Charlie, can you tell me in 25 words or less what a "shot" is? I have no clue what that term means in the context of music other than a rimshot. I can take a guess from context that it might mean one quick hit of a chord and then silence. It's like when people say the ^ sign is a push. Well, no, actually it's a pull. It pulls the next note back in time rather than pushing it forward in time, so why not call it a pull? That's what I mean. Jargon.

Here's where I have a problem.

Many people, all trying to be helpful, post replies that contain what I will call "assumed knowledge". I have had this software for 10 years now and have never once run BIAB. I have seen demos on youtube, and I just don't like the look of that screen with that little mini mixer thingy in the top right quadrant. I mix on a mixer with channel strips. I prefer a more DAW feel, because I came from Sonar and then Pro Tools. I liken a lot of the jargon here to listening to a NASCAR driver talk after a race. "Yeah the car was a little tight in turn 1 and I had them adjust the center wing and then it was loose and then I had to deal with the 6 coming up high...." and the only word I understand there is "car". Tight? Loose? I don't watch NASCAR. I simply don't know. I understand that BIAB was first and the old timers never bothered to try Real Band. In fact I think it was you that pointed that out to me in an old post. Real Band is more what I know and I would feel like I was moving backwards to use BIAB.

See, I wrote tech manuals at one point in my IT life. And I learned that when you explain something, you have to explain it like you are trying to teach a 6 year old kid how to build a circuit. Transistors, resisters, capacitors.... To do that you have to teach what a transistor is: what a resistor is.... That's what I mean by "assumed knowledge". Here's a great example. If you put "shot" into the help search, you get this:

A chord can be specified as a shot by adding two periods after the chord. But it never specifies what "shot" means.

Then there's something similar to "Just load the dll file..." Load it where? That's "implied knowledge". Like telling somebody "This is 12 bar blues" and they don't know what a bar is. (And yes, I have been on stage with people who knew so little about music that they didn't know what a bar is, much less what 1-4-5 means.)

I had to write a manual for a modem. Now this was for customers who had already used modems in their life. But I had to actually include a line that said "Locate the on/off button, which is marked with a - on one side and a + on the other. Press that switch so the side under the + is depressed. A green power indicator light will turn on." I honestly had to write that for adults to know how to turn on their modem. I though that was ridiculous until I had a call from someone in Georgia asking how to turn it on.

And for someone blindly walking into this software, that's the level the instructions need to be. I am that person in Georgia who couldn't figure out how to turn her modem on. 3 CDs worth of music later and I know maybe 25% of what this software will do. That's mainly because at my age I am not interested in science projects. I just want to write songs and tell my stories. I have 4 songs sitting on the runway right now waiting for takeoff clearance because I can't figure out how to do some subtle timing things. I mean, can't they make it so you can say "In measure 46 play half note triplets - you know, like the drum fill that Hal Blaine made famous"? Rather than dots and slashes and dashes and all this cryptic stuff. I'm an old guy with a bad memory and from session to session I don't remember "3 carets and 2 dashes and then 3 question marks" or whatever sanskrit is required to write syncopation. Not all music is right on the beat. See my frustration?

I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.

1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.