PG Music Home Forums PG Music Wishlists Band-in-a-Box Wishlist Unhappy With BIAB 2021

JJJ
Chantelle must have missed the fact that you have over 3000 posts. Of course said with a big

Hi JohnJohnJohn, as our developers work on bug fixes we periodically post build updates to our website here: https://www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm

Please download and install the latest update for the 2021 and see if your issues are fixed. At the moment the latest build is the 822.

If you come across any other issues, you can email us at support@pgmusic.com

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would other forumites agree that fixing the time signatures issue, breaking the 265 bar barrier, fixing the bug that means RealTracks don't always respond to bar based key changes (Andrew agreed that needed fixing) and other long term issues would be preferable?

Everything that was mentioned is definitely worthy of consideration. Fixing known, existing issues, and satisfying multiple requests for better functionality (255 bar limit, etc) is far preferable than adding 50 new features each release. However, not everyone has this focus.

I would rather see 50 bug fixes than 50 new features, any day. YMMV.

On average when I read the posts on this forum there are probably not more than twenty users who chip in with ideas and workarounds.
Although PGMusic has a cracking good piece of software, namely BIAB, their main focus is to sell the latest version to the thousands of new customers out there, and users who are happy just to "carry on", that's what businesses do they need to make a profit, so selling BIAB with hundreds of new features and bells and whistles attracts new users.
There are many bugs in the software that just keep getting pushed under the rug year after year and many "wishlist" ideas that will never see the light of day.
So with the twenty or so genuine users against the thousands of potential new customers bringing in cash I won't be holding my breath for the next release!

The beta testers, I am sure, do a good job.

PGM's approach seems to be discount the new release (e.g. 2021) cost and let the users sort out the bugs.

We should expect a working, essentially bug free product with each release. Today, we often have to do our own regression testing to ensure that product still works for us.

A sure answer to all these problems would be to have the New Realtracks and other content work with the previous years stable version.

THIS. This is the answer! Give us the option of keeping our existing version and buying the RealTracks each year. I'd even pay the same upgrade price to have this option.

Just be aware that PG Music has given requirements of the latest version of BIAB to use the latest RealTracks. This suggestion would prevent them from expanding the capabilities of RealTracks.

Yes that may be true, but though I am not a coder I probably look at that been more of a deliberate Marketing ploy than anything else (Deliberately coded that way)since older RB can access the new realtracks, eg 2018 Realband can access 2020 Realtracks.

Of course using an older version of biab to access the new Realtracks won't give access to the new features, such as Utility tracks etc, but I bet a lot of users would put up with that for the stability involved.

The new version can then be tested at leisure without a good proportion of the users getting frustrated with broken features, that worked on the previous years editiion.

Hi,

I'm not asking you for your opinion on what you know nothing about.

BIAB 2020 was relatively stable but I continue to have lots of problems with BIAB 2021!

- Some saved songs no longer sound right.

- Mixer problems where changing a style does not completely change the tracks in the mixer. I have had to click the generate button 5 or 6 times in order to get the tracks to actually regenerate properly with a new style.

- Bar Settings problems where songs that worked just fine before with a style change at a certain bar now do not work.

- Changing a track and using its DI option then incorrectly sets that track to DI for any subsequent style changes to DI.

- BIAB sometimes "forgets" my audio driver if I switch away to another program and then come back.

These are all NEW problems that I didn't have before "upgrading"! I have not even tried any of the new features because I can only assume they are marginal as well.

I had an older computer (approximately 3 years old) that was slowing down a bit so I blamed the problems on it during December. Then I went ahead and loaded BIAB 2021 on a brand new fast PC and...same problems!

I have reported these problems in the private testing forum and have no idea whether they are even being addressed. I am beyond frustrated with this product. Honestly, if it were not for the RealTracks I would have dumped it off my computer long ago.

Some may disagree with me, that's fine, but the 2021 version needed more development work before the December release date.

... Its like putting band aids on top of band aids on top of band aids.

I think the staff does a hell of a good job fixing the broken code and I thank them for doing that. ...

Some semi-random thoughts on the update process.

I believe PG have a number of beta testers and I suspect that they're all very experienced BIAB users, who know there way around the program and know how things should work. That's a two-edged sword, because they also know what _not_ to do so that they can keep themselves out of trouble. It's very likely that, probably subconsciously, they're avoiding bugs into which we less familiar folk can crash. In a past business we had a guy who was, almost pathologically, deliberately naive when testing software. He would do the craziest "why would anyone do that?" things, but he found loads of bugs.

Quite a lot of complex software packages have multiple risk-level option, e.g., Development, Beta, Release Candidate' Release and Long-Term-Support. That is more work to maintain, but not as much more as one might imagine. Whenever I finish a bug-fix in a mature version, typically I compare the old with the newer and propagate that same fix when I can. Unusually for me (I'm a Unix/Linux man), I use WinWerge for that as I find it extremely friendly to use.

As a user, I generally avoid getting the latest new release, as there are almost always lots of bugs. I have no desire to inflict the pain upon myself; let others do it. Either they don't mind the pain, or they'll learn in time.

In my few updates with BIAB, they've usually seemed to me to be pretty shockingly buggy. But still I was tempted in by the upgrade offers. I'm of the opinion that if your new release is likely to have many bugs, then encouraging large early uptake seems like a good way to bring a tidal wave of bug reports, anger and frustration upon oneself.

One of the things over the years in my own electronics and software work, that has both frustrated me and satisfied me, is the comment "Oh, that's really easy, even I could have done that", when one has spent many hours, days, weeks, thinking very hard about _how_ to make it so easy. I try to make things consistent everywhere, even in places where I think the user will likely never go, because if they do, the product will likely behave as they expect. I personally am of the opinion that, longer term, it also actually saves _me_ time, frustration and effort.

The best systems tend to feel like there was one system architect and one vision. It doesn't matter if it's really quite a large team, provided they think together and act together. BIAB feels like one or a few people are given things to deal with and they do so in near isolation. I suspect that is actually _not_ the case, but it feels like it.

Gordon, good points, balanced and well articulated.

Some may disagree with me, that's fine, but the 2021 version needed more development work before the December release date. That fact is evidenced in the plethora of bug-fix updates that have ensued in the following 12 weeks, I think an average rate of about two per week.

The delivery model and alpha test cycle is far from ideal, leaving it up to beta testers to find and report the majority of the real problems.

I like the product, but that is not an excuse for delivering an unsatisfactorily tested system with unproven/broken functionality just so it is in time for Xmas.

There. After that I'll probably will never get any of the bugs I find and report fixed ever again. That will be my punishment for speaking objectively but perhaps negatively as seen by some.

However, still remaining objective, imagine purchasing any other mature product and being notified from the manufacturer that updates to the product were required no less than 25 times over the next 12 weeks. No. Can't imagine that? Neither can I. YMMV. I don't think my comments will change anything though.

I think PG are doing a great job but as BIAB gets more complicated it gets harder to fix. RB doesn't need anywhere near as many fixes and it is much less complicated. And once you've roughed out a song in BIAB, open it in RB and it does just about everything BIAB does - and some things it does better.

But I wish they would fix the problem of RB not generating loops.......

I had to laugh when Gordon Scott mentioned the person who would do what no one thought anyone might do. In my programming classes, I used the 'any idiot' test. Find someone walking down the hall who knows nothing about programming, sit them down in front of your program with no coaching, and see what happens. It tells you a lot.

There is a point I've raised but I'm no longer sure if it's in this lengthening thread or a similar one, that PG Music released version 2021 around Dec. 1. AFTER THAT we users and testers reacted and made requests (I'm thinking especially about the Utility Tracks) and the programmers honored them. I think this is where many problems crept in.

There are some nifty programs out there where the single-person developer reacts to user suggestions almost immediately. I think PG Music is not that, and should not be that.

So it really is NOT a good idea to do too much in BIAB if you intend to take it to RB.

That's been my approach for years.
Flush out an idea in BiaB (fast), then move to RB to work in a more DAW like setting.
Tend to the details there.
There is a learning curve at first, but for me it's way more productive in the long run.

Thanks for the inputs. We read them all and appreciate any constructive criticism. The recent release (825) in the support area fixes several issues (including the style-change-at-a-bar issue mentioned). We work hard to correct reported issues, add requested features and develop more RealTracks.

I would like to see beta testing start quite a bit earlier, and begin with the program having all announced features present.