Have to agree with the "redesign" suggestion.
Eye candy is sweet!

I always appreciate programs that have optional User Interfaces or skins as sometimes the stock ones interfere with the functionality, ie. are hard to read or have a cluttered look.
This means that the user can stick with the original if it suits them.

Not being a programmer I have no idea how difficult it is to write the code to accomplish this but,know from personal experience, I was drawn to BIAB in spite of the "retro" interface.
The features are amazing, the interface, not so much.

I think the reason most of the older users, of which I am one, age wise at least, don't want the interface to change is that we're afraid we will have to relearn the program.

An example of poorly implemented change is judged by the reaction to Windows 8.

Microsoft's failure to offer some continuity and familiarity along with the updated interface has baffled and angered many who have tried to use it.

I'm sure if PG does decide to update their interface, they will do it the right way.

Carkins

Sorry, Mac. Didn't mean to rile you. I will be most careful from here on. (No need to remind us that you were not riled.... we know.)

But just so you know, I never engage in "long diatribes." my diatribes are short and pointed... and I am pretty satisfied with the GUI...

I like my diatribes with chocolate sprinkles!

the GUI DOES matter. this has been proven over and over in plenty of studies. and companies like Apple have excelled at implementing great GUIs. for me the "eye candy" part is worthwhile but the usability and workflow improvements are really where a good GUI shines.

I don't really understand why anyone would feel the need to be defensive about this. it is OK to love BIAB and still acknowledge it has an out-of-date interface.

I require hard DATA, plus proper analysis of said data when designing and redesigning.

There are some things I've noticed about these issues in my work in design.

*EVERYBODY thinks they can design it better.

This typically comes from people who have little experience in the design, prototyping, production and marketing fields. Much like the writers who declare themselves to be Music Critics, it is a rather easy task to take something, anything, and be critical about it in a negative fashion with little to no regard for actual realworld reasoning and experimentation that might have taken place during development.

*Disregard for the reasoning that lies behind designing a product in a certain way.

The best example for this one I can think of right now is Band in a Box itself (topical, eh?), Unlike just about any other program being sold today, Band in a Box does not wrie to the windows registry. BB still works from the "old fashioned" .exe file, which can be run standalone on any PC. The only parts of BB that must write to registry are the Fonts, PGMusic DX plugins, and any DXi synths you may wish to use for MIDI.

I don't know for certain the reasoning behind that decision, but do know that PGMusic is rather good about backwards compatibility issues, plus trying to make an ever increasing program load still work on older and slower computers, a factor that I'm sure helps people to still use the product on a worldwide basis. Before someone points out that Realtracks in a file sent to someone with a version of BB that shipped before RealTracks came out (or any other New Feature for that matter), that file *can still be loaded and played* on the older version with the substitution of an earlier MIDI file. This might not be important to those who can afford to keep up with the latest and greatest fast offerings, but I have no idea how many users there are in the world who cannot do that - and neither does anyone who has no access to PGMusic sales records. Even then, there would be a need to figure out how many past users are *still* users, plus a few more datapoints before any good solid enumeration of what's going on could be done.

*For those who say that the BB screen is "too busy" -- this critique I answer in the same fashion as for those who have said same about various controls and systems I've worked on in the day job. "Okay, what would you remove?" -- And back it up with sound logic.

Finally, thinking back on the questions I've attempted to answer on these forums over the years, I would say offhand that a large percentage have been involved with issues other than the complexity of the controls and commands, for example, quite a few have been involved with rather common Music Theory issues, naming of chords, understanding of tempo or timing, Key Signature issues being little understood, concepts of Chorus and Verse based on the vernacular used for lyrics and not accepted Music Theory Practice, use of Fakebooks to try to do song and chord entry when there is no standard out trhere for fake chords and the likes making translation to the types that BB uses to be misunderstood, well, a whole host of issues that have nothing at all to do with the Band in a Box screen and control presentation. Matter of fact, these are all issues that would fit better under the heading of Music Education.


--Mac

+1

Mac, you make good points but you don't need a degree in music or GUI design to provide useful input on a software interface that harkens back to DOS or Windows 3! In fact, when I have designed GUI (and I have been doing it for 28 years) I seek out inexperienced users so I can conduct focus groups and make sure I get it right. It proves very little if the experts can figure out how to use the software, unless you are only marketing to experts!

So I'll keep using BIAB because what it outputs is nothing short of amazing as you pointed out earlier!! But I also encourage PG to listen to the GUI comments and implement as many as possible. Because there is no real competition they have been successful in spite of their GUI but I suspect when and if real competition arrives with a sleek GUI like Reaper or ProTools this could change.

There was s car named the Turnpike Cruiser...

Nobody today has likely even ever heard of it.

This car was supposed to make the Ford Motor Company competitve with General Motors sales.

The project was headed by a man named Jack Reith.

Reith insisted on doing the entire project only the way he saw it to be done.

He did not listen to the inputs of designers, engineers, marketing, advertising or sales.

He got Henry Ford II to give him literal carte blanche on the project by promising that Ford was going to bury GM with this new car.

He tried to gain on the competition by doing what he thought was exactly what the competition was doing. Well, he also figured that the way to go was to do even more of what he thought the competition was doing.

But what the competition was doing at the time was just as bad.

The Turnpike Cruiser was only on sale for one model year.

It was followed by the Edsel. Still the top honor for the largest amount of money ever lost on a single car in Detroit.

Jack Reith?

He got fired and later committed suicide.


--Mac

great point Mac. Jack Reith should have listened to his users as well as designers, engineers, marketing, advertising and sales!

and I Googled that car you mentioned. OMG it is easy to forget just how big cars were back then!

http://www.plan59.com/images/JPGs/mercury_1957_turnpike_cruiser_black_00.jpg

Jack DID survey users.

But then he proceeded to cherry pick the data to fit what he wanted to do...


--Mac

sometimes that works and sometimes it does not! Ask Steve Jobs (or anyone who worked for him) whether he ever pushed his opinions on stuff.

I equate the genius that is Peter Gannon with the kind of genius that was Steve Jobs.

Case in point, when lots of folks were Wishlisting for Drum Loop capability, likely because they only knew of Drum Loop capability from other programs such as Acid and Frooty Loops, Peter came up with RealDrums. Totally unexpected, and, an elegant answer in its own right. MUCH easier than forcing the user to have to try to assemble canned Drum Loops one bar or four at a time, RealDtums not only can generate the entire drum part with one button push, from the very beginning it could also automatically substitute RealDrums in any already existing MIDI style, provided there was a match. And inside the RealDrums Picker, we could even control how tight or loose that automatic substitution could be.

Band in a Box is different - and it is my contention that the difference should be celebrated rather than pushing to have it just become "like" something else already out there.

Steve Jobs' methodologies are an excellent example of daring to be different in an age of across-the-board conformity. He also represents a designer who often refused to listen to the input of others about whether or not to implement something in a fashion different from the existing commonality. Sometimes you incur losses when doing that, but the individual who is able to land on their feet and keep on with the new ideas often prevails.


--Mac

Mac, I agree whole heartedly with your assessment of Gannon and I have stated over and over how awesome BIAB is! You will get no argument from me there. But with that said, I can still see vast improvement opportunities for the BIAB GUI.

You seem to be saying BIAB is so great we should be happy and not ask for more. That is where I respectfully disagree with you. I LOVE BIAB AND I believe it needs a major GUI overhaul!

I think Mac is suspiciously defensive on this GUI question - Mac - did you play a big part in designing that GUI ; )

there's an old joke about a sign hanging in the auto repair shop which says "Good Price. Quality Workmanship. Fast Turnaround. Pick any two"

When you can't have everything, you have to prioritize what is a MUST HAVE and what is a luxury. Not everybody prioritizes the same things.

If I had to choose between features and interface, I'd concede the interface and insist on features.

Granted, the interface is not a core strength of the product, but it gets the job done.

If I were scratching my head trying to decide whether to buy the latest version... if the main change was a bunch of new real tracks I liked, I would probably go for it. But if the main change was an interface change, I would certainly skip that release. That's just my preference.

And I bet I'm not the only person who feels that way.

Pat you make an excellent point about prioritizing. My priority would be different; I would welcome an updated interface because that would improve my workflow.

The GUI debate has been ongoing for a long time. I think we can all agree that BiaB could use some modernization. There are a few issues involved. 1 BiaB is somewhat of a utilitarian type software. Far more so that protools, reaper, sonar, logic, etc. all of these are just DAW software. All very full featured, but certainly nothing like BiaB, not even close. BIaB does what a half dozen other softwares do combined. 2. It also has a deep user base, each using it for very different things. Teaching, practice, auto generation of song bases, live performance, and a few others. Each of these require different approaches, and different tools sets. Where do you draw the line with GUI changes, and who do you listen to? So far PG chooses to leave that alone and focus on new features, and more tools, rather than a fancy new modern look.

With Reaper for instance new features are focused around either midi upgrades, and or audio processing upgrades. So face lifts are really just I eye candy issues, and the entire program is tailored towards user input. BiaB has about 20 to 30 features that Reaper does not even sniff at. I mean reaper, sonar, protools, do not have styles, chord wizards, RTs , RDs, melody generators, harmony generators, and I could go on and on. How do simplify all this with so many people using it for so many reasons.

One of the biggest gripes I heard over at the sonar forums when they did the big GUI changes for sonar X1 was that things were not where folks were used to. When MS word and Excel we're upgrade to new GUIs again they argued that " I can't find anything" I think this is PGs fear. Where do you start, and stop.

Finally I agree it could use some modernization, but really it is not at the loss of new features, and tools.

If you can do that, Joe, it will truly change your approach to everything in a positive manner.

Thanks.


--Mac

To me, "The Turnpike Cruiser" was very Ford-like" of cars of that era. The body was very similar to the "Victoria" series, to my eye.

The BIAB GUI question comes up frequently and I, for one, say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" I have always been able to figure out where control buttons are and what function that they perform. QED.

I would rather see the wonderful and powerful new features rather than "eye candy" or cosmetic improvements.

I didn't want to see the interface change per se, but was hoping for a sort of app looking thing for a player. Once the chords are done, the input is done, and you have what you want as a finished product you can see each track, change their volumes etc, but it's not the developer mode.

In my Lightroom software you have different looks for different stages, as in import, develop, then to export, Print, etc. And assemble books, or as in develop sets.

That could be one improvement, drag and drop finished songs, each song having info such as tempo, style, time, and choruses, and drop them into 'groupings'. And being able to have the same song in different groups.

So when you just sit down to play along, practice a horn, your keys or whatever, you don't have immediate access to the whole interface, just the parts you are using.

Sort of a re-jig, and a streamlined way to use it as a player. Turn off and on redoing the thing.

My laptop, despite being pretty robust, can choke hard on playing tunes first time. And I am positive I have all the right settings, short of freezing all the tracks, which I didn't want to do. Maybe I'll just freeze the tracks but not the drums so at least that sounds different.

And the new O/S is built in a way to make finger tip input 'de-rigeur'. That's why the drag and drop, and finger mouse become more a part of the way things will be done.

I never thought this thread would lead to the above suggestion by John, and I never imagined that type of GUI enhancement, but after hearing it, I can say I love the idea, and it would simplify some things that would make the program more usable for me too - at least given the way I personally use it. Thanks for sharing that John.

I have another idea, and that is that PG could sell a stand alone midi music player. This would be a cross between a DAW and their current software, in that it's only purpose would be for a Midi o phile, to use the application to look at each track and set volumes etc. and then play the saved 'shell' using the plug ins and add ons to enhance it. Thus you could have one track that is piano and add reverb, tweak the volume, and then output this to your 'midi device', midi software such as Coyote Forte, or other.

Many are aware that I eschew Midi now in favour of ReatTracks, which fill my needs just fine, however I think PG has the engine that 'can'. (Not could). So with just a few tweaks this app could be made available in the app stores for 99 Cents, or 2.99 and millions would buy???

It shouldn't be 99cents in Canuckistan, we did away with pennies this month. No more 99 cent sales. All sales rounded down, or up. It's the LAW jack. It costed 1.5cents to make a penny. That was nuts. Even after they took out the copper. In my family we called them coppers when I was a kid anyway.

So what do you think. With a minor massage could Mr. Pgmusic make a wad of easy cash with a midi playing app??

And I've always wanted to see a way to do the volumes like in Avid software for video, where the volume is a line and you can click to add a node, and then another and drag the line up or down to make volumes change. You can put in a bunch to simulate a curve even. Really cool method of changing volumes and mixing tracks. So this is right on what is called the timeline. At bar 20 add a node, volume at 50, at bar 25 click and drag it down so there is a smooth decrease, then more nodes and you can bring it back up. I really liked this way of dealing with volumes.

Back to the original idea, that I have long exposed, is to just have a player. Like the little box we got for volumes and we can pop up to add effects etc, it would allow the other stuff go either be released from memory, or sit behind the player app. And I wonder once you assemble a SET, if using a player would not be more efficient. for if you invoke that and NOT the whole enchilada, you use far less memory and resources, and just have the stuff required to start...Playing. Sounds cool to me, but I have never been involved in this type of software development.

What I did though, you can see when you join the GoodLife Clubs in Canada, you check the bank and when the 'dues' came out, you can be sure I did that. Dumb me never asked for a penny a transaction, I sold that software for a pittance in 96. And the wife went with it as a bonus. Take my wife,....please.

RealBand (and powertracks) can do drawn volume envelopes, unfortunately not directly over the audio graphic, though.

But we can draw Volume Envelopes by selecting CC7 or CC11 and draw them in with the mouse in a window slot that opens underneath the Audio or MIDI (pianoroll).


--Mac