PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows Is Band in a Box Too Old for Young People?

Band in a Box is a great music production software, for seniors. I have never seen any young musicians on YouTube ever using, or even talking about BiaB.

Just being curious, is BiaB a software suitable for users at the age of 40 and under?

Anyone knows who the dude is in the 2023 Boot Camp videos on YouTube? PG Music should really hire this dude to make more Boot Camp videos in the future, to attract the younger generations.

What makes Boot Camp videos more value-adding than other videos on YouTube? Humanization. In stead of a man or a woman reading the user manual and bore audience to death, the Boot Camp videos use real life examples/senarios to teach how to make real music with relevant and useful features, and ignore useless and redundant features.

Anyway, I hope in the future, more and more young people would become passionate and enthusiastic with Band in a Box, just as they do now with Toontrack, Native Instruments, Image-Line, iZoptope, Ujam, and many other big names.

MAKE USER YOUNG AGAIN - BIAB 2024

Great suggestion, I too have thought this and I'm only 72 years old

I wrote some EDM styles, https://www.nortonmusic.com/style24.html and it is one of the lowest selling style e-disks I have in my catalog.

Some of the people who purchased it tell me they love and asked me to do more. But I guess just not enough younger people know about BiaB.

And that's a pity, because BiaB is a good tool to create that kind of music. A user can make his/her own grooves without having to sample other people's recordings, and thus avoid paying copyright royalties.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

Imagine if everyone in this forum could share a little bit of their BiaB knowledge with their grandchildren.

In 2030, BiaB will still be alive and isn't going down like IBM or Kodak.

We the people need to take actions NOW to make BiaB great again!!!

BIAB LIVES MATTER!!!

The guy on the bootcamp series talks like he's an employee of PG Music.

That's why I said those videos are good actually creating up the song using all the wonderful implemented functions directly in Biab, they are not like the other videos reading from a manual seen here.

@MusicVillain please stay here and keep posting, don't go ! it needs knowledgeable users here to bring it into the modern age.

Interesting topic, especially because it relates to the future development of Biab.
I think I am a bit ambivalent on this one.

On the one hand, I feel that Biab can be seen as a vehicle to promote and "defend" traditional styles of music that are clearly losing out, among the younger generations, to the new electronic/loop-based/no-melody kinds of music (I dont even know how to define these "genres", I'm too old I guess, but I hope you know what I mean). Nothing against these, the world evolves and I'm fine with that, actually. But I do worry that when new things come out, older things are too quickly forgotten or dismissed by the younger. So, in this view, I welcome the idea that BIAB still stubbornly sticks with jazz, folk, country, rock etc. Love it. And, even more so, I absolutely love BIAB as something that represents and spreads the idea that music is ACTUALLY played by real people (with Real Tracks), human beings with musical skills and taste, and it's not just the assembly of loops made on a laptop by someone in a bedroom with no music knowledge or taste whatsoever. So, there's that. Long live BIAB in its current form, for these reasons. On the other hand ...

... on the other hand, though, I do see the limitations. I'd certainly love to see BIAB grow significantly beyond its niche, and acquire more customers, and more musical diversity, and attract younger people. And that's because growth means more resources, more and better capabilities, better software, more inspiration, more possibilities to innovate through cross-fertilization of very different genres etc etc etc. And, in order to do that, I guess BIAB should try to incorporate features that are attractive to the younger generations, but without "losing its soul", so to speak. And by "features" I'm not just talking about more modern genres for its styles and tracks, but also (maybe) better integration with loop-based music production styles and philosophy, more modern interface etc etc. Easier said than done, I know.

As I said, I'm ambivalent. I don't know what to wish. I'm sure that at PG Music they have a clear strategic vision about this issue. Personally, I like BIAB because every year it gives me more of the same kind of musical stuff that I truly love. I'm the perfect target customer, I guess. But "more of the same" is a very risky strategy in the long term.

Long live BIAB, regardless.

Yes, it's the very thing that will keep all the styles of music alive.
If the software is modern it will attract younger users, this way they can be introduced to other styles.

Perhaps PGM would do well to make a major update to their UI; it really does look like refugee from 1994.



I'm going to have to defend loop based music creation here. Even though I have no use for loops myself, I understand that it can be done well and that it actually does take some talent and discernment to do so.

I find one of the unique qualities of Band-in-a-Box is it allows me to explore the many audio sources used in production.

Band-in-a-Box works with user recorded audio, MIDI, virtual instruments, audio loops and insert effects in addition to PG Music's RealTracks. It doesn't care about the audio source which allows me to concentrate on the song structure.

Tom Cruise, Top Gun Maverick, the theme song is "Hold My Hand", by LadyGaga.

It's a traditional four chords rock song, with a tiny bit of EDM elements blended into heavily distorted guitar.

Guess what? Huge success! Both young people and old people love this song. There are hundreds of people doing covers on YouTube.

On the other hand, BiaB is alienating young generation, not because of the genres, but due to it's Windows XP era interface.

There are over 300 commands in BiaB, but only less than 30 of them are truly useful. The remaining 270 are just there to intimidate and confuse the users.

For example, in the Melodiest dialogue box: "Change Song Chords" option, "Change Song Style" option, are you kidding me? I want you to help me generate a melody to fit my song, but you put these options there to screw my song. Why you hate me so much?

HIDE THESE GOD AWEFUL USELESS COMMANDS & OPTIONS, SO ONLY THE USEFUL ONES CAN BE SEEN!!!

Good point, but bad example. Those two obtions are necessary to identify a melody which fits your chords, even if you don't have chords. I do admit that the process will be iterative as you try to figure the logic, but it is logical once you get it done. Like much of BIAB. I just spent a moring on a project to identify a melody, and I think I got some good stuff...

I think the BBPlugin/BBPlugin Standalone is where the focus needs to be for new younger users.
This way you can get away from the old Delphi code limitations and bloat.

Just a quick clarification. I agree with Byron. Any kind of music may involve talent and discernment (or the opposite), including loop-based music. That was not my point. My point is:
- younger generations use loop-based production a lot. Not my thing, not my taste, but that's irrelevant. However, should BIAB accomodate loop-based production in a better, more straightforward, modern way, in order to attract the young a bit more? (and yes, @JimFogle I know it's already possible, and I know that with BIAB you can use any source, including loops, but the implementation is clearly way too convoluted and clearly not at the center of the focus of BIAB's operations and interface. Can you imagine a 18 years old choosing BIAB to create looped-based songs? There are far better alternatives, "better" from the 18 years old point of view). That is the question I was wondering about. And I dont have an answer, obviously.
- the idea of integrating BIAB's core strenghts (real tracks, chord based production, "traditional" genres etc etc) with more loop-friendly / young-friendly operations and interface, might help introducing the "loop-only" younger generation to BIAB and, more importantly, to traditional styles, genres, ways of music production. That would be a good thing, in my opinion. Not for me, but generally a good thing.
Nothing against loops, per se. In fact, I also use them (although quite rarely).

nobody is going to create decent contemporary EDM songs using BIAB.

Programs like Reason and Ableton are popular for modern pop and dance genres for a reason, with their huge sample libraries, loops, built-in library of cutting-edge synths, and effects, powerful routing and automation and fast efficient workflow.

BIAB is not the right tool for the job. Stuff like hip-hop, trap are not even chord based.

Still love BIAB though, but it's best suited for generic sounding jazz, pop, blues & country imho. As long as young people enjoy playing those genres, then I'm sure there will be new adopters and BIAB has a bright future.

As we discussed in another thread, the GUI and workflow will be a turn off, for people coming from other well-established DAWs.

Kona.

i see where your coming from, and this has been discussed before re EDM/modern genres etc. but my question is do people really explore biab and realband (rb) properly ?
cos in recent years more 'modern' styles have been added.

the reason i mention this is there are more than a few styles that could be used or adapted for edm etc.

ive just finished a 'kinda rap' song useing a biab style.
i'll post it in the showcase so people can tell me if i'm out to lunch or not.

lets not forget rb has 48 traks one can anything with. ive even done special effects with it.
in rb you can do a slew of stuff. depends how one approaches the task at hand.

your correct some other products have lots of big sample libs...but there are nearly free/free sample libs out there and loads of virtual instruments...

eg computer music mag from the uk which offers something like 80 free plug ins n' vi's//synths etc etc.
(just explore it on you tube sometime. some very impressive stuff in cm's vault.)

one problem ive found if i'm confronted with huge sample libs//vi's is i have sooo many sample options..it takes up ages to come to a decision as to which ones to use in a song. thus 'paralysis by analysis' often occurs.
thus i limit my choices to the pg styles//sound creation tools and augmented by cm mag sounds.

but maybe i'm useless at modern genres (as at my core i'm a rocker ). but we will see when i load up the song on in showcase...and get egg on my face...lol.
its an experimental song cos so many people say biab cant do modern stuff.

in conclusion all i'm saying is the tools are there in pg products to do anything one wishes. its just how one chooses to use them. the key is to delve deeply.


happiness.

om

+1

Perhaps for ALL users. I wish it worked better in the Mac World with Logic Pro. I'd love to be able to use it reliably in my workflow.

Actually, I think BiaB is a good tool for EDM.

I've written some EDM styles and you can make them repeat and repeat just like a recorded loop. Then you can use the B section as a variation of that loop. With Multi styles, you can get a couple more variations, if you want.

What could be easier. Enter your chord, or few chords, choose an EDM style, and set the repeat function. And you're done.

But since my EDM style disk is not one of my top-selling disks, even though some who have bought it tell me it's great, I guess there aren't many EDM creators using BiaB.

Perhaps if they knew about this, it's change.


Insoights and incites by Notes ♫

Let's not forget, RealTracks ARE audio loops. BIAB is perfectly capable of making contemporary music. This is after all making music with computers. As with any musical instrument, the musician is more important than the tool.
Here is an example done some time ago demonstrating the versatility of a BIAB style using both midi and RealTrack Loops:

https://soundcloud.com/cxp-2/style-versatility-demo

However, the discussions in the forum and the typical showcase entry would send twenty-somethings running in the opposite direction no matter the UI.