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?)
Jeff, Thank you for taking time and pinpointing these relatively easy to fix things, that in their current state erode user experience. One thing that I want to mention, I believe a default action for scrolling should be scrolling, not panning. Perhaps there should be a global set for mouse scroll wheel behavior, if for some reason folks want panning instead of scrolling. To me, scroll -> panning actually is a "muscle memory" issue.
Selection, looping, cursor starting point - center of the project throughout all views, zooming, scrolling, transport behavior should be viewed as a whole and be done in one sitting. Otherwise it will be a mosaic of patches that might or might not solve underlying issues.
Personally, I believe a big chunk of solution would be to implement a timeline with proper cursor instead of "song overview" that would be persistent through all BIAB views. That cursor, when set, will determine new project center and will return you to that position. Panning and zooming should respect new project "center".
Selecting a part of any track, should duplicate selection on timeline - that is a standard approach, not re-inventing a wheel. That selection could be used to define loop points. Alternatively, a selection could be made on a timeline itself, which would duplicate selection globally - same selection on all of the tracks. This could be very useful not only for "looping" but for other tasks as well. (see video below)
A single global looping button at the transport (the one we already have). The deeper options of repeats, etc should be achieved through right click of same looping button - this is already done, and if there are some particular looping settings in other parts of the program (6 methods) they should be brought to same looping button context menu.
Bottom line is that I rather see certain things done in a fashion of accepted standards than patching smaller holes. Piano Roll "almost" got the standard timeline going with the selection option (see Jeff's first video), but it is very finicky and the problem of inconsistency doesn't go away, even if it is brought to standard (proper cursor / start position marker, loop selection without hard coded automation of ON state, disabled only through unmentioned shortcut), we would need same timeline in all views.
FWIW, I found a neat lecture on the philosophy of good software design. Just listening to this guy speak makes it obvious that he has a mountain of credentials. It brings back memories of the learning/develoment courses that many of us took as professional engineers to stay at the forefront of our chosen careers.
Some notable subjects he talks about are: Red Flags Tactical Tornados Spagehtti Code How to hire the best software coders ("hire based on the slope, not the y-intercept") And his software design book
There are lots of goodies in this lecture and is well worth watching for anyone interested in the challenges of designing good software products and some associated pitfalls to avoid.
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.
Thanks to everyone who contributed. Many of us have been pointing out these same issues for years, including the videos I posted years ago.
The new multi‑view GUI makes the underlying problem even clearer.
BIAB has grown organically for decades, one view at a time, and that’s why looping, cursor positions, selections, panning, zooming, and scrolling all behave differently depending on the view.
The GUI refresh was a great step, but improving the user experience now means unifying these fundamentals so the views feel like one coherent application.
Consistency in the basics keeps people in the music instead of fighting the software, and I hope PG Music will acknowledge this and make it a priority for the next phase of BIAB’s evolution.
Thanks again for everyone’s time and input.
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).
Thank you Jeff for the clear well done videos. I agree that we took a giant step forward with this years release. Why what you are talking about is very important and vital is that these aspects of the program will make the GUI update really shine.
PGM team please respond with your thoughts on this. If it is possible please share your opinion on it. Without your input we are striking the air with no way of knowing if we are making sense or not!
HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
There are lots of goodies in this lecture and is well worth watching for anyone interested in the challenges of designing good software products and some associated pitfalls to avoid.
Hmm, yes. I agreed wholeheartedly with most of that.
About my only significant different view was on exceptions, but that's because most of my work has been embedded and in that circumstance, one the software is live, exceptions help nobody and break systems. I tried to catch all potential exceptions by data checking and, once that's complete, removing them and if necessary jamming in otherwise credible false data to keep the machine running. Some systems really can't afford to just stop or break.
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 .
Hmm, yes. I agreed wholeheartedly with most of that.
About my only significant different view was on exceptions, but that's because most of my work has been embedded and in that circumstance, one the software is live, exceptions help nobody and break systems.
Yep, there are various strategies available. But the goals should be graceful recovery; logging, cleanup (closing files, releasing resources, etc when relevant), relevant messaging to the user/coders and appropriate fallback behavior. In music and non-music software applications alike, we’ve all seen where graceful recovery wasn’t assured. But as an industry, I’ve seen significant improvement over the years.
But back to the main thrust of this thread; consistency across views is very important for positive user experience.
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.
In general the main ideas are: -Improve looping - standard loop control on the transport and standardized across windows. -Zoom/scrolling on various windows should be standardized. -Sync with current time between windows (views)
We addressed some of these points with the GUI update and there is certainly more work to do. So we agree with the ideas presented here and plan to add them in the future. Thanks!
In general the main ideas are: -Improve looping - standard loop control on the transport and standardized across windows. -Zoom/scrolling on various windows should be standardized. -Sync with current time between windows (views)
We addressed some of these points with the GUI update and there is certainly more work to do. So we agree with the ideas presented here and plan to add them in the future. Thanks!
Thanks, Andrew we really appreciate you jumping in. Just to restate the three core areas backed by many people here: - Consistent toggle‑looping behavior across all views - Unified zoom/scroll/pan behavior across all views - A single, synced current‑time position between views
These core behaviors are what keep people in the creative flow, and it’s great to hear they’re on your radar for future updates.
Thanks again for taking the time to respond.
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).
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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