After reading all of this post I have realized that BIAB is definitely a very strange program from a modern software perspective. I take it from your all's comments that it has been built up and layered from an ancient base and has never had a complete modern makeover as far as function, labeling, GUI etc. How unusual in the modern software universe. I am going to postulate that a complete makeover to bring everything up to modern standards would be very expensive and involve a huge investment of time.
Pretty much spot on!
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Has PGM given any feedback on their orientation on this topic? Not criticizing - just asking.
Nothing that would convince me they are seriously considering it. My impression is this software was someone's cool hobby project that they turned into a business but never refactored the code and just kept adding on stuff. Occasionally the added stuff is pure brilliance like RealTracks and partial regeneration. But often the upgrades are just glittery baubles that seem more like marketing nuggets than truly useful additions. And the program suffers from this bolt-on-another-new-feature syndrome. Old bugs remain, sometimes forever and new ones come up with every upgrade.
I don't mean to sound too negative because, with the RealTracks feature, BIAB is truly brilliant and incredibly helpful for creating music! Nothing out there can match it (yet!)
So, while I might complain a little (a lot?) I have happily sent PGM $300+ every upgrade cycle for the past 12+ years!
The current way in BIAB may be based on DOS, but how tracks are generated and how to make a RealTrack more versatile in a song project isn't dependent on the type of software the program was developed in. What matters are the tools, techniques and processes in the software used to make RealTracks more versatile. A visible waveform has no function or value in the generation of a RealTrack. It's a post generation editing feature.
The recent screenshot you posted would influence the quality of the track generation if the generation occurs in RealBand, the Stand Alone Plug-in, or the VST Plug-in compared to those RealTracks being generated in the main BIAB program using MultiStyles.
In my earlier post, in the attached images, that MultiStyle has 16 Substyles but only uses one of each a)-b) sub-styles of each main style. Simply clicking on every other Part Marker doubles the sub-style in that SGU from nine to seventeen. (end has a Part Marker) The software being based on DOS is irrelevant to the audio produced.
Manually comping 25 bars of a single track with multiple instruments may be quick and easy in that simple demonstration posted, but manually comping multiple tracks and multiple instruments across multiple styles, it's a massive failure. Plus, in this screenshot attached to this post, The instruments and sub-styles were doubled in seconds which would further complicate manually attempting to reconstruct this MultiStyle demo in another program other than BIAB.
"The recent screenshot you posted would influence the quality of the track generation if the generation occurs in RealBand" Biab is becoming a DAW because RealBand was too slow at generating (main issue why it was not popular), I was on RealBand for years trying to improve it as I did not use Biab because you had to type in everything you wanted it to do, you could not see the tracks. Either users want the old Biab auto accompaniment on stage or they want to use it to create up tracks and work like a DAW. I think the horse has bolted and it can only go one way from here. My main focus in the BB Plugin/ Standalone as I can see all the limitations of Biab RealBand going into the future, I don't think things can last the way it's going with 6mths Win 6mths Mac, it needs to be true crossplatform eventually, RealBand is Win only, the future of PG is having a Linux and iPad version as well as Win Mac all released at the same time, but for now it will keep going how it's going for a while longer. See while we are doing this here with BB25, the Mac users are still waiting but there is zero concern because we got it already. Do we look at what's best for I, Me or what's best for us all and work for that ?
Typing in numbers BB2009, users can go back to these versions and they will still work in a less DAW way.
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MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
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With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Along with version 2026, we've released an incredible lineup of new content! There's 202 new RealTracks, brand-new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two new RealDrums Stems sets, XPro Styles PAK 10, Xtra Styles PAK 21, and much more!
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Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac® users: Build 904 now available!
If you're already using Band-in-a-Box® 2025 for Mac®, make sure to grab the latest update! Build 904 is now available for download and includes the newest additions and enhancements from our team.
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