Hi all.
BIAB and Realband = great programs. Use them every day; have made a lot of music with them.

I have to say, however, as a not-terribly tech savvy musician I do find, at times, PG Music's approach to releases bordering on the amateur.

So, now I have a 64 bit version of BIAB but only a 32 bit version of Realband.

If I want to run the 64 bit version I have to hunt around for the exe file and set up my own shortcut on the desktop.

I flash the cash for the new realtracks and extra styles but find some of them don't have audition files yet.

And, most confusingly to me, while everyone goes wow the 64 bit BIAB can load 64 bit VSTs, there don't appear to be any version of the BIAB Native Plugin FX available to the 64 bit version.

I've only tried the VST BIAB plugin once, so far, in Reaper. On the face of it is sounds great but the operation - particularly how multiriffs are approached - feels enormously clumsy.

BIAB is like a terrible aunt who you love despite her being a total social nightmare.

I love it and hate it in equal proportions!!

Rant over

Bestest all

Phil

I hear you, Phil. But this is all new and they clearly wanted to get it out in time for Christmas. I know they will continue working the issues over the next month, so patience is in order.

FWIW, you can still run 2018 alongside 2019, if you wish, so you don't lose anything. But by having 2019 installed, all you have to do is apply the patch updates as they come.

The native PGMusic FX are all DX effects and actually haven't been updated in about a decade. But, I understand that they are looking them to modify and recompile as 64-bit plugins, so we should see them; we just don't have them now. Of course (and I know this doesn't help), most of the world has moved away from DX/DXi in favor of VST/VSTi, and even that is evolving as things are moving away from VST2 in favor of VST3. Nothing stays still, does it?

I also understand that we will hopefully get a new 64-bit Coyote synth (both the WT and the Forte), which you may or may not use.

I've found my BIAB 64-bit works nicely with my 64-bit Cakewalk TTS-1 synth (which you can get for free by installing Cakewalk by BandLab, which also gives you the DAW too).

Thanks !! I had a good laugh, still laughing as I'm typing, it's true.
But yeah, I can see it was a big year of change, a Quantum Leap !!! and yes getting it out there was the priority and a lot of things still need doing that would of been done if there was not such a big change. As Johns says it should all be done soon.
I usually give them a hard time and gave a lot of nagging for 64 bit and a VST, so with this release I'm very proud of the Quantum Leap they have achieved and the new website to go with it.
Buy yes lets get them fixes happening and that VST working like gold.
In all the years from RealTracks till now I think this is the best and biggest.

Everything you say is right. I know I'm just having a whine. Over the years BIAB and Realband have become my most useful tools for putting together show music at low cost for small theatre companies - and I do treasure them.

But every year PGMusic drive me nuts with an enormous fanfare at release time, making claims of exciting developments some of which take a full year of support updates to try and achieve.

Because they make such useful tools I'm in for the long haul with PG Music, but it can truly be an annoying ride sometime.

Ah well, my wife's new car is being delivered today. I'm looking forward to telling her that the wheels should be available soon when the company get round to releasing support upgrade 691e.

Kind regards to everyone!

Phil

Great info here by Jford. Phil, keep in mind that you can open a song with either the 32 or 64-bit version, and even alternate if you wish. At some point PG Music will either update those effects for 64-bit, or perhaps even come up with something better we didn’t expect.

Its the same with Steinberg usually, and Toontrack ... only the wheels come around the bend a lot faster when you drive a PG, sometimes even a personally adapted spare, even still square, wheel is sent in advance .. F

They need to have a gap year, where all they are doing is FIXING things for the whole year. I'm just trying to create some UserTracks at the moment but still so many problems, I remember now why I gave up on UserTracks and they were released in 2014.

Band-in-a-Box® with RealBand 2020 for Windows is here!

500 exciting new fixes !
All things working how they should !
No time spent on new features, ignoring the existing problems !
We spent the whole year playing catch up doing nothing but
fixes, YES the whole year !

Pipeline, You got to be fair.
Considering and comparing features of past updates, this one is huge as an elephant. I initially lost the hope for serious change from PGmusic except for new RTs and minor fixes. This update proved me wrong. I am sure this release will have a hefty load of bugs, but at least now I can see where it is heading and the dark scary unknown became a much friendlier place.... at least to me

Best regards,
Misha.

Absolutely.

Yes, that's what I said in my previous post, it's a Quantum Leap, the best release since RealTracks, the happiest I've been, but now a year fixing things is needed to get it all working like it's color, GOLD.

If they have a year of just fixing everything so it is perfect are we all happy to pay for it though? They do need some income to support the whole operation.

Yes 200 more RealTracks with only a few cosmetic changes to the software.