))) showed this to a programmer colleague of mine, and without any prompting from me, he said: "What's this, some kind of cartoon?"

Sorry, you have to do better than that. It's like me saying to a songwriter, I played 5 seconds of your song to the UPS delivery guy and he says it sucks. And for the record, adding "no offense" after an offensive comment like that is pointless. And I say that with the greatest respect smile

Have a look at the main screens of some of these DAW programs that you are drooling over. They are looking very complex and busy to me, like the cockpit of a jet aircraft. Is that what you want, hundreds of knobs, sliders, widgets, flashing lights, all visible on two monitors at same time?

DAW screen. E.g http://createdigitalmusic.com/files/2011/03/GiantFL10ScreenshotNoText.jpg

Why not show one if those DAW screens to an elementary school teacher, and ask them how easy they think the program is to use?

Btw, if you think I'm exaggerating about the comparison to the cockpit of a jet plane, here is a pic of the cockpit of a Boeing 747 http://www.avsim.com/pages/0309/iFly/Cockpit%203.jpg
Compare that to the DAW screen above. And tell me which looks easier to operate, the DAW or the Boeing 747? To me the 747 looks easier, because it has way less controls, and has text labels on most items.

Here's a screenshot of Band-in-a-Box 2015 http://static.emediamusic.com/product_assets/bb/2014-bandboxwin.jpg
And, no, that doesn't look like a cartoon to me. I happen to like that there is text present on most of the buttons and elements in BiaB, unlike the DAW program screen that has just icons with no text for many items.

You should also note that the Boeing 747 screen at least puts text labels on all of the knobs and buttons - I wonder why they do that instead of making a gorgeous looking cockpit screen with no text? For example, doesn't the text EVAC on big red evacuation button look ugly/dated/cartoonish, and shouldn't they just replace it with no text and a clever modern no-text icon of a stewardess evacuating the plane?

Now don't get me wrong here- I am all for improving lots of aspects of BiaB GUI, and there's lots to be done there! But only in a way that makes it easier and more intuitive to use. So I'm not about to get rid of text on the buttons for example.

Have Fun!
Peter Gannon
PG Music Inc.