You asked this: "At this point is BnB useful for anything? Writing, arranging, printing and performing live?"

I'm a pro player and use BIAB for three and a half of this four. I start composing in BIAB (because the data entry by mouse is so great, best in the industry), use it for arranging in conjunction with my music notation software, print drafts of notation (that's the half) and output the notation by MIDI to my music notation program where I enhance it, and perform live to the backing tracks (mostly RealTracks; I play what would have been MIDI melody). To do these things, I use BIAB in addition to other software.

Reading your initial post, I think that your main stumbling block is two things: understanding the difference between how audio and MIDI are used in BIAB, and getting a much better MIDI synth to play the MIDI. You have received excellent advice above on both these points. Let us know if anything is unclear.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Roland Integra-7, Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.