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

CXP.

well done with your song mate.

perhaps you might post the link to your song in the showcase with maybe a title like 'example of edm using biab' ?
then if the edm topic comes up again the rest of us can point to your example ?

have a great 2023.

om

> 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!!!

Music Villain,

Band-in-a-Box doesn’t take a “one-size-fits-all” approach.

For example, the Melodist can
1. create a melody to your existing chords,
2. Or also create both chords and melody.
A simple checkbox determines if you get option 1 or 2.

So you only want the option 1, and find it upsetting that we even have option 2 available, by your comment above.

Problem is many people like option 2, and use it to create entire songs, with chord and Melodies (royalty free). They’ve sent us examples which have been used as background music in many situations, including background to a CNN segment, children’s TV show or a background music YouTube video. I just heard one the other day where a famous comedian uses melodist generated pieces as background for his voice overs introducing old clips of his.

If we did as you’ve asked, and removed the option to generate both chords and melodies, people would complain. So we don’t plan to do that.

Muso,

This is an old issue. A link to this track was provided back in 2017:

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=64551&Number=434490#Post434490

> 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.
< well done with your song mate.

Yes, well done and thanks for the post. I’ve started a new thread here, as others might be interested in the range of contemporary music that can be generated with BiaB.

I’ll start a new thread for this post, as it’s a different topic from the original
Please reply in this thread https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=753528#Post753528

just to clear something up, edm music is not created just by repeating loops. it consists of build ups, drops, incredible sound design, intricate automation of synthesizer and effects parameters and manipulation of samples such as time-stretching and chopping.

don't underestimate the genre and think that producers are just looping a sample, this is some of the most complex music to create and you need the right tools.

i've heard attempts to make modern dance music with BIAB and they sound quite laughable, similar to how arranger keyboards sound when trying to do edm, house, hip-hop, dubstep, trap etc.

I wonder though, how much of that relates to BiaB itself and how much relates to someone expecting BiaB to do the whole job.

Konaboy,
The muscle of the BIAB is Acoustic and Electric (don't confuse with electronic) instruments, played by real musicians. It is not designed specifically for production of synth based EDM music, but made a very good progress where you can use these (acoustic & electric) RTs / Midi content with other, less represented genres (such as EDM) in your composition with introduction of Chord Track(s) and other tools like partial regeneration, where you can get real played phrases pretty tight to adhere to your ideas.

Every schoolboy and schoolgirl can make a "beat" on their phone. But what software can add real acoustic & electric instruments to their "composition" that will actually follow their ideas, not push the key these loops/phrases were written in? There are only a couple of titles that I know of and overall they are miles away from BIAB in that respect.

Many users utilize BIAB to generate a specific track(s) (guitar, sax, piano, etc), but do their main work in DAW.
BIAB is not a silver bullet for "all genres" but it has a very strong library of content in Pop/Rock/Jazz/Folk/Country genres.

Personally I feel that many synth/sample based software workstations such as Komplete, Halion, Falcon, Groove Agent and whole bunch of others have in a way similar content. BIAB is very different and I like that contrast. It's great to have different choices.

Kona.

re edm can be superb...no argument.

but having been offered inside looks on occasion at the music biz over the years i would suggest many (not all) superb productions resulted from a 'team effort'
ie..a team of production people behind the artist.

yes a lone artist can produce a superb result, but it often requires a huge amount of work and many many hours of effort. its very demanding on a lone artist with no pro help/assistance.

re 'laughable'. i see where your coming from but i would respectfully suggest that a team of 'pros' useing biab would probably show a superb edm result with biab/rb.
remembering that there is nothing to stop people useing sophisticated vl's//plug ins.
my argument being that if biab/rb were the only tools available on the market...a team of 'pros' will produce that superb edm genre or trap or whatever result.

i just do nutty songs for enjoyment...and have no illusions of my limitations. but imho its all how the artist(s) use a tool.
if you gave me a blank canvas i would produce a terrible painting cos i cant paint...but in the right hands the same brushes and pallate would produce a major masterpiece.

happiness/great 2023.

om

To do modern stuff Biab need to be easy to drag n drop samples/loops into the track anywhere and be able to set the key/chord tempo and set it to repeat for so many bars all non destructively the Loop dialog is so old and limited.
Else you need to sync Biab to FL Studio or Reaper:

And this is something BiaB can do. Especially if coupled with RealBand or a sequencer/DAW.

I also think that any composition of any style of music can be made better after exporting it to a sequencer or DAW and tinkering with it a bit.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫

One question I've had in this discussion is : If the young musicians are not on this forum and using BiaB, where are they hanging out?
What forum that allows them to describe, post and share music are they using?

I'd like to see examples of what they produce even if it's rap or loops (which is not my thing).
I'm interested in observing how they operate.

Think I could pass for one?

For sure, fam! Picture this: I’m in my cozy bedroom studio, surrounded by neon lights and vintage synths. My vibe is on point, and I’m cookin’ up beats like a boss. I hit that MPC pad, and the bassline drops—straight fuego! My laptop screen’s lit with Ableton Live, and I’m tweakin’ those knobs like a mad scientist. The melody hits, and I’m in the zone, lost in the sauce. It’s all about those lush chords, crispy hi-hats, and that 808 kick punchin’ through. I layer vocals, add some autotune swag, and boom—my track’s fire emoji! The speakers blast, and I’m vibin’ hard. Music’s my flex man. Trap, lo-fi, or chillwave, I’m here to create the magic. And when that drop hits, there's nothin like it. So, yeah, making music—it’s my whole mood, ya feel me?

First on the list - kill RB (sorry old guys).
Most new users are MAC people. They don’t care about RealBand

Logic, Reaper, Abelton, Pro tools- the environments serious music software needs live in.

Quit trying to sell a DAW. If it works so well with BIAB make those features work in the plug in for mainstream DAW’s.

IMO BIAB’s growth future is as a plugin to the above environments.

Don’t rebuild the standalone UI. That’ll take million$. Instead Phase it out by attrition.
As suggested by others. Fix the broken stuff, simplify(not rebuild) the UI.

Spend dollars on the future, not the past.
Real Tracks, Super MIDI, Styles . Those things are what makes BIAB great.

Most computer users use a phone most of the time. DAW’s are available for tablets now. Don’t miss the coming convergence of software to the mobile OS platforms.
Not sure what the stratedgerie to do this is, but recognize in a few years phones will have all the cpu/gpu/ram they need to run this stuff.

some comments.

1...irrespective of age or music genre whether a complex song arrangement or loops ...songs are work...lots of dedication and work.
but maybe im wrong once ai gets further in development.
old yorkshire saying is 'cream and junk flows to the top'.
eg the music biz...thus sadly lots of very talented people never
are recognised...there being so many new songs issued each year.
2...last time i looked still win has over 70 percent market share.
haveing said that i dont want people to think im ultra pro win.
but i invite anyone.here to go on gearspace.com where thousands of studios large and small hang out...and start a thread 'why does anyone here use win over other OSs and watch the fur fly...lol.
ive even seen many comments from peop!e who moved back to win or one or more reasons....start a thread on GS once sgain...
' why did you move back to win'...and watch the fur fly again...lol.
from my hopefully unbiased opinon i feel one key aspect of why win still has a big. market share is developers of music apps/products have got used to win quirks i suspect...also to be fair there have been improvements made to win OS i suspect because some people working on the win os have studios themselves from what ive heard.
3...as to rb and its detractors all i can say is i often wonder how much some people have delved into it....as a reaper user i find rb highly usefull.
imho i dont think it will go away...but features slowly added over time whereas i would like to see a more aggressive development strategy taken with it. just the new comping feature has helped somewhat for me. finally let me say in an attempt to be unbiased i tried another popular daw recently and soon realised i would loose various rb features...imho with a few added upgrades..if done right...rb could be the cream at the top of the daw milk bottle.
4...im not a fan of the plugin strategy based on my history of working in industry trying to interface one companies systems to systems controlled by third parties which we had no control over. from a user perspective it all seems
an easy task 'i want pg plugin to interface with my fav daw '...
but the devils in the details....i invite anyone to take c++ programming courses and try it yourself...THEN youll have a new found respect for what pg are trying to do to keep its users who want such happy...particularly as bb is unique in the world of music apps. as i said...not trivial particularly as the host daw might change at any point.
5..re edm/rap/trap etc etc one criticism i have of pg is i think a few vids would
be very usefull in attracting young users...and show them the power of ptpro/rb/bb. years back i used ptpro to do some rap songs for some young clients who were amazed. im a rocker at heart ...but i keep an open mind re other genres. imho pg provides all the tools to enable one to do any genre one wants. particularly as there is sooo much content including synths and everything else under the sun.


just my 2 bucks or quids worth..lol....fwiw.

happiness.

om 🇨🇦 🇬🇧

please don't kill RB. its an essential part of my work flow. trying to turn BIAB into a DAW is the reason it's so complicated (sorry Jim and Charlie Fogle!) anyone with basic computer skills - cut/paste etc - can work RB after a little playing around and as I've said before BIAB and RB together do everything I want.

why do we think young musicians want Mac only programs? maybe if you are a Mac user you automatically get a reduced choice of programs so you steer clear of BIAB.

if the 'future' of BIAB is the plugin can we at least take into account the oldies like me who want the current BIAB/RB partnership to remain in place?

I upgrade every year but I don't really need new features - i just like the new RTs. those of us that use BIAB/RB to create backing tracks liek the mssicians chosen to record RTs. which musicians do 'young people' like?

Bearing in mind that Beyonce has gone country and Taylor Swift is breaking all sales records could BIAB create reasonable versions of their current recordings? I haven't tried but if the answer is yes then the music 'young people' like can be created with BIAB/RB. maybe they just don't know.............

Bob.

over the years whenever ive shown a new young budding songwriter or a group what bb/rb can do…
the result is every time, and i mean every time…total excitement when they realise they can to quote them..'you mean i can create songs with top session musicians who have even played on hit songs ? wow.'. …irrespective of their music genre.
thus i conclude lots of the new generations of song creators just arent aware of the potential with pg products.

I personally have done songs I think in nearly every music genre.
except bluegrass..so i decided to stretch myself and challenge myself recently with the bg genre even though at heart i'm a rocker.
it was a fun project doing the Banker Man bg song in my sig…and thankfully ive had more than a few likes…which makes me happy.

Thus from the above I feel a way needs to be found to 'get the word out' to the new generations of aspiring songwriters ... .an old tried and true marketing being to get the products into schools and universities. maybe by pg doing road trips…which is what many tech firms do plus trade shows and publications and offering discounts to educational institutions etc etc.

whether mac or pc...each OS has its positives and negatives imho.
a perusal of gearspace.com posts will show this as some users oscillate between both.


I think a lot of us existing users tend to take pg products for granted including me.

happiness.

om

I found it possible to make BIAB modern.
I often make the music modern by changing the drums.

I hope BIAB can have more good guitar RealTrack, and it is more convenient to find the guitar rhythm I need.

Bob, I agree with you that trying to turn Band-in-a-Box into a DAW tends to complicate the program.

I don't use RealBand too often as I've found it easier to stay in Band-in-a-Box to arrange my song projects.

The future is the BB Plugin.
I tried for years n years to make RealBand better but that was flogging a dead horse, there's no Mac version, and with Win Biab it's a saga spending 6 months programing it then another 6 months to program the same thing on Mac, this is a crazy thing to keep doing. You are only getting half the value you should be getting, you are paying for an extra 6 months that could be better served fixing bugs and adding new features.
Would you rather how it is now or have it at the same time for all OS's and Mobiles? :
Operating System Compatibility & Mobile devices
JUCE is a cross platform framework allowing a single codebase to compile to native applications and plug-ins with the same user experience on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, across both desktop and mobile. Native applications can be launched in the iOS and Android device simulators to simplify testing and debugging, and can be packaged up for distribution within the mobile app stores. [/quote]

The BB Plugin can be a Plugin for any DAW, a Plugin Standalone and a Live Arranger and be crossplatform so it's compiled as a Win, Lin or Mac version at the same time.
Have I mentioned any of this before ?

Current way the Plugin works:




How the Plugin needs to works, self-contained crossplatform Plugin/Plugin Standalone:

Maybe another dead horse to flog? If they haven't got this right yet... I gave up on it a couple of versions ago.

BIAB has lots of warts but the RealTracks are mana from heaven! They are the reason I still send my money every December and plan to do so again this year.

"Maybe another dead horse to flog?"
LOL I think you could be right ! the development is way too slooooooooooooooooooooooow, there is not much importance given to it, it's just a novelty thing.
The only reason I keep trying is because of the RealTracks !