PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Recording, Mixing, Performance and Production DISCUSSION...ABOUT USERS NEEDING 'MODERN SONG STYLES AND CONTENT"

i hope in this thread various user opinions can be offered re the topic of modern styles and sounds related to pg content..and details flushed out re what users want regarding the topic of modern songs.
(and note... apologies to FJ re commenting in your thread re..some of the issues developers face in keeping a large user base happy. it was a very nice thread you started re what pg has done for us users.
and to Mario..it seems you disagree with some of the questions i posed from a developers perspective.
so feel free to offer contrary opinions....i hope you find this fair on my part.)

heres what i'm wrestling with...

1..there is obviously a significant need by song creators into modern music who want to create there own modern songs....and it makes great sense as current young and future songsmiths get into music production....but how do pg music keep this group of users happy and stay as customers of pg ??
its obvious this segment of the market is very important.

2..what IS modern music ?? i thought i knew most genres of electronic music for example...
but silly me...its a vast topic with many sub genres. some of which i didnt know.
googling i found tons of sub genres of modern music. so how do pg address this ?

eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres

its massive !!

3..how do the makers of modern sample libraries and plugins address the modern song creation market niche ? and how do they deal with customers that might have slow net services re massive sample libs ?
how do these makers also address customers that might get frustrated with menu after menu for users
to select modern sounds from ? its ok to say to have categories to make searches easier but then the songsmith will not discover maybe other categories with neat sounds due to restricted searches.
i face this conundrum day in/out..eg...i'm greedy...lol...ive found if , in pg's content, i restrict myself to use say just rock sounds/rt's..then i miss gold nuggets i could use from other genres. this is why on a serious song i go thru every single style and pg sound...because if i dont..i miss some great sounds.
i even do crazy stuff like apply a jazz style to a country song to see what sounds are exposed.
let me give an example of my own situation...i very nearly bought a new inexpensive piece of guitar gear awhile back that would give me a cornucopia lib of guitar sound emulations both vintage and modern..
but what stopped my purchase was the fact i would spend tons of time going thru the extensive menus.
which is a prob for me as i like to work fast when i'm in 'the zone'.

4..the pg styles wishlist. i notice when a user asks for a certain style or sound that pg respond with 'please give examples'... ive given such in as much detail as possible. eg the fact i absolutely love the heavy rock guitar sound pictures of mike durham and thus requested more mike please.
the stallion song in my sig would never have occurred but for the fact one day i stumbled on a mike rock sound and went 'wait a minute i can build a song around this'...thus the song was born.
ive mentioned the above because i suggest a user cant just ask for 'modern sounds'...what this might mean to one user might mean something completely different to another.
and lets not forget countless different cultures and languages around the world. maybe people in africa
or asia have a different interpretation of what modern songs mean to them.

5..given the above ...and breadth of the modern songs creation market its obvious no matter what pg tries to do some segments of the market will feel left out and cheesed off and will come on these forums and say...
'i want xyz content in biab'. its a no win situation for pg cos new users considering pg products might go...
'oh well if some current users arent happy maybe i'll stay away'..which is sad.

6..the ballooning content and features with no good solution conundrum.
i'd like a buck for each time i faced this in industry...i'd be rich...
ie no matter how hard the IT group strived for customer satisfaction it was impossible. user groups would badger us no end for new features and thus systems got sooo large it became a maintenance nightmare.
ie its a catch 22. or schroedingers proverbial box maybe ? lol. so how can pg...to meet demands for new content eg modern sound styles...do such without ensuing user complaints ?? already we have seen users complain about size of content and difficulty in plowing thru pg content and download times.
how do pg grown their content libs without cheesing off someone somewhere ??

there are many other thoughts i have...but please...if your gonna attack me...at least provide some practical workable solutions in the process. what ive strived to explain several times on these forums is there are numerous challenges for a developer trying to keep a diverse user base like pg's happy.
these relate to logistics , product developmen,t testing, and maintenance costs and a host of other considerations
re new content. just one simple example 'who do we use for the seapunk sub genre'...etc etc.

after lots of thought i have no perfect solutions frankly...so if anyone DOES...be my guest.
also let me leave you with this thought... its ok to say i want 'modern songs'...but its a bit like a prospective homeowner saying to an architect 'build me a house'...dont ya think ??...but then the architect will respond with 'well i need very detailed descriptions of your needs'. same with 'modern sounds or songs' lots of details need to be flushed out before the 'modern song house' can be built...ie....the devils in the details dont ya think ??
i hope i make some sense.

happiness.

om

Yes, om I respectfully disagreed on a couple of your comments. I will try to answer your items in order:

1-By adding new RTs and MIDI to the current styles. I believe modern MIDI styles and the ability to easily add loops, sounds, and effects is the way to achieve this goal. RTs and RDs would be an added plus.

2-But that is no different than any other genres:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_country_genres

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_rock_genres

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_jazz_genres

Also don't forget that many genres utilize similar elements thus one BiaB style may cover a number of genres.

3-The same way PGM addresses the jazz/blues/country genres. How do customers with slow internet service do it now? HDs or flash drives could be an answer. Or just purchase the core BiaB and individual genre pacs. I do agree that having the full BiaB package allows you to "cross blend" genres. I do that myself.

4-I agree. PGM has added ethic sounds and will probably continue to do so. Remember BiaB started as a jazz backing track program but added blues, country, new age, ambient, etc. In fact they have added some hip hop, EDM, house, etc both in MIDI and RTs.

5- Of course some will feel "left out". I'll bet some feel that way now. You can please some of the people some of the time..........

6-See #3's answer. I believe if BiaB sticks to its main objective in creating the best backing tracks and forgets trying to be more like a DAW it will continue to grow and flourish.

Om please do not think that my answers are in any way attacking you. We may just have different ideas about the growth of PGM. Yes the challenges of PGM huge and I will add they are trying very hard to satisfy us all. But on the MIDI side the competition is very strong.

If I had the perfect solution I wouldn't be sitting here in upper New York State, I'd be making a mad rush to Victoria, British Columbia!

I will end this by saying using MIDI would help with a lot of these problems. I know some discard MIDI because of the included GM sounds and ignoring what other sound sources are available. Getting out of the GM mode is critical for MIDI use. Plus there are a great number of excellent free MIDI sound sources available that can be used in BiaB so the initial cost getting out of GM is very low.

The above are just my opinions and you may or may not agree.

< 1..there is obviously a significant need by song creators into modern music who want to create there own modern songs >

BIAB offers a significant amount of content, instruments - RealTrack midi, SuperMidi, and audio; Styles, Mixer, Live Tracks View, Notation, Piano Roll, Audio Editing, Midi, RealTracks data and Live or recorded audio, a loops library, Song Form tool, DAW Plug-in, DAW Standalone, RealBand, a ten channel RealTrack sub-mixer for each of the 24 Tracks, a unique to BIAB RealTrack 1152: Silence, Artist Performance Files, Artist Performance Tracks, Volume Automation, Stem Extraction, MultiStyles, a variety of arrangement tools and features, SuperMidi instruments, KV331 Audio Synthesizer 2, the Audio Chord Wizard, XML import/export, ABC integration, Chord Builder, auto intro generation, audio and midi recording, input monitoring, audio and midi driver integration, transposing, harmonizing and transcribing capability. I could continue on with a list of audio formats it recognizes, Style Creator, Bar and Song settings, generation, regeneration, partial regeneration and so many more features. What significant need is missing?


<2..what IS modern music ? >

It's massive. So is BIAB and it's associated programs.

<3..how do the makers of modern sample libraries and plugins address the modern song creation market niche ? and how do they deal with customers that might have slow net services re massive sample libs ? >

My guess is they deal with customers with specific issues regarding PC specs, speed and storage similar to PG Music.


< 4..the pg styles wishlist. i notice when a user asks for a certain style or sound that pg respond with 'please give examples'. >

There are more than 10,000 styles currently. Each and every one of them is 100% user modifiable. BIAB offers a Style Creator, UserTrack template, and Loops creator programs for users seeking a certain style or sound. Styles and UserTracks are there precisely for these type of specific needs.

< 5..given the above ...and breadth of the modern songs creation market its obvious no matter what pg tries to do some segments of the market will feel left out and cheesed off and will come on these forums and say... >

True. But we users and PG staff can point out the dozens and dozens of song creation content features and leave it up to potential customers to decide if BIAB and it subordinate programs will help them in their song creation journey. Pro-Tools is the professional industry standard and holds the largest share of the professional market but not every pro uses Pro-Tools, nor every hobbyist or amateur song creator/producer/engineer.

< 6..the ballooning content and features with no good solution conundrum.
i'd like a buck for each time i faced this in industry...i'd be rich... >

We don't know that you aren't rich. It's inconsequential to the subject and as users, we're no more responsible for your wealth than we are for the development of PG Music products.

The ballooning content and features conundrum does have viable solutions but they're not discussed and are discounted by a small but vocal group of forum members that see solutions in the image of IT and coding experience in relation to DAW experience.

Referencing the 'White Paper', the three essential / pre-requisite goals that are named are: Bugs & underdeveloped features fixed, redundancy gone and significant workflow enhancements which includes UI (BIAB and PLUGIN).

Understanding that BIAB is an audio accompaniment/arrangement program, it's notable to point out there's nothing in the 'White Paper' that's pre-source audio generation material. Everything is post-source as far as I can determine taking a quick review of the hundred or so posts. The attached screen shot demonstrates the huge increase in posts when using the program as an audio accompaniment/arrangement program. It's also noteworthy there's little if any discussion in the User Showcase of the difficulty and complexity of BIAB interfering with users ability to create songs with the program.

Mario.

good ideas from you....particularly haveing more midi styles.
i like this idea for modern songs because it could mitigate somewhat the problem of pg content libs ballooning and requiring huge storage.

the only prob i see with the midi style approach for modern songs is...
my analysis of the market is many up and coming songsmiths sometimes could not be bothered with learning midi.
its another conundrum....certainly some ive talked to.

also they arent interested often trolling thru sample libs.
the problem being that its become very much often a ...
'gimme now'. society. some just dont want to do the hard 'graft'
like you and i do to create a song....literally some people want AI
to rwrite a hit for them asap and they will be rich with mansions...fast cars..etc etc....lol...have we come to this ? where i say to a music app
gimme a bit of trem gtr at 2minutes for a couple of bars ??
frankly i get a sense of satisfaction if i have to put in some graft doing a song.

for example in my pretty girl song in my sig done for my ever patient wife...basically about 'mans admiration for a woman'...the little tremelo gtr in the song only came about as a result of a lot of hard graft to find what i heard in my head. Lots of people like some musis ive met in the past would say ...forget it.

as your aware with your lovely soundscapes even with the best tools on the market....songs are work. hard work often...its obvious with your songs lots of effort and thought went into them.
its another conundrum how a development team caters to the user
who wants instant gratification.

msrio...what ive tried to point out sometimes on these forums to people critical of an app is the vsrious chsllengers developers face.
ie a view from the other side of the fence.

i think it fair to say some people might realise pg's amazing product
achievements if such people worked in tech for a time and saw the various challenges of developing apps.
i literally had a ceo once who thought it was like coding 'hello world'...lol ie...a 2 minute job.

c'est la vie...thanks for contributing your ideas.

--++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------------

charlie...just saw your post. yes bb is choc full of great features...but lots of people i sense have no interest in learning them often....so sad.
of course all you say is spot on.

once sgain you and i are willing to put in the hard graft....no argument...but lots arent. i sense the same with rb...sadly...some new users take a cursory look at it..
without realising its choc full of features...and discard it cos they dont want to spend time to get into rb's groovy features and realise the unique and powrfull
rb features re music production....sigh.

happiness.

om 🇨🇦🇨🇦 🇬🇧🇬🇧

I have no idea what this means.

Did anyone read this to the end?

Huh?

OM, you got me man. My eyeballs are spinning

bud.

water under the bridge...you and janice are big talents.

all i want is continued success for pg...like floyd...it troubles me that any negative comments on these firums might put off potential buyers...when in fact you and i and thousands of other people have used these great pg products to produce zillions of songs.
people of course always want more...just human nature...

its sorta when i was a kid in the uk...haveing a 99 ice cream cornet
and wanting another...lol.

its a conundrum frankly how to meet the needs of users wanting more modern content but at the same time dont want to get into the intricacies and tricks of midi ie learning cycle.

ps deleted...all the best.