I thought I'd like to start putting lyrics into a BiaB song.

I looked in the manual, which started by telling me that BiaB supports lyrics in three different ways, Note-based, Bar-based and Big Lyrics.
Hmm; Okaay.

Then it goes on to say it no longer supports line-based lyrics, what they were, and how to migrate them, in some detail. Why here and now? Surely this is just a distraction for anyone reading the manual to find out how to add lyrics. Put this stuff in a margin note or in a migrations section, not here!

OK, lets go find a tutorial or video or something.
Yep, here's one, OK, here we go....

And darn it, the video does almost exactly the same thing ... virtually the first activity it shows explains how to migrate the obsolete line-based lyrics to bar based. Again ... why here and why now? When I say "almost the same thing", it's because here it mentions note-based and bar-based but not "Big Lyrics".

That would disruptive enough if there was a structured way to skip that bit, but there isn't ... either we watch through it ... possibly every time we watch the video, of we make our own shortcuts once we've found where the it is.

This is crazy.

One of the reasons it's crazy is that humans have a limited short-term memory, capable of handling only a few ( <= 7 ) ideas at a time, so every distraction like this pushes a distraction into the short-term memory and, potentially at least, the items of interest out of short term memory. That can result in confusion and potentially in demoralisation.

The video then goes on to show how one can import all the lyrics in one go ... but shows us first the hard way to do it, then the easier way. Think that through guys. Why on Earth would you explain it that way? Why not just start with "Probably the best way to do this..." and introduce the second method first. Explain editing and adjusting elsewhere.

I almost wonder if it's possible to make a couple or so paragraphs of manual and a few minutes of video more confusing, even if one deliberately tries.

Please focus on the main event.


Last edited by Gordon Scott; 01/25/22 03:14 AM.
Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
AVL:MXE Linux; Windows 11
BIAB2025 Audiophile, a bunch of other software.
Kawai MP6, Ui24R, Focusrite Saffire Pro40 and Scarletts
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