An update is available for Band-in-a-Box® Version 2017

Download the Band-in-a-Box 2017 Build 461 update (Beta)

This is considered a Beta update patch because it is new.
This is a cumulative update patch, which works from any 2017 build.

Summary of changes for Build 461 (since 460) (March 15, 2017):
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  • Improved: Much faster bootups. 2-3x faster! (note: fast bootups will start after you've booted up about 3 times and will stay fast).
  • Fixed: Songs with frozen RealDrums might freeze or crash Band-in-a-Box when playback is started.
  • Fixed: Songs with frozen RealDrums would play a count-in even if "Audible Lead-In" was disabled.
  • Added: Scroll to top button [^] has been added to StylePicker.
  • Added: Log of bootup times is made if you set this option in edit-prefs.
  • Improved: Styles can now be made with multiple drum tracks. A button has been added to stylemaker.
  • Added: Buttons added to stylepicker, and titles to add song to databse (launches forum request).
  • Improved: The Bar Settings dialog report shows new track names.
  • Added: Warning messages about songs with both multidrums on drums track and multiple drums tracks.
  • Drum Count-ins now work for Double-Time or Half-Time drums (note that the count-in will be MIDI in this case).
  • Fixed: The RealDrums Picker dialog would crash on exiting if the Multiple RealDrums dialog had previously been opened. This bug only effected non-English versions.
  • Fixed: Drag and drop of the audio track would not include tempo stretching, transposing, acidizing, or normalizing.



Summary of changes for Build 460 (since 459) (March 6, 2017):
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  • Fixed: The "NEW in 2016" menu item and in StylePicker should say "NEW in 2017".
  • Fixed: It was not possible to set a custom folder for RealTracks.
  • Fixed: Record from any bar would open the record dialog instead of letting the user choose a bar to record from.
  • Fixed: Record from any bar did not have a hot key (it is now Ctrl+Alt+R).
  • Fixed: RealTracks that were "Half-Time" were displaying as "Double-Time" on the mixer, and vice versa.
  • Updated: Help file and manuals.


Summary of changes for Build 459 (since 458) (Feb 20, 2017):
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  • Fixed: Audio Edit window was not displaying lines for audio stretching features (bug introduced in build 458).
  • Fixed: Clicking on the Mixer piano (Thru track) does not display notes on the Guitar or Big Piano windows.
  • Fixed: The select bar dialog would conflict with keyboard input.
  • Fixed: Email Song dialog would not show options to attach Artist Performance Tracks if they were WMA files.
  • Fixed: Hitting the [\] key (forward slash) while in the notation window would crash Band-in-a-Box with the "Cannot focus a disabled or invisible window" error.
  • Fixed: Band-in-a-Box might crash on bootup with "Not enough timers available" error.
  • Fixed: The RealTracks picker might freeze if using a custom RealTracks folder location, and this folder does not exist (eg. an external hard drive is not connected, or re-connected with a different drive letter).
  • Fixed: If using Windows 10, holding down the mouse anywhere in the chord sheet window and scrolling the mouse wheel would cause Band-in-a-Box to immediately crash.
  • Fixed: When saving MusicXML files, slurs would be rejected by other programs that opened the files.
  • Fixed: After performing a drag and drop, the previous state of soloed tracks was not restored.
  • Fixed: Drag and drop of audio track would render Bass track instead.
  • Fixed: When using multiple monitors, some popup windows would be forced onto the primary monitor (eg. changing song title, changing track label).
  • Fixed: When using multiple monitors, Band-in-a-Box would not properly open to the previous size, position, and maximized state.
  • Fixed: Previewing chords in the chord sheet (Shift+Enter) or using the chord builder would eventually stop playing all the notes in the chord if using the "always on" setting for the audio driver (MME or ASIO).
  • Fixed: Splash screen was missing if running program in any language other than English.
  • Improved: Shots and Holds for Direct Input RealTracks can be assigned unique Holds library numbers, and unique decibel offsets.
  • Fixed: If using a 3/4 style, Band-in-a-Box would switch to the ZZJAZZ style (4/4) when launching the Audio Chord Wizard. This would cause an incorrect tempo map to be made afterwards.
  • Improved: If making a tempo map after using the Audio Chord Wizard, and the current style has a different time signature, you will be asked to choose a different style. If possible, you can choose to keep the current style, but the time signature of each bar will be set for you.
  • Fixed: Automatic updates were sometimes not working
  • Fixed: Rendered WAV files would not be acidized if the option to normalize was enabled.
  • Added: Drums name is more descriptive in the drums panel of the mixer, e.g. saying "snare and high hat"instead of "snhh"



Summary of changes for Build 458 (since 457) (Feb 1, 2017):
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  • Fixed: Band-in-a-Box might crash if using the "Silence" RealTracks.
  • Fixed: Tracks using the "Silence" RealTracks would display a blank label.
  • Fixed: The splash screen was not showing.
  • Fixed: The mixer might open off screen, and not be accessible.
  • Fixed: Multiple monitor support: floating windows would always open on the primary monitor. This applies to the Big Piano, Guitar, Mixer, Plugins, and Video window.
  • Fixed: Copy or Cut in the Audio Edit window would cause Band-in-a-Box to crash.
  • Fixed: Various situations will cause the Audio Edit window to crash. Eg. using the Vocal Synth dialog to import audio, opening the Audio Window, and pressing play would cause a crash.
  • Fixed: In the Vocal Synth dialog, choosing the first English vocalist would not work (the resulting audio file would just say "shhh" for every lyric).
  • Fixed: Band-in-a-Box might crash if opening or importing an audio file that is open by another application.
  • Fixed: 'Display Chordsheet in Fakesheet Mode' menu item was not showing check mark.
  • Fixed: 'Allow Repeats and Endings for Any Song' menu item was not showing check mark.
  • Fixed: When disabling repeats, a spurious message would appear: "Repeats are now DISABLED. This will take effect when the NEXT song is loaded.".
  • Fixed: When disabling repeats, and answering "Yes" to delete all repeats, this was not undoable.
  • Fixed: The activation window might get stuck behind the splash screen.
  • Fixed: Rendering to MP3 will cause Band-in-a-Box to crash if choosing "MPEG Layer-3" as the codec.
  • Fixed: Rendering to MP3 might fail with error "cannot get stream size".
  • Fixed: Tracks with slurs might cause the Notation Window to freeze.
  • Fixed: The "ASIO Always On" setting for ASIO audio drivers was not working (ie MIDI output was silent if song not playing).
  • Fixed: The "Output always on" setting for MME audio drivers did not work for MIDI playback (eg. clicking on the pianos, chord previewing, notation editing, etc.). It only worked for triggering MIDI directly through plugin GUIs.
  • Fixed: In the Vocal Synth dialog, the vocalist selection was not sent correctly to the www.sinsy.jp server (eg. choosing Matsuo-P would use Xiang-Lang).
  • Changed: The new hot key for opening the Record MIDI dialog has been changed to CTRL+R.
  • Updated: Band-in-a-Box help file.



Summary of changes for Build 457 (since 456) (Jan 18, 2017):
--------------------------

  • Fixed: The tempo buttons should change by 5 with a left click, and 1 with a right click (was inverted from 2016 version behaviour).
  • Fixed: When exiting Band-in-a-Box while the song is still playing, and asked to save song, a number of cryptic messages will appear. A crash may occur with an "Invalid pointer operation" error.
  • Fixed: The Mute feature in the Loop Section Settings dialog was not working.
  • Fixed: Generate Track button in the RealTracks Picker not working during playback.
  • Fixed: The floating mixer would prevent keyboard input if it was focused.
  • Fixed: The [More...] button in the Notation window options dialog would open the "Options for BeStPlain Chord Symbol Font" dialog if that dialog had previously been opened by the [+] button.
  • Fixed: Right-click menu > Track Actions > Save track as WAV file... would save all tracks as individual files if the selected track was soloed.
  • Fixed: The "One WAV File per Track" setting in the Render dialog would always be turned back on if rendering a single track from the right-click menu.
  • Fixed: It was not possible to enter chords into the chord sheet that started with "L" or "R".
  • Fixed: The loop button in normal screen mode did not display a check box.
  • Fixed: Setting the chorus start or end bar was not undoable.
  • Fixed: MIDI and audio go out of sync when "Use VSTi/DXi Synth" is disabled.
  • Fixed: Band-in-a-Box might crash if using an MME audio driver, with "Output always on" enabled, and "Use VSTi/DXi Synth" disabled.
  • Fixed: Strings might be missing on the main screen (eg any words on the mixer) if Band-in-a-Box was not run as administrator.
  • Fixed: Audio loops that are less beats than the time signature cause Band-in-a-Box to freeze while generating the song.
  • Fixed: Playing chords in the Chord Builder dialog did not show on the mixer pianos.
  • Improved: Playing consecutive chords in the Chord Builder dialog will have smoother sounding transistions.
  • Fixed: Using the right-click menu to mute or solo the Thru track would not apply to the right track.
  • Fixed: The Alt+2 hot key was not working for toggling mute for all tracks.
  • Fixed: In non-English versions, RealTracks that have not translated name (ie missing from RealTracksFolderNamesX.txt) should display the English title instead of the short RealTrack name. Eg. "1757:Accordion, Rhythm Pop8ths Ev 085" instead of "1757:Accordion, Rh Pop8ths Ev 085".
  • Fixed: Sforzando was not automatically added to the plugin list, so loading Hi-Q patches would not work unless the user previously added the .DLL to list manually.
  • Fixed: If erasing bar-based lyrics that were previously converted from line-based lyrics, the line-based lyrics would not be erased. This would cause the line-based lyrics to be converted to bar-based lyrics again the next time the song was opened.
  • Fixed: Some missing _wswing.sty demos.
  • Updated: Help file and Manual.
  • Fixed: Using Shift+Enter on the chord sheet to preview a chord would not produce any sound.
  • Fixed: In non-English versions, new RealTracks or MIDI SuperTracks would cause the track radios and mixer track labels to show numbers instead of proper names.
  • Fixed: In normal screen mode, the Transport and Views tool bars were not given priority when resizing the window smaller (ie they should be given more space than the Tools and Tracks tool bars).
  • Fixed: Some hints were not formatted properly, showing extra line breaks.
  • Fixed: The hot keys for muting tracks (eg. Alt+3) were not working.
  • Fixed: The hot keys for selecting the current track (eg. Ctrl+3) were not working.
  • Fixed: Switching tracks from another window (eg. Notation, Guitar, Big Piano) would not select the track radio or mixer panel.
  • Fixed: Songs with Artist Performance Tracks would have their audio base tempo reset when opened, and the tracks would play out of sync if the tempo was changed.
  • Fixed: StylePicker data corrections, including instrument displays.
  • Improved: Decibal offsets fine-tuned for many new (2017) RealStyles, and RealDrums.


Summary of changes for Build 456 (since 454) (Dec 23, 2016):
--------------------------

The main screen mixer and floating mixer have been replaced with a new one.
We have made a video that describes the new mixer

Here are some improvements of the new mixer:

  • The same modern, full-featured mixer is used in both GUI modes, and it can be undocked from the main toolbar (floating).
  • The floating mixer can be resized.
  • When resized to a larger size, there is a new Tone slider instead of just the dial.
  • The piano shows animated keys when moving the mouse over them.
  • The piano keys are velocity-sensitive. Clicking on the bottom of the key will play maximum velocity (127), and clicking on the top will play minimum velocity (30).
  • The Solo buttons do not effect the status of the Mute buttons anymore. When un-soloing a track, the previous Mute state of all the tracks will be returned. Also, when a track is virtually muted, it will display a different Mute button image than if it is actually muted.
  • Soloing a track can be additive or subtractive now by right-clicking or Shift-clicking. This means that more than one track can be Soloed. Left-clicking will cause the old behaviour: that track will be the only soloed track.


Other changes in build 456, since build 455:

  • Fixed: Localized style strings (memos, titles, etc.) were wrong for some newer styles.
  • Fixed: Tracks that contained RealTracks that include RealCharts would display a list of MIDI plugins in the Plugins window.
  • Fixed: The "Mute" item from the Master track radio menu did not work.
  • Fixed: In non-English versions, the drop station would be blank the first time running Band-in-a-Box 2017.
  • Fixed: The mixer dials would not change to yellow when dragging.
  • Fixed: The new mixer buttons related to window sizing did not have hints.


Other changes in build 455, since 454:

  • Fixed: If you play by double-clicking on a bar and move your cursor, bars are unintentionally highlighted.
  • Fixed: Sforzando should not be automatically added to the plugins list if the .dll file does not exist.
  • Fixed: The Custom toolbar would reset to factory every time Band-in-a-Box booted up if any button image files were missing.
  • Fixed: The "Next File" and "Previous File" buttons in normal screen mode were displaying the wrong hints.
  • Fixed: The VU meters would not display on the Piano track, unless it was a MIDI instrument.
  • Fixed: Possible mixup of VU display between Piano and Drums track.
  • Fixed: CTRL+clicking on a track radio would not solo the track.
  • Fixed: In non-English versions, style memos were appearing in weird places such as the right-click track menu.
  • Fixed: The plugin names were not displaying on the Plugins tab of the mixer.
  • Fixed: Drag and drop to the MIDI quadrant, or holding Shift while dragging to Windows Explorer, did not work for producing RealCharts MIDI files.
  • Fixed: Right-click, or shift-click on the tempo controls was shifting the tempo by 4 instead of 5.
  • Fixed: Sometimes drag and drop directly to Windows Explorer would cause Band-in-a-Box to freeze.
  • Fixed: The drag and drop [+] dialog was not remembering the previously chosen settings.
  • Updated: Help file and manuals.
  • Updated: RealDrums memos and drum groove information added.
  • Fixed: RealTracks # 2553 played only holds.
  • Fixed: The chord sheet scroll bar was missing when starting Band-in-a-Box (would appear if the window was resized).
  • Fixed: There was a lot of flickering on the main toolbar when resizing the window.
  • Fixed: Opening or creating a new song would not update the freeze buttons on the mixer.
  • Fixed: Crash report logs were showing the wrong version of Band-in-a-Box.
  • Improved: Mixer did not have a border.
  • Updated: Small gui improvements to some bigtoolbar buttons.
  • Fixed: _FNKPLS3.STY appeared N/A



Summary of changes for Build 454 (since 453) (Dec 16, 2016):

  • Fixed: Problems saving custom toolbar configuration on some systems.
  • Fixed: Opening the Lead Sheet, moveable PianoRoll, or moveable Notation Window would cause the Audio Edit window to close.
  • Improved: Popup menus will open aligned to the button that opens them, instead of at the current mouse position.
  • Fixed: The Freeze and Simple popup menus did not display customized or auto-generated track names.
  • Fixed: The "101 Essential Riffs and Phrases" buttons in the Practice window would not open a song when chosen.
  • Fixed: Turning off MME "Output always on" would not take effect until exiting Band-in-a-Box.
  • Fixed: "C13#11", "C13#5#9#11", and "C13sus#5#9#11" were each list twice in the chord builder.
  • Added: "C13#5#9" and "C13sus#5#9" are new supported chords for Band-in-a-Box.
  • Fixed: Drag and drop from the drums track would not work if the track contained a RealTrack, and "Use VSTi/DXi Synth" is disabled in the MIDI/Audio Drivers Setup dialog.
  • Improved: If attempting to drag and drop onto the drop station, the [WAV], [M4A], and [WMA] quadrants might higlight red if the
  • render cannot be done. A flash message explaining why will be displayed if the mouse is released over the quadrant.
  • Fixed: "Select Hi-Q MIDI Synth Patch" was not an available menu item for the Drums track.
  • Fixed: When choosing "Select Hi-Q MIDI Synth Patch" a warning flash message would be displayed if SampleTank is not installed.
  • Improved: The Hi-Q selection dialog is resizable.
  • Improved: The Hi-Q selection dialog can exclude keywords (anything starting with ! is excluded).
  • Fixed: After done editing text in the Bar Lyrics layer, the Section Text layer, or editing a chord (eg using CTRL+F2), the application would lose focus and not allow chord entry. This might also cause a "ding!" to be heard.
  • Fixed: The width/height of print preview and save to jpg is preserved, and ratio checkbox added.
  • Fixed: The bar numbers are now drawn below the staff in the case of printout or LS displaying a single clef bass track.
  • Updated: Help files and manuals.
  • Added: New Features button to the toolbars.
  • Fixed: Spurious 'rebuild' message each time StylePicker is opened in RealBand.


Summary of changes for Build 453 (since 452) (Dec 5, 2016):

  • Fixed: A full install with all available Band-in-a-Box content was showing a few Styles/Drums missing in the StylePicker.
  • Fixed: The styles M_CTRYSM.STY and M_CTRYSW.STY were producing error messages related to guitar macros for some customers.
  • Fixed: Style filter to show 2017 styles was showing 2016 styles.
  • Fixed: Any track with RealDrums, other than the Drums track, would be labeled "Loop".
  • Fixed: BeStPlain Chord Symbols font was not using various dedicated chord symbols (eg. C7b9) on the chord sheet.
  • Fixed: BeStPlain Chord Symbols font was using various unwanted dedicated minor chord symbols (eg. Cmi7 instead of C-7) on the chord sheet.
  • Fixed: Clicking on the chord sheet when a popup menu was open could cause undesired cell selection.
  • Fixed: The dedicated [Open] button (mini-mode only) would open a popup menu instead of directly going to the file-open dialog.
  • Fixed: The dedicated [Save As] button (mini-mode only) would open a popup menu instead of directly going to the file-save-as dialog.
  • Fixed: When "Superscript chord extensions" was set to "auto", the entire bar would be superscripted whenever there were chords on consecutive beats, instead of treating each chord individually.
  • Fixed: The New Features button would open the wrong popup menu.
  • Fixed: Using the Options menu to Return To Factory Settings would cause the Custom panel to have no buttons in it.
  • Fixed: If the Custom panel button order is corrupted in anyway, it will be automatically detected and reset to defaults.
  • Fixed: If running the program in any language other than English, and a language patch was never installed, all of the main screen buttons would be blank.
  • Fixed: Sforzando was not automatically added to the plugin list, so loading Hi-Q patches would not work unless the user previously added the .DLL to the list manually.
  • Fixed: Error message removed "Track. Error in style, you need to Set StyleMaker-MISC-Guitar Macros Enable=true".
    Improved: Forced accidental entry and note type entry (normal, invisible, bend, etc.) both now use listboxes, so no pull down is required, and also now has a checkbox for making a bend displayed in notation window as quarter step below the target note.
  • Fixed: Notes at very start of a row in note roll were not visible.
  • Fixed: Wider than normal beat lines in note roll.
  • Updated: 2017 Help file updates.


Summary of changes for Build 452 (since 451) (Dec 2, 2016):

  • Fixed: If running the program in any language other than English, most of the main screen buttons were displaying in English. New buttons, and a few that have been altered will remain in English until official localized patches are ready.
  • Fixed: Using "L" in the chord sheet to loop bars was not working.
  • Fixed: "Separate files for each track" in the drop+ dialog did not work.
  • Fixed: After a drag and drop, the Audio track would appear to be muted even though it was not.
  • Fixed: The playback bar would not show the current bar.
  • Fixed: Clicking on playback bar would not select the current bar.
  • Fixed: The playback bar displayed some messy looking vertical lines.
  • Fixed: The 2017 upgrade manual was sometimes not found.
  • Fixed: The menu item "Help > Newest Features" was not opening the right help page.
  • Fixed: The menu item "Help > Help Topics > Tutorial Using the New Features of Version 2016" was not opening the right help page, and should say "2017".
  • Fixed: The menu item "Help > Help Topics > Tutorial #28: Using Redesigned StylePicker, Customizable Chord Sheet, and
  • more" was missing.
  • Fixed: The help button in the Song Titles Browser dialog was not opening the right help page.
  • Fixed: The help button in the Create Multi-Drums dialog was not opening the right help page.
  • Fixed: The help button in the BeStPlain Chord Font dialog was not opening the right help page.
  • Updated: Help file, and pdf manuals.

Andrew
PG Music Inc.