As a relatively new user of BIAB and as a retired Microsoft software development engineer and program manager, here's my $.02 on what BIAB needs to do.

The first problem goes deeper than the GUI and has been mentioned in several posts. BIAB is used for many different purposes. In many cases, like mine, it's used as a boot-up starter to get some tracks laid out and imported into a more advanced DAW where you can do what you need to with them and not have to deal with the inherent limitations of BIAB. Other people tend to use it as a learning tool, or as a back-up band for practicing...the list probably goes on.

In the world I come from we referred to these as 'user scenarios' and they can often be pretty diverse. I think I saw an earlier post that referred to different personalities, and I think that shows some promise. In other words, a way in which you could have presets (a term many recording musicians are familiar with) the arranges the interface so that the most used functions are easily available and arranged for quick use. Likewise, the ability to define these user interface presets would allow a user to customize the layout to their liking. The downside to this: Yet another level of complexity added to an already overly-complex program

That being said, I still have to say that BIAB's biggest issue is NOT the GUI, but it's inability to really define itself as a program so that it makes sense to the typical user. In trying to be everything to everybody it's become a jack of all trades and master of none. It doesn't help that BIAB uses it's own 'alien' vernacular that isn't even close to what musicians use in real life. Who refers to an entire song as a 'chorus?' We use the terms verse, chorus, bridge, intro, outtro or ending. In my opinion the most serious flaw in BIAB is not it's GUI, but it's SERIOUS deficiencies in arranging (in BIAB-speak = frame) a song. What makes this such a serious flaw is that arranging a song is the most important part of creating a song.

The only hope I see for this program to graduate into some form of professional tool is a serious reconstruction effort from the ground up. And for that, you have to start with a vision of what you want your end product to be. Is it a song construction program? Is it a live backup track player? Is it a learning tool? If you can't define the end game you can't get there.


Personally, I think BIAB needs to be a core set of functionality around song construction, with add-in elements that allow you to make it function specifically to your needs. The core set of functionality needs to be a simple, straight-forwared song-layout and arrangement product, that functions both in a stand-alone mode or as a VSTi plug-in to professional DAW's. That would be more consistent with the market they are in. In stand-alone mode they could allow for the other uses through personality presets or whatever. But ultimately they need to have a much stronger product definition, and a much stronger set of song construction and arrangment features that operate in the domain of the user and industry vernacular.

Sorry for being so long-winded on my first post, but I really had to get this out of my system.

DD