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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14 |
I know this might sound like whining, but I need to say it.
Band in a Box is up to 120 gigabytes of sound files for all kinds of styles. But many of the workflow features seem primitive.
I am looking forward to using the VST version, this is a nice advancement in workflow. But way past due.
There remains many seemingly obvious workflow and usability features that are left unchanged for decades.
How about allowing song structure with verse, chorus, bridge, intro and outro, and having two endings to the verse? I have used BiaB since almost the beginning and still I cannot structure a song. How about cleaning up the ending so you have more control over it? Really there is very little control over the song ending. Same with breaks and stops. How about a timer display that looks like it there on purpose? How about the ability to print chord sheets with lyrics in a manner that actually functions, so you can hand out chord sheets to your band? How about an Android playback version for use in live performances? How about adding features I can't even think of and surprise me?
Why does PG Music come so close to these features, like the printing function, and then does not complete the equation? I guess this is my biggest frustration, the opportunity lost when they could do these things but instead spend their resources on more styles in the database. I really wish they would adopt an aggressive and progressive attitude about adding workflow features that really are advanced and cutting edge. It would be great to be pleasantly surprised instead of frustrated when you want to do something like print a song.
When Cakewalk went out of business I was forced to move from Sonar to the newer and more progressive Presonus Studio One. It really opened my eyes on how workflow, usability, "look and feel", and stability have progressed in the world of DAWs. Why not PG Music?
Until lately Band in a Box was the only game in town. But now Ireal Pro is available for 13 bucks and in many ways is more progressive. For instance it has the ability to have ending one and ending two to a verse, and it is not difficult to do. It is my sincere hope that PG changes its outlook and starts surprising us with new workflow and usability features.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 7,216
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Greg,
I am not usually the one who defends PGmusic when discussion is about workflow, interface or "innovations", as you mentioned, long passed due.
I strongly support some of ideas you mentioned. Such as having musical segments that are specifically designed for intros, bridges, breaks and interesting endings, without jumping to other styles or some unusually "creative" methods, just to get there. Also some other points you made are very true such as the workflow.
However, I disagree on some things, such as 120GB of content is a lot.... These are live musicians playing! Not arranger midi styles (which I have nothing against too) By today's standards, 120gb is very affordable. You can get 256GB SSD drive for $40-$45 with a 5 year warranty.
I know that some people are not happy with recent 2019 version, but looking at the big picture, we are 64 bit now!!! I believe that is a very good start and a huge step to bring BIAB to place it deserves to be.
I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,427
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Joined: Feb 2003
Posts: 2,427 |
Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 1,598
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Nov 2005
Posts: 1,598 |
Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree. +1
Latest BIAB version, latest build.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 24,530
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Joined: Dec 2003
Posts: 24,530 |
Greg,
...I hope that with future upgrades crew focuses more on interface, workflow, generation time improvement and bugs rather than new features.
Totally agree. +1
The bumper sticker said "I'm a veterinarian, therefore I can drive like an animal".
Suddenly I realized how many proctologists are on the road.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 3,891
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 3,891 |
I know this might sound like whining, but I need to say it.
Band in a Box is up to 120 gigabytes of sound files for all kinds of styles. But many of the workflow features seem primitive.
I am looking forward to using the VST version, this is a nice advancement in workflow. But way past due.
There remains many seemingly obvious workflow and usability features that are left unchanged for decades.
How about allowing song structure with verse, chorus, bridge, intro and outro, and having two endings to the verse? I have used BiaB since almost the beginning and still I cannot structure a song. How about cleaning up the ending so you have more control over it? Really there is very little control over the song ending. Same with breaks and stops. How about a timer display that looks like it there on purpose? How about the ability to print chord sheets with lyrics in a manner that actually functions, so you can hand out chord sheets to your band? How about an Android playback version for use in live performances? How about adding features I can't even think of and surprise me?
Why does PG Music come so close to these features, like the printing function, and then does not complete the equation? I guess this is my biggest frustration, the opportunity lost when they could do these things but instead spend their resources on more styles in the database. I really wish they would adopt an aggressive and progressive attitude about adding workflow features that really are advanced and cutting edge. It would be great to be pleasantly surprised instead of frustrated when you want to do something like print a song.
When Cakewalk went out of business I was forced to move from Sonar to the newer and more progressive Presonus Studio One. It really opened my eyes on how workflow, usability, "look and feel", and stability have progressed in the world of DAWs. Why not PG Music?
Until lately Band in a Box was the only game in town. But now Ireal Pro is available for 13 bucks and in many ways is more progressive. For instance it has the ability to have ending one and ending two to a verse, and it is not difficult to do. It is my sincere hope that PG changes its outlook and starts surprising us with new workflow and usability features. I generally agree with you. Things like track naming was never implemented throughout the program so I just turned it off. I never bothered with UserTracks since there were so many issues and limitations discussed here on the forums. And the VideoTracks idea was a great example of a "feature" with limited to no practical application that certainly consumed lots of dev time and now has apparently (and appropriately ) been dropped. The jury is still out on the new VST but based on what I've seen so far it seems like a lot less than I would have predicted as a cool new feature. I'm not sure they are able to implement these complex feature. With that said, they are incredibly talented at implementing new RealTracks every single upgrade. I am blown away every single time and mostly, the RealTracks are now why I upgrade. So I'll respectfully disagree with your proposal and suggest they continue to focus on a big batch of new RealTracks for every upgrade! If they can split the time between RealTracks and fixing existing features and bugs that would be fantastic. But if a new release comes out without new RealTracks, I for one will definitely not upgrade!
Last edited by JohnJohnJohn; 12/23/18 11:25 AM.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 21,071
Veteran
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Veteran
Joined: Jun 2012
Posts: 21,071 |
I wish that they would look at this wishlist, and see the serious bugs and excellent suggestions for improvements that have been listed. I wish they would visit the 'too hard' basket.
BIAB & RB2026 Win.(Audiophile), Windows 10 Pro & Windows 11, Cakewalk Bandlab, Izotope Prod.Bundle, Roland RD-1000, Synthogy Ivory, Session Keys Grand S & Electric R, Kontakt, Focusrite 18i20, KetronSD2, NS40M, Pioneer Active Monitors.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 1,143
Expert
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Expert
Joined: Oct 2015
Posts: 1,143 |
Forever Grateful, BUT, sometimes pissed of.  Trygve "Leo" Larsen BiaB 2020, Windows 8.1, Intel Core i5 CPU, 270GHz, 32 Gb RAM My OLD tracks on Soundcloud; https://soundcloud.com/trygve-larsen My NEW is unpublished The Universe = Uni-verse ie one song.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,323
Expert
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Expert
Joined: May 2003
Posts: 1,323 |
Reach for excellence
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 551
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 551 |
+1 from me.
But then i'm also of the view that BIAB needs a total overhaul - from switching to and adopting a modern truly CROSS-PLATFORM underlying framework - to reworking the GUI so that all the wonderful mega-kitchen-sink of options can be reworked into a far more logical interface.
For example- in the Mac version of BIAB there is still some ANCIENT GUI code which is a legacy from BIAB's early years on Atari-ST and/or Mac Plus! - written in pascal
Such an overhaul would of course take several years so does raise the thorny question of how to provide income for PG and its staff for the time before the revamped BIAB 2.0 is complete -
and ironically - one way of doing this might be to do the opposite - and just have one or two years where only minor improvements are made to BIAB while at the same time selling basically just new styles and real tracks.
The other option would be to sell PG to a company like Yamaha in order to provide the needed round of investment to support a team of programmers to focus on BIAB 2.0 during the "fallow" period where no income or less income is being made.
Last edited by nonchai; 12/27/18 03:10 AM.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 7,216
Veteran
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Posts: 7,216 |
Nonchai... you really do not want PG selling out to Yamaha  Yamaha started amazing Mobile Sequencer a few years back (only for IOS) It is/was very flexible, with thousands of styles (and they could have converted many more thousands from their library) And unfortunately, they completely stopped development on that great sequencer arranger. Probably their hopes was that young kids will buy it and they will sell great thousands...Kids these days prefer different approach/sound, than 15-20 years back. You do not want same thing happen to PG PGmusic is built around mature customers as their base. "Selling out" would mean revolt. Nobody wants that. It is very obvious that they do not have proper specialist(s) to bring proper changes. It seems they have good people and good coders that are maintaining program and adding minor changes, but to expect some groundbreaking, they need to hire someone with vision or at least try to partner with already established team. One option is... If it was me, and money was the issue to bring proper upgrades... As a one time thing, raise the cost of upgrading by $15-$30 and use that money to do some major renovations by hiring proper programmer who can lead the team at time of "GREAT CHANGES"... And to those who upgraded with paying higher amount, give a discount coupon for future upgrade.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14
Newbie
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OP
Newbie
Joined: Nov 2016
Posts: 14 |
+1 from me.
But then i'm also of the view that BIAB needs a total overhaul - from switching to and adopting a modern truly CROSS-PLATFORM underlying framework - to reworking the GUI so that all the wonderful mega-kitchen-sink of options can be reworked into a far more logical interface.
For example- in the Mac version of BIAB there is still some ANCIENT GUI code which is a legacy from BIAB's early years on Atari-ST and/or Mac Plus! - written in pascal
Such an overhaul would of course take several years so does raise the thorny question of how to provide income for PG and its staff for the time before the revamped BIAB 2.0 is complete -
and ironically - one way of doing this might be to do the opposite - and just have one or two years where only minor improvements are made to BIAB while at the same time selling basically just new styles and real tracks.
The other option would be to sell PG to a company like Yamaha in order to provide the needed round of investment to support a team of programmers to focus on BIAB 2.0 during the "fallow" period where no income or less income is being made. The music buiz is a rough one. I am not the one to try and manage their company from afar. I only posted this post as hopes from an outsider on how to move ahead. Band in a Box has been a huge part of my musical life and I want PG to be hugely successful. I was a Cakewalk user from inception until they went belly up last year. I really did not like the Roland or Tascam years. It seemed like that is when they lost their way. I imagine Yamaha with PG might be like Cake with Roland. Not my first choice. I like the software developed by inspired leaders myself. By the way, I have listened a little bit to the 2019 version and wow I have to say it sounds great!
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 551
Journeyman
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Journeyman
Joined: Apr 2010
Posts: 551 |
Nonchai... you really do not want PG selling out to Yamaha Yamaha started amazing Mobile Sequencer a few years back (only for IOS) It is/was very flexible, with thousands of styles (and they could have converted many more thousands from their library) And unfortunately, they completely stopped development on that great sequencer arranger,,,,,,,,ou do not want same thing happen to PG Yes this phenomenon is sadly very common - but that is in the iOS music-app marketplace where the price of apps is tiny in comparison with traditional desktop music type apps. And as such the situation is not the same as for desktop apps like DAWs or BIAB. Yamaha has successfully ran Steinberg and recently Line6. But products have to have sensible prices and much though the iOS music app marketplace is full of amazing iPad apps - it simply cannot sustain most developers who are usually one-man and many apps just fold. But - again - that is iOS apps. Not applicable here.
MacOS Sequoia, M4 Pro Mac Mini , 64GB RAM 512GB SSD ,
BIAB, Cubase, Ableton, Logic Pro, SCALER 3, GigLad, AnyTune, Synthesizer V Pro,Vienna Ensemble Pro, Audiofuse, Fractal FM3, KOMPLETE 15, StreamDeck, iReal Pro
White beard, beer belly, bald patch
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 7,216
Veteran
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Veteran
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Posts: 7,216 |
Of course it is. Yamaha was mismanaged for at least good old decade now. They can re-write the app for desktop in matter of weeks with a few thousand dollars or even at no extra cost, utilizing coders on their payroll. I would be among first ones to buy that sequencer. By the way, it is still available and is a great value for the money.
I honestly believe good things will happen to PG. This year,they showed that they are capable of steering the big ship. As long as I will see genuine progress, they got my support.
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Band-in-a-Box Wishlist
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Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180
Apprentice
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Apprentice
Joined: Nov 2002
Posts: 180 |
Hi Greg,
Whilst I would dearly like to see many of the types of improvements that you are suggesting, I would hate to see these being delivered at the expense of new styles.
For me, the realtracks and realstyles are the life blood of the product and absolutely why I continue to buy every upgrade.
I also don’t really see why one should come at the expense of the other. The two areas require very different skill sets and I imagine are produced by completely different sets of people. The tracks and styles require musicians and studio production staff whereas the program improvements require programmers and designers.
In my experience as a software developer there is only so much change that you can make to a mature piece of software in any 12 month window. Threre are only so many people that you can have digging down the same hole so throwing extra programmers at it probably won’t increase - and may well decrease - productivity.
I suspect that we may well have to live with many of the workflow and usability idiosyncrasies that you are referring to for many years to come (and some possibly for ever). The program just allows me to do such great things that I am going to swallow that and just keep enjoying the fantastic new tracks and styles.
Regards, Aubrey
If I hadn't seen such riches I could live with being poor.
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Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® users: Build 904 now available!
If you're already using Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®, make sure to grab the latest update! Build 904 is now available for download and includes the newest additions and enhancements from our team.
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® users: Build 1237 is now available!
Already a Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows user? Stay up to date and download the build 1237 to get all the latest additions and enhancements.
PowerTracks Pro 2026 for Windows is Here!
PowerTracks 2026 is here—bringing powerful new enhancements designed to make your production workflow faster, smoother, and more intuitive than ever.
The enhanced Mixer now shows Track Type and Instrument icons for instant track recognition, while a new grid option simplifies editing views. Non-floating windows adopt a modern title bar style, replacing the legacy blue bar.
The Master Volume is now applied at the end of the audio chain for consistent levels and full-signal master effects.
Tablature now includes a “Save bends when saving XML” option for improved compatibility with PG Music tools. Plus, you can instantly match all track heights with a simple Ctrl-release after resizing, and Add2 chords from MGU/SGU files are now fully supported... and more!
Get started today—first-time packages start at just $49.
Already using PowerTracks Pro Audio? Upgrade for as little as $29 and enjoy the latest improvements!
Order now!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows Special Offers End Tomorrow (January 15th, 2026) at 11:59 PM PST!
Time really is running out! Save up to 50% on Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® upgrades and receive a FREE Bonus PAK—only when you order by 11:59 PM PST on Thursday, January 15, 2026!
We've added many major new features and new content in a redesigned Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®!
Version 2026 introduces a modernized GUI redesign across the program, with updated toolbars, refreshed windows, smoother workflows, and a new Dark Mode option. There’s also a new side toolbar for quicker access to commonly used windows, and the new Multi-View feature lets you arrange multiple windows as layered panels without overlap, making it easier to customize your workspace.
Another exciting new addition is the new AI-Notes feature, which can transcribe polyphonic audio into MIDI. You can view the results in notation or play them back as MIDI, and choose whether to process an entire track or focus on specific parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's over 100 new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®.
There's an amazing collection of new content too, including 202 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
Upgrade your Band-in-a-Box for Windows to save up to 50% on most Band-in-a-Box® 2026 upgrade packages!
Plus, when you order your Band-in-a-Box® 2026 upgrade during our special, you'll receive a Free Bonus PAK of exciting new add-ons.
If you need any help deciding which package is the best option for you, just let us know. We are here to help!
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® Special Offers Extended Until January 15, 2026!
Good news! You still have time to upgrade to the latest version of Band-in-a-Box® for Windows® and save. Our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® special now runs through January 15, 2025!
We've packed Band-in-a-Box® 2026 with major new features, enhancements, and an incredible lineup of new content! The program now sports a sleek, modern GUI redesign across the entire interface, including updated toolbars, refreshed windows, smoother workflows, a new dark mode option, and more. The brand-new side toolbar provides quicker access to key windows, while the new Multi-View feature lets you arrange multiple windows as layered panels without overlap, creating a flexible, clutter-free workspace. We have an amazing new “AI-Notes” feature. This transcribes polyphonic audio into MIDI so you can view it in notation or play it back as MIDI. You can process an entire track (all pitched instruments and drums) or focus on individual parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's an amazing collection of new content too, including 202 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
There are over 100 new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows®.
When you order purchase Band-in-a-Box® 2026 before 11:59 PM PST on January 15th, you'll also receive a Free Bonus PAK packed with exciting new add-ons.
Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Windows® today! Check out the Band-in-a-Box® packages page for all the purchase options available.
Happy New Year!
Thank you for being part of the Band-in-a-Box® community.
Wishing you and yours a very happy 2026—Happy New Year from all of us at PG Music!
Season's Greetings!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday season—thanks for being part of our community!
The office will be closed for Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) at 6:00am PST.
Team PG
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