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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2008
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BBW is one of the cleverest apps on my system. It's invaluable, and I use it almost every day.
However, it is the worst-behaved app on my system. It crashes almost every time I exit it. If I suspend the computer while BBW is running, it crashes, and the bbw.exe task cannot be end-tasked, so I must reboot.
There are also numerous bugs and non-standard interface issues that I can work around, but find annoying.
Can I expect that the 2012 version is a major improvement in this regard?
Thanks,
Al
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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System Specs?
On a newer system it is pretty darn stable. Can't vouch for how it'll run on an older system.
I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
Make your sound your own!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Al, yes, it is quite stable. I do remember some of those 'white screen hangs' but I haven't seen one in over a year. Even in beta testing, we tried but couldn't crash the program. And yes, there has been two and half years of normal bug squashing.
Of course, there are many substantial improvements in features since then, too. Perhaps one of the more surprising for you will be that the size of the whole program installation is only about 35% of what it was, thanks to a new algorithm for the RealTracks, yet the sounds and flexibility for tempo stretching are better than before. With the new smaller footprint on your hard drive, you have room for a few hundred new RealTracks since your version.
As John said, the computer requirements have gone up a bit, but I run on a 2007 Core 2 Duo with no trouble. If you do have a really old machine, download and run Geekbench and post your score here, and we can make a general recommendation. Even on older machines, there are checkboxes that can help when running on slower systems.
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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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there have been times when I thought BIAB hung, but it turned out there was a modal dialog box open in the background. Next time it hangs, try to tab through the open instances to see if a dialog appears. If one comes up, close it.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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regarding your initial question: In my opinion the changes made since 2009.5 have been nothing short of game-changing. (Especially if you like real tracks and the other audio features) The ability to make high quality songs quickly in BIAB has gotten MUCH better since 2009.5, and the ability of RealBand to continue generating content as the project is fine tuned has also gotten better. Since 2009.5 the real tracks are much more dynamic, and they also take up less space and sound better If you go to the video page and look at the videos for every release since 2009.5, I think you'll see a LOT of things that interest you. http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.demos.htmIf you don't, check your pulse.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I used to get the hated 'application has stopped working' dialog box with the older versions (could have been 2009 or older). I have always upgraded to each new version and have in the last year moved to Win7. Somewhere along the way the crashing stopped. I recall that it had something to do with the Roland vsc that was the issue for some (including me - it didn't happen with true midi). I think it is still a problem for people with 64 bit Windows and Roland, but a new synth is available (Coyote) that works with 64.
As Pat Marr said, be sure there isn't a rogue dialog hiding somewhere in the background, and at times even now BIAB / Windows will show "not responding" in the title bar even though it is still working at some task and comes back to life on its own.
Your system specs would help in nailing down a better answer to your questions, but I think the upgrade will not only solve most of what you describe but you will be impressed with the new features as well.
Good luck.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OK, thanks guys, I guess it will be worth $59 to upgrade.
I'm on an XP SP3 laptop, T2300 1.66 GHz, with 2.5 Gigs of RAM.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If you get stuck you can swap your bone for the new plastic type I saw at the Music Store today for $120 bucks. It said "NOT A TOY" LOL. No there was no bass bone with a trigger and a bell so large you can't see the conductor. (BIGGER LOL)
That plastic bone might be less likely to freeze up, which is a condition here if you leave it on the permafrost while you have a beer your brass bone gets frozen like the monkey's you know what.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Al, You said ... Quote:
OK, thanks guys, I guess it will be worth $59 to upgrade.
Please be aware that the entry level upgrade does not offer all the features that the above users are talking about. As I understand it, $59 will update the BIAB engine and give a few Realtracks and Realdrums.
I can't remember how many Realtracks version 2009.5 had but in the full blown ver. 2012 there are over 600 individual Realtracks in 154 sets as well as 29 sets of Realdrums. By comparison, the $59 seems to offer 30 Realtracks and 1 set of Realdrums.
If you are thinking of buying and can possibly afford it, I'd highly recommend the UltraPlus Pak upgrade for $159. It gives you the complete set of Realtracks and Realdrums and pretty much everything else you'll need.
Given your above computer specs, if you are thinking of purchasing, I suggest you send an email to info@pgmusic.com and ask if the latest version of BIAB will run sufficiently well on your system. I believe that the new stretching routine uses a little more horsepower than the stretching routine used in BIAB 2009.5.
Hopefully other users will read this and add their input.
Best regards,
Noel
Last edited by Noel96; 12/17/11 03:06 PM.
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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My input is, listen to Noel.
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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
If you are thinking of buying and can possibly afford it, I'd highly recommend the UltraPlus Pak upgrade for $159.
Good advice, but the way I use it, even the new features are useless to me. I just use it to practice (I actually play much more piano than trombone), and printout charts. IOW, I use BIAB to substitute for the bass and drums in my trio.
I choose a tune, record my playing over it, and play it back to listen.
I don't care how good the different realtracks sound. I don't care about VST synth, direct input guitars, audio effects support for each track, audio loops, easy selection of drum grooves, Texas blues rock styles, soloists, etc.
I just want to run it without problems. I don't want to waste time rebooting my computer.
So perhaps I should just find a way of preventing the crashes instead of upgrading. What do you think?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Al,
Maybe it's time to give Support a ring on their toll-free number or drop them an email, etc. Contact details can be found under the Support link at the top of this webpage.
Good luck,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I think you're right, Al. Much as we all want to support PG, I certainly understand the not-much-money-right-now thing. You might seriously want to try a full uninstall/reinstall, because I've been using BIAB since 2006 and it simply doesn't crash on any system I've had, whether XP, Vista, or Win7/64.
And, as Pat says, sometimes one of those silly dialog boxes just won't come to the front without coaxing, and you think you've crashed when you haven't.
Best, Tom SmithWin10/64 • i7-8700K • 24 GB RAM BIAB 2026 • Reaper 7.57 • Izotope MPS AKG C1000S • IK iRig I/O Pro
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I just upgraded to 2012 and it crashed. I suspended the computer, then restored it, and BIAB crashed. I checked for hidden dialogs, but didn't find any.
Also the # staves bug is still there (choose auto-set, and it won't have enough staves for the entire tune. Set it to 9 staves, and only 8 will appear. This isn't rocket science.).
Just the installation showed that PG Music still doesn't get the concept of Program Files and Documents.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Al, in your two threads discussing your crashing problem, I don't think I saw a mention of what your 'simple MIDI' interface is. That could help, as well as giving us your settings in the MIDI Devices dialog.
I don't recall ever reading a report about the staves printing problem. Did you report it before?
Peter Gannon recently gave an excellent explanation of why BIAB should not be installed into the Program Files folder. That's not where you have it, is it?
What is your laptop's Geekbench score?
Have you run the DPC Latency Checker to see if you have any drivers that interfere with audio?
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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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Al, I mentioned the the below in one of you other posts. I thought I'd also mention it here just in case you don't check back on that other post. Regarding ... Quote:
Also the # staves bug is still there (choose auto-set, and it won't have enough staves for the entire tune. Set it to 9 staves, and only 8 will appear. This isn't rocket science.).
Have you allowed for the fact that the title, composer, etc., take up a stave line on the first page? My experience is that when I set the stave to (say) 9, the first page has 8 staves plus a title line (= 9 lines) and subsequent pages have 9 staves.
Also, after coming out of "suspend", how long did you wait to determine that the program had crashed?
Regards,
Noel
P.S. I use Encore as my main notation program and it too gives one less stave on the first page owing to title, playing info., and composer.
Last edited by Noel96; 12/19/11 08:37 PM.
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: Jul 2007
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Hi TromboneAI
My view is that BIAB 2012 is just the same app under the hood, no major rewrite, though it badly needs one. The addition of VST support though implemented as an ad hoc add on to an old architecture thats creaking at the sides, is still a game changer.
I am Guessing that PG will implement a whole rewrite of this app in 64 bit and possibly abandon the ancient structure which BIAB currently depends on. I too have all sorts of issues with BIAB, more than any other application, however there is no question that BIAB is the best accompaniment app on the market and Real Tracks are fantastic. Its worth the upgrade price for the new sounds.
Win 11 64, Asus Rog Strix z390 mobo, 64 gig RAM, 8700k
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Have you allowed for the fact that the title, composer, etc., take up a stave line on the first page? My experience is that when I set the stave to (say) 9, the first page has 8 staves plus a title line (= 9 lines) and subsequent pages have 9 staves.
Yes, I realize that that is what is going on -- that the title takes up a line. That is now mentioned in the help. But it's still a bug. If you look at your tune and see that it takes up 10 lines, you'll set "Number of staves" to 10. Then you'll print it, discover there are only 9 staves, so you have to go back, set staves to 10, and print it again (or use print preview).
The docs for Auto-set read:
"Band-in-a-Box will set the number of staves per page for you. This will be set when you enter the Print Dialog box, or change the range that you want to print (first /last chorus or whole song). This will be done to try to fit your printing onto 1 page."
Sorry to be snide, but the documentation for Auto-set should read "When you select auto-set, Band-in-a-Box will set the number of staves such that the last line of your music will be missing."
Note also, that the auto-set check box is ignored if you make any changes to the number of staves (e.g. set it to "3" and select auto-set, and it will display 2 staves). But then the next time you come back to the print setup dialog, it will have been changed.
Quote:
Also, after coming out of "suspend", how long did you wait to determine that the program had crashed?
Good point, but I think I've waited long enough, and have also spend something like 10 minutes trying to figure out how to kill bbw.exe without rebooting.
Note that the problems occur in other situations that don't involve suspending the computer -- that's just one way of reliably inducing the error. I'd estimate that 30% of the time I exit BIAB, I get a message saying there was a problem, and that it will send data to the producer of the app. I haven't taken the time to figure out exactly what it is that I am doing that causes these.
I'd like repeat that I think BIAB is a wonderful application. It's both the best and the worst app on my system. The basic problem is that the geniuses that came up with it, aren't familiar with standard windows conventions.
BIAB is like an incredibly strong, agile sports car with the accelerator pedal on the left, and the brake on the right.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
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- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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