, they are incredibly talented at implementing new RealTracks every single upgrade. I am blown away every single time and mostly, the RealTracks are now why I upgrade. So I'll respectfully disagree with your proposal and suggest they continue to focus on a big batch of new RealTracks for every upgrade! If they can split the time between RealTracks and fixing existing features and bugs that would be fantastic. But if a new release comes out without new RealTracks, I for one will definitely not upgrade!
Last edited by JohnJohnJohn; 12/23/18 11:25 AM.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 20,316
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Veteran
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 20,316 |
I wish that they would look at this wishlist, and see the serious bugs and excellent suggestions for improvements that have been listed. I wish they would visit the 'too hard' basket.
BIAB & RB2025 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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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 1,143
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 1,143 |
Forever Grateful, BUT, sometimes pissed of.  Trygve "Leo" Larsen BiaB 2020, Windows 8.1, Intel Core i5 CPU, 270GHz, 32 Gb RAM My OLD tracks on Soundcloud; https://soundcloud.com/trygve-larsen My NEW is unpublished The Universe = Uni-verse ie one song.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,323
Expert
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Expert
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,323 |
Reach for excellence
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 518
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 518 |
+1 from me.
But then i'm also of the view that BIAB needs a total overhaul - from switching to and adopting a modern truly CROSS-PLATFORM underlying framework - to reworking the GUI so that all the wonderful mega-kitchen-sink of options can be reworked into a far more logical interface.
For example- in the Mac version of BIAB there is still some ANCIENT GUI code which is a legacy from BIAB's early years on Atari-ST and/or Mac Plus! - written in pascal
Such an overhaul would of course take several years so does raise the thorny question of how to provide income for PG and its staff for the time before the revamped BIAB 2.0 is complete -
and ironically - one way of doing this might be to do the opposite - and just have one or two years where only minor improvements are made to BIAB while at the same time selling basically just new styles and real tracks.
The other option would be to sell PG to a company like Yamaha in order to provide the needed round of investment to support a team of programmers to focus on BIAB 2.0 during the "fallow" period where no income or less income is being made.
Last edited by nonchai; 12/27/18 03:10 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 6,734
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Nonchai... you really do not want PG selling out to Yamaha  Yamaha started amazing Mobile Sequencer a few years back (only for IOS) It is/was very flexible, with thousands of styles (and they could have converted many more thousands from their library) And unfortunately, they completely stopped development on that great sequencer arranger. Probably their hopes was that young kids will buy it and they will sell great thousands...Kids these days prefer different approach/sound, than 15-20 years back. You do not want same thing happen to PG PGmusic is built around mature customers as their base. "Selling out" would mean revolt. Nobody wants that. It is very obvious that they do not have proper specialist(s) to bring proper changes. It seems they have good people and good coders that are maintaining program and adding minor changes, but to expect some groundbreaking, they need to hire someone with vision or at least try to partner with already established team. One option is... If it was me, and money was the issue to bring proper upgrades... As a one time thing, raise the cost of upgrading by $15-$30 and use that money to do some major renovations by hiring proper programmer who can lead the team at time of "GREAT CHANGES"... And to those who upgraded with paying higher amount, give a discount coupon for future upgrade.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14
Newbie
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OP
Newbie
Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14 |
+1 from me.
But then i'm also of the view that BIAB needs a total overhaul - from switching to and adopting a modern truly CROSS-PLATFORM underlying framework - to reworking the GUI so that all the wonderful mega-kitchen-sink of options can be reworked into a far more logical interface.
For example- in the Mac version of BIAB there is still some ANCIENT GUI code which is a legacy from BIAB's early years on Atari-ST and/or Mac Plus! - written in pascal
Such an overhaul would of course take several years so does raise the thorny question of how to provide income for PG and its staff for the time before the revamped BIAB 2.0 is complete -
and ironically - one way of doing this might be to do the opposite - and just have one or two years where only minor improvements are made to BIAB while at the same time selling basically just new styles and real tracks.
The other option would be to sell PG to a company like Yamaha in order to provide the needed round of investment to support a team of programmers to focus on BIAB 2.0 during the "fallow" period where no income or less income is being made. The music buiz is a rough one. I am not the one to try and manage their company from afar. I only posted this post as hopes from an outsider on how to move ahead. Band in a Box has been a huge part of my musical life and I want PG to be hugely successful. I was a Cakewalk user from inception until they went belly up last year. I really did not like the Roland or Tascam years. It seemed like that is when they lost their way. I imagine Yamaha with PG might be like Cake with Roland. Not my first choice. I like the software developed by inspired leaders myself. By the way, I have listened a little bit to the 2019 version and wow I have to say it sounds great!
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 518
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 518 |
Nonchai... you really do not want PG selling out to Yamaha Yamaha started amazing Mobile Sequencer a few years back (only for IOS) It is/was very flexible, with thousands of styles (and they could have converted many more thousands from their library) And unfortunately, they completely stopped development on that great sequencer arranger,,,,,,,,ou do not want same thing happen to PG Yes this phenomenon is sadly very common - but that is in the iOS music-app marketplace where the price of apps is tiny in comparison with traditional desktop music type apps. And as such the situation is not the same as for desktop apps like DAWs or BIAB. Yamaha has successfully ran Steinberg and recently Line6. But products have to have sensible prices and much though the iOS music app marketplace is full of amazing iPad apps - it simply cannot sustain most developers who are usually one-man and many apps just fold. But - again - that is iOS apps. Not applicable here.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 6,734
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Posts: 6,734 |
Of course it is. Yamaha was mismanaged for at least good old decade now. They can re-write the app for desktop in matter of weeks with a few thousand dollars or even at no extra cost, utilizing coders on their payroll. I would be among first ones to buy that sequencer. By the way, it is still available and is a great value for the money.
I honestly believe good things will happen to PG. This year,they showed that they are capable of steering the big ship. As long as I will see genuine progress, they got my support.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 176
Apprentice
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Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 176 |
Hi Greg,
Whilst I would dearly like to see many of the types of improvements that you are suggesting, I would hate to see these being delivered at the expense of new styles.
For me, the realtracks and realstyles are the life blood of the product and absolutely why I continue to buy every upgrade.
I also don’t really see why one should come at the expense of the other. The two areas require very different skill sets and I imagine are produced by completely different sets of people. The tracks and styles require musicians and studio production staff whereas the program improvements require programmers and designers.
In my experience as a software developer there is only so much change that you can make to a mature piece of software in any 12 month window. Threre are only so many people that you can have digging down the same hole so throwing extra programmers at it probably won’t increase - and may well decrease - productivity.
I suspect that we may well have to live with many of the workflow and usability idiosyncrasies that you are referring to for many years to come (and some possibly for ever). The program just allows me to do such great things that I am going to swallow that and just keep enjoying the fantastic new tracks and styles.
Regards, Aubrey
If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor.
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Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: VST3 Plugin Support
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® now includes support for VST3 plugins, alongside VST and AU. Use them with MIDI or audio tracks for even more creative possibilities in your music production.
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Macs®: VST3 Plugin Support
Video: Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®: Using VST3 Plugins
Join the conversation on our forum.
Band-in-a-Box 2025 for Mac Videos
With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll also keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
From overviews of new features and walkthroughs of the 202 new RealTracks, to highlights of XPro Styles PAK 8, Xtra Styles PAKs 18, the 2025 49-PAK, and in-depth tutorials — you’ll find everything you need to explore what’s new in Band-in-a-Box® 2025.
Reference this forum post for One-Stop Shopping of our Band-in-a-Box® 2025 Mac Videos — we’ll be adding more videos as they’re released!
Band-in-a-Box 2025 for Mac is Here!
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac is here, packed with major new features and an incredible collection of available new content! This includes 202 RealTracks (in Sets 449-467), plus 20 bonus Unreleased RealTracks in the 2025 49-PAK. There are new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 4, two new sets of “RealDrums Stems,” XPro Styles PAK 8, Xtra Styles PAK 19, and more!
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2025 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK Add-ons
We've packed our Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK with some incredible Add-ons! The Free Bonus PAK is automatically included with most Band-in-a-Box® for Mac 2025 packages, but for even more Add-ons (including 20 Unreleased RealTracks!) upgrade to the 2025 49-PAK for only $49. You can see the full lists of items in each package, and listen to demos here.
If you have any questions, feel free to connect with us directly—we’re here to help!
Band-in-a-Box 2025 Italian Version is Here!
Cari amici
È stata aggerate la versione in Italiano del programma più amato dagli appassionati di musica, il nostro Band-in-a-Box.
Questo è il link alla nuova versione 2025.
Di seguito i link per scaricare il pacchetti di lingua italiana aggiornati per Band-in-a-Box e RealBand, anche per chi avesse già comprato la nuova versione in inglese.
Band-in-a-Box 2025 - Italiano
RealBand 2025 - Italiano
Band-in-a-Box 2025 French Version is Here!
Bonjour à tous,
Band-in-a-Box® 2025 pour Windows est disponible en Français.
Le téléchargement se fait à partir du site PG Music
Pour ceux qui auraient déjà acheté la version 2025 de Band-in-a-Box (et qui donc ont une version anglaise), il est possible de "franciser" cette version avec les patchs suivants:
BIAB 2025 - francisation
RealBand 2025 - francisation
Voilà, enjoy!
Band-in-a-Box 2025 German Version is Here!
Update Your Band-in-a-Box® 2025 to Build 1128 for Windows Today!
Already using Band-in-a-Box 2025 for Windows®? Download Build 1128 now from our Support Page to enjoy the latest enhancements and improvements from our team.
Stay up to date—get the latest update now!
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