PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BIAB too ambitious ?

Hi all !

After reading many posts here I am having those thoughts : BIAB is an awesome software if what you want is to jam, practice, work on your improvation skills or play for fun. For this BIAB is probably the best software on the market.

But if you intend to compose and record it seems that BIAB has too many bugs and issues. I have been reading plenty of posts pointing out bugs and problems when it comes to that.

The interface is ok if you intend to use it for jamming/practicing purpose but when it comes to go deeper I feel like the interface becomes clumsy and overly complicated.

This makes me think that BIAB which at first was intended to allow musicians to play and jam has become too ambitious, adding too many features to recording/producing/composing purposes and that the interface now is showing its limitations. I do feel like that in order to become a great software for those purposes BIAB would have to rethink totally its software.

What do you think people ? I'm hoping to get honest views about it (we all love BIAB but being honest is what can makes BIAB that we love improve and go to the next level).

Thanks for reading

Totally agree IF we assume Biab should stay as it's been for the last 20 years. The question is, is that good thinking going forward? I would guess the average age of users on this forum is 55 to 60 or so. I'm 74. Who's going to buy Biab when all the older users are gone? I Don't have to tell you what kind of music has been on the Billboard top 100 for the last 20 years.

I believe that's what's driving all these changes. They have to attract younger musicians/producers who could care less about maybe 80% of all the current styles.

Bob

I respect your opinion and respectfully disagree that it doesn't work for composing and recording. I've used BIAB almost daily since 1994 to compose, arrange and record. Sure, there are bugs and quirks, but none that stop me from producing music. My BIAB work has been integral to many concerts and recordings.

I've also served as a beta tester, made many suggestions that were implemented, and reported many bugs along the way. I call it as I see it, and I've had more than my share of posts that urge PG Music to make changes. But I believe the best way to accomplish that is to get in the game and do it respectfully.

I offer the exact opposite is true. Bugs and crashes (which are few and far between on my system and exhaustive reviewing the threads are more often than not, individual system related or operator error before BIAB is the actual issue.) are absolute killers to the concentration and focus needed for practice or happy jamming. Restarting the program is a lot less intrusive to the workflow of composing, producing and arranging.

If the purpose is to jam and practice, the recording, producing and composer features are meaningless to the artist and never have to be accessed and what you say are the clumsy and overly complicated features can be ignored and left untouched and avoid the possible bugs and crashes. It's not at all unusual for someone to have an issue with a feature, tool or part of the program I don't use and therefore I've never encountered that particular issue. In fact, that's the most common occurrence for me. There are certain areas, features and tools I access every time I use the program and it all works flawlessly for me, each and every use. Bugs and fixes are corrected with each upgrade, patch and new version release.

You don't state your primary purpose and you don't state that your system suffers from bugs and crashes. So this may be something you're worrying about rather than experiencing. Don't overlook that these forums are where people with every kind of issue and question imaginable come to report glitches, errors, omissions and even navigation, music theory and a collection of any thing else one can seek an answer for. It is also only a small collection of the total body of artists, producers, arrangers, performers, hobbyists and professionals that use the program. My point is you're receiving a skewed view of the software program.

I honestly don't think you have a thing to worry about regardless whether you intend to jam, practice, record, produce or compose. Most users never approach the nearly limitless potential BIAB is capable of outputting. I doubt you will.

Many times BIAB is mislabeled and thus mistaken to be something it was neither designed to be nor intended to be used for. Calling BIAB a DAW is a great example. It's not a DAW so 100% of the DAW tools and features it lacks or that are incorrectly applied to a project by the user making such a misstatement are not truthful and correct.

Just use BIAB for what ever and every purpose you wish and post any bugs, issues and questions you come across.

Matt how I read his post is he's talking about either leave it in the niche it's currently in where I agree it's getting overly complex and over the heads of the majority of current users OR using Biab as a complete DAW production studio. In that case then yes, imho it needs a total remake of workflow and GUI to match what young musicians are looking for.

The millions of young producers use Abelton for pretty much everything which is why the concept of the plugin is so exciting. If we want to attract them then Biab needs to look and act the part. IF the plugin can be made to do that it could transform PGM going forward.

Bob

I don't use a fraction of the power of BIAB but I've always found it rock solid and any problems I've had are usually operator error.

I'm in the senior citizen league so all my musical tastes are catered for. the only time i've not been able to create a track i wanted was a clone of 'Only you' by yazoo so any suggestions welcome!

I rough out things in BIAB (which isn't a DAW) and edit and finish in RealBand (which is a DAW and suits me fine although I know a lot of 'power users' look down on it!). I've never found anything I can't do that I wanted to do. The only limit is my imagination and creativity as a musician. Years ago I made music demo tracks of music I'd written for commercials to demonstrate to clients which were then finished up by professional musicians. I recorded in a studio for the demos with live musicians but these days much more quickly and less expensively I could produce better demo tracks with BIAB and RB.

Just looked at the UK top ten singles. I could easily recreate passable tracks for several with BIAB but not 'clones' although playing in several parts in RB I could probably get close with GM2 for several others. But then its always been the same. I used to play in a covers band of 60s music and created backing tracks in BIAB and edited them in PowerTracks for specific parts. If you listen to the bass in 'Midnight Hour' by Wilson Pickett you'll see that BIAB wouldn't create it but it's easy to play it in midi in Powertracks or RB.

If you can't do what you want with BIAB, then try following up the closest you can get in BIAB with RB. If you still can't do it, maybe you'd be better off with a different DAW. But lots of us find BIAB and RB just fine for covers and original music.

Country, folk, rock, blues and jazz aren't likely to change beyond the capabilities of BIAB in the near future - or at least not while I'm around anyway. So as long as they continue to be part of the musical landscape BIAB has a future.

[Edit] ** The question was about RealTracks but I replied about RealStyles - I'm not yet ready to tackle those separately yet.**

Let me preface this with some background: I started using BIAB just this year with BIAB 2019 Pro. I brought up a a concern similar to yours in the forum recently. As still a "newbie" to BIAB (certainly as compared to others here), and not heavily into digital music production, my take on this is that you have to approach BIAB with the view that its design and traditional main function has been as a backing track software, which I believe is top notch. It doesn't have the look or the feel of many of the modern digital music production products out there, since it has evolved over the years and the interface has morphed but not had a complete makeover.

One of the ways in which PG Music has adapted, in my view, is to develop the BIAB DAW plugin feature so that you can combine the strengths of the product with the power and completely different focus and purpose of a DAW. I haven't really experimented with it much but others on the forum certainly have and may be able to comment.

I'll describe my initial dilemma with the product, and perhaps this will provide some help. At first I was just blown away with the amazing things you could do with it - basically crank out a full fledged instrumental song with a full band, solos and everything in just a few minutes, in styles from Jazz to Country to Rock. That's the easy part. I could quickly throw together a fully fleshed out song, then import it into GarageBand in my iPad, record some vocals and have a fully baked song, with a professional sounding band, which I could not possibly have done on my own.

Then I started to realize that most of the built in styles are based on Jazz, Blues and Country, although there is a mix of more modern styles like in recent versions and if you get the Ultrapak, there are significantly more choices in that version than the Pro. To get a flavor of the RealTrack styles that are in each RealTracks set, you can use the link below:

https://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_realtrackslist.htm

So at this point, I started thinking, what if I wanted to create something that would sound more like Billie Eilish or Lizzo, or even Adele? They don't seem to fit cleanly into any of those styles. This is where I would need others to chime in with more input. I'm in the process of discovering how to take BIAB and make it work it less "out of the box" if you get my drift, and I'm certain that the possibilities are there - but it may take some experimentation and creativity to bring that out. I'm sure that I have not even tapped into 10% of the power and capabilities of this software yet, and for the price, for me, it can't be beat, so I'm really digging into it now.

I'll share just a bit of my philosophy about music creation here too. Now, there are the tools and equipment and the creator. A great creator will find ways to make the tools and equipment produce greatness. Bo Diddley could take an old wooden box and some fishing string and get you tapping your foot and dancing. So I try not to fall prey to the pitch that the latest and greatest software package will enable me to crank out a smash hit. Sure, it's amazing what you can do with some of this stuff, especially if you're willing to shell out thousands of dollars, and if it produces a result that you like, great. But what makes the difference between a good track and a great one is not the tool, but the heart, passion and talent of the creator - you.

One other thing that I've started to appreciate recently is the insight that BIAB gives you into the music structure and theory, and I have yet to find anything else that comes close with such ease and at the price point, so if you're interested in becoming more educated in music theory, that's definitely a strength too.

Regarding the bugs, there does seem to be a lot of activity posted on those, but in my daily use I don't run into many, and when I have they were fixed promptly, and the support response was very good.

Finally, for any potential customers, remember that if you purchase the product from PG Music, there is a 30 day refund policy - see the site for details. You really can't go wrong if you can spare the purchase price and a couple hundred gig or so on a spare hard drive.

OK - I'll get off my soapbox now ...

I welcome others to add their own views and experience, especially if you have a difference of opinion with me - I welcome friendly debate.

Thank you all for your replies. I can't quote you individually but will say that I accept opposite thoughts and opinions, especially coming from users (which I'm not... yet).


Jazzmammal got my points though and I thank you for your replies in tune with my thoughts/concerns.

I was reading earlier the lack of autosave feature. This is mind blowing to me that it doesn't exist in BIAB. I live in FL and when you hit the hurricane season you have a lot of power outtage (not sure of the correct spelling, English is not my native tongue so my apologies for the bad English) and having the risk of losing my work during one of those because of the lack of autosave is frightening. I'm not gonna mention all the other bugs read in all the posts but when you add them up you start to think twice if your goal is more than just having a backing track station.

I still believe that BIAB has to update how its software has been thought because mostly BIAB keep the same structure as 20 years ago, just adding features. And at some point it can only show limitations and problems. Maybe for those who compose blues or rock music it's ok, but for more sophisticated kind of music it might not be that convenient/easy.

Anyway, just my thoughts, I will keep on reading other's takes on this topic which highly interest me.

Thanks all, this forum rocks!

I heard there is a VST version of Biab, it's supposed to be a simplified version that is easy to use and you can record with it in your DAW.

https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Saver.shtml
https://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/Kishan-AutoSaver.shtml

What ??? Never heard of it!

Bob, really good points about the plugin. I agree completely, that's the future.

If you're serious, we can elaborate.

About that first sentence, I believe you are correct. The addition of RealTracks and RealDrums twelve or so years ago was groundbreaking, but otherwise, someone from 2001 would easily understand the basic program as it is now.

About the last sentence I quoted, not so much. I compose Brazilian jazz in BIAB. I would posit that this genre is pretty sophisticated.

and a standalone...

Wow average age of BIAB user is 55-60?

Yup I'm 62. bought BIAB first time 20 years ago.

That would make you old enough to be my baby brother.

Bob.. average age of users on this forum is 55 to 60 or so. I'm 74. Who's going to buy Biab when all the older users are gone?


I agree strongly.

Bob..They have to attract younger musicians/producers who could care less about maybe 80% of all the current styles.


This is a thought of mine I have had for a while, we are a dying breed, the owner is getting older, the future could be a big company taking over ?.

This is only my opinion, and views if it revamped for the younger breed it has more of a chance of an offer being made.

Finally I love the way it is just now, But this is now a generation thing.

Stunned to read that every other piece of complex music software is bug-free.
Go for it, I say.
You'll soon find nothing else does what BB does, bugs and all.

I tend to treat BIAB as just one invaluable tool within my arsenal of other music/recording tools. As I see it the software offers the ability to create very realistic instrumental tracks in a huge variety of styles. In the case of RealTracks and RealDrums they are realistic because they are played by real musicians. You can get these players to follow your chosen chord sequences and then easily render the wave files. These wave files can seamlessly be added to your chosen DAW recording software which in my case is REAPER. When I make songs I tend to use BIAB for just some of the instruments but combine it with other software for the remaining tracks. For instance I rarely use the BIAB bass tracks as I prefer to create my own tailor-made bass lines using something like Trillian or MonoBass. Being a keyboard player I would naturally play my own keyboard/piano tracks. However I am also a guitarist but I might use BIAB guitar tracks as the range of styles available far exceeds my abilities. Where in the UK would I be able to find a pedal steel player at short notice? What if I need a banjo played on a track, no problems BIAB would supply it. I need a harmonica, no problem call up BIAB.

I really think that the potential of BIAB is lost on many younger musicians who may not be impressed by the look of the software. Basically you have at a massive wealth of sounds which can be rendered into wave files which I think is such a huge asset. I think it is always best to have all the RealTracks and Drums available so always best to go for the top of the range version and keep it updated each year.

As far as the future is concerned. Hopefully the VST plugin will continue to develop and this will work easily with all the DAWs. The program’s interface does look rather dated and cluttered but it is perfectly functional. I am sure the developers will seek to add more contemporary grooves as styles evolve and these will hopefully please a younger user-base. It is important that the program caters for the widest range of users. I sometimes think the name of the product sounds slightly lame but it is so well known and has been around for so long it would be tricky to change it. Anyway to complete this ramble I don’t think there is any product available that offers what BIAB does which for all its faults is still a brilliant and evolving product.

I compose backing tracks for recording in my DAW with no problems I take MIDI, RTs and/or RDs into Studio One Pro and do all of my work there. This is where I think some people get into trouble. BiaB is not a DAW and nor should it be. It is an accompaniment program. It will generate backing tracks. IMHO recording, notation, and all the other extras were put in for experimentation and not for a final product. IMHO PGMusic should have left things like that out as there are far better programs that do those functions.

I agree that the menus should be revamped as well as other improvements made like different time signatures, adding chords on the eight note, etc. Improvements like these would make BiaB more musician friendly IMHO.

As for newer users, I am for anything that would increase PGMusic's fan base. Things like streamlining the GUI, having a lot more hip hop, rap, house RTs and RDs, etc. I am an old phart but some of those hip hop, rap, etc rhythms could be used in contemporary jazz. As I have said many time these genres are not set in stone and cross pollination can create some very interesting backing tracks.

YMMV