Hello everyone. Thank you for taking out your time to read this message... let me start by saying that up front.
Here is my current dilimma. Presently, I am using the mac for 99 percent of my workflow. I do have a Bootcamp partition which I have installed Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit Edition on to with JAWS 16. I did this mainly for one, and only! one reason. I am a professional musician as most of you by now probably are aware. Yes, I am a pianest/keyboardist at heart. This however said, I like usually arranging things with more than just piano and vocal. Don't get me wrong, there is definitely a place for doing that. I never said that there wasn't, and sometimes, I'll do just that. I am already an Avid... no pun intended, LOL! user of both ProTools 10, as well as ProTools 11... preferably 11. I have both installed on my studio machine. The issue is, on Windows, I sometimes depending on the sound that I am looking for, use a program which requires JAWS scripts, called Band in A Box, which is made by PG-Music Inc. I won't bore you all with the details. I plan to make a podcast later which demonstrates it. the issue is, it's definitely available on the Mac platform. the only thing is, I am totally unsure of its accessibility with Voiceover. Really honestly, this is literally, and I do mean, literally! the only! thing holding me back from switching completely 100% to the mac platform. Aside from this, I can do literally every single thing I'd ever need to do, including my audio production work on the Mac, and I finally am at the point where I feel completely confident enough with the use of the mac and Voiceover to make the switch cold turkey. The thing is however, Band in a box isn't a software that I can sacrifice. I use it with my job and with my music ministry on a fairly regular basis. OK, I don't rely on it completely. It's not a crutch for me. I still arrange instrumentation by hand around what I do with BIAB, so it's not like I'm just! using the style loops and real tracks from it alone. That would totally be cheating, so don't get that idea. I use it as a tool, not as a necessity. At any rate, the thing is, I am not sure how much you all know about this software, but to get all the styles, loops, soloests, and real track samples, being I have the Ultra Edition for Windows, they cannot send it to you on a set of DVD's. Forget it! The whole installation before even unpacking and uncompressing/installing is literally, and I swear to God I am not exagerating! Call them, if you don't believe me! is over 80 gigs! I did not mis type that! I said what I said completely with confidence! 80? Gigs! Yes, the samples literally are that! realistic! When you buy the software, they actually send it to you on an external USB hard drive. I think the drive is like... a 160GB drive. Don't quote me on that though. I'd have to look at my drive to be sure. Anyway, bottom line is, I called PG-Music. It's going to cost me several hundred dollars to upgrade to the Mac version. For one thing, if I do that, then I sacrifice my license for the Windows version entirely. Meaning, I'd no longer have access to it. They do not have a trial version of any sort, and they are incredibly! incredibly! unwilling to make any exceptions due to my situation. I literally climbed all the way up the latter to the head CEO of PG-Music, and even they refused to help me in any form. Frankly, they're really! pissing me off, but this isn't a drama mail, so I won't go there as that's another story altogether. Yeah, they have a 30 day return policy, but as low of income as I currently make, yeah, I do have a job, and yeah, I'm not saying I don't make any sallary, but trust me. It's very very little. I therefore really don't have the resources right now to spend 3 or 4 hundred bucks, then be out that amount for at least a week or two while they wait to get the drive back in the mail, oh, never mind the fact they don't cover that even during that 30 day period. that would cost me $65 for the shipping, and the fact that they cannot restock the used hard drive. Why? I don't know, it's stupid, but that's how it goes. So, I really really don't want to upgrade unless I know beyond a doubt that someone out there in the blind community has tried BIAB and can navigate it, if not perfectly, at least doably with Voiceover. I'm not doing any of the advanced things like the style creator, or melody creator, or any of that. All that I'd be doing is openning it up, selecting a style of my liking, setting the options in the new song dialog like the title, tempo and key, number of choruses, the start and stop bar numbers of the choruses, obviously creating and inserting an already done soloist track, and then working with the chord sheet grid to insert the chords to the song. Obviously, then rendering it to a wave file. That's literally all I need to do. If that's accessible, or at least doable, then I'll go ahead and make the upgrade. I don't wanna do this though until I know beyond an absolute shadow of a doubt. I can't afford to lose access to this software, I'm sorry, but ain't? gonna happen. Chris. --- Check out my web site at: http://www.clgproductions.net -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. 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