PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist What are the killer features making upgrade worthwhile

Watched the video. My studio is down at present so I can't access band in a box. I go a bit by my (unreliable) memory....

The video does not say too much about style picker, so maybe that's another video

The chord sheet window:

What I see seems very useful for sure. When I casually think of a song - e.g. Amazing Grace, I think of the lyrics primarily, when I play I think of the chords. This new feature in the chord window to display the lyrics is going to help me 'pictorally' memorise songs, so that lyrics and chords twin up - which is not the case in the remaining brain cells I possess - currently. I think that is a big improvement.

But...

Can you yet...

Load a VST, then hear it BEFORE you hit play - for audition purposes?

Is it still true that if you loop a section you can bounce out of it if your mouse moves and you click elsewhere? Is there any way to nail a loop down until you wish otherwise? Is it still such a lot of clicking and pointing to get a loop going and maintain it? Why not the facility to set up multiple loop regions and select and deselect them? Even save these sections with a song? You could have a loop layer, with green and yellow and purple loops - for easy eye location.

Is the recording process still so needlessly arduous and non transparent?

Why can't you see a recording? Either as MIDI or as Audio in a layer?

Even cut and paste different sections of takes, non destructively? IMO we need these facilities in BIAB and not have to outsource to some other program.

What happens if you have more than one verse? Lyric wise in the chord window?

How does this marry into the structure of a song, do we still have to write out all the repeats IF we want say alternate [a. b.)] endings, or lyrics?

Is there any view where you can see all the chords in a song, all the intros outros fills, in a structural way? Colorising these features (in pastel shades) would help them stand out in the mind.

It would be good to see a staff with MIDI on it, on the chord screen, optionally. I did not see that.

I notice in the notation window it's still blocky and unreadable when using lots of semiquaver activity, at one point the left hand side of a note completely disappeared. If the notation screen is like 2015, I found it leaped around in such a way as the eye had to be very nimble. Isn't there a way to show the notes passing your eye like items moving along an escalator - smoothly?

TBH the GUI still looks 1980's to me. Sorry, but I think my opinion is shared by many users. I just don't think that is going to attract new blood - which I wish for PG.

When looping, does the app still give visual anomalies as it jumps around, so the first take of a loop is dissimilar color wise to a second, in some cases?

As I suggested in a post a while back, PG BIAB users are unique in the way they interface with the GUI, because they have instruments in their hand, they might be on a stage in dim lighting, or in a studio with only one had to reach the GUI and a dodgy mouse mat. It just the nature of playing venues, studios, lighting/gear..
Has this been taken into account when redesigning the GUI? If you have to drill down in click land this gets hard to do quickly.

What is there is useful, but I find it hard to shout and scream about 'great new features' like being able to see a chord you type in. That sort of stuff I would take for granted anywhere else but in PG land

Z