Originally Posted By: joe5
... Further, I have to wonder if they offer that on a download-? Not that I would, but how do they know I wouldn't just keep it anyway? ...


For some time now they have an activation procedure. Well you could maybe hack this but...

The larger packages come on a USB hard drive, they're too large for a download.

For the price you will have to decide your limit. I don't know about the discount for the first time purchase. (I wasn't interested the last couple of years.) It used to be attractive in 2009 when I bought it. But there have been some changes made...

Depending on what you want to do with Band-in-a-Box it might be worth it. Practice with what you have, don't bother with what could be better, use what the program offers. It is a lot. If you can get some decent results with 2008, given that it is Midi only, then 2017 should be easy enough to use and time should be sufficient to evaluate the (new) possibilities within the thirty days money back guarantee period. Also, taken from the statements here on that forum, there probably will be no surprises regarding the compatibility of your work until then.

What I would do, if I was in your position right now.
(Back then there was an evaluation package available without the ability to save your work. What I wanted to keep I had to play through the stereo and record it. Nevertheless after I bought it I did have to enter the songs again.)
I would prepare certain songs that I would like to do. I would not care about the current sound possibilities. I was a software tester for some time, not beta test -- the real thing, testing even before the coding started. I would prepare some scenarios that I would want to try. Not the very complicated stuff like a Zwiefacher, a South-German folk dance with time signature changes between a 2/4 and a 3/4 every measure, or the Unsquare Dance by Dave Brubeck. (BIAB can handle both, provided you're ready to devote the time.) I would choose songs that benefit from the main capabilities of BiaB to create different backing tracks very easy, for instance.

Good luck with the decision process.

Desktop; i7-2600k, 8 GB mem., Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build
Laptop: i5-2410M, 4 GB mem, Win 10 Pro, BIAB 2017; RB 2017 - latest build