Greetings,

I have been using Band In A Box and Real Band for quite a while. The first upgrade I bought was Band In A Box 12 (if my memory serves me right). Please, lets keep focus, I buy the product for what it can do, not how pretty the interface looks. Before Real Band I used both Sonar and Band In A Box. Sonar provided the Mixer Band In A Box did not have. Sonar had what looked like a cool feature in their Grove Clips. But they couldn't come close to what I could do with Band In A Box and Real Band.

I disagree with anyone suggesting it would be best to re-write the products from the ground up. Music Production software like Band In A Box or Garage Band is definitely a limited sized market. This is not like Microsoft office that will see an installed base of anything in the line of 8 to 10 digits in their license count. Can you imagine going to a venture capital funding organization and tell them "I want to get enough money together to produce a product that can go toe to toe with PG Music's Band In A Box / Real Band combination"? As long as Band In A Box is "Best Of Breed" in the marketplace, the interface is likely to lose less market share to competitors than the superior functionality of the product will take from the competitors.

Since the marketplace for this type of software is limited, the amount of money available for developing new code is limited. I wouldn't mind a long term goal of modernizing the user interface, but certainly not at the expense of improvements to the technology of creating arrangements and making them sound like I have my own band of live musicians backing me when I perform. Diverting investment from improving the capability of the product to 'nicing up' the user interface would allow the competitors to "catch up" a little instead of forcing them to scramble to keep up.

The user interface doesn't do anything for me when I'm on the stage with a microphone in my hand. That is why I continue buying the upgrades to Band In A Box and Real Band. And, by the way, for the functionality I get in the products Band In A Box, Real Band, and the Real Tracks and style sets, I am very satisfied with them and consider them a true bargain.