PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BIAB 2020 and the Users Wishlist

Now that the dust has somewhat settled on the new version, I got to wondering about the "BIAB 50 New Features for 2020". So I went looking on this site and found the page that lists them (See below).

I could only come up with 48, which is merely a quibble, and I may have missed a couple, although at one place on the site it states "We've added 64 new features". Not sure where they got that number from or what it includes, or where you find them all.

In any case, my question is, how many of the "new features" are a direct result of what users had requested on the Wishlist Forum? Or, put another way, did something you felt needed fixing, or needed to be added, get addressed in this BIAB 2020 release?

Just wondering.
LLOYD S


BIAB 50 New Features for 2020

from this webpage on 09 Jan 2020
https://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.new.htm
Band-in-a-Box® 2020 Features and Additions
We've added 64 new features to Band-in-a-Box® 2020, including...

1 Clicking on the new [?] button at the top of the screen or pressing the / Enter keys opens the Feature Browser. 
2 "Find-a-Sub" RealTracks
3 MultiRiffs
RealTracks Thickening and Panning
4 - The RealTracks can be the same but will play differently on each sub-track
5 - You can set the stereo panning (-64 to +64) for each sub-track
6 Panning added for Multiple RealTracks on a Track (Medley) for Songs, Styles and RealTracks
7 Left-Handed and Student View Guitar Window
8 Equalize Audio Tempo
Built-in Audio Chord Wizard Enhancements
9 - The built-in Audio Chord Wizard is now accessible from the [Audio Chord Wizard] button.
10 - The Audio Edit window now displays chords and tempos for each bar.
11 - When you start entering bar lines, the program automatically sets the tempo to the tempo of the first bar.
12 - Once the tempo of the first bar is set, the program automatically moves the location of the first bar of audio over
13 - After you’ve added the bar lines, IF you adjust the first or second bar and the tempo of the first bar changes accordingly, the program automatically changes the tempo ...
14 - Multi-window display. This gives the Audio Chord Wizard a multi-window view
15 - The Audio Chord Wizard can send the transcribed MIDI notes to the Soloist track for further analysis by the user
Selectable Render Bit Depth and Sample Rate
16 - The Render to Audio File dialog now has settings for bit depth (16, 24, 32 bit) and sample rate (44.1, 48, 96 kHz)
17 - The settings are also accessible from the Drop Station via dragging and dropping to the [+] button
18 Drag and Drop from Mixer
19 Drag & Drop Files to Band-in-a-Box
SongPicker Enhancements
20 - The SongPicker now builds faster for large song lists (>30K and up to 60,000 songs)
21 - Open SongPicker in Current Folder: This opens the SongPicker in the current folder of the last loaded song
22 - Open SongPicker in Home Folder:
23 - Open SongPicker in Favorite Folder
24 - Searching for songs matching a chord progression or melody has been enhanced
25 Bass/Drums or Drums only Auto-Intros
26 Custom style settings don’t interfere with song settings
Select "Best" RealTracks Dialog Enhancements
27 - The dialog can now change its list based on the type without leaving the dialog
28 - RealTracks "subs" filter is available.The chord density filter is available, and it's also displayed in the memo
29 - Three filters have been added for Instrument, Instrument Family, and Custom Instrument Range
30 - There is a new [Artist Bio] button. Pressing this button will open the Artist Browser, which shows more info for RealTracks artists.
Drums Quicklist Dialog Enhancements
31 - The dialog is now resizable. You can change the size by dragging the dialog border.
32 - An [Artist Bio] button has been added. Pressing this button will open the Artist Browser, which shows more info for RealDrums artists.
Artist Browser - Clicking on the artist bio in the RealTracks/RealDrums Picker ...
33 - It lists all artists and the instruments they play
34 - It shows the total number of artists
35 - You can read the biography of the artist
36 - A text filter if available
37 - The [More Info] button will launch the PG Music web page
38 - The [OK - Show Artist RealTracks] button will go back to the RealTracks/RealDrums selection dialog
39 Auto-updating for new content at bootup
40 Enhanced stretching and Audio Harmonies
41 Song Titles Browser has 3,400 more titles
42 Auto-set key signature option and reminder
Notation Enhancements
43 - The "N" mode (keystroke notation entry) now has "M" to add a third note and "R" to insert a rest
44 - The Section Text and Bar Lyrics layer display on the Lead Sheet and printout when the Fake Sheet mode is on.
MusicXML Enhancements
45 - Additional file types are supported, such as .mxl (a compressed format) and .musicxml, in addition to the existing .xml support
46 - When you load a MusicXML file, if the source track is drums, the track type of the destination track (Melody or Soloist) will be automatically set to Drums.
47 - Hammer-on/pull-off are now saved to MusicXML.
48 Improved note overlap removal, with option to specify channel match
...and more!

LLOYD S,

Quickly glancing through the list I'd say more than 75 - 80 percent I can associate with posts I've read. Not all the posts were in the Band-in-a-Box forum section though. Many came up as comments in discussions but never made it as a post in the wishlist. Also, I'd say some of the 50 are not implemented as the request or comment was originally posted but implemented in a different manner.

For example, there have been many, many requests and discussions to improve notation and Music XML import and export. See # 47 & 48.

I'm sure you or others can think of similar examples where generic something was mentioned and something specific was done.

I'm disappointed that this critical bug still hasn't been resolved:
Count-In based on actual time-signature of first bar

Going one step further, which of (or how many of!) the BIAB 2020 New Features, would you gladly have traded for:

- 8 chords per bar?
- extension of 255 bar limit?
- support for alternate time signatures?
- copy and paste between instances?
- count-it based on actual time signature of first bar?

Or, what one of YOUR Wishlist items would you have liked to have seen implemented?

LLOYD S

All of the above plus freeing all 16 MIDI channels.

I’ve had many requests implemented over the decades but I would quickly trade all of them for your list, Lloyd.

I'd trade every new feature added since I first bought BIAB in 2012 for a working bar-by-bar regeneration feature. It would make BIAB a complete tool.

More consistency with the user interface would be nice too; for instances if you need to change the drive where Real Tracks is located, most of the time you'll have to change the directory of Real Drums too, but the controls are not on the same tab; which is understandable, but the location of the controls to change the directory are not even on the same location of the form, one is located in the lower left corner of the form and the other in the upper right corner of the form.

It's little things like this that that end up adding up to a lot of time wasted on the user interface instead of making music.

It would be nice if the option buttons were alphabetized too in order find them quicker on the screen, like most windows programs have them. For instances Windows Control Panel, I rarely have to use it, but when I do, I can quickly find the tab I need because it's alphabetized. I don't even up losing my train of thought by getting distracted trying to find it.

Ohh I feel a snowball rolling...

Bar-by-bar regeneration / selective bar freeze.
16 channel "auto hide" mixer (choice of RT or MIDI).
UI cleanup.

and couple more, but these would be top 3 for me.

I'd like to added:
Break 256 bars limit.

I only upgrade BIAB if 3 of 4 features are implemented on BIAB 2021

<< (My)question is, how many of the "new features" are a direct result of what users had requested on the Wishlist Forum? >>

3,4,5,6 - Improvements started in the 2019 version and continued into 2020. I think these are very powerful tools.


<< (Did) something you felt needed fixing, or needed to be added, get addressed in this BIAB 2020 release? >>
Yes -
7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19 - 40.

Hello, will it be possible for biab 2021 that the problems related to user tracks be solved it is essential for many of us thank you.

Hi Balbuena.

Would it be possible to describe in more detail the exact user tracks problems that you are encountering and wishing to have resolved? This would assist the developers to know what specific areas may or may not need attention.

Yes, if you let us know what the issue is I can pass it on to the development team.

Hello everyone, indeed I did not specify the problems related to usertracks,

First of all I would like to thank you all for the help you give on the forum, it is awesome.
The problems related to the usertracks, concern the missing functionalities (problem of artefacts, does not take into account the peaches and the maintained agreements the freezing of the usertracks the possibility of using them in the medley as we can do with the realtracks, limiting the 1 half tone transpositions see 1 tone maximum we could create, say, a UT with 6 keys without losing the sound quality if the ut and transposed).
Peter Gannon had announced that they will be working on Usertrack feature updates in January 2016 so maybe all of us biab users deserve an explanation and whether there is a future with usertrack.
Thank you in advance on behalf of all biab users at pgmusic for giving us one or more answers.
I apologize for my English, I am using a translator.
good music to all Balbuena.