PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows New BB 2010 MegaPAK user, checking in and some feedback.

Hi all,

My name's David and I'm writing from Newcastle, in the chilly North East of England.

I had checked out BB a number of times in the past, but the GM / MIDI nature of the beast really put me off. For me, MIDI is only an application I consider for electronic music, or keybard tracks within non-electronic music styles. Some of the MIDI 'guitar' parts and particularly the brass solos (those toy trumpet sounds) are just awful. (Sorry, this is leading to something good!).

But, when I heard the demos of the 'all-RealTracks' songs on the PG website, I was blown away at the realism, the sound quality and the possibilities. You are SO on to something here !!!

I bought the BB 2010 MegaPAK on Thursday and although I've only downloaded the core BB program and one subsequent set of RealTracks so far (Set 61 - Ballad Pianos), I am so impressed with the quality and the ability to have these convincing performances built into my tracks. I haven't installed the RealTracks Sets 1-6 and RealDrums 1-3 that come with my purchase, as I'm waiting until the DVDs arrive.

I will be using BB 2010 exclusively for RealTracks and intend to buy every pop/rock/ballad/funk RT that is / will be released by PG .......... in fact I have already bought a further 3 x addon RealTracks; the afore mentioned Set 61 - Ballads, and Set 22, and Set 70.

At the moment, I am just practicing with the program and having fun putting the beautiful Piano accompaniment performances in Set 61, to the chords of the tracks that I am soon hoping to record.

I am a writer / producer of modern pop / rock / indie music, with a general British sound influence. Although I love songwriting and producing, I get frusrtated that my musical performance skills aren't up to my production and technical skills. BB 2010 is therefore the perfect discovery for me, as I can focus on the song writing and prouction, and have BB sort out the nailing of a lovely bass line, or rhythm guitar part!

Brilliant stuff - my only anxiety at present is that PG aren't going to keep up with my appetite for pop/rock RealTracks, or that the focus may be biased towards Jazz and Country (as it does seem to be a little, dare I say). Your Pop and Rock RTs are fabulous, please keep them coming !

Thanks for a great program and look forward to being a part of this great forum,

Regards,

Welcome to the Forums, David. BIAB/RB are great products and, as you have already discovered, PGMusic are sensational to deal with. Enjoy learning about BIAB.

Thanks for the welcome Noel. Yes, I forgot to say that I ordered last Thurs and given that I am in the UK and PG are in Canada I was not expecting to even see the BB box (being sent via UPS) before Xmas. However I just checked the tracking number and my box was out of Vancouver and over in Philadelphia within 12 hours of it being ordered ! A couple of hours later and it was in Louiseville, departing to cross the big pond, so I may get it tomorrow or Wed, which is unbelievably fast for this time of year!...... that's service .....

Also, I didn't get my automated email with my download links, so I used the 'Live Chat' facility on the web-site. I'm normally very skeptical of these live chat things for support but I put my issue to "Will" (a real person!), and he replied in seconds with my UPS tracking number, and confirmation that he'd resent the download email (which appeared seconds later).

The world needs to learn about customer service from the Canadians in my book!

Similarly, the purchase, download and install of the RealTrack addons that I subsequently bought was fast, painless and worked flawlessly. 15 minutes after hearing the lovely Piano Ballads demo, I had that addon in my BB, playing my chords!

Am I a fanboy ...... guess so !

I do have some suggestions though;

[EDIT: I clearly lost the plot on this next bit, as I've checked back at the PG store and of course you can get genre-specific RealPAKs, ie... Rock/Pop RealPAK 3, etc. So just ignore the suggestion below, although I do think it would be good to offer a 'bundle' wher the buyer can choose the RealTrack Sets they want, ie... any 3 RT sets for $70 .. ]

1). The RealPAKs don't work for me, as they combine Pop/rock tracks with Jazz and Country. I would guess that a lot of people's musical style preferences bias either towards pop/rock, OR, jazz, OR country. Maybe not, but for me, I would much rather buy a 'bundle' of the pop/rock style RealTracks , that don't include jazz and country. I dare say there are some Jazz fans out there that wouldn't want pop/rock tracks.

How about offering a 'choose any 3 realtrack/realdrum addons as a bundle and get 20% off' type proposition ?

2). I would guess that RealTracks have elevated BB in a new direction and many people (like me) that would not have considered the original (MIDI only) BB, would be very interested in BB now with RealTracks and RealDrums. But I think a lot of people may be put off by some elements of the name, and imaging of the product. Also, although the 'plug in mode' is awesome, there are some elements that could be better aligned to use with external DAWs. (for those not using RB).

Eg.... You could developer a 'RealTracks/RealDrums only' product called "RealSession" which focusses on the automated production of performances (to selected chords) for various instruments, to go straight into tracks in a seperate DAW. Sure, that's exactly what BB does now, you say !! But the workflow could be changed to make this something more like 'EZ Drummer' (but for musical tracks, with the ability to choose chords). It could be a true plug-in in the DAW, and for this type of product/application I would leave out some of the more traditional 'accompaniment features', like Melodist, etc.

I hope you 'get' where I'm coming from here - I love the program and it's amazing putting these RealTracks into my songs, but the BB format as is, isn't the best suited for this type of DAW-orientated application; I guess it's better suited to the live accompaniament side of things, as was originally intended.

Thanks for an amazing product that is currently without peers!

Maybe you wourld have been better off David getting the ultrapulus pak on usb drive and probably saved a lot of money in the long run.

Then you could have tried out everything as there are hundreds of realtracks. I'm in UK too and the usb drive is the business.

If you decide to go this route then I'd contact PG before the sale ends.

Paddy

Hey Paddy,

I thought about that, but the problem is I have no interest in all of the Jazz and Country content. Then again, by the time I buy all the Rock/Pop RealTrack sets, I'll probably have spent the same, which I guess was your point !

Still - I quite like buying bits progressively as I need them - it keeps things interesting, rather than knowing you have everything there, all at once, at the beginning.

I'm just about to buy some RealDrum sets, now that I've confirmed which ones I get with the MegaPAK (to prevent buying something I'll already be getting when the DVDs arrive ).

Cheers,