Originally Posted By: Cerio
Originally Posted By: Charlie Fogle
Can you explain what a useful, certain situation would be that's specific to multiriffs?



That feature would be nice simply for the sake of ease of use. Having the option to regenerate 1, 2 3, or 4 beats from the new multirrifs windows would be, IMO, an intuitive and logic feature, and asking for that feature is, also IMO, reasonable, even if all you can do from the multiriff window is also doable from the audio editing window and even if I, personally, probably wouldn't use it.

Flexibility is key in modern UI design. Every user uses BIAB in a different way, and there are so many different uses of the program as there are users. Being able to do the same thing in different ways and from different (but intuitive) places is a sign of a well-designed, modern, and flexible UI. You're an experienced user who have been introduced to the new BIAB feautres progressively over the years, but think for a moment in a new user who may not know what "Artist tracks" are, and who may not understand why after editing a bar in the audio editor window, the name of the track turns orange, the name of the instrument change to "Artist", and a WAV file appears in the project's folder. Trying to think from this perspective rather than from the perspective of the experienced and advanced user usually helps to desing better and more intuitive UI's

Also, this feature wouldn't break any existing functionality, it just would add another option, so I don't really think there's anything wrong with this request.

On the other hand, if the new multiriffs window only adds redundant functionality, what's the whole point, in your opinion, of this new feature? (I'm not even sure if you're implying this, but, but if you are, I'm really interested in your opinion smile )


Well, first thing, if PG Music happens to integrate this wish into a 'new' feature, I'll joyfully embrace it and integrate it to some degree into my work flow. I recently deleted a post of my opinion about what I considered an unnecessary feature that PG staff did in fact include into an update release thus rendering my opinion irrelevant.

Knowing that PG Music is capable of completing disregarding any opinion or reason I may offer against a wish feature, here's my thoughts to why single beat multiriff's aren't feasible.

Let's start with how a riff is defined. A google search turned up many different slight variations of this statement from Marshall.com:
"Whether you call it a riff, hook, lick or lead line, the 'riff' is arguably the most important aspect of guitar. A 'riff' is a succession of notes played on guitar to create the main melody of a song"

Phrase, melody line, succession of notes and similar statements all support the fact that the BIAB Multiriff feature is neither designed for nor the correct tool to fulfill this wish even though some think it should simply for "the sake of ease of use." When comparing the Multiriff feature to the Microchord/Motif feature, It's no contest nor is it intuitive or logical. Considering the fact that BIAB already has the flexibility to accomplish this task in several ways using other tools that specifically excel at editing at the beat level or finer resolution as can be done in the Audio Edit Page. To me, editing audio is intuitive and logical to use an Audio Editor. Both the microchord/motif tool and the Audio Edit Page are specific tools for audio editing.

The Multiriff tool is designed to generate phrases, riffs, licks and a succession of notes. It's designed and intended to search for appropriate audio phrases and create up to 20 multiple versions. By design, it will fall short of users, single beat or finer resolution editing.

Speaking of RealTrack audio, the 2022 version of BIAB offers more than 3,500 hours of RT audio. The Multiriff tool has access to ALL of that audio so I can't possibly calculate how many individual beats that's available to a user attempting to quickly, intuitively and logically achieve single beat editing. It's overwhelming. The Multiriff tool generates audio, it doesn't edit it. A user is arranging, not editing. Here again, by design, it will fall short of users, single beat or finer resolution editing.

Thinking from he perspective of a new user being unaware of what "Artist Performance Tracks" are and their purpose is a baseless point because that's no different than this new user is equally unaware of microchords/motif, the multiriff tool and the Audio Edit Page. Which also is no different to even the most experienced user because no one has any previous experience with these new features of microchords/motifs and the completely redesigned multiriffs. There's also many experience users that for years never opened or used the Audio Editor in BIAB preferring to edit in their favorite DAW. The learning curve is there for all of us.

In my singular opinion, there is no point for this 'new' feature that really isn't 'new'. It is redundant functionality that falls short of all of the other methods it's redundant to.

Charlie

BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.