Rob, it was I, not DC Ron that said he gave up on RealBand 6 years ago. I spent weeks and weeks trying to get the thing to do what I needed and finally gave up; I simply could not justify the time that RealBand demanded to be a part of my workflow. Nor could I tolerate the 1990s GUI feel. Don’t get me wrong, I felt that BiaB was a great tool, and today I’m still a loyal BiaB customer. The idea of typing in a chord progression, selecting a style and hit play is brilliant. Does it need work to remain viable going forward? Yes. Imho PGM should focus on its core strengths while aggressively going after the 20 and 30-somethings; if that demographic is captured and enthralled, other demographics will follow. I believe many would agree that RealBand is not a core strength and its staffing resources should be directed to the flagship product.
However, when I discovered Studio One (now Fender Studio Pro) it was a breath of fresh air; my work flow was no longer slow and clunky but effective, logical and friendly. Studio Pro is well designed, has all the features I need, is fully compatible with my workflows, has a modern GUI, is a joy to work with, is maintained by an industry-leading team that understands software design and quality control and continues to add new relevant features in its major upgrades.
Imho, RealBand should not and cannot compete with the established/mature DAWs out there. The bar is simply too high and the market too crowded. Who am I talking about? Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Cubase, Fender Studio Pro, Reaper, Reason and others. My understanding is that all of these tools are very strong DAWs.
Back in 2024 we wrote a 14 page White Paper on BiaB. I seem to remember that you participated in its authorship. It seems 2024 is eons ago, perhaps technologically it actually is, particularly in the domain of AI. For those unaware, it’s still available.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to catalog how much progress has been made since we wrote that paper vs. how much of it is still relevant today.
https://soundcloud.com/user-646279677 BiaB 2026 Windows For me there’s no better place in the band than to have one leg in the harmony world and the other in the percussive. Thank you Paul Tutmarc and Leo Fender.
Imho, RealBand should not and cannot compete with the established/mature DAWs out there. The bar is simply too high and the market too crowded. Who am I talking about? Ableton Live, Logic Pro, FL Studio, Pro Tools, Cubase, Fender Studio Pro, Reaper, Reason and others. My understanding is that all of these tools are very strong DAWs.
I feel the same about BIAB. I get a feeling PG will be trying to compete with the likes of Suno with overuse of the AI tag, but unfortunately will fail miserably, which I mean in the nicest possible way. BIAB has some very unique features and should stick to its strength and improve on those, IMO the target demographic is mostly musicians and singer / songwriters. How that can keep them going with a younger demographic I have no idea. I think people taking up musical instruments is declining but I also don't think they will ever go away. As a practicing aid, BIAB has never been beaten. As an educational aid it also has some incredibly great features and this is where I think things can be improved dramatically. I personally don't feel that these people are really the Suno market.
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Back in 2024 we wrote a 14 page White Paper on BiaB. I seem to remember that you participated in its authorship. It seems 2024 is eons ago, perhaps technologically it actually is, particularly in the domain of AI. For those unaware, it’s still available.
Just a quick nudge back to the bigger picture: The issue isn’t any one feature. It’s that looping, cursor positions, selections, panning, zooming, scrolling all behave differently from view to view. When the basics don’t line up, it breaks the flow and people end up fighting the software instead of staying in the music.
This is my last example of inconsistencies across views. (scrolling, panning and zooming) These basics are critical to making BIAB user friendly and thanks for sharing your honest views.
Studio One (latest version), Win 11 23H2 , i9 -10940X 3.3 GHz, 32GB Mem, a 4K 40" monitor, PreSonus Studio Live III Console as interface/controller. secondarily test on Reaper, Cakewalk, and S1 on Surface Pro 3 Win 10 (latest versions).
Jeff, this is very well laid out. There have to be some pre-existing standards for at least SOME of this, as I find I'm using a very small set of commands to do things like zooming no matter what environment I'm in.
DC Ron BiaB Audiophile Presonus Studio One ASUS I9-12900K DAW, 32 GB RAM Presonus Faderport 16 Too many guitars (is that a thing?)
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
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With your version 2026 for Windows Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
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FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
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