I think the GUI refinements made in 2014 & 2015 indicate PG Music recognizes the interface needs to change and has started the process. However instead of a "complete overhaul" the interface is changing in steps. Both overhaul and steps are moves in the right direction just one is much more drastic than the other. Enhancements like use of acidized loops and UserTracks are major steps forward to widen the appeal of BiaB & RealBand.

I strongly believe true 64 bit editions of RealBand and Band-in-a-Box are being developed and those editions will be new from the ground up. I also believe the number of devices using 32 bit operating systems are declining but will continue to exist for the next decade. So there will continue to be a need to serve the 32 and 64 bit customer bases for the near future. I believe PG Music is maintaining the 32 bit editions while much of their attention and resources are directed to developing 64 bit programs. Starting over new is a huge task but offers the opportunity to intergrate all existing features and plan ways to merge future enhancements.

That's why my hope is PG Music concentrates on bug fixes and stabilizing the current RealBand and BiaB programs. I am well satisfied with the feature set of these programs. I can, and do, make do with the current GUI.

Another issue is documentation is not available for download from the site. A customer has no way to look through the product manuals prior to purchase. I can not think of any other musical product, hardware or software based, that does not have manuals available online.

Should a customer get a product manual the customer would find a manual that is either out-of-date or in disarray. Neither RealBand's or Band-in-a-Box's documentation offer comprehensive feature descriptions or how-to-use explanations. Both are gross in size (number of pages) and difficult to use.

As with all comments posted on this thread, I am a diehard fan of PG Music products. These opinions are just that, my opinions.


Jim Fogle - 2025 BiaB (Build 1128) RB (Build 5) - Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk Sonar - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home