Has anyone noticed I am complaining a lot less this upgrade cycle? laugh Oh, I will throw a barb now and then on things like "All Tracks are Equal." But generally, I have enthusiastically embraced one new feature, multiriffs, and moved on. It is a zen thing for me!

In the past I have been more than a bit annoyed at new features like custom track names that don't work throughout the program, VideoRealTracks that have almost zero usefulness and BIAB VST that never seems to make it across the finish line. I have complained, (sometimes too loudly) and had my posts deleted! laugh (This one may be next!)

But, I am getting old. And tired. I had very little time in 2021 for music. In 2022 I intend to focus more on the music and less on the tools. And I encourage all of you to do the same.

So, I will call this Zen and the Art of BIAB.

Stressing over features that do not work is mostly in the past for me. BIAB VST doesn't work? I'll simply never try to use it again. Oh, maybe someday, when Pipeline or MusicStudent get in touch and say "Hey, it works perfectly now!", I'll reconsider. But for now...what BIAB VST? Same approach for Utility Tracks, UserTracks and other initially promising features that just never seemed to pan out.

And...I Am OK With This!

With BIAB 2022 I received the finest set of RealTracks anyone could ever wish for! When added to my 10-year collection I now have a MASSIVE set of instruments that sound amazing and work almost flawlessly in any key across a range of tempos.

And with my one new favorite feature, multiriffs, I feel like I have a complete toolkit in BIAB! But even without multiriffs (in case they don't work out) I recently realized I am damned happy to have 4 fully functional tracks plus a drum track to use (even if they are called Bass, Piano, etc.) and almost 10,000 styles made up of a hard drive's worth of REAL instruments that BIAB will assemble for me on demand!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm keeping Komplete and all of its amazing instruments and synths and those will find their way into most of my new music.

But I won't spend another nanosecond trying to get Kontakt to work inside BIAB or BIAB VST to work inside Reaper. And no Charlie, I won't be dragging RealTracks to utility tracks and then medlyfying-melodizing-audiofying-whatever them; all of that deep technical diving and uncertainty (is it another bug or am I stupid or maybe both?) sucks all of the fun out of music creation for me.

So I will ENJOY BIAB 2022 immensely as I explore all of these new RealTracks and styles. And I will use BIAB as sparingly as possible; get in, generate some tracks and get out! And then I will explore adding new stuff from Komplete to see if maybe I can create some modern music using parts from BIAB and parts from elsewhere.

This approach may not be for everyone and if not, well, have fun in the trenches fighting the good fight and lemme know if a particularly useful feature suddenly appears to be fully functional!

But for me, at least for now, it will be Zen and the Art of BIAB.

(And, as I have stated here in the past, I will continue to upgrade every year if PGM continues to provide new and fun RealTracks and styles as they have done in the past!)