PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist Unhappy With BIAB 2021

Some may disagree with me, that's fine, but the 2021 version needed more development work before the December release date.

... Its like putting band aids on top of band aids on top of band aids.

I think the staff does a hell of a good job fixing the broken code and I thank them for doing that. ...

Some semi-random thoughts on the update process.

I believe PG have a number of beta testers and I suspect that they're all very experienced BIAB users, who know there way around the program and know how things should work. That's a two-edged sword, because they also know what _not_ to do so that they can keep themselves out of trouble. It's very likely that, probably subconsciously, they're avoiding bugs into which we less familiar folk can crash. In a past business we had a guy who was, almost pathologically, deliberately naive when testing software. He would do the craziest "why would anyone do that?" things, but he found loads of bugs.

Quite a lot of complex software packages have multiple risk-level option, e.g., Development, Beta, Release Candidate' Release and Long-Term-Support. That is more work to maintain, but not as much more as one might imagine. Whenever I finish a bug-fix in a mature version, typically I compare the old with the newer and propagate that same fix when I can. Unusually for me (I'm a Unix/Linux man), I use WinWerge for that as I find it extremely friendly to use.

As a user, I generally avoid getting the latest new release, as there are almost always lots of bugs. I have no desire to inflict the pain upon myself; let others do it. Either they don't mind the pain, or they'll learn in time.

In my few updates with BIAB, they've usually seemed to me to be pretty shockingly buggy. But still I was tempted in by the upgrade offers. I'm of the opinion that if your new release is likely to have many bugs, then encouraging large early uptake seems like a good way to bring a tidal wave of bug reports, anger and frustration upon oneself.

One of the things over the years in my own electronics and software work, that has both frustrated me and satisfied me, is the comment "Oh, that's really easy, even I could have done that", when one has spent many hours, days, weeks, thinking very hard about _how_ to make it so easy. I try to make things consistent everywhere, even in places where I think the user will likely never go, because if they do, the product will likely behave as they expect. I personally am of the opinion that, longer term, it also actually saves _me_ time, frustration and effort.

The best systems tend to feel like there was one system architect and one vision. It doesn't matter if it's really quite a large team, provided they think together and act together. BIAB feels like one or a few people are given things to deal with and they do so in near isolation. I suspect that is actually _not_ the case, but it feels like it.

Gordon, good points, balanced and well articulated.

Some may disagree with me, that's fine, but the 2021 version needed more development work before the December release date. That fact is evidenced in the plethora of bug-fix updates that have ensued in the following 12 weeks, I think an average rate of about two per week.

The delivery model and alpha test cycle is far from ideal, leaving it up to beta testers to find and report the majority of the real problems.

I like the product, but that is not an excuse for delivering an unsatisfactorily tested system with unproven/broken functionality just so it is in time for Xmas.

There. After that I'll probably will never get any of the bugs I find and report fixed ever again. That will be my punishment for speaking objectively but perhaps negatively as seen by some.

However, still remaining objective, imagine purchasing any other mature product and being notified from the manufacturer that updates to the product were required no less than 25 times over the next 12 weeks. No. Can't imagine that? Neither can I. YMMV. I don't think my comments will change anything though.

I think PG are doing a great job but as BIAB gets more complicated it gets harder to fix. RB doesn't need anywhere near as many fixes and it is much less complicated. And once you've roughed out a song in BIAB, open it in RB and it does just about everything BIAB does - and some things it does better.

But I wish they would fix the problem of RB not generating loops.......

I had to laugh when Gordon Scott mentioned the person who would do what no one thought anyone might do. In my programming classes, I used the 'any idiot' test. Find someone walking down the hall who knows nothing about programming, sit them down in front of your program with no coaching, and see what happens. It tells you a lot.

There is a point I've raised but I'm no longer sure if it's in this lengthening thread or a similar one, that PG Music released version 2021 around Dec. 1. AFTER THAT we users and testers reacted and made requests (I'm thinking especially about the Utility Tracks) and the programmers honored them. I think this is where many problems crept in.

There are some nifty programs out there where the single-person developer reacts to user suggestions almost immediately. I think PG Music is not that, and should not be that.

So it really is NOT a good idea to do too much in BIAB if you intend to take it to RB.

That's been my approach for years.
Flush out an idea in BiaB (fast), then move to RB to work in a more DAW like setting.
Tend to the details there.
There is a learning curve at first, but for me it's way more productive in the long run.