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®
Version 2007 for Windows
© Copyright PG Music Inc.1989-2007. All rights reserved.
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PG Music Inc. License Agreement
CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE COMPLETING THE
INSTALLATION OF THIS SOFTWARE. USAGE OF THE SOFTWARE INDICATES YOUR ACCEPTANCE
OF THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
LICENSE
A. The program may only be used on a single machine.
B. You may transfer the program and license to another party if the other party agrees to accept the terms of
this Agreement. If you transfer the program, you must either transfer all copies, whether in printed or
machine readable form, to the same party, or, destroy all copies not transferred. This includes all
modifications and/or portions of the program merged into other programs.
C. You may receive the program in more than one media. Regardless of the type or size of media you receive,
you may install or use the media on a single machine.
D. The program (including any images, “applets,” photographs, animations, video, audio, music, and text
incorporated into the program) is owned by PG Music Inc. or its suppliers, and is protected by international
copyright laws and international treaty provisions.
You may not use, copy, or transfer the program, or any copy, modification or merged portion of the program, in
whole or in part, except as expressly provided for in this license. If you transfer possession of any copy,
modification or merged portion of the program to another party, your license is automatically terminated.
LIMITATION OF REMEDIES
PG Music Inc.'s entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be:
A. The replacement of any media not meeting PG Music Inc.'s “Limited Warranty,” which are returned to PG
Music Inc., or an authorized PG Music Inc. dealer, with a copy of your receipt.
B. If PG Music Inc. or the authorized dealer is unable to deliver replacement media which is free of defects in
materials or workmanship, you may terminate this agreement, and your money will be refunded.
In no event will PG Music Inc. be liable to you for any damages, including but not limited to lost profits, lost
savings, or other incidental or consequential damages arising out of the use or the inability to use such program,
even if PG Music Inc. or an authorized PG Music Inc. dealer has been advised of the possibility of such damages, or
for any claim by any other party.
TRADEMARKS
Band-in-a-Box®, GuitarStar®, PG Music®, and PowerTracks Pro® are the registered trademarks of PG Music Inc.
in the United States, Canada, and other countries. Microsoft® and Windows® are either registered trademarks or
trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. Apple®, the Apple logo,
Macintosh®, Mac®, Panther®, Power Mac®, QuickTime®, Tiger™, and TrueType® are trademarks of Apple
Computer, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. IBM® is the registered trademark of International
Business Machines Corporation. Roland® and “Roland” Logo, EDIROL® and “EDIROL” Logo, GS® and “GS”
Logo, are registered trademarks and “MIDI2” Logo, EDIROL Virtual Sound Canvas Multi Pack, VSC-MP1™ are
trademarks of Roland Corporation. ASIO is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.
VST is a trademark of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH. Other brands and their products are trademarks or
registered trademarks of their respective holders and should be noted as such.
PATENTS
Band-in-a-Box is protected under US Patent 5990407. The TC-Helicon Harmony feature in Band-in-a-Box and
PowerTracks Pro Audio is protected under US Patents 5567901, 564 1926, 5986198, 34583, 296.80.173.9,
PI9603819.5, 0368046, 0750776, 6,046,395, and patents pending.
Printed in Canada
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PG Music Inc. License Agreement
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Table of Contents
PG MUSIC INC. LICENSE AGREEMENT.............................................................................................................2
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................3
CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO BAND-IN-A-BOX!.................................................................................................6
WHAT IS BAND-IN-A-BOX?........................................................................................................................................6
INSTALLING BAND-IN-A-BOX FOR WINDOWS ............................................................................................................7
MIDI SETUP...............................................................................................................................................................7
AUDIO SETUP ...........................................................................................................................................................12
CHAPTER 2: QUICKSTART..................................................................................................................................16
STEP 1 – TYPING IN THE CHORDS .............................................................................................................................16
STEP 2 – CHOOSING A STYLE....................................................................................................................................18
STEP 3 – PLAY YOUR SONG!......................................................................................................................................20
CHAPTER 3: BAND-IN-A-BOX 2007 ...................................................................................................................22
BAND-IN-A-BOX 2007 PLUS!....................................................................................................................................22
SUMMARY OF BAND-IN-A-BOX 2007 FEATURES ......................................................................................................23
QUICKSTART TUTORIAL FOR THE VERSION 2007 NEW FEATURES ...........................................................................37
CHAPTER 4: THE MAIN SCREEN.......................................................................................................................45
MAIN SCREEN OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................................................45
STATUS BAR.............................................................................................................................................................47
SYNTH WINDOW / PIANO KEYBOARD.......................................................................................................................47
TITLE WINDOW ........................................................................................................................................................53
CHORDSHEET AREA .................................................................................................................................................55
CHAPTER 5: GUIDED TOUR OF BAND-IN-A-BOX .........................................................................................57
LOADING AND PLAYING SONGS................................................................................................................................57
THE CONDUCTOR WINDOW......................................................................................................................................63
ADD A MELODY – MIDI AND/OR AUDIO..................................................................................................................63
ADD A SOLO - “THE SOLOIST”..................................................................................................................................67
VIEW AND PRINT NOTATION ....................................................................................................................................69
PIANO ROLL WINDOW..............................................................................................................................................72
LEAD SHEET NOTATION WINDOW............................................................................................................................80
THE GUITAR WINDOW .............................................................................................................................................85
BIG PIANO WINDOW.................................................................................................................................................89
PLAY THE JUKEBOX..................................................................................................................................................90
IMPORT A MIDI FILE................................................................................................................................................92
AUTOMATIC SONGS - “THE MELODIST”...................................................................................................................93
MAKE YOUR OWN SONGS........................................................................................................................................94
SAVING YOUR WORK.............................................................................................................................................103
BURN YOUR OWN AUDIO-CD................................................................................................................................104
CHAPTER 6: BAND-IN-A-BOX POWERGUIDE ..............................................................................................106
OPENING FILES.......................................................................................................................................................106
GLOBAL SONG OVERRIDES ....................................................................................................................................107
CHORD ENTRY .......................................................................................................................................................108
REPEATS AND ENDINGS..........................................................................................................................................112
PLAYING/PAUSING/STOPPING SONGS .....................................................................................................................113
ADDITIONAL PATCHES ...........................................................................................................................................116
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HANGING VOLUME, PANNING, REVERB, CHORUS, BANK.....................................................................................118
C
EDIT FUNCTIONS ....................................................................................................................................................119
APPLYING STYLES..................................................................................................................................................128
REALDRUMS STYLES .............................................................................................................................................134
BREAKS - RESTS, SHOTS, AND HELD CHORDS........................................................................................................137
SONG SETTINGS DIALOG ........................................................................................................................................140
SAVING SONGS.......................................................................................................................................................142
THE JUKEBOX.........................................................................................................................................................148
THE CONDUCTOR ...................................................................................................................................................150
CHAPTER 7: NOTATION AND PRINTING ......................................................................................................155
STANDARD NOTATION WINDOW ............................................................................................................................156
EDITABLE NOTATION MODE ..................................................................................................................................157
STAFF ROLL NOTATION MODE...............................................................................................................................163
NOTATION WINDOW OPTIONS................................................................................................................................164
LEAD SHEET WINDOW ...........................................................................................................................................173
LYRICS ...................................................................................................................................................................180
PRINTING................................................................................................................................................................186
CHAPTER 8: AUTOMATIC MUSIC FEATURES.............................................................................................194
AUTOMATIC SONGS – “THE MELODIST” ................................................................................................................194
AUTOMATIC SOUND TRACK GENERATOR - “SOUNDTRACK” .................................................................................198
AUTOMATIC SOLO GENERATION – “THE SOLOIST”................................................................................................199
AUTO PIANO HAND-SPLITTING...............................................................................................................................207
AUTOMATIC GUITAR SOLOS – “THE GUITARIST”...................................................................................................208
AUTOMATIC EMBELLISHMENTS – “THE EMBELLISHER”.........................................................................................211
CHAPTER 9: WORKING WITH MIDI...............................................................................................................215
RECORDING LIVE IN REAL TIME ............................................................................................................................215
ENTERING NOTES MANUALLY ...............................................................................................................................216
RECORDING WITH THE WIZARD FEATURE ..............................................................................................................217
MELODY/SOLOIST SEQUENCER ..............................................................................................................................218
IMPORTING MIDI FILES..........................................................................................................................................221
EDITING THE MELODY TRACK................................................................................................................................223
CHAPTER 10: WORKING WITH AUDIO .........................................................................................................228
AUDIO TRACK ........................................................................................................................................................228
RECORD AUDIO......................................................................................................................................................230
PLAYING THE AUDIO FILE......................................................................................................................................233
EDIT THE AUDIO FILE.............................................................................................................................................233
AUDIO HARMONIES................................................................................................................................................234
PITCH STYLES PRESET DETAILS (ONE PER VOICE)..................................................................................................239
APPLYING AUDIO PLUG-INS...................................................................................................................................240
RENDERING AUDIO FILES.......................................................................................................................................244
BURN YOUR OWN AUDIO-CD.................................................................................................................................249
CHAPTER 11: USER PROGRAMMABLE FUNCTIONS.................................................................................253
THE STYLEMAKER.................................................................................................................................................253
MAKING REALDRUMS STYLES...............................................................................................................................284
THE HARMONY MAKER..........................................................................................................................................304
THE SOLOIST MAKER .............................................................................................................................................308
THE MELODIST MAKER..........................................................................................................................................311
THE GUITARIST MAKER .........................................................................................................................................313
CHAPTER 12: TUTORS, WIZARDS, AND PRACTICE AIDS ........................................................................317
AUDIO CHORD WIZARD (“CHORDS FROM MP3”)...................................................................................................317
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FILE CHORD INTERPRETATION WIZARD .......................................................................................................326
MIDI
PRACTICE WINDOW................................................................................................................................................332
EAR TRAINING TUTOR............................................................................................................................................333
EAR TRAINING GAMES ...........................................................................................................................................337
VOCAL WIZARD .....................................................................................................................................................338
REHARMONIST (CHORDS FOR A MELODY)..............................................................................................................341
CHORD SUBSTITUTION WIZARD .............................................................................................................................343
CHORD BUILDER ....................................................................................................................................................346
RHYTHM GUITAR CHORD TUTOR ...........................................................................................................................346
CHORD “BREAKS”..................................................................................................................................................348
MIDI FILE TO STYLE WIZARD................................................................................................................................348
REPEATS AND ENDINGS WIZARD............................................................................................................................353
CHAPTER 13: TOOLS AND UTILITIES............................................................................................................356
ROLAND VSC3 VIRTUAL SOUND CANVAS.............................................................................................................356
TRANZPORT SUPPORT - WIRELESS REMOTE CONTROL ..........................................................................................356
GUITAR TUNER.......................................................................................................................................................358
DYNAMIC 3D DRUM KIT WINDOW.........................................................................................................................359
MIDI MONITOR......................................................................................................................................................362
SOUND BLASTER SUPPORT.....................................................................................................................................365
EVENT LIST EDITOR ...............................................................................................................................................365
PG VINYL DIRECTX PLUG-IN.................................................................................................................................367
PG RTA DIRECTX PLUG-IN...................................................................................................................................371
PG VOCAL REMOVER PLUG-IN ..............................................................................................................................372
CHAPTER 14: REFERENCE................................................................................................................................374
BAND-IN-A-BOX MENU DESCRIPTIONS..................................................................................................................374
FILE MENU.............................................................................................................................................................374
EDIT MENU ............................................................................................................................................................377
STYLES MENU........................................................................................................................................................383
OPT. MENU.............................................................................................................................................................385
PLAY MENU ...........................................................................................................................................................420
LYRICS MENU ........................................................................................................................................................422
MELODY MENU......................................................................................................................................................424
SOLOIST MENU.......................................................................................................................................................430
AUDIO MENU .........................................................................................................................................................434
GM MENU..............................................................................................................................................................437
HARMONY MENU ...................................................................................................................................................440
NOTATION MENU ...................................................................................................................................................442
WINDOW MENU .....................................................................................................................................................443
HELP MENU............................................................................................................................................................446
KEYSTROKE COMMANDS - HOT KEYS....................................................................................................................448
CHORD LIST ...........................................................................................................................................................451
BAND-IN-A-BOX FILES ...........................................................................................................................................452
PG MUSIC INC.......................................................................................................................................................454
INDEX ......................................................................................................................................................................455
PG MUSIC REGISTRATION FORM ..................................................................................................................465
HOW TO REGISTER.................................................................................................................................................465
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Chapter 1: Welcome to Band-in-a-Box!
Congratulations on your purchase of Band-in-a-Box, the favorite of musicians, students, and
songwriters everywhere. Get ready to have fun!
What is Band-in-a-Box?
Band-in-a-Box is an intelligent automatic
accompaniment program for your multimedia
computer.
You can hear and play along to many song
ideas and go from “nothing” to “something” in
a very short period of time with Band-in-a-Box
as your “on demand” backup band.
Just type in the chords for any song using
standard chord symbols (like C, Fm7, or
C13b9), choose the style you’d like, and Bandin-a-Box does the rest, automatically
generating a complete professional-quality
arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar, and
strings in a wide variety of popular styles.
Band-in-a-Box is so easy to use!
Band-in-a-Box is a powerful and creative music composition tool for exploring and developing
musical ideas with near-instantaneous feedback. Over the years many features have been added
to Band-in-a-Box – Notation and Lyrics, Piano Roll, 16-channel Melody & Soloist multitracks,
Harmonization, the StyleMaker and StylePicker, and a Conductor window for live playback
control. The Soloist and the Melodist are popular “intelligent” features that generate
professional solos or even create whole new songs from scratch. RealDrums adds the human
element of a live drummer, bringing the entire Band-in-a-Box arrangement to life, and the Audio
Chord Wizard has the amazing ability to analyze and extract the chords from audio recordings
and write them to the Band-in-a-Box chordsheet.
The inclusion of digital audio features makes Band-in-a-Box the perfect tool for creating,
playing, and recording your music with MIDI, vocals, and acoustic instruments. Band-in-a-Box
®
for Windows
can also record an acoustic instrument or voice to add to the composition, with
processing through DirectX audio effects. Its built-in audio harmonies will turn your audio track
into multiple harmony parts or adjust its pitch, with vibrato and scooping effects for realistic
vocal styles.
You can print out your finished creation with repeats and endings, DC markings and codas, or
save it as a graphic file for web publication or to e-mail to a friend. And when you're ready to let
others hear your composition, you can burn it directly to an audio CD. Or save your composition
as a Windows Media File or in other compressed formats for a file that’s “Internet ready.”
Let’s get started!
This guide will have you making great music with Band-in-a-Box in a matter of minutes. We’ll
begin with the easy installation and setup procedure.
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Installing Band-in-a-Box for Windows®
Minimum System Requirements
- Windows® 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista.
- 128MB of RAM.
- Digital audio features require a Pentium-class system.
- 120 MB available hard drive space for Pro version, 3 GB for MegaPAK including RealDrums.
- PC sound card or external MIDI device (synthesizer, sound module, etc.).
Installing the Program
Use any of the following three methods to install the program files into the Band-in-a-Box directory. By default this
directory is C:\bb; you may choose another location.
Method 1 – Auto Run.
1. Insert the program CD-ROM into the CD drive.
2. In a few seconds, a browser window will open with a list of the CD contents.
3. Double click on SETUP.EXE to run the installation program.
Method 2 – My Computer.
1. Insert the program CD-ROM into the CD drive.
2.
Access your CD-ROM drive from the Windows desktop by double clicking on the My Computer icon.
Then, double-click on the CD-ROM drive icon and double-click again on the SETUP.EXE program found in
3.
the root or main folder of the CD-ROM.
Method 3 – Start Menu.
1. Insert the program CD-ROM into the CD drive.
2. From the Windows [Start] button select Run.
3. Type D:\SETUP in the “Open:” command line box. If your CD-ROM drive uses another drive letter type
the appropriate letter, for example E:\SETUP.
4. If you don’t know the drive letter for your CD-ROM you can use the [Browse…] button to find it.
SETUP.EXE will copy all of the program files to your Band-in-a-Box subdirectory (usually C:\bb) and install
icons to a Band-in-a-Box program group. Click on the Band-in-a-Box icon or launch bbw.exe to open the
program and configure the setup.
MIDI Setup
Band-in-a-Box uses the multimedia drivers for your MIDI interface and/or sound card that are supported by the
Windows operating system. To get sound playback you need to have a MIDI (and audio - for songs with digital
audio) driver installed.
To start using the program you will need to make sure that your MIDI interface, audio driver, and Windows sound
source is installed and configured.
Run the program by double-clicking the program icon. The first dialog you should encounter is a MIDI Output
Driver message similar to this one:
The program sets your initial
MIDI output driver automatically.
Note which driver has been
selected and press [OK] to
continue.
The next dialog you encounter is the MIDI Driver Setup.
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If the driver that was selected is not the best choice, simply make an alternate selection from the MIDI Driver
Setup dialog. Select a MIDI Output Driver to use for MIDI sound playback and optionally a MIDI Input Driver if
you are using an external MIDI controller keyboard or guitar. If the setup is panned to mono, the program offers to
change it to stereo.
Perhaps the easiest way to configure Band-in-a-Box is to pre ss the [Run Driver
Wizard..] button in the Opt. | MIDI driver setup window.
The MIDI Output Driver
Wizard dialog will take
you step-by-step through
the process of auditioning
and selecting an
appropriate driver. This
assumes that the
appropriate Windows
sound drivers are installed
and correctly configured.
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DirectX Instrument Synthesizer (DXi plug-in) Support
Software synthesizers allow Band-in-a-Box to play high quality sounds directly through your computer sound card,
without requiring any external MIDI hardware. Most new software synthesizers are released as “DXi plug-ins,” so
they will work in a standard way with many programs. Connecting Band-in-a-Box to the software synth as a plug-in
provides several advantages over the previous method of connecting as a MIDI driver. The plug-in allows Band-ina-Box to merge/synch in any existing audio file (vocals etc.) with the synth output. You can also directly render
your performance to a .WAV file using the DXi plug-in. Sampler-based synths allow you to assemble a huge,
customized library of instrument samples to use with Band-in-a-Box. Examples of popular DXi synths include the
RolandED VSC-DXi and Coyote’s ForteDXi.
To use DXi with Band-in-a-Box, you should think of the DXi as a type of “MIDI Out Driver.” As such, you visit
either the Opt. | MIDI driver setup or click on [Pref] [MIDI Driver] and select the “Use DXi Synth” checkbox.
When you do this, you can select the type of DXi to use (from a list of installed DXi, if any), and also will see a
panel display of the DXi that allows you to make settings directly for your DXi synth.
The DXi will convert the MIDI information to audio, which Band-in-a-Box will playback through your sound card
to audio speakers.
You can select DirectX DXi Software Synthesizers as the MIDI destination, and also apply DirectX Audio plug-ins
to the Band-in-a-Box audio track.
Check the Use DXi Synth checkbox to enable DXi playback. While using DXi or VSTi, all
playback information is routed to the DXi/VSTi, including
the option to route the THRU part from your MIDI keyboard to the DXi/VSTi
synth.
Note: To use this option, you must have a polyphonic DXi synthesizer installed on your computer, such as the
Roland/Edirol VSC DXi. It will also be most convenient if your DXi synthesizer can use General MIDI or GM2 patches.
To select the DXi synthesizer, click the [DXi Synth Settings] button, which will open the DirectX Plugins window.
The Synth Track tab edits Synthesizer
settings, and the Audio Track tab edits
Band-in-a-Box audio track DirectX
plug-ins. Select your desired DXi synth
in the top plug-in Insert Slot 1.
To apply DirectX audio plug-ins to the
synth, insert DX audio plug-ins to Insert
Slots 2, 3, or 4. This can be useful to
add EQ, Reverb, Compression, or Peak
Limiting plug-ins, if the “raw sound” of
the synthesizer needs sweetening.
VST Instrument Synthesizer (VST plug-in)
To add VSTi synthesizer plug-ins, please make sure the Synth Track tab is selected, and use the plug-in menu on the
top synthesizer slot.
VST plug-ins appear at the bottom of the plug-in list below the DirectX plug-ins. VST plug-ins and synthesizers
have the text “<VST>” prefixed to the name of the plug-in or synthesizer.
To select a VST plug-in for the first time, select the “Add VST plug-in...” item at the bottom of the plug-in Menu.
Select a VST plug-in .dll file in the following Select a VST plug-in dialog, and it is added to the plug-in list. After
you add each VST, the plug-in is permanently added to the list. You only have to add each plug-in one time.
Note: Some VST host programs scan for all available plug-ins every time they start up. We decided not to use that
method, because the scanning can take a long time if there are many plug-ins on your system. Additionally, a badly-written
or corrupt plug-in could cause program malfunctions. Therefore, we feel the method of selecting only the plug-ins you wish
to use is both safer and faster.
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VST/VSTi Additional Panel Controls
VST is necessarily different from DirectX/DXi, and some extra controls are available for VST plug-ins.
DirectX/DXi plug-ins save their presets to the Windows Registry and only one setting is “alive” at a time.
VST/VSTi plug-ins save their presets to disk files. VST/VSTi plug-ins contain a bank of presets in memory. You
can switch between presets while editing, and each edited preset is remembered in the current bank. If you save the
bank, it will save all the presets you have edited. You can save individual presets, or you can build a custom bank
by loading individual preset files into different preset slots, and then save the new bank file.
Select Preset Menu
Select a preset. You can also use the small Right/Left arrow buttons to step forward/backwards through the presets
one at a time, to audition each preset.
Note: Some very nice plug-ins, including some advanced synthesizer plug-ins, may only have one preset, but that single
preset can be a doozy containing many settings. Even with single-preset plug-ins, you can Save/Load Presets or Banks.
Rename Pst: Rename the currently selected Preset (in the plug-in's memory).
Save Preset: Save the currently selected Preset. VST/VSTi preset files use the “.fxp” extension.
Load Preset: A “Select Preset To Replace” dialog appears where you should pick which preset in memory to
replace. Then select the desired Preset file in the following File dialog.
Save Bank: Save a Bank file of all the current presets in the plug-in. VST/VSTi bank files use the “.fxb” extension.
Load Bank: Load an entire bank of presets. Different plug-ins have different bank sizes. One plug-in might
contain 10 presets in a bank, but another plug-in might have 128 presets in a bank.
VST Generic User Interface
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VST/VSTi plug-ins are not required to have a fancy graphic control panel. There are many “faceless” VST plug-ins
which have many adjustable parameters, but no fancy control panel. When you open such a plug-in, the control
panel will look like the above example. Band-in-a-Box presents one “generic” slider for each adjustable parameter
in the plug-in.
Parameter Name: Simply the name of each adjustable parameter.
Value Slider: Move the slider to adjust the parameter value
Value Indication Text: Displays the value of the slider, as interpreted by the plug-in. In the above example,
Parameter 0: Bright is interpreted as an ON/OFF switch, but Parameter 1: Volume is interpreted as a value from 0 to
10.
Options: Remove VST Plug-In (from list)
This feature allows the removal of unwanted plug-ins from the Band-in-a-Box VST/VSTi plug-in lists.
Driver Latency
Software synthesizers have some inherent latency, which is the delay between the time a note is played and it is
processed by the computer. Older softsynt hs had noticeable latency, whereas a DXi synth using ASI O drivers has
very little. This setting is used to synchronize the visual display (notation, chords, virtual piano etc.) with the sound
you hear. Band-in-a-Box automatically sets the latency for DXi and some other softsynths.
The [Latency Adjust…] button opens the SoftSynth Latency Adjust dialog where you
can manually adjust the latency.
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Alternate Patch Maps
You can choose the patch map (instrument list) that matches your synthesizer keyboard or sound module. Original
equipment sound cards or integrated sound chips are General MIDI (GM) compatible.
We have made preset drum/patch files for many
synthesizers and sound cards including the Roland VSC
and VSC DXi.
If your synth is not listed you should use the General
MIDI Instrument Misc. patch kit (default).
You can probably omit this step unless you're using an
old synth that is not General MIDI compatible. If your
non-GM synthesizer or sound card is not listed you can
easily make your own patch map in Opt. | Preferences |
Patch Map.
General MIDI 2 (GM2) Support
General MIDI 2 patches are supported for 128 additional
instruments, the type of GM2 support is set in this dialog.
The choices are:
- General MIDI 2 support: If you're using the Roland VSC3, or a newer Sound Canvas (i.e. newer than
1999, or newer than the Roland SC88), then choose this GM2 support.
- Roland GS (older Modules): “Older” Sound Can vases (SC55/SC88) support GS, but not GM2. The good
news is that they have the same patches available, just at different locations. So if you choose this option,
Band-in-a-Box will find the patches at the “GS” locations instead of the “GM2” locations. If you have a
newer GS module like the SC8820, it supports both GM2 and GS - you should likely choose GM2.
- No GM2 support: Some sound cards don't have GM2 support yet; they just support the original 128
General MIDI sounds. Band-in-a-Box will use the closest instrument in these cases.
Audio Setup
Band-in-a-Box performs the audio setup automatically using the installed system audio components
To restore or modify this set up click on the Preferences button and then select the [Audio]
12
button to launch the Audio Settings dialog.
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To reset the default MME driver settings click on [Get from soundcard…] and Bandin-a-Box will analyze the sound card and enter the correct audio settings.
If your computer has ASIO capability you can use these drivers instead of the default MME drivers.
ASIO Audio/Software Synth Drivers
By using an ASIO audio driver, software synths like the Roland VSC (DXi or VSC) will play with almost no
latency (delay is only 5-10ms). So you’ll hear the sounds instantly, and be able to play along using MIDI Thru with
the same ultra-low latency.
On the Preferences [Audio] tab, you’ll see the following options for “Audio Driver
Type,” MME or ASIO.
MME is the default Windows audio driver type. MME is good, but there is latency
(delay) associated with MME drivers.
For this reason, Steinberg developed a faster type of audio driver system, called
ASIO. It allows for much lower latency than ordinary MME drivers do.
Note: Many OEM or value sound cards do not include an ASIO driver, so you may not have an ASIO driver yet. In this
case, you’ll need to get an ASIO driver from the Internet.
This ASIO Audio Drivers dialog lets you choose an ASIO driver. You can arrive at this dialog in 3 different ways:
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1) If you haven’t used ASIO drivers, but Band-in-a-Box detected them, and you answered “Yes” when Band-
in-a-Box asked if you want to use an ASIO driver.
2) If, within the Audio Settings, you change the “Audio Driver Type” from MME to ASIO.
3) If the ‘Audio Driver Type’ is already set to ASIO, but you later press the [Audio Drivers…] button in the
Audio Settings.
The Select one ASIO Driver list box lets you select an ASIO driver to use. You can only select one ASIO driver at
a time.
Once you have selected an ASIO driver, you will see the Input Port and Output Port list boxes filled with your
driver’s input and output ports. By default, the first of each will be selected. You are allowed to select different
ports (but only one input and one output port at a time can be selected). The ports you selected will be available for
output within Band-in-a-Box. If you do not hear input or output, then you may need to try different ports than the
defaults. You may need to read your sound card’s instructions to determine the correct ports to use.
Tip: The ASIO4All driver sometimes cannot connect if the Microsoft GS Wavetable synth is being used as a driver. So if
this happens, you will get a message that ASIO will be silent, and the solution is to de-select the ASIO4All driver.
The ASIO Driver’s Control Panel button launches the Control Panel for your driver. This usually lets you adjust the
latency by letting you choose different buffer sizes in milliseconds. Some drivers might let you choose the buffer
size in samples, which is less convenient than milliseconds. The smaller the buffer size, the lower the latency, and
the faster the response. Smaller buffers require more CPU power and if you hear dropouts or artifacts, you may
need to increase the buffer size. See the Understanding Latency section that follows.
Since many ASIO drivers do not support multiple sample rates, Band-in-a-Box has a built-in resampler which lets
you play and record songs that have a different sampling rate than the rate(s) directly supported by your ASIO
driver. For example, if the driver does not support 44.1K sampling rate, but supports 48K, then Band-in-a-Box will
use the resampler to convert to 48K when playing back, and to convert FROM 48K when recording. The
Resampler Quality combo lets you choose Fast, Good, Better, or Best. Fast is the quickest, but is the lowest of the
four levels of quality. Best is the slowest (uses more CPU time), but the most transparent and accurate quality.
The ASIO Driver’s Control Panel button launches a settings dialog specifically provided by your driver
manufacturer. This usually lets you adjust the latency, and usually you will have a choice between buffer sizes in
milliseconds. See the Understanding Latency section later below.
Show Warning for Untested Soundcard Formats is an optional setting that shows a warning if your ASIO driver
format has not been tested in Band-in-a-Box. This message does not necessarily mean your driver will not work,
and it can be disabled if you want.
The Driver Info field shows various characteristics of your driver.
The Name is the driver’s name.
The Version is the version number of your driver.
Input Channels is the total number of mono input channels that your sound card has. (Note: Band-in-a-Box groups
each into a stereo pair.)
Output Channels is the total number of mono output channels that your sound card has. (Note: Band-in-a-Box
groups each port into a stereo pair.)
The Allowed Sample Rates field shows the sample rates are allowed by your sound card’s ASIO driver. Band-in-a-
Box has a built-in resampler which lets you play and record files that aren’t directly supported by your ASIO driver.
The Buffer Sizes In Samples shows the range of allowed buffer sizes. The “Pref” is the preferred size, and this is
the size that Band-in-a-Box uses. Your driver may alter the preferred size if you’ve launched the ASIO Driver
Control Panel and have selected a new buffer size from within the driver’s Control Panel. If your driver changes the
preferred size, then Band-in-a-Box will be aware of the new preferred size.
Understanding Latency
Latency is based on the buffer sizes. The smaller the buffer sizes the lower the latency. Lower latency allows you
to hear mixer volume changes very quickly, as well as hear MIDI thru echoed out via a DXi soft synth practically in
real time.
The latency, in MS is determined by the buffer size in samples, as well as the driver’s sampling rate.
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Note: If your ASIO driver’s control panel lets you select the buffer size in MS, then you don’t have to pay much attention to
the part of discussion below about converting samples to MS.
Converting Samples to MS: For example, suppose the driver’s sample rate is 48K. A 48K sampling rate means
that it is playing at 48,000 samples per second. If the buffer size were 48000 samples, then the latency would be 1
second, or 1000ms (which is very large and slow, and usually not allowed in ASIO). If the buffer size were 4800
samples, which is 1/10
1/20 second, the latency would be 50 ms. If the buffer size were 240 samples, which is 1/200
second, then the latency would be 100ms. If the buffer size were 2400 samples, which is
second, the latency
would be a mere 5ms which is incredibly low and very fast.
Normally, you can change your driver’s latency by pressing the Launch ASIO Driver’s Control Panel button.
Normally, the driver specifies the buffer sizes in milliseconds which is equal to the latency.
Low latency is faster and more responsive, but uses more CPU power.
Depending on the speed of your computer, you may find that the playback has dropouts, clicks/pops, or other
artifacts if you set the buffer sizes too small. This is because smaller buffers use more CPU power and if your
computer can’t handle the low latency you will hear artifacts. If this happens, you would need to use larger buffer
sizes. You may need to experiment to find what works well. You may be able to use smaller buffers with songs that
don’t have a lot of tracks and effects, but may find that you need to use larger buffers with songs that have more
tracks and use more effects. This is because more tracks and more effects use more CPU power, which leaves less
CPU power available for the audio routines to keep up with lower latencies.
Now you’re ready to have fun with Band-in-a-Box!
Chapter 1: Welcome to Band-in-a-Box!
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Chapter 2: QuickStart
Creating music with Band-in-a-Box is as easy as 1-2-3! In this chapter, you’ll see how easy it is to get started with
Band-in-a-Box.
Step 1 – Typing in the Chords
There are numerous ways of entering chords into Band-in-a-Box. We’ll discuss five fast ways of entering chords:
1. Using the computer keyboard.
2. Playing directly on a MIDI controller keyboard.
3. Using the Chord Builder feature.
4. Importing chords from a MIDI file.
5. Loading an Existing Band-in-a-Box format song.
On the main screen of the program, you’ll see an area called the chordsheet.
Band-in-a-Box main screen showing chordsheet.
Each of the numbered cells on the chordsheet represents a bar. In this example, we see that there is an E chord in
the first bar of this song, an A chord in bar 5, and later in the song, an E7 in bar 12. Notice the box in the first half
of bar 1. This is the highlight cell, and it represents the bar you are currently working on. You can move the
highlight cell around using the cursor keys, or select a specific bar using the mouse.
Enter Chords Using the Computer Keyboard
To enter a specific chord, move the highlight cell to where you want to place the chord. For example, to add (or
change) a chord in bar 10, you would highlight bar 10 on the chordsheet. Next, type in your chords. If you want an
A chord at bar 10, type the A key on your keyboard, and press [Enter]. Notice that when you use th e enter key, the
highlight cell moves to the second half of the bar. You could then enter another chord at beat 3. Chords names are
normally typed using standard chord symbols (like C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E), but you can enter them in any of
the supported chord symbol display formats like Roman Numerals, Nashville Notation, and Solfeggio.
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Enter Chords Using a MIDI Controller Keyboard
If you have a MIDI controller keyboard, you can use it to enter chords into Band-in-a-Box. Play a chord on your
MIDI keyboard, and then type Ctrl+Enter. The chord will be entered into the chordsheet at the current highlight
cell position. Another method allows you to choose alternate chords. From the Window | MIDI Chord Detection
menu item, you’ll see this window:
When you play chords, Band-in-a-Box shows you the chord name and suggests alternates that you can choose from.
Typing Ctrl+Enter enters the first selection, and advances the highlight cell by ½ bar.
Enter Chords Using the Chord Builder
Press the Chord Builder button. This opens the Chord Builder dialog with a list of chord roots and their
extensions.
To enter a chord at the current bar, select the chord root from the left pane, and then the extension on the right pane.
Pressing [Enter Chord] or using the arrow keys will enter the chord and advance the highlight cell to the next half
bar.
Import Chords from a MIDI File
You can have Band-in-a-Box import chords from an existing MIDI file. Choose Import Chords from MIDI File on
the File menu.
When the dialog opens, press the [Open (Change)…] button to choose a MIDI file that you want Band-in-a-Box to
interpret the chords from. To help Band-in-a-Box interpret the chords better, you should choose a genre (Preset) for
the song. Choose from among such genres as Pop, Rock, or Jazz Standard.
Tip: It helps if you’ve previously listened to the MIDI file, in order that you can choose a genre most appropriate to the
song.
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Loading an existing Band-in-a-Box format Song
Press the Open Song button. The first time you use this button, Band-in-a-Box will offer to build a Song
list for you. We’ve included many demonstration songs; they are listed in the song list.
You could also load a pre-existing song by using the File | Open menu item, or by typing [F3], which will launch
the Windows file dialog. Songs usually load a “Style,” which we’ll learn about in the next section.
Step 2 – Choosing a Style
Band-in-a-Box creates backing arrangements based on the chords you type in, playing them in a particular style.
What’s a Style?
A style is a set of rules that determine how Band-in-a-Box creates music using your chords. By adjusting the rules,
we have created hundreds of styles for everything from Country to Bebop, such as Jazz Swing, Blues Shuffle, Hip
Hop, Country 4/4, Pop Ballad, Waltz, and Medium Rock to name just a few. If you don’t find a pre-made style that
suits your tastes, create one from scratch using the StyleMaker. There’s a “how-to” section on custom Styles in this
manual.
Four Fast Ways To Pick A Style
Method 1:
To open a user style from disk, you can just type the [F9] key. You will be presented with a Windows file dialog
from which you can select a specific Style. Alternately you can select the Styles menu item Open a User Style from
disk.
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Method 2:
You can use the StylePicker window to select your style. Select the button above the chordsheet, or
type Ctrl+F9 on your computer.
This window shows styles listed by Category and by Styles Set number. Select a Set or genre from the left pane,
and choose the specific style on the right pane. There are Memos and examples for each of the Styles.
In addition to the selection categories, styles can be filtered by “feel” and “tempo.” They can also be selected by the
number of the styles set.
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Method 3: Styles that you’ve used previously show up in the Favorite Styles dialog. Choose this with the [F]
button next to the [Style] button in the song title window, from the Styles menu, or type Shift+F9 on your computer
keyboard.
You can choose to save a Favorites set for use later. You can also load a set of favorite styles in this manner.
Method 4:
In the Styles menu, you can choose from among the 24 “built-in” styles. This list provides a quick way to choose
from among the most popular music genres.
Step 3 – Play your song!
You’ve entered chords on the chordsheet and chosen a style. Now it’s time to play the song! You’ll need to tell
Band-in-a-Box how long your song is, how many times to play it through, in what key, and how fast.
Framing the Song
To tell Band-in-a-Box where to start and end the song, take a look at the middle of the main screen.
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Locate the framing buttons. There are three of them, one each for Beginning of Chorus, End of Chorus, and
Number of Choruses. In the example above, the chorus starts at bar 1, ends on bar 32, and is going to play 3 times.
Setting the Key
In the example above the key is set to C. However, you can set this to any key. In our first view of the chordsheet
the Blues song was in the key of E. If you do change the key, Band-in-a-Box will offer to transpose the chordsheet
for you.
Setting the Tempo
If you know the tempo value of your song, you can enter it in the tempo box. The song example above has a tempo
of 120. There is an even faster way to enter a tempo. Locate the minus key [-] and the equals key [=] in the number
row of your computer keyboard, they are usually next to each other. If you tap the minus key 4 times at your tempo,
Band-in-a-Box will set the tempo automatically for you. If you tap the equals key four times, Band-in-a-Box will
set the tempo and begin song playback!
More fun with Band-in-a-Box…
That’s all there is to quickly creating music with Band-in-a-Box. Band-in-a-Box has many more features and user
settings, which are discussed in later chapters. Have fun making music with Band-in-a-Box!
Chapter 2: QuickStart
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Chapter 3: Band-in-a-Box 2007
Band-in-a-Box 2007 Plus!
We’ve got a great new release of Band-in-a-Box, with many new features and enhancements since 2007. We now
have Band-in-a-Box 2007 Plus (version # 2007.5)
We’ve improved the Real Drums, AudioChordWizard, added Remix features to allow you to add BB styles to
existing MP3 files, and much more! We’ve also made 5 new RealDrums sets for Band-in-a-Box, with authentic
Nashville, Rock and Jazz styles. There are now 10 RealDrums sets available! And we’ve got 2 new styles disks, and
2 Soloist disks.
These are the new features added since version 2007:
AudioChordWizard enhanced . The AudioChordWizard is the feature that automatically figures out the chords,
tempos and bar lines present in audio files (MP3, WAV, and WMA). The improved features are present in version
2.1 of the AudioChordWizard:
- Better detection of chords, bar lines, and tempos (compared to 2.0)
- 2 chords per bar detected (previously was one)
- Easy setting of tempo and bar lines by tapping F8 (or Enter key) when song is playing. On many songs, you
can now tap “F8” just once or twice, and bar lines will be lined up for the song!
- Faster chord interpretation and scrolling
- Hotkeys (and remote control support) added to navigate around the song
- No requirement to “Set Bar 1” as the first bar line. Can renumber bars at any time.
- .. and many more AudioChordWizard enhancments.
‘Remix’ Features – After using the Audio Chord Wizard for an MP3 (or auther audio) file, an automatic tempo
map is created, so that the MIDI styles in Band-in-a-Box sync to the Audio File for the whole song. This allows you
to remix an existing MP3, by adding a BB style to the MP3. For example, add strings or congas to an existing song,
(or a trumpet solo, or chord reharmonization etc.) and they stay in sync for the whole song, and can be all played or
rendered to a WAV file. The tempo map can be added, removed, re-added etc. from the song at any time.
Automatic detection of key signature based on the chords only. This is useful for a song from the Audio Chord
Wizard, where you forgot to set the key signature or for any song without the key signature set.
Audio Chord Wizard Utilities dialog added, with handy options to 1. Make/Remove tempo map in Band-in-a-Box
2. Remove audio file from song 3.Auto-set Key signature, with button present in the Audio Chord Wizard (4)
enable/disable the BB MIDI style
RealDrums improved
- Faster. Smaller. Now take up much less space, using WMA files instead of WAV files, still with great
quality! Uses 1/10 of the space! When you install, you can either install as WMA or WAV files. Either
can be used. This allows your downloads and installations of RealDrums to be much faster!
- RealDrums Variations of instruments with each “play”. Most RealDrums styles (starting with
RealDrums set 5) contain may instrument variations (“brushes vs. Sticks”, “HiHat vs. Ride Cymbal”
“Percussion only” etc.). Now, by selecting Prefs-Real Drum Settings – choose different Variations with
each play, you can hear a different variation each time play is pressed, so the song sounds fresh each time.
One time you’ll hear it with “brushes”, the next time with sticks and ride cymbals, etc.
- “Favor Brushes”, “Favor Sticks” settings. When selecting RealDrums styles to use for a style, BB will
use your preferences for brushes and sticks. For example, if you choose “Favor Brushes”, BB will always
choose from among variations that include brushes (when available).
- Selectable Folder for your RealDrums styles. Now you can choose any folder (e.g. e:\Drums) for your
RealDrums. This allows you to, for example, conserve space on your C:\ drive.
- RealDrums “Compatible song/style finder.” In the RealDrums Settings dialog, there are now buttons that
will, for a chosen RealDrums style, enable you to (1) play the RealDrums demo song, (2) show a menu of
BB styles that would work with the Real Drum style and (3) play a song demo of various BB styles that
work with the Real Drum style.
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- Tempo checking for chosen RealDrums styles. If you choose a RealDrums style, and the tempo is out-
of-recommended-range for the style, BB will inform you of that – you can still use the style of course.
RealDrums styles that get chosen automatically by Band-in-a-Box will always be compatible with your
song.
- RealDrums styles can now have 2 separate feels, with different push amounts, and custom fills for
transitioning between substyles (see above). We made a great new style that starts out in Bossa, and
changes to ‘swing’ at ‘b’ substyle, with custom drum fills for the transition fills. This “BossaThenSwing”
style is on RealDrums 10, and is very effective for Latin/swing tunes.
- Drum Fills can now be customized to include fills specifically used when changing from ‘a’ to ‘b’ substyle
(and vice versa).
RealDrums “Developer Mode”.
(1) People making their own styles benefit from the “Developer Mode”, that outputs TXT files with information
about their style-in-progress. Now they can render a batch of songs, which will all save separate TXT files, useful
for analyzing their styles.
(2) Bars Blocked limit increased to 2,000 bars
Other improvements, including….
Improved: The Erase-Audio option now provides a message reminder that you should Save the song for the erasure
to become permanent.
In the Style picker, when choosing “Song Demo”, the melody patch used will be the one from the demo, even if
you’ve set “Change Melody Patches” in the dialog. This insures that you’ll always hear the correct melody
instrument for the demo.
Improved Vista support – Recording panel button opens up the Vista Sound Control Panel, with tips on
enabling/disabling microphone/line-in recordings.
… and more!
Summary of Band-in-a-Box 2007 Features
Version 2007 adds more than fifty new features to Band-in-a-Box.
We've added RealDrums - these are audio drum styles that replace the MIDI Drum track with actual recordings of
top studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers! These are not “samples” of single drum hits; they are full recordings,
lasting from 1 to 8 bars at a time, playing along in perfect sync with the other Band-in-a-Box tracks. They sound
like a real drummer, because they are recordings of a real drummer. And adding a real instrument to the mix makes
all of the Band-in-a-Box parts sound more authentic. As well as improved drum sounds, you are hearing the exact
rhythms played by the drummer, including features not seen in MIDI (subtle drum rolls, variations in ride cymbal
taps, complex fills, etc.).
And we've added an amazing “Chords from MP3” feature (Audio Chord Wizard). This amazing feature
automatically figures out the chords from any MP3, WAV, or WMA audio file, and displays them in Band-in-a-Box.
The Audio Wizard also figures out tempo, bar lines, and fine-tuning from the MP3 file.
There’s also a new “SoundTrack” feature that allows you to generate new royalty-free music of a specified length
for use in home or corporate videos, soundtracks, etc.
A “Reharmonist” feature figures out a chord progression for any melody. This allows you to create a new chord
progression or enhance an existing one. Solos are enhanced with features that allow the solo to be influenced by the
melody, just as a musician does.
Other great new features: Save as MP3, batch MP3/WAV/WMA generation, TranzPort
Auto-memo generation, Chord Breaks, Practicing Window, Melodist/Soloist/Notation enhancements…and much
more. Please read on for the details.
RealDrums
We’ve added real audio drums to Band-in-a-Box!
This replaces the MIDI Drum track with real recordings of top studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers.
®
wireless controller support,
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These are not “samples,” but are full recordings, lasting from 1 to 8 bars at a time, playing along in perfect sync with
the other Band-in-a-Box tracks. For example, choose a brushes style, and you will now hear lush Jazz brushes. The
results are dramatically better than MIDI. They sound like a real drummer, because they are recordings of a real
drummer. Adding a real instrument to the mix makes all of the Band-in-a-Box parts sound more authentic. You’ll
wonder, “Why does the guitar sound more real?” It’s because the realism of the drum part has the effect of
improving the overall sound.
As well as improved drum sounds, you are hearing the exact rhythms played by the drummer, including features not
seen in MIDI (subtle drum rolls, variations in ride cymbal taps, complex fills etc.). And the tracks intelligently play
differently at faster/slower tempos, so you hear appropriate playing for the current tempo (not seen in MIDI drums).
Change tempos or volumes during playback, using the same tempo/volume controls as MIDI. And best of all, we’ve
seamlessly integrated the RealDrums into Band-in-a-Box, so you just use the program as you normally do, and you
will hear RealDrums instead of MIDI drums, according to your preferences.
You can fully control which styles you will hear MIDI vs. RealDrums. New RealDrums styles can be made by the
user or third parties, using standard WAV files. User created styles can control fills/post-fills/pattern
lengths/substyles etc. We include a huge library of RealDrums styles to get you started, and all of the RealDrums
styles are available in the MegaPAK Upgrade or MegaPAK First-Time purchase package.
Chords from MP3 (“Audio Chord Wizard”)
This is one of the all-time most requested features for Band-in-a-Box!
Now this amazing wizard automatically figures out the chords from any MP3, WAV, or WMA
(Windows Media) audio file and displays them in Band-in-a-Box .
Just load in any MP3 file and you’ll instantly see the chords in Band-in-a-Box. And there’s more! In addition to the
chords of the song, the PG Audio Wizard also figures out:
- the tempo of the file,
- bar lines throughout the song,
- fine tuning detection (e.g. 5 cents sharp from A440),
An included Audio Piano Roll displays many of the notes found in the file. This serves as a helpful guide to
transcription.
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Once you have the chords-from-MP3 inside Band-in-a-Box, you can auto-sync the file with Band-in-a-Box, so you
can hear the original MP3 playing in sync with the bar lines in Band-in-a-Box. You can then add your own Bandin-a-Box parts to it, for example, add a Strings part, or a RealDrums part to an old audio recording that didn’t have
drums! Or have the Band-in-a-Box Soloist generate a Bluegrass Banjo solo for one of your Country MP3 files!
SoundTrack Generator
Need to generate some original, royalty-free music for backgrounds, home videos, slide shows, voiceovers ,
jingles, themes, underscoring scenes, entr’acte, dance routines, ceremonies or any occasion
that calls for musical accompaniment?
The SoundTrack feature allows you to generate music in the style you choose for any length of time you specify. As
the “producer,” you select the genre, length of time, instruments, and fade-in/fade-out options. The SoundTrack
adjusts the tempo and duration to match the settings, and then allows you to save the file as a WAV, WMA
(Windows Media), or MP3 file for further use in your own projects. Generate original music (over 20 genres) or
select from over 50 supplied SoundTrack types (Bluesy/Excite/Healing/Jazzy/Tropics etc). In seconds, you can
generate a 30 second audio music clip in the genre of your choice, for example!
Melody Influenced Solos
Solos are enhanced with the new “Melody Influenced” Soloist. When musicians solo for a song, the solo is typically
influenced by the melody as well as the chords. Now Band-in-a-Box can also allow the melody to influence the type
of solo generated by its Soloist feature. The result is a much better solo generated for the song. A strength (%)
setting allows you to control how much the solo will be influenced by the melody. Choose the melody influence
(%), and one of several presets to control the type of influence (pitches/rhythms/note density, etc.).
The Reharmonist
Generate Chords for a melody, or an improved chord progression for a melody with the new
“Reharmonist” feature.
This feature generates a chord progression in the genre that you choose, based only on the melody.
Generate a new chord progression for a complete song or a portion of a song.
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Or use the feature interactively by displaying a menu of possible chord progressions for a portion of the melody, and
audition them to choose the best one using the “Bar Reharmonist.” This allows you to hear some new chord
progressions for existing melodies, or new progressions for tunes without chords.
TranzPort
®
Support
Wireless Remote Control support for Band-in-a-Box!
The Frontier Design TranzPort is a wireless remote control hardware unit
(Electronic Musician Editors’ Choice 2006) that now allows you to control
Band-in-a-Box through walls from 30 feet away!
The backlit LCD provides a two-line readout, and buttons and a wheel allow
control of many Band-in-a-Box features.
Select songs and play/stop/pause/loop. Select/mute/solo tracks and
volume/tempo changes are all supported.
And best of all, when the song is playing, the chords of the song are displayed in time on the backlit LCD screen.
You can, for example, put the TranzPort unit on your piano at home (or your music stand on a gig) and
load/play/control and view chords for songs, all while far away from your computer – all wirelessly up to 30 feet –
even through walls! Selectable transpose lets the TranzPort show chords in a non-concert key (e.g. Eb Alto) while
the computer shows concert - great for jam sessions! Or display the scrolling lyrics of the song on the TranzPort for
a wireless Karaoke session! The TranzPort also works “right-out-of-the-box” with other popular music software,
including Pro Tools
Note: The TranzPort is sold separately.
®
, Sonar™, Logic®, Cubase®, Digital Performer®and others.
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Chord “Breaks”
This feature is great for practicing tempo contr ol . Select the # of bars ,
and Band-in-a-Box will play for, say 4 bars (selectable), and then will
rest all instruments for the next 4 bars.
During the silence, you keep playing (comping, drums, melody, etc.),
trying to stay in tempo. Drummers can mute the drum part.
When the band comes back in after the 4 bars, you’ll get instant feedback on how well you have maintained the
tempo, if the band comes in time with you or not. Once set, this feature works automatically with all songs until you
turn it off.
Auto-Set Key Signature
There is a function to auto-determine the correct key of a song, given only the melody.
Audio Settings Dialog
The Audio Playback settings dialog makes it easy to mute, solo, or
change the volume of the audio track, similar to the control of the other
instrument parts in Band-in-Box. Simply click on the “Audio” label onscreen, and choose these options.
Other Audio enhancements
Punch-In Recording
There is now punch-in audio recording, allowing you to punch-in record or overdub a section of audio. You can
also now hear the existing audio part when you are overdubbing.
Audio Offset
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A new Audio Offset feature allows you to synchronize any point of the audio file with bar 1 of the Band-in-a-Box
song. This is useful after importing an audio file into Band-in-a-Box that you want to sync with a song – just rightclick on the Audio window to set Bar 1. The Audio Settings dialog is now also accessible from the MIDI Driver
Setup dialog or Audio menu.
Batch Convert to Audio Files
In the Render to Audio File dialog you can batch convert a folder of Band-in-a-Box songs to audio
files (MP3, WAV, or WMA).
Press the [Batch] button to convert an entire folder of Band-in-a-Box songs to audio files.
There is an option to name the resultant audio files based either on the original file name or the song title name.
MIDI Keyboard Wizard
The “QWERTY” Keyboard Wizard now works with MIDI keyboard input.
Now you can also use a MIDI keyboard to play the Keyboard Wizard. The Keyboard Wizard always plays correct
notes (chord tones or passing tones on the current chord), and is a fun way to play along with Band-in-a-Box (as
well as a useful way to enter melodies, by playing notes in correct rhythm and fixing the pitches afterwards).
By turning on this wizard, (C/E/G/Bb) notes played on a THRU keyboard will be mapped to chord tones, and
D/F/A/B will be passing tones.
Note that you also need to have the Wizard checkbox selected on the main Band-in-a-Box screen.
The MIDI keyboard also sends volume information (unlike the QWERTY keyboard), so is a better choice if you
have a MIDI keyboard connected.
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Automatic Memo-Generation
The Song Memo has been enhanced, with a “summary” checkbox.
If selected, you’ll see an additional window that automatically displays a full summary of the song
(title/tempo/patches used in the song) as well as other special features, such as substyle patch changes or harmonies.
This saves much of the work previously required to manually type in this information to the memo.
Practice Window
A new Practice Window allows convenient “1-click” access to many Band-in-a-Box features that help you
with practicing.
These include the Ear Training dialog, games (Pitch Invasion etc.), Metronome, CopyMe, Sight Reading, 101 Riffs
series, and more.
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Soloist Enhancements
Melody Influenced Solos
When musicians solo for a song, the solo is typically
influenced by the melody as well as the chords. Now
Band-in-a-Box can also allow the melody to influence the
type of solo generated by its Soloist feature.
The result is a much better solo generated for the song. A strength (%) setting allows you to control how much the
solo will be influenced by the melody. Choose the melody influence (%), and one of several presets to control the
type of influence (pitches/rhythms/note density, etc.).
You can now select “Genres” of soloists (e.g. Modern Jazz) and see only soloists matching the genre.
And you can also filter to show/not show soloists from Soloist sets that you don’t have.
Expanding on the “trade 4’s” feature, you can now “Trade 2’s” or “Trade 8’s.”
Soloist suggestions have been enhanced.
Melodist Enhancements
The Melodist has been enhanced.
Melodists can be filtered by “Genre” (e.g. Dixieland) to show
only Melodists in that genre.
And you can also filter to show/not show Melodists from
Melodists sets that you don’t have.
StyleMaker Enhancements
The StyleMaker now displays current patch numbers for the parts on the main window.
Moving notes in notation on the StyleMaker notation now plays the note on the current instrument.
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StylePicker now auto-rebuilds when new styles have been added.
Notation Enhancements
Lyric entry now has convenient buttons to enter line breaks or paragraph breaks.
Guitar chord diagrams are improved.
Polyphonic (chord) notation spacing is improved.
There is now a filter for the Event List Editor, allowing you to, for example, quickly spot all patch changes.
Hot key support is added to delete or insert notes directly in the Event List.
Note Properties Summary
When mousing over notes, summary information about the note is displayed (pitch,
channel, velocity, duration).
Lead Sheet Enhancements
Lead Sheet “Lyric Text Block”
A large text block can now be appended to the Lead Sheet window and printout. This is ideal for song
lyrics that you want entered as a text entry appended to the end, multiple verses of lyrics, or any other text.
Open the Lead Sheet window and select the [Memo] button to launch the Lead Sheet Memo.
Select font type and size, copy/paste text from other programs.
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Fakesheet Endings
Fakesheets can now optionally include the 2-bar song ending.
Auto Piano Hand-Splitting
The Piano part now displays on both clefs, using intelligent hand-splitting routines
that dynamically change the split point. This happens automatically.
You can also manually split a piano part on a Melody or Soloist track using the intelligent hand -splitting routines.
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The left/right hands display in red/blue on the Big Piano, and on bass/treble clefs on the notation. Import a piano
MIDI file to the Melody track to get a split-hands display and printout!
Enhanced DXi Features
Lower latency settings for VSC DXi are now possible, and they are typically auto-set to approximately 100ms on
newer PC’s. Looping during playback is now seamless while using DXi/VSTi softsynths. Recorded melodies now
automatically adjust for any latency.
While using DXi or VSTi, all playback information is routed to the
DXi/VSTi, including the option to route the THRU part from your
MIDI keyboard to the DXi/VSTi synth. The “Panic” button feature is enhanced to reset a “hung” DXi/VSTi driver.
Latency selection has been simplified, with informative messages added. ASIO4All support has been enhanced,
with messages added to detect/correct silent out put .
A patch list (.PAT) is now
provided for the Roland VSC DXi synth.
The list of available synth DK/PAT files is
enhanced to support newer sound cards.
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MIDI Latency Calibration.
For software synths with latency, there is now a [Latency Adjust] button to open a Soft
Synth Latency Adjust dialog that allows you to accurately set your softsynth’s latency by
listening to 2 tones a fifth apart. The MS GS Wavetable synth (included in Windows XP) is now auto-set to correct
latency (about 120ms).
New Chord Entry and Editing Features
The Edit menu Nudge Chords/Melody feature allows moving a range of chords by any number of bars and beats.
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The Edit | Fold routine converts a song with a single large chorus to multiple smaller choruses, with optional tag
ending.
Edit | Search/Replace Chords will search and replace chords, including support for asterisks (*) as wildcards.
Also a “simplify Jazz chords” option will simplify chords like C13#11#5 to simply C9.
Deletion of chords over a range of bars can be done by selecting the range and pressing DELETE, and no
confirmation dialog is required for chord delete.
Direct Render to MP3 button is added to the Render to Audio File dialog (this uses the existing MP3 audio codec
that you have in your Windows installation). This renders the Band-in-a-Box song to MP3 in a single step, using
your Roland VSC DXi (or other DXi/VSTi synth).
Feature on program boot-up added to detect and prevent conflicts with the THRU channel and other Band-in-a-Box
instruments.
Convenient buttons added for setting “no-harmony” in harmony dialogs.
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Jukebox option added to stop the Jukebox when set is completed.
Yellow “Fly-By Help Hints” have been expanded throughout the program to provide more information and tips.
Loading “song demo” on Style menu, or click on the name of the style on the main screen, and the menu that
displays will include the option to “Load Song Demo” for the current style.
… and many more!
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QuickStart Tutorial for the Version 2007 New Features
The full descriptions of the new features in Version 2007 of Band-in-a-Box ar e provided elsewhere. This tutorial is
a QuickStart tour of the new features in Band-in-a-Box 2007.
Note: It is assumed that you are somewhat familiar with the previous release of Band-in-a-Box.
Explore Band-in-a-Box Version 2007
First, we’ll take a quick tour of the new features in Band-in-a-Box. Then we’ll do an in depth tutorial for the main
new features. The other chapters in the manual are also tutorial style presentations of the new features.
Let’s explore the main screen and menus.
Look at the toolbar at the right of the screen.
There is a RealDrums button. These are audio drum styles that replace the MIDI Drum track with actual
recordings of top studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers. The dialog lets you control the RealDrums.
There is an “Audio Chord Wizard” button that launches the Audio Chord Wizard – this automatically
figures out chords, tempo, bar lines and other data from audio files (WAV/MP3/ WMA and CD audio)!
The Practice button launches the Practice Window. This window is a “launching pad” for many Band-in-aBox features that are helpful in practicing, including setting up your practice folders of songs that you are
working on, and launching ear training, Band-in-a-Box add-ons (101 riffs, master solos), and instrument lessons.
The Soundtrack button launches the Soundtrack Generator. This lets you generate fixed-length, royaltyfree music in a variety of styles.
The Reharmonist will generate a chord progression for a melody, not requiring any existing chord
progression.
Pressing the button displays a menu to either launch the “Bar
Reharmonist” that displays a menu of possible chord progressions,
and let’s you interactively choose them, and the “AutoReharmonist”that automatically reharmonizes part or all of the entire song, in many genres. For example, if you
have a Bach melody, and don’t have a chord progression for it, you can instruct the Reharmonist to make a chord
progression fit the melody in, say, a “Bossa Nova” genre. We will do that later in the tutorial!
New Main Menu Items
The File | Open Audio w/Chords
command will open a WAV, WMA, MP3, WMV, or CD Audio file and also figure out the chords and bar lines.
The File | Launch Audio Chord Wizard will open the Chord Wizard to analyze chords in an existing Band-in-a-Box
song (that has a WAV file on the audio track).
Edit | Nudge Chords/Melody will move the chords and/or melody a certain
# of beats.
Edit | Fold converts a song with a single big chorus to multiple smaller
choruses.
Edit | Search/Replace Chords lets you search and replace chord names,
including wild cards.
Style | Load demo for current style loads the song demo for the current
style. This menu item is also available by clicking on the yellow style
name on the screen.
The Play | Panic command and panic button now resets a DXi/VSTi
synthesizer to insure that the notes are all turned off if stuck on.
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The Window menu has items for the new Reharmonist,
SoundTrack, and Practice windows.
Let’s explore the RealDrums.
Learn how to make your own RealDrums styles in the Help file Tutorial: Making RealDrums Styles. Here’s an
introduction to using the ones you already have.
Here are 3 key points to insure that you get proper sound with RealDrums styles.
1. Choosing the correct MIDI/DXi driver to use with real drums,
2. Syncing, and
3. Volume mixing.
With Band-in-a-Box 2007, there is a RealDrums track that plays along with the arrangement. So you are hearing 2
tracks at once, the normal MIDI track and an audio track (RealDrums). It is important that you have these playing in
sync, and volume balanced. If you don't, the result will just sound (musically) BAD. One interesting thing we
found, is that if the sync is out by even as little as 20ms, it changes a RealDrummer from “star of the show” to
“you're fired,” amplifying the need to have things in sync.
You need to make sure that:
1. The RealDrums are in sync with the MIDI. If you use a DXi synth (like Roland VSC DXi, or other DXi/VSTi)
the sync is set automatically. If you use a hardware MIDI module, the sync should be fine (as long as MIDI
Latency is set to zero in Opt. | MIDI Driver Setup). If using MIDI “soft synth” Drivers (non DXi/VSTi), the
RealDrums/MIDI can be out of sync until you set the MIDI latency setting in Opt-MIDI Drivers to the correct
value for your synth (for example “Microsoft GS Wavetable” is 120ms).
2. You can hear both the MIDI and the RealDrums at the same volume (mix). If using DXi this is automatic, as
they both come out of the audio port at the same volume. If using hardware MIDI module (Sound Canvas), you
will have MIDI sound coming from your Sound Canvas and RealDrums from your computer (audio port), and
you'd have to match the volumes by turning up/down volumes or using a mixer. Sometimes you'd need to use
the Windows Volume Control (Start | Run | sndvol32.exe) to finely set the volumes.
3. (optional) You are listening through good speakers or headphones.
RealDrums Setups
Here are recommended MIDI setups for use with RealDrums (from best to worst):
1. <BEST> DXi synth (Roland VSC DXi is included wi t h Ba nd -i n-a-Box). Important note: This is different
from the Roland VSC MIDI Driver that shows up in the MIDI Drivers output drivers. There are no syncing
issues to deal with when use DXi, everything syncs up automatically, and is volume balanced. To select VSC
DXi synth, go to Options-MIDI drivers, and choose “Use DXi synth” and then select VSC DXi. If it is not
found, then you need to re-install the VSC DXi (we've been including it for years in Band-in-a-Box releases, so
it should be on a Band-in-a-Box disc). Other General MIDI DXi/VSTi (like HyperCanvas) should work as
well.
2. <BEST2> MIDI hardware module (e.g. Roland Sound Canvas module). When you do this, the only
“challenge” is that the sound from the RealDrums will be coming out of the audio-out of your PC, and the MIDI
sounds will come from your Sound Canvas. If you have a mixer, no problem, otherwise you'd need to balance
the sounds.
3. <GOOD> Microsoft GS Wavetable synth. This is the one that comes free with Windows XP. You might need
to adjust the balance RealDrums vs. MIDI in the sound volume app in Windows (Start | Run | sndvol32.exe), if
they have separate volumes for GS Wavetable synth and regular WAV (RealDrums). Of course you can adjust
RealDrums volume on screen just like any other MIDI volume. Since the Microsoft GS Wavetable has
“latency,” you need to “guess” at what the latency is, and it is about 120ms. Opt. | MIDI Driver Setup is where
you select the Microsoft GS Wavetable (make sure that DXi is not selected in this case).
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4. <OK> Other software synth (non-DXi/VSTi). If you know the latency of the other synths, then they could be
used. Most good synths are DXi/VSTi these days, the non-DXi/VSTi are usually not as good. See the latency
setting tips in item #5.
5. <WORST> Roland VSC (non-DXi version). We wouldn't recommend this combination, mainly because the
DXi/VSC combination is so much better (perfect sync, direct render). If you do end up using Roland VSC
(non-DXi), make sure the latency is set correctly, and it is “about” 430ms. You can adjust that to higher values
if the RealDrums are behind (dragging) or lower values if the RealDrums are ahead.
If possible, let’s choose the Roland VSC DXi synth to use with the RealDrums. You have likely received the DXi
with your Band-in-a-Box program, and should install it if you haven’t already done so. Note that this is different
than the “Roland VSC MIDI driver” that appears in the Output MIDI Drivers.
The advantages of using DXi along with the RealDrums are:
1. Perfect syncing without having to manually make a latency setting.
2. Volume match (mix) occurs automatically, since both are going out the same source (audio port).
3. Direct render of the file to WAV file that includes the RealDrums.
To select the VSC DXi, open the MIDI Driver Setup from the Opt. menu and check “Use DXi Synth.” Then select
VSC DXi in the dialog that appears.
If you can’t use the DXi, then choose another driver, like the
Microsoft GS Wavetable MIDI Driver – this comes with
Windows - or use a hardware MIDI module (Sound Canvas) or
hardware synth chip found in Sound Blaster cards. These have
zero latency.
Now, let’s load in some RealDrums tunes! Open the c:\bb\Drums - Demos folder and you’ll see demo tunes. These
will demonstrate the RealDrums. Let’s load in “JazzBrushes_145_Demo.MGU” (if you don’t see that file, load in
another demo instead). Press PLAY. If you have the RealDrums style installed for “JazzBrushes” (i.e., you have a
folder called “c:\bb\Drums\JazzBrushes”), then you should now be hearing RealDrums. You can tell right away,
because the count-in sound is different, it is not the usual MIDI count-in, but is a side-stick or snare live drum
sound.
As the RealDrums are playing:
- Notice if the drums are in sync with the rest of the MIDI instruments. They should be, especially if you are
using a DXi synth or a synth with low latency like a hardware module. If they are not, try adjusting the latency
milliseconds in Opt. | MIDI Driver Setup.
- Change the tempo of the music as it is playing. Use the standard tempo controls [ and ] to change the tempo
and the RealDrums will change immediately to the new tempo. (The [ and ] keys change tempo by 5 bpm.)
- Press STOP, and then change the tempo to a far slower tempo (like 60 bpm). Now press PLAY. Notice that the
RealDrums are not just playing slower, they are playing differently, with appropriate patterns and fills for a
slower tempo! This is because we have recorded the drummers playing at different tempos, and include a wide
variety of tempos inside the RealDrums folder.
-
Open up the StylePicker, and notice the new category called “Styles with
RealDrums.” This lists many RealDrums styles (.STY) that we’ve made. RealDrums style names always begin
with a minus sign, so that “-ZZJAZZ.STY” is the ZZJAZZ.STY, but using RealDrums instead.
With a RealDrum style loaded, open up the StyleMaker, and press the [Misc] button.
-
You’ll then see the name of the RealDrum style that has been saved
with a style. You can turn any .STY into a RealDrum style this way.
-
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Open up the RealDrums Settings dialog. Try turning off the RealDrums by
-
de- selecting
Enable RealDrums. You can do this even while the song is playing. When you do, you will then hear the MIDI
drums – this is a good A/B comparison test to hear the differences.
Making Your Own Real Drum Styles from Scratch
Note: This is an advanced feature, for people familiar with recording live drums, making WAV files, and TXT files. It is not
intended for the casual Band-in-a-Box user, since the casual Band-in-a-Box user can just choose from the many RealDrum
styles that are provided.
You can make your own RealDrum styles from scratch, and add them to the library of RealDrum styles that are in
your Band-in-a-Box setup. To do this,
- Choose a name for your style, let’s call it “Funky,”
- Make a WAV file recording of a live drummer, save the file with the name Funky_120_style.WAV (if 120 is
the tempo of the file),
- Make a Funky_120_style.txt file that lists the various patterns to play (“a,” “b” substyles, fills, etc.). Details of
the TXT file format are provided on www.pgmusic.com
.
- (Optional) Make more tempo variations (e.g. Funky_180_style.WAV), so that your drums get the closest
tempo match when used in a Band-in-a-Box song.
- Put the WAV and TXT files in the c:\bb\drums\Funky folder.
Inside Band-in-a-Box you can now choose your “Funky” RealDrum style by any of the methods described above.
More details about the RealDrums are covered in Chapter 4, in the meantime, play a few more demos in the
RealDrums folder.
Get chords from MP3s and other audio files with the Audio Chord Wizard.
This amazing wizard automatically figures out the cho r ds fr om any MP3, WAV, or WMA (Windows Media
Audio) file and displays them in Band-in-a-Box. Just load in the file and you’ll instan tly see the chords.
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As well as the chords of the song, the Audio Chord Wizard also figures out,
- the tempo of the file,
- bar lines throughout the song,
- fine tuning detection (e.g. 5 cents sharp from A440),
Using the Audio Chord Wizard
To open your audio file in the Audio Chord Wizard you can click on its toolbar button or use the File
menu command to Open Audio w/Chords.
Use the Launch Audio Chord Wizard command if you already have a file with audio loaded in Band-in-a-Box.
When you select a file to open you will see a series of Progress messages.
The Audio Chord Wizard is then launched, and more Progress messages will flash on screen as the file is analyzed
and imported. As well as interpreting the chords, the program is also inserting bar lines and setting the tempo.
The Audio Chord Wizard window shows an overview of the open wave file with the bar lines and chords as
interpreted by the wizard. Controls and settings are found in the toolbar at the top of the window, and the Audio
Piano Roll in the lower part of the window shows notes interpreted from the wave file.
The minus and plus zoom buttons at the bottom of the screen adjust the scale of the display. The minus
button shrinks the display to show more bars, the plus sign expands the display but sh ows fewer bars.
Now let’s move on to the Reharmonist.
This will generate a new chord progression for an existing melody, presumably one that you would like to have a
chord progression for. For example, let’s say that you like “Brandenburg Concerto #1 in F, 1st movement” by J.S.
Bach. This is a beautiful melody that adapts itself to many musical styles. Load in the song called “c:\bb\Tutorial –
BB2007\Bach Brandenburg - no chords present!” Now, let’s create a chord prog ression for this melody. We will
make it a Bossa Nova style song.
Reharmonize for entire song.
then select the “Bossa Nova (Latin)” genre.
the melody, and decided that the key should be F (this is independent of any key that was already set in the song).
Now press “OK – Reharmonize.” You will then have an entire chord
progression written for the song, in a Bossa Nova style.
The Chord Progression generated is different every time, so the one that you get will be different from this one that
we generated for the Tutorial. We saved this generated chord progression and it is found in the file “c:\bb\Tutorial –
BB2007\Bach Brandenburg - Bossa reharm onized.”
Press the Reharmonist button, and choose Auto-
In the dialog that appears, deselect “Show-All” and
Note that the program has analyzed
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Play the file that you have generated. Notice the “Bossa” style of chord progression, with 2-5
progressions, and other typical Bossa chords like a G7 for 2 bars in the key of F.
Now let’s use the Reharmonist in an “interactive mode” where it gives us choices of various chord progressions at
each bar. Let’s see if we can interactively improve on the chord progression, according to our own tastes.
The first 2 bars generated originally are:
Make sure that the currently highlighted cell is bar 1. Now we press the Reharmonist button, but choo se the first
menu item Reharmonize Melody for Current Bar.
We then see a dialog with a menu of possible chord progressions for the first 2 bars.
With the Preview on Double-Click item selected, you can double-click on any
suggested chord progression
and hear how it would sound.
By listening, there are a couple of nice ones for the first 2 bars.
Or
We can choose one of those, and then press the +2 button to move on to bar 3, where we might choose to leave the
existing chord progression alone. We can continue this process, or improve any section of the song in a similar
manner.
Revisit the Reharmonize dialog, and try generating a new chord progression, in a new Genre. For example,
“Country/Bluegrass 16ths” will generate a Bluegrass style chord progression, very different from the Jazz chords in
the Bossa version.
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Let’s try out some other new features of Band-in-a-Box 2007.
Batch Mode Rendering Of Audio Files
Let’s make WAV files for every one of the Style demos in the c:\bb\Styles01 folder (or
whatever folder you want). There are over 20 songs here.
Note: For this feature to work, you must use a DXi driver, like the Roland VSC DXi, usually included with Band-in-a-Box.
Set the folder to c:\bb\styles01 (or whatever folder you are using).
Set the suffix to something like “_Demo,” so that the files like
MySong.MGU gets a rendered name or MySong_Demo.WAV.
Choose your preferred output form at - WAV, WM A, o r MP 3.
Note that for MP3, it uses whatever MP3 codec and bit rate that you already
have installed in Windows.
Press “Go” and you will then get all 20 files rendered.
Melody Influenced Soloist
Load in the song “c:\bb\Tutorial – BB2007\Beautiful Dreamer.MGH.”
Press Soloist, and select Soloist #8.
Press the [All Solo] button, so that the Solos will generate throughout the song. Select the
“Enabled” checkbox on the “Melody Influences Solo” group.
Beautiful Dreamer is a simple melody, so choose “Pop/simple
melodies” and a strength of 100%.
Press OK to generate the solo. When it’s completed, you’ll see a message displayed (for 5
seconds) with summary information about
the success of the method chosen in generating a compatible melody. If the percentage looks low (below 50%),
choose a method for a more complex melody.
See c:\bb\Tutorial – BB2007\ Beautiful Dreamer with Melody Influenced Solos.MGU.”
Let’s set up a practice folder on the Practice Window.
Press the Practice button. Examine the Practice Window. It is described in detail in the Chapter on
Wizards, Tutors, and Practice Aids.
Press the Folder button in the “My Tunes” group. You’ll see a list of the Favorite
Folders that you’ve used in the recent past with Band-in-a-Box.
Let’s make the c:\bb\styles0 into a “Practice Folder.” This folder will always be
listed first in the list of folders, i.e., a “sticky” folder.
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In the Manage Folders submenu, choose Add Practice Folder and then select “C:\bb\Styles0” or whatever
folder that you want to make a practice folder.
It will then show up on the
menu when you press the Folder button, and when you
press the [Songs] button you will see a pop-up menu of
the songs in that folder. This lets you load in songs
much faster than navigating a File | Open dialog. Note
that this is used for folders with less than 200 songs, the
menu limit for a single screen.
This is the end of the tutorial.
Thanks for taking the time to read this section. The next sections examine the new features in detail.
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Chapter 4: The Main Screen
Main Screen Overview
The main screen gives direct access to the major features and program settings of Band-in-a-Box for ease and
convenience during a session. There are five different areas on the main screen.
1 →
2 →
3 →
4 →
5 →
The main screen of Band-in-a-Box with a new, blank song.
1. The Status Bar is used to show program running status messages and path names of the currently loaded song.
2. The Synth Window is the area between the Menu Bar and the Piano Keyboard where Instruments patches are
set and levels are adjusted. It also includes buttons for adding harmonies to the Melody, Thru, or Soloist parts.
3. The Tool Bar area under the Piano Keyboard has buttons for direct access to important program features and
menus. Hold the mouse cursor on any button to see a pop-up hint that describes its function.
4. The Title Window shares the Tool Bar area. In addition to the song title, it includes all the other settings for
the song such as its Key Signature, Tempo, and Chorus settings. To the right of the Title Window are two
floating, dockable toolbars that can be configured by the user.
5. The Chordsheet Area occupies the lower part of the screen. Chord changes for the song are typed into the
numbered bars (cells) in the sheet. “a” and “b” part markers are entered here to switch between the “a” and “b”
Band-in-a-Box substyles. Repeats and endings are also shown.
Personalizing the Main Screen
Band-in-a-Box gives you many options to personalize the main screen.
Screen Layout
The Chordsheet area (or Notation Screen) can be placed at the top of the screen if desired by selecting the “Put
Notation/Chords on Top” from the Window menu or by pressing Ctrl+T. (This is reversed by selecting the same
option.)
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Display Options
Go to Opt. | Preferences or click on the [Pref] button to open the Preferences dialog. Then click on the [Display]
button to open the Display Options dialog where you can select a toolbar mode, show or hide the on-screen piano,
pick a song title font and set options for the chordsheet display including the number of rows to display for the main
chordsheet, the font to use, and the font size too. This allows you to read the chordsheet window from “across the
room.”
If you choose a Custom font, you can choose the size as well. Choose a preset font, and the size will be set
automatically to fit into the height of the row. Choose Jazz Symbols to see shorthand Jazz chord symbols in the
chordsheet and notation. To revert to the “old look” that used a small System font, and lots of rows, you can choose
that as the type of font “Small font (system).”
Color Schemes
You can choose from several color sets using the 256-color palette in Windows. Choose from pre-made color
schemes or make your own. To change the color scheme, select Opt. | Preferences from the main screen, and then
click on the [Colors] button in the Preferences dialog to launch the Color Selection dialog.
To select a pre-made color scheme, press the [Import..] button and choose from the list of schemes. Select [OK] to
make the changes permanent. Use the [Export..] button to save and share your customized color schemes .
To make your own color scheme, click on the name of the element you wish to change (Chord Area, List Box, etc.),
then click on the [Choose…] button to bring up the Windows Color palette and click on the color you desire.
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Status Bar
name of the open song is identified in the status bar at the top of the screen. The full file name and path name
The
are shown, as well as audio track information if present, the length of the song in minutes and seconds, and the
current position of the highlight cell. Other “running status” messages such as Soloist Generation and Song
Generation display in the status bar.
The status bar changes during playback to show additional information like the current bar and chorus location and
the current style.
Status bar during playback.
Taskbar hint
The entire song name displays in the taskbar hint when Band-in-a-Box is
minimized. This is useful to find the name of a song playing when Band-in-aBox is playing in the background.
Synth Window / Piano Keyboard
The Piano Keyboard:
This keyboard displays the notes (in different col ors ) t hat are bei n g pl ay ed by all instruments on various parts of the
piano keyboard during playback (except drums). The MIDI Thru/Soloist is also displayed on the piano key b oar d.
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On the top row, guitar (green), melody (red), and soloist (pink) are displayed.
On the bottom row, bass (brown), piano (blue), and strings (grey) are displayed.
Instruments and Parts:
Part Settings: The Bass/Drum/Piano/Guitar/Strings/Melody/Soloist and Thru buttons refer to instrument parts.
The parts in use for the current song and style are shown in yellow. Parts that are not used are in white. When
RealDrums are available the Drums label is shown in green. The names of muted parts display in red.
To change a setting for one of the parts you need to do the following:
- Select the part by mouse clicking on the part name, or on the button immediately
to the left of the part name.
- Change the desired parameter to affect the new setting.
Instruments - Choosing
The instrument panel allows you to change the instrument for any part:
- Clicking on the drop-down arrow produces an instrument list that you can choose from by highlighting and
clicking on the desired instrument name.
- Clicking the [F] button produces a representative list of predefined favorite instruments that you can choose
from.
The [GM2] button lets you select patches from a list of both General MIDI and General MIDI 2 patches if
your system supports GM2.
Clicking on the instrument panel [+] button produces a comprehensive list of ALL of the patches available
for your synthesizer, including ones on higher banks (if applicable). This list displays your patch names
by name, where the patch is located (patch #, bank) and lets you pick them from an easily customizable list.
Audio
The Audio Playback settings dialog makes it easy to mute, solo, or change the volume of the audio
track, similar to the control of the other instrument parts in Band-in-Box. Click on the “Audio” label
on-screen to open this dialog.
Harmony
The Harmony area displays the current Melody and Thru Harmony. At the top right, you'll see the harmony boxes
for the Melody and the Thru/Soloist.
The [M] button is for Melody harmony -- pressing the [M] button produces a
list of harmonies you can choose from. In this case it's set to SuperSax for a Big Band Sax-section harmony.
This button permanently writes the generated harmony to the Melody track.
Once converted, set the harmony to none to prevent a “harmony-on-harmony” effect.
The [No harmony] button disables the harmony for the song. The keystrokes Shift+F10 also allow or
disable the Melody harmony.
Tip: You can also search for a harmony by a keyword (i.e. typing in the first few letters of a harmony name) in either the
Harmonies or Favorite Harmonies dialog.
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Pressing the [F] button produces a list of your favorites; the 50
most recently loaded harmonies.
The [T] button is for Thru/Soloist harmony. Either your live
part or the Soloist will be harmonized in real time - in this case
using George Shearing Quintet type ha rmony (piano, vibes and
guitar). Pressing the [F] button produces a list of your favorites;
the 50 most recently loaded harmonies. Pressing the Shift+F11
keys toggles the Thru harmony on and off.
Toolbars
The main toolbar extends the full width of the screen. (It is divided in two here.)
The [New] button clears the Chordsheet to start a new song. Band-in-a-Box reminds you to save your
work before it erases the chords.
The [Open] button is used to open (load) songs into the program from a standard Windows Open File
dialog.
Use the [Prev.] button to immediately open the previous song in the same folder (in alphabetical order)
without going through the usual file opening process.
Use the [Next] button to instantly open the next song in the same folder (in alphabetical order) without
going through the usual file opening process.
The [Save] button saves the song to disk with the standard Windows Save As dialog.
This saves the song, allowing you to choose or confirm the name and location for the file save.
The [Save +] button opens the Assign Instruments and Harmonies to Song dialog where custom
patches, harmonies, and other settings can be permanently saved with the song.
The [.MID] button allows you to make a Standard MIDI File and save it to disk as a file with extension
.MID or to the Windows Clipboard with type “Standard MIDI File.” Type 0 and Type 1 MIDI files are
supported, or you can also choose to save the song as a Karaoke file with the .KAR extension.
This is the “Render to WAV file” button, which will convert (render) your MIDI arrangement to an audio
wave file. It includes a batch render feature to convert an entire folder of songs in a single operation.
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Transport Controls
These buttons are like the transport controls on a CD player or a media player.
[Play] button generates a new arrangement and plays the song.
[Loop] plays the selected (highlighted) section of the chordsheet in a loop.
[Replay] plays the song from the beginning without creating a new arrangement.
[Stop] button stops the song or the Jukebox from playing.
[Pause] button pauses the song during playback.
[From] button is used to play a song starting anywhere in the song, including tags or endings. This feature is also
available from the right-click menu in the Chordsheet.
The [Melodist] button opens the Generate Chords and/or Melody dialog, where you can choose
the type (or genre) of Melodist you wish to have generate a complete new song with chord changes
and melody as well as an improvised solo and an original song title.
The [Soloist] button opens the Select Soloist Dialog, where you can choose the Soloist you wish to
have play over any given chord changes.
The [Juke] button is used to start or stop the Jukebox. The [Õ] and [Ö] arrow keys
are used to move to either the previous or next song in the Jukebox.
The [Rec.] button is to record a song from the beginning. The music that you play in to the computer
will then be stored on the Melody track. The “R” key is the keyboard equivalent.
The [R. Aud] button launches the Record Audio dialog for live audio recording.
You can make yourself sound like a 5 piece vocal group or a 16-voice choir! Record a vocal part,
and add a 4 part audio harmony. Press the audio harmony button on screen to do this.
Band-in-a-Box supports DirectX and VST audio plug-ins – you can apply them directly to the digital
audio track. Use the cool PG Music plug-ins provided, or any other DirectX and VST plug-ins that
you have.
This allows you to select and configure DXi (DirectX instruments) or VSTi software synthesizers.
The “Use DXi Synth” checkbox must be selected in the MIDI Driver Setup dialog.
Sends out an “all notes off” message to your MIDI or software synthesizer, so it can function as a
“panic” button to stop a hung or stuck note.
This button resets General MIDI devices by sending a GM mode On message and then setting up the
Band-in-a-Box patches.
Floating Toolbars
These are Copy and Paste buttons for chords or notes. They copy to the Windows clipboard, and
paste from the clipboard.
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The Folder button allows you to change song and style folders or directories from within the program.
Use the Favorite Folders button to select a folder from previously used folders. Shift-click on this button to
choose any folder.
The guitar button launches a guitar fretboard window that displays guitar notes as music is playing.
This button allows you to enter repeats, 1
Find feature enters them automatically.
st
and 2nd endings, DS al coda, DC al coda and more. The Auto-
The [Intro] allows you to generate and insert an intro into a song with a “press of the button.”
The Big Piano button launches a Big Piano window. It will display the notes to any track (except drums) as
the music is playing.
This launches the Windows Mixer applet. Use the Windows Mixer to make global setting s to you r sound
card's input and output options.
Press the Guitar Chord button to launch the “Generate Guitar Chord Solo” dialog.
The Ear Training button opens the Ear Training Window that plays chord types and intervals for you to
improve your playing-by-ear.
Launches the Pitch Invasion game that helps to develop perfect pitch as you shoot down “alien” notes
invading from above.
Launches the Music Replay game that develops pitch, rhythm, and melody recognition by replaying what
the program plays.
The Vocal Wizard selects and transposes the song to the best key for a singer’s vocal range.
This button launches the Chord Options dialog box, which allows you to add chord pushes, rests, shots, and
held chords for any given bar.
The grace note button opens the Melody Embellisher dialog for customizing the Melody Embellisher.
You can convert your composition to an audio CD. Press the CD button to burn a CD with the built-in CD
burner program.
This button connects to the www.pgmusic.com
web site.
If you have a Sound Blaster card, this button runs the Creative Mixer.
Open an audio file (WAV, WMA, MP3) and the Audio Chord Wizard will automatically figure out the
chords.
The Practice Window is where many of the features and add-on programs useful for learning can be
launched.
This controls the RealDrums, which are audio drums that can replace the MIDI drums with a real drummer.
The SoundTrack feature allows you to generate music of fixed length for backgrounds in videos, corporate
presentations, jingles, etc.
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The Reharmonist creates a chord progression based only on the melody. It can also reharmonize existing
chord progressions.
This button opens the Notation window, where you can enter chords and lyrics, edit notation, and view
MIDI notation.
The Lead Sheet notation is a full-screen notation window with optional Fake Sheet mode that shows 1
nd
2
endings, repeats, and codas.
st
Launches the Piano Roll window for editing the Melody or Soloist tracks in a piano roll format, including
graphic controller editing.
The Audio Edit window displays a graphical waveform and allows editing. Hold Shift when pressing to
open a moveable window.
Use the Print button to launch the Print Options dialog, which allows you to print Lead Sheet or Fake Sheet
style notation.
The Drum button launches an animated Drum Kit window. Press it to launch this fully functional (and fun)
GM-MIDI “virtual” drum kit.
The Song Title button generates a song title for the current song. Each time it is pressed a new title is
generated.
This button opens the Big Lyrics window for full screen “Karaoke-style” scrolling lyrics.
Runs the Sequencer for control of multi-channel Melody or Soloist tracks. Each track can record up to 16
separate channels.
The Conductor window allows live, real time QWERTY keyboard or MIDI control of the song as it is
playing.
This button opens the Windows Recording mixer where you set your recording inputs. Select Microphone
or Line-in to record audio.
The [Pref] button will bring up a dialog box where you can set various settings all at once and access most
of the program options.
The Audio VU meters display the input volume for audio recording and the output volume for audio
playback.
There’s a Lyric Document window so you can easily copy and paste lyrics to and from your favorite word
processor.
The StyleMaker button opens the current style in the StyleMaker, allowing you to edit the style by editing
the patterns.
This button opens the “Hybrid Styles” feature that allows you to create a new style by using instrument
parts from up to five different styles.
This opens the Style Creation Wizard dialog, where Band-in-a-Box will automatically convert a MIDI file
into a Band-in-a-Box style.
This is the Chord Builder button. Chords may be heard and entered to the chordsheet by clicking in this
dialog.
The MIDI Monitor button launches a MIDI Monitor that displays the MIDI Data flowing in and out of your
computer/synth.
The tuner button opens the Guitar Tuner so you can tune a guitar or other instrument that is plugged into the
sound card.
and
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The SB button opens the Sound Blaster control panel, but only if you use a Sound Blaster card. Sound fonts
are loaded in the control panel.
This button toggles the chord display among standard (CMaj7), Roman Numeral (I
and Solfeggio (Do
Maj7
).
maj7
), Nashville (1
Maj7
),
This runs the stand-alone Title Generator program, which will generate and print 50 new song titles at a
time.
Title Window
The Title window shows the basic information about the current song at a glance - its title, style, key, tempo, and the
length and number of choruses. It also gives quick access to the Song List, the StylePicker, Memos, and Song
Settings.
The [Song] button launches the Load Song by Full Titles dialog box.
The [F] favorites button opens a list of the last 150 songs played.
The [Style] button launches the StylePicker window. This window offers detailed information about
each style.
The [F] favorites button opens a list of the last 150 styles chosen.
The names of the last five songs are listed at the bottom
of the File menu, and are numbered from 0 to 4.
Note: Pressing Shift+F3 on your computer keyboard
will bring up a list of the last 150 songs that you’ve
loaded.
The Song Title window allows you to enter the name of a song.
Click in the box with your mouse to start an insertion cursor and type in the name of your song. The title is
automatically included when the song is printed.
Style Display Window
This window displays the current style in use. This window displays the current style in
use. Mouse over the style to see the full name or right mouse-click on the style name for a
menu of
style utilities. These include choosing and changing styles as well as playing the
demo song for the currently loaded style.
Key Signature
The key signature of the song is displayed on the main screen under the title. To change the key, click
on the key signature to choose a new key from the dropdown list box. Band-in-a-Box then asks you if
you would like to transpose the song or not. Press [Yes] to confirm, or [No] to leave the melody and chords
untransposed (only the key signature will change). An instance where you would say "no" is where you have
entered a song without first setting the key signature and you want to apply the correct key signature.
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Tempo Control
The current tempo displays in the Title window, with controls for easy tempo settings and
adjustments.
Click the mouse on the spin control arrows to raise or lower the tempo in by 5 bpm (beats per minute) at a
time. Use a right mouse click on the tempo arrows to change the tempo by 1 bpm at a time.
Tap the [=] key on the number row of your computer keyboard for 4 beats to set the tempo and start the
playback immediately at that tempo. (Or click the [=] button on the screen with your mouse pointer.)
Tap the [-] key on the number row of your computer keyboard (see illustration above) for 4 beats to set the
tempo. Or click the [-] button on the screen with your mouse pointer.
Chorus Control
The Chorus Control buttons are used to set the overall format of your song.
Chorus Begin button: Click on the Chorus Begin Button to select the first bar of the chorus. The Bar
number that you select is displayed.
Chorus End button: Click on the Chorus End Button to select the last bar of the chorus. The Bar number
that you select is displayed.
The number of choruses possible for a tune is 40. Click on the chorus button and choose how many
choruses you require.
As the song is playing the current chorus is displayed at in the chorus button. 2/3 shows that the second of
three choruses is playing.
If you change the number of choruses, Band-in-a-Box will offer to fill up or remove choruses of the Melody track to
match the new number of choruses.
Title window checkboxes
When the loop checkbox in the Title window is checked, the song plays endlessly until stopped by
the [Esc] key, the space bar, or the [Stop] button. At the end of the song, it plays again from the start.
Enables fake sheet mode for the chordsheet with 1
st
and 2nd endings and repeats. Right click to auto-
detect repeats.
The Wizard is an intelligent play along feature that uses your QWERTY keyboard as a
substitute for an external MIDI piano-style keyboard or optionally works with a connected external MIDI keyboard
on the Thru channel. Toggle this checkbox “on” to play along with Band-in-a-Box. The bottom row of keys plays
chord tones, the second row plays passing tones - you play any key in either row and never make a mistake!
During playback, the Melody Embellisher changes timing of notes, durations, velocities, legato, as
well as adding grace notes, additional notes, and “turns.” It is turned on and off by the Embellisher
checkbox on the main screen. Embellisher settings are accessed from the menu item Melody |
Embellisher or the Embellisher button on the toolbar.
Press the [S] button, or choose Edit | Settings (for This Song)… to select additional settings for the current
song such as varying styles, allowing song breaks, and adding a tag and/or an ending.
The [Memo] button allows you to put in a memo to a song. You can type in a memo or you can
paste text from the Windows clipboard.
The Song Memo has an option to close automatically during playback. When this option is set, the Memo button
will close when play is pressed, and not reopen when stop is pressed.
This setting, in combination with the “Auto-open”
setting, ensures that the memo opens when the song
opens, but closes during playback.
Automatic Memo-Generation
The Song memo has a “summary” checkbox. If selected, you’ll see an additional window that automatically
displays a full summary of the song (title/tempo/patches used in the song), as well as other special features, like
substyle patch changes or harmonies.
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Loop Section Settings
The loop button launches the Loop Section Settings dialog, allowing you to set a range of bars to loop in
Band-in-a-Box.
The LoopSec/LoopScn checkbox turns the Loop Section on/off. When it shows LoopSec a selected
range of bars repeats in an endless loop. LoopScn indicates a screen of notation is looping.
Chordsheet Area
Chords, rests, shots, holds, and part markers are entered in the Chordsheet.
The chordsheet can be viewed in the full linear view showing all bars, or optionally in fake sheet view that shows 1
nd
and 2
endings and repeat signs. Another option sho ws b ars past the end of the song in gray.
st
Chord Entry
The basic way of entering a song into Band-in-a-Box is to type in the chords to the song on the chordsheet
(worksheet). The arrow keys move the active (highlighted) cell around in the chordsheet. The Enter key advances
to the next ½ bar. Chords can be entered from the QWERTY keyboard or an external MIDI keyboard (see Window
| MIDI Chord Detection…).
Chords are typed in using any of the supported chord symbol displays:
1. Standard chord symbols (e.g., C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E).
Maj7
).
maj7
).
Maj7
).
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55
2. Roman numerals (I
3. Nashville Notation (1
4. Solfeggio (Do
Notes: It is not necessary to type upper or lower case. The program will sort this out for you. Any chord may be entered
with an alternate root (“Slash Chord”) e.g.: C7/E = C7 with E bass. Separate chords with commas to enter 2 chords in a 2
beat cell, e.g., Dm, G7
Page 56
Shortcut Chords:
If you enter a lot of songs, you'll appreciate these shortcut keys.
- J = Maj7
- H = m7b5 (H stands for Half diminished)
- D = dim
- S = Sus
Example: To type CMaj7, just type CJ (it will be entered as CMaj7)
Add your own chord shortcuts.
You can make your own shortcuts text file and name it \bb\shortcut.txt. This allows you to add new chord shortcuts.
(Note that this file doesn't ship with Band-in-a-Box or it would overwrite your file.)
If you find a chord that Band-in-a-Box won't accept like Csus2 (it expects C2), you can enter this on a single line
(without the quotes) “Csus2@C2.” Then Band-in-a-Box will enter the chord C2 if you type in Csus 2.
Play Selected Area as a Loop
To use this function, select a region on the Chordsheet
.
Click on the[Loop] button, Shift-click on the [Play] button, or press F10 (Play Selected Area as Loop)
and the program will play a selected region, and loop the selection. For example, you can select bars 19
and 20, and then press F10, and bars 19 and 20 will play looped.
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Chapter 5: Guided Tour of Band-in-a-Box
With Band-in-a-Box you can arrange, record, save, and print your own song ideas. Just type in the chords to any
song; choose a style and press [Play] to hear the “band” play a full arrangement. Then record a Melody - either
MIDI or live audio – or have Band-in-a-Box write an original Melody for you. Add Melody embellishments and
harmony, an automatically improvised Soloist, an Intro, and print out a multi-part Lead Sheet or a Fake Sheet with
repeats and endings in a “handwritten” Jazz font. Edit the notes for the Melody or Soloist track in the Piano Roll
window, with precision graphic editing of controllers. Use the Melody Pitch Tracking feature to “tweak” the pitch
of your Band-in-a-Box audio track, and then add amazing “stylized” 4-part audio harmonies.
Loading and Playing Songs
Open any song file with the familiar dialog box, just like any other file on your disk.
Start song playback.
The [Loop] button plays the highlighted section of the chordsheet or notation in an endless loop.
Click and drag the mouse to highlight a section of bars to loop.
Replays the song without regenerating the tracks, so the current arrangement is preserved. (Save the
song to a MIDI file to permanently save the arrangement.)
Stop song playback.
Pause playback with the [Pause] button; resume by pressing it again.
Jump to any bar in the song. Press the [From] button to choose which chorus and bar number to
jump to.
can include songs in subfolders like c:\bb\styles34. You can lock the SongPicker to always open in the same folder
and use the same list to keep track of all songs on your disk.
The first time that you select the [Song]
button Band-in-a-Box automatically writes
the song list. The current folder name is
displayed in the title bar, with the total # of
songs displayed. The Song List generation
has a [Cancel] button so that it can be
interrupted.
The [Song] button opens the SongPicker window, a resizable window that lists all of the songs in the
current directory and, optionally, its subdirectories. For example, if you get a song list of c:\bb, it
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From then on, the SongPicker opens when the button is pressed and songs can be selected b y title from the
alphabetical list. Songs can be sorted by any of the column headings, like Song Title, File Name, Style, Tempo, etc.,
by clicking the mouse on the heading at the top of the column. Either a plus (+) or minus (-) sign will appear beside
the selected column heading. A plus sign indicates that the column is sorted in ascending
order; a minus sign indicates that it is sorted in descending order.
Filter
Use the filter to search by column, song title, file name, or style.
Folder Settings
The folder settings are at the bottom of the SongPicker.
The Current Folder name is displayed.
The folder can be changed, either by:
1.
2.
3.
Going “up” a folder (e.g. from c:\bb\styles to c:\bb).
Choosing a folder from recently used favorites folder.
Selecting the new folder.
When the new folder is chosen, the song list for that folder will be displayed. The song list may need to be rebuilt;
the program will do that automatically.
If the “Always open in this folder” item is selected, the song picker will
always open up in the specified folder. So if you put all of your songs in
c:\songs, you can make the SongPicker always open to the c:\songs folder!
If “Include Subfolders” is selected, the SongPicker list will contain songs from the
folder and any subfolders. So if you have subfolders to c:\songs like c:\songs\country
and c:\songs\jazz, you can see/search all of these songs in the same SongPicker dialog.
Tip: If you choose c:\ as your folder, the SongPicker would find every Band-in-a-Box file on your hard drive and display it in
the SongPicker. You might instead find it easier to put all of your songs within a folder like c:\songs, and have various
subfolders to that. And then set the SongPicker to always open up in the c:\songs folder. Then you’ll have access to all of
your songs easily.
Copy the song list to the Windows clipboard where it can be pasted into any word
processing program and printed.
Search for song by keyword will find the search term if it is present in any field. The
filter (upper right) can also be used to search the song list.
Search Again repeats the previous search starting from the current point.
[Rebuild List] will exit the dialog and build or rebuild the song list file by loading in all
of the songs in the directory. It will then launch the SongPicker dialog with the updated
information.
Exports the list as a Comma Separated Value text file that can be opened by
spreadsheets.
Click here to change the fonts in the StylePicker window.
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Band-in-a-Box SongPicker window.
Check “Play when chosen” to automatically play the selected song.
Once you’ve loaded a song you’ll see the chords on-screen in the chordsheet so you can follow the chord changes
and play along with the band.
There are right mouse menu options on the Chordsheet, such as “Play from Bar/Chorus #.”
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Chordsheet Options
You can set up the chordsheet with your own preferences. Go to Opt. | Preferences or choose the [Pref]
toolbar button to open the Preferences, and click on the [Display] button to open the Display Options.
In the Chordsheet area of the Display Options you can pick a chordsheet font and the number of rows to display, or
set an option to automatically adjust the number of rows to display.
Transpose Chordsheet option
The “Transpose” option is also found in
the Display Options dialog. It is useful
for non-concert pitch instruments like
Tenor Saxophone. This option is also
available on the Notation window.
Play along with your MIDI Controller Keyboard
If you have an external MIDI keyboard controller connected to your computer system, you can use the MIDI THRU
features to play along with the program, including the Harmony feature.
When playing along on a keyboard to the Band-in-a-Box “band,” if the sound
of your keyboard is too quiet and increasing the THRU Volume doesn't help
enough use this option to boost the THRU velocity and make your THRU playing louder. (For example, nonvelocity sensitive keyboards are usually set to output a quiet velocity of 64). To set this “THRU velocity boost,”
open the MIDI Settings dialog (Opt. | Preferences | Channels). Click on the [Options] button and set “Boost
THRU Velocity by” to a value in the range of –127 to +127 in the MIDI Options dialog. (Default is 0.)
Harmonize your play along part by pressing the [T] button in the Synth window to choose a harmony,
just as you would for the Melody.
Using the Wizard with MIDI keyboard input
The Wizard can also be used with a connected MIDI keyboard. The keyboard wizard always plays correct notes,
and is a fun way to play along with Band-in-a-Box. The MIDI keyboard also sends volume information (unlike the
QWERTY keyboard), so is a better choice if you have a MIDI keyboard connected.
This feature is accessed with the [Transpose] button in the Preferences dialog. To turn on the Wizard to allow
MIDI control, choose “Use Wizard for THRU part.” Make sure that the Wizard
checkbox is enabled on the main screen.
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Now, when you play notes on the MIDI keyboard (during playback), they will get remapped to chord tones.
C/E/G/Bb notes played on a THRU keyboard will be mapped to chord tones, and D/F/A/B will be passing tones.
This scale - C D E F G A Bb B - is considered the “Bebop” scale, useful for playing over dominant 7
th
chords.
Change the Style
Try different styles by clicking on the [Style] button to choose from a list of the styles available
in the StylePicker window. Styles that have the same feel (triplets, eighths, sixteenths) and a
similar tempo range to the current prototype will be indicated with an (*) asterisk. Styles with a (^) caret have a
similar feel but a different tempo range.
Band-in-a-Box StylePicker window.
You can also change the style at any bar in the song, so you could use a few similar styles to add variety while
keeping the same feel. This is done in the Edit
Settings for Current Bar dialog, which opens
with either the F5 function key or the Edit |
Settings for Current Bar menu command.
This dialog can also be opened with the
[Bar Settings] button in the Song Settings
dialog.
Change the Sound
You’ll find the Synth window at the top of the screen. Select an instrument part by clicking its name. The black
dot beside the name indicates the selected part. Any changes to the Instrument, Volume, Reverb, Chorus, Bank, etc.
will apply to that part. Change the instrument patch by scrolling through the 128 General MIDI instrument names in
the Instrument box, even while the song is playing.
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The Band-in-a-Box Synth window controls instrument settings.
Solo an Instrument Part
While listening to Band-in-a-Box, you can easily solo (isolate) a certain part by holding the Control key and mouse
clicking (left or right) on the instrument at the top of the screen. For example, if you want to hear only the Piano
part, Control-Click on the Piano part. If you want to use hot keys for this, you can press Alt+2 (Mute-All) and then
Alt+4 (Unmute Piano).
Mute All Parts
To mute/unmute all parts as the song is playing, simply press Alt+2 or right-click on the “Combo” radio buttons at
the top of the screen.
MIDI Normalize
If performing live, or at a jam session, it helps to have the volume of all of the songs be similar. With the MIDI
Normalize feature, you can level the volumes to a setting in the program options. For example, you can set all
volumes to be 70 and the program will make each song play within those levels. This is done in the Preferences
[Arrange] tab.
When you have set the normalize to “on” the status bar at the top of the
screen reports that Normalization is set to 70, and that the velocity of
the currently playing song has been increased from 49 to 70.
The normalization will affect bass, drums, piano, guitar, and strings. If you select the “Including melody and
Soloist” option, the normalization will also affect the melody and soloist parts.
Play Selected Area as a Loop
To use this function select a region on the Chordsheet.
Click on the [Loop] button, Shift-click on the [Play] button, or press F10 (Play Selected Area as Loop)
and the program will play a selected region, and loop the selection. For example, you can select bars 19
and 20, and then press F10, and bars 19 and 20 will play looped until Stop is pressed.
Loop any Section of the song.
You can loop any section of the song. The program will then start playback at the first loop point and play the
looped section until stop is pressed or looping is turned off. This feature is handy for looping a full chorus or other
section of a song for practice or performance.
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Looping of a section of the song is enabled by the “LoopSec” checkbox or with the keystroke
NUMPAD 1.
Open up the Loop Section Settings dialog by clicking the Loop button, or pressing NUMPAD 2. The Loop
settings dialog will then display.
The Conductor Window
As the song is playing, many “single key” hot keys are available to control the playback and looping of the song.
For example, pressing the “4” key will insure that the middle chorus is the next one played, and pressing the “S” key
will insure that the middle section is looped. This would be useful to extend a song that has the last chorus playing.
Custom loop points can also be set for each song. These settings are ideal for live performance, or “jam sessions”
where you aren’t entering new Band-in-a-Box songs, but want full control of the playback. These loops happen
seamlessly at the end of the chorus, so are suitable for the “dance floor.” In addition, you can control Band-in-a-Box
from a standard MIDI keyboard, pressing MIDI keys corresponds to program functions. For example, load the next
song, play/pause/tempo adjust/change thru patch/jump to middle choruses/open the notation or lead sheet window –
all from your MIDI keyboard!
Press the Conductor button to launch the Conductor window with more settings and
descriptions. This feature is documented in the PowerGuide chapter and in the Help
file.
Add a Melody – MIDI and/or Audio
Band-in-a-Box is much more than an intelligent arranger and accompanist. You can record your live
MIDI performance to the Melody track, enter a Melody in the Notation note-by-note, or use the Wizard
feature to record with either your computer keyboard or a connected MIDI keyboard controller.
Enable the Embellisher, and the Melody will be embellished as it plays. You hear a livelier, more
realistic Melody, and it's different every time.
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The Embellisher is only active while the music is playing; the recorded Melody track isn’t affected. There is an
option for the Embellisher to only humanize the timing of the music if the timing was “stiff” to begin with. This
allows the Embellisher to leave the timing of human input melodies alone, and humanize only the ones that were
entered in step-time.
You can save/load your own presets for the Embellisher. Press the Export button to save the data as an .EMB file.
You can record an audio track of your live vocal or instrumental performance and save it to an audio
wave file along with the Band-in-a- Box accompaniment. Make sure that you have a microphone
plugged in to your sound card, or a connection from a mixer, keyboard, or other audio device connected
to the Line In jack on your sound card.
Opening and Importing Audio Files
A mono or stereo WAV file can be imported to the Audio track, optionally merging with or replacing any existing
audio track. Choose the menu item Audio | Import Audio (WAV, WMA, MP3, WMV) File. You then choose an
audio file to import. The Import Audio File dialog is then displayed, which allows selection of the point to insert the
audio file, and whether to merge or overwrite existing audio in the range.
Audio Chord Wizard (Chords from MP3)
This feature analyzes a WAV, WMA, MP3, WMV, or CDA audio file and imports it to Band-in-a-Box.
The Audio Chord Wizard works out the tempo, bar lines, and chord changes so you can easily make your
favorite recordings into Band-in-a-Box songs. It is fully described in the Working With Audio chapter.
Harmonize the MIDI Melody
Press the [M] button in the Synth window to add a MIDI harmony to
the Melody track. Pressing the [F] favorites button brings up a list of
the last 50 harmonies used.
The Select Melody Harmony
dialog box allows you to choose
from any of the pre-defined
harmonies and even allows you to
define your own.
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This button opens the Harmony Maker,
where you can customize Harmonists.
You can search for a harmony by a
keyword (i.e. typing in the first few letters of a harmony
name) in either the Harmonies or Favorite Harmonies
dialog.
This button is to turn off any notes that are
stuck on. (There shouldn’t be any.)
Enter the number of the harmony you
want to go to and press [Go To #].
Pressing either the [Fav] or the [F] button
produces a list the 50 most recently loaded harmonies.
The [No harmony] button disables the
harmony for the song. The keystrokes Shift+F10 also
allow or disable the Melody harmony.
When adding a harmony to the Melody (or Soloist) you can use the option to loosen up start times of for the
harmony notes to achieve a more natural, richer harmony sound.
Choose menu item Melody | Edit | Utilities | Loosen Start Times. You can select the range of adjustments. For
example, if you want the notes to be played earlier, use a negative number. A setting of minus 5 to positive 6 would
cause the start times to be varied up to 5 ticks early and 6 ticks late. There is also a setting to choose whether you
want only the harmony notes present on the track to be affected, leaving the original melody unaffected.
Convert Track to Harmony
This feature permanently writes the specified harmony to the Melody or Soloist track, instead of being applied in
real time. Use the buttons in the Select Melody/Soloist Harmony dialogs, or the Convert Harmony… menu
command found in the Melody and Soloist menus. You’ll then see a dialog allowing you to choose the range of the
song to add the harmony, either the whole song or a specified range of bars.
There are options to “Eliminate Note Overlap” and “Loosen start times of notes” for the harmony notes to achieve a
more natural, richer harmony sound. The melody is not affected, only the harmony notes, and there are options for
the range of spread for the harmony notes.
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Note: Once the track is converted you should set the harmony to “None” or you will hear harmonies being applied to the
harmony notes, i.e., “harmony-on-a-harmony.”
Live Harmonies While Band-In-A-Box Is Stopped
Normally, the Live Harmony feature is not active when Band-in-a-Box is stopped. But you can in fact use the Live
Harmony even while a song is not playing.
You need only to open the Harmony | Real Time MIDI Harmonies menu item. Note that this Live Harmony dialog
must remain open for this feature to be active.
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When this dialog (shown above) is open, you can play a chord in the Left hand (below the split point set in the
dialog), and the chord you play is and displayed in the dialog. Then, the notes that you play in the right hand will
get harmonized according to this left-hand chord.
If you set the Only Harmonize if Left hand chord held down you'll be able to control what notes get harmonized
by holding down the chord when you want a note to be harmonized.
Play Along with the Wizard
The Wizard is an intelligent play along feature that is controlled with the bottom two rows of your computer’s
QWERTY keyboard. The bottom row of keys plays chord tones; the second row plays passing tones. You play any
key in either row and never make a mistake!
In the Play menu, toggle Wizard uses “Smart” notes to “off” (unchecked) to have the Wizard provide you access to
the chromatic scale. Toggle it “on” to have access only to the notes based on the chord/key of the song.
This also allows you to record to the Melody or Soloist track without an external MIDI keyboard, and can even be
used to trigger the Soloist Wizard. Also, play along using the Wizard works with the harmony feature, so you can
play along live from your QWERTY keyboard in 4-part saxophone harmony for example.
Playing the Wizard
The Wizard Keys are active during playback. The active keys are the lower 2 rows of the keyboard.
MIDI Keyboard Wizard
By turning on this Wizard setting in the Opt. | Preferences Transpose dialog, notes
played on a Thru channel MIDI keyboard will be played through the Wizard. C, E, G, and Bb will be mapped to
chord tones while D, F, A, and B will be passing tones.
Changing Instruments / Settings for the Wizard
As a play along instrument, the Wizard uses the Thru instrument part. To change the instrument patch, volume,
reverb, etc. for the Wizard select the Thru instrument in the synth window.
Add a Solo - “The Soloist”
That’s right! Band-in-a-Box can “solo like a pro” in over 200 styles.
Use the [Soloist] button on the main screen to open the Select Soloist dialog box and choose from over
200 Soloist profiles.
Use the preset Soloist settings, or choose a Mode and which Choruses to solo.
You can select a Soloist type (e.g. Modern Jazz) and see only soloists
matching the type.
And you can also filter to show/not show soloists
from Soloist sets that you don’t have.
With the “Trade” feature, you can Trade 2’s, Trade 4’s, or Trade 8’s
between your live playing and the Soloist.
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There is a dedicated function to vary the start times of notes on the Melody or Soloist tracks, with options for what
notes to affect (harmony, chords, and amount of variance). Choose menu item Soloist | Edit Soloist Track | Utilities
| Loosen Start Times.
Using the Soloist Feature
1) Generate a Soloist and practice the solo by loopingit, slowing it down, or printing it out, until you can perform a
great solo on any chord changes!
2) Generate a Soloist and attach a Harmony such as “Big Band Brass” to create phenomenally quick and interesting
Big Band Arrangements automatically. Generate a standard MIDI file or print them out (with PowerTracks Pro) for
you and your friends.
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3) Have the Soloist play a solo according to your accompaniment and arrangement (along with the other members of
your Band-in-a-Box, of course!)
4) Trade 4’s in a call-response fashion with the Soloist (you solo for 4 bars, Band-in-a-Box solos for 4 bars, etc.)
5) Concentrate separately on different aspects of your playing with assistance from the “Wizard.” From soloing
with proper phrasing and “feel” (the best notes are included automatically) to accompanying a soloist with
confidence and authority (Tip: try muting out one of the accompaniment parts such as the piano or guitar part and
play along to the Soloist in a supportive role-- its fun!)
6) Use the Soloist track to record another part in addition to the Melody and other parts provided by Band-in-a-Box.
7) Generate a Soloist on chords/keys that you would like to practice. Band-in-a-Box will play and solo with you all
day without getting bored. For example, if you want to work on your II-V7-I progressions ("two-five-one"), you can
just type the chords you want, and generate a solo to play over those changes. As the solo plays, you see the
notation, can you can sight read along. Pressing the "Loop Screen" checkbox on the notation will loop the notation
the screen so you can master each 4 bar phrase (II-V-I) and then move ahead to the next one!
The Soloist Maker [Edit…] button gives access to the advanced settings in the Soloist Editor
where you can edit existing profiles or create new Soloists of your own.
To see the Soloist part play in standard music notation open the Notation window and press the [S] button at
the far right of the instrument buttons.
View and Print Notation
Open the Notation window with the Notation button. You will see standard notation on the grand staff.
There are 3 notation modes in Band-in-a-Box, selected with the buttons in the Notation window toolbar.
1. Standard Notation for display of notes, chords, lyrics, and optional guitar tablature as well as
entering chords and lyrics. Notation is not editable in this mode.
2. Editable Notation to enter or edit notation with the mouse
3. Staff Roll Notation works like the Editable Notation plus note velocities and durations can be
viewed and edited with the mouse.
Notation window showing Soloist part.
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Standard Notation Window
Band-in-a-Box Standard Notation window.
The Standard Notation window can be used for notation display and the entry of chords and lyrics. Just type a chord
name and it will be inserted at the current time line location (the black vertical stripe just under the tool bar.)
Click on the instrument buttons to see the notation for the different parts: Bass, Drums,
Piano, Guitar, Strings, and the Melody [M], or the Soloist [S].
Press the [Opt.] button to set Notation window options such as track type, bar resolution, lyric font size,
and position, transpose options, and Regular or Jazz fonts.
This button opens the Lead Sheet window, which provides a full screen of notation either for an
individual instrument or for multiple instruments that you choose to view together by clicking the
instrument buttons while holding the Ctrl key.
Print out any part with the Print Button. In the Print Preview window save your notation as a graphic
file to upload to the Internet or to e-mail.
The [#] button opens the Event List for editing the Melody or Soloist tracks.
This is the button for note-based lyrics, which are automatically aligned with the correspond ing note in
the Melody track.
Use the plus and minus buttons to zoom the Notation in and out.
The text button lets you enter section text or boxed text into the notation.
When the Scrub button is selected, notes will play as the mouse is dragged over them while holding
down the left mouse button.
Switch to Editable or Staff Roll notation modes with these buttons.
Editable Notation Mode
Click on the Editable Notation button to go to Editable Notation mode. Chords, lyrics, and text can be
entered as in the Standard Notation window; the Editable Notation mode also permits point-and-click entry
of notes and rests as well as drag-and-drop editing.
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Band-in-a-Box Editable Notation window.
This is the screen for step-entry of a melody or for editing existing parts. There are checkboxes for different note
entry modes.
The Note or Rest checkboxes determine whether a note or a rest will be
inserted when the mouse is clicked.
When the Mono checkbox is selected, the notation is entered as monophonic (one note only). This is useful for
melodies that only have one note playing at a time. Mono mode is a faster way to enter notes, because the Notation
window will automatically delete a note that is present at the same location that you are putting a new note on. So if
you have mistakenly put a B note on as a C, you just click on the B note, and if in mono mode the C note will be
deleted automatically.
Clean Notation
When music has been played in from a MIDI keyboard, there are frequently effects like grace notes, glitches, and
notes played off time. The Clean Notation mode is an intelligent feature that “cleans up the notation” for you. It
does this by eliminating the display of grace notes and glitches, and also simplifies the Notation disp lay so it is more
readable. Clean Notation doesn’t affect the actual track it just controls how it is displayed. In general this should be
on, since it improves the display. But if you want to see every grace note or glitch that was played, then turn it off.
Beat Divisions
In the Editable Notation mode each beat is sub-divided by either 3 or 4 broken vertical lines.
- Swing styles use 3 lines to divide each beat into eighth note swing triplets.
- Straight styles use 4 lines to divide each beat into sixteenth notes.
Example of swing (triplet) resolution.
Tip: The edits you make to Band-in-a-Box accompaniment parts will be overwritten when the [Play] button is pressed and the
program generates a new arrangement. To hear the song play as edited, use the [Replay] button found next to the [Play] button.
Edited songs can be permanently saved as a MIDI file with the [.MID] button.
Example of straight (16ths) resolution.
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Staff Roll Notation Mode
Click on the Staff Roll Notation button to go to Staff Roll Notation mode.
Band-in-a-Box Staff Roll Notation window.
In addition to the editing features of the Editable Notation mode, in Staff Roll mode the velocity (vertical line) and
duration (horizontal line) of notes can be edited with the mouse.
Piano Roll Window
You can edit your tracks using the “Piano Roll” window, similar to the type found in many sequencer programs.
Edit the Melody or Soloist tracks with greater ease and precision. There are 2 panes in the window – one for notes
and the other for controllers, velocity, and other data. All not es and controllers are displayed as black/gray bars on a
grid. You can change note duration and pitch by selecting and dragging with your mouse.
The Piano Roll window enables precise graphic editing of note timing and duration. You can also graphically edit
note velocity, controllers, program changes, channel aftertouch, or pitch bend.
The Piano Roll may be opened as a movable window, which floats above the Band-in-a-Box main window, or it
may be opened embedded, in the same position as the Chordsheet/Notation panels in the Band-in-a-Box main
window.
Track Selection
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Select the Track - Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Solo.
It is most practical to edit the Melody and Solo tracks. The other tracks for the accompaniment are rewritten every
time Band-in-a-Box rebuilds the song (every time you click the [Play] button). So if you edit a “backing track,” be
sure to save as a MIDI file before rebuilding the song, or your edits will be lost.
Keyboard Pitch Panel
1. Click on a single note of the keyboard to select all notes of the clicked pitch.
2. Click-drag on the keyboard to select all notes in a pitch range.
3. Shift-click-drag to add another set of notes to the selection.
4. Ctrl-click-drag to invert a pitch selection.
For instance, you could drag C5 thru C6 to select an octave of notes.
Then Shift-click A3 to add all A3 notes to the selection. Then Ctrl-click F5 to remove all F5
notes from the selection.
Note Panel
Horizontal bars represent notes. Notes can be selected, edited (start time, pitch, duration), inserted, and deleted.
Note Selection
Selected notes are red.
1. Click on individual notes to select.
2. Shift-click on individual notes to add to the selection.
3. Ctrl-click on a note to invert (toggle) its selection.
Overlapping notes are displayed in bold Aqua color, making them easy to identify. Overlapped notes can be
eliminated from the right-click menu in this window.
Click on white space and then drag a rectangle around notes to select a group of notes. Only notes that start within
the rectangle are selected. If the left edge of a note is not inside the rectangle, it will not be selected. This is a
feature, not a bug!
1. Shift-drag a rectangle to add another group of notes to the selection.
2. Ctrl-drag a rectangle to toggle the selection of the notes in the rectangle.
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Graphic Event Panel
Graphically display and edit non-note MIDI events. This panel only shows MIDI events specified in the Chan,
View/Edit, and Controller Type controls.
Zero-value events are drawn as small hollow squares, to make them easy to identify.
When graphically inserting controller and pitch bend events the event density is adju stable from one event per 1 tick
up to one event per 30 ticks.
With events such as pitch bend or controllers like modulation and sustain, it is important to take care to end a
“gesture” with a zero-value event. Otherwise, subsequent notes will be affected, with an unwanted “hanging”
permanent pitch bend, permanent vibrato, or sustain pedal locked down.
Event Selection
Selected Events are red.
Graphic Event Ruler Time Selections:
The Graphic Event Ruler will only select non-note events. In addition, it will only select the type of MIDI events
specified in the Chan, View/Edit, and Controller Type controls. When you make a Ruler Time selection, ONLY
THE VISIBLE events in this time range are selected. Other MIDI events in this time range are not selected.
Snap-to-Grid
Selections, Inserted Notes, or Edited Notes will snap to the grid spacing. If you do not
want snap-to-grid, select [NONE] in the drop-down menu.
Note Duration
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Set the default duration of new inserted notes. It is easy to mouse-edit a note's duration
after a note is inserted, so it is usually sufficient to select a typical note duration that
makes sense for your purposes and then mouse-edit the duration of “exception” notes
after they are inserted.
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View/Insert Channel
If a track contains multiple channels, “All” will display MIDI events on all channels.
Otherwise, select the channel that you need to see. If “All” is selected, new MIDI
events are inserted on the Band-in-a-Box track's assigned channel.
Except for perhaps multi-channel Guitar tracks, Band-in-a-Box plays all track events on
the assigned track channel. Therefore, in almost all cases, the channel of track events
does not matter.
For instance, if the Melody track is set to transmit on channel 4, all events on the
Melody track will be sent on channel 4 regardless of the “actual channel” of each track
event.
Ghost Notes
When viewing a single channel, notes on other channels can be ghost-displayed in light gray. This is
useful when viewing multi-channel tracks.
View/Edit Graphic Data
Controller Type
Determine what graphic data to view or edit in the bottom Graphic Data panel.
Choose Velocity, Controller, Program Change, Channel Aftertouch, and Pitch
Bend. If Chan is not set to “All,” only the selected channel events will be
displayed.
If “View/Edit” is set to “Control,” the Controller Type control becomes visible.
The Graphic Data panel will display the chosen controller type. If Chan is not
set to “All,” only the selected channel events will be displayed.
Cursor Location Info Panel
The Info Panel shows the cursor's Bar:Beat:Tick and MIDI note or controller value (depending on
the cursor location). In cursor locations where a value would be nonsensical, the status text values
are blank.
For instance, in the Note panel, Bar:Beat:Tick and Pitch are displayed. In the Ruler panels, only Bar:Beat:Tick is
displayed. In the left Piano panel, only Pitch is displayed. In the Graphic Event panel, Bar:Beat:Tick and Event
Value are displayed.
Chord Ruler and Note Time Ruler Panel
There are two top rulers. The top Chord Ruler displays chords and the Playback Location Indicator. The Note Time
Ruler displays bars and bar subdivisions. When zoomed-in, more subdivisions are displayed. When zoomed-out,
fewer subdivisions are displayed.
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Click or drag in the Chords Ruler to set the Insertion Point (useful if you wish to use the menu Edit/Paste (Ctrl+V)
to paste into the Piano Roll). If a song is playing, a Chords Ruler click will stop playback.
Double-click the Chords Ruler to start playback at the indicated bar. You can also set the Insertion Point and then
tap Ctrl+G to start playback at the desired location.
Notes can be selected with the Note Ruler. However, the Note Ruler does not select non-note events such as
controllers or pitch bend.
1 Click-drag on the Note Ruler to select a time-range of notes.
2 Shift-click-drag to add a time-range of notes to the selection.
3 Ctrl-click-drag to invert the note selection of a time range.
For instance, you could drag to select all notes in bars 2 thru 7. Then you could Ctrl-drag to toggle off note
selections in bar 4. By using the Shift and Ctrl keys, very flexible time selections can be made.
Note Editing
Edit Note Time Stamp (start time):
Move the cursor over the left of a note. An east-west cursor appears. Then click-drag the note to a new time
(horizontal dragging).
If multiple events are selected, and you want to move all selected events, use Shift-click-drag. Otherwise a click on
a note will deselect the previous selection, and it will only select/edit the clicked note.
Edit Note Pitch:
Move the cursor over the middle of a note. A north-south cursor appears. Then click-drag the note pitch (vertical
dragging).
If multiple events are selected, and you want to transpose all selected events, use Shift-click-drag. Otherwise a click
on a note will deselect the previous selection, and it will only select/transpose th e clicked note.
Edit Note Duration:
Move the cursor over the right of a note. A right-arrow cursor appears. Then click-drag the note duration
(horizontal dragging).
If multiple events are selected, and you want to change duration of all selected events, use Shift-click-drag.
Otherwise a click on a note will deselect the previous selection, and it will only select/edit the clicked note.
Insert a Note:
Hold the Shift+Ctrl keys. The cursor becomes a pencil. Click where you want the note and it is inserted with a
duration from the “Dur” drop-down menu, and on the channel selected by the “Chan” drop-down menu.
If “Snap” is enabled, the note is inserted at the nearest grid boundary. For instance, if the snap-to-grid setting is a
quarter note, inserted notes will snap to the nearest quarter note boundary.
There are many on-screen visual cues to assist cursor positioning. The Cursor Position Time Markers in the Time
Rulers can assist time positioning. The Cursor Pitch Marker in the Keyboard can assist pitch positioning. The
Cursor Location Info Panel gives precise time and pitch info. Also, the Note Panel has time grid markings, and
pitch accidentals are marked in light gray on the background.
If you make a mistake inserting a note, you can hit the Delete key to remove the new note. Alternately, it is very
easy to immediately drag the note to correct mistakes in time, pitch, or duration.
Delete a Note:
Select a note (or group of notes), then tap the Delete key. Alternately, select some notes, right-click, and choose the
“Delete Selected Events” item in the pop-up menu.
Eraser tool
For quickly deleting individual notes or controllers. Shift+Ctrl-click on a note or graphic event. If multiple events
have been selected, all selected events will be deleted.
Splitter Bar
A vertical Splitter Bar sits between the Note and Graphic Event panels. If you want to maximize the Note panel to
see more notes, drag the Splitter down. If you want to maximize the Graphic Event panel for more accurate event
editing, drag the Splitter up.
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Two graphic event mouse editing modes for editing graphic events:
1. Add Mode
Add/subtract the same amount to all selected events.
2. Scale Mode
Scale the selected events. Select one or more Graphic Events, and move the mouse over one of the events.
Shift-drag vertically, and the events are scaled in a proportional fashion. Large-value events are scaled
more than small-value events. This keeps the same shape of a gesture, but makes the gesture bigger or
smaller.
Note Velocity Line Tool
- With Add Mode, note velocities will exactly match the slope of your drawn line.
- With Scale Mode, the Line Tool will shape the dynamics, but note velocities are scaled to follow the
approximate shape of your drawn line. With Scale Mode, you can insert a Velocity fade, or change the velocity
of a region, while preserving the Velocity dynamics of the music.
Edit Events
Edit Event Value:
Move the cursor over the top half of an event. A north-south cursor appears. Click-drag vertically to scale event
values. To scale a selected group of events, Shift-click-d rag vertically on one of the events in the selection.
Edit Event Time:
Move the cursor over the bottom half of an event. An east-west cursor appears. Click-drag horizontally to slide the
event in time. To slide a selected group of events, Click-drag horizontally on one of the events in the selection.
Insert Events
Line Tool:
With no modifier keys, the “white space” cursor is a Line Tool. Move the cursor to white space and then click-drag
to draw a line. When the mouse button is released, a series of events are inserted which follow the line slope.
To avoid choking the MIDI stream, the maximum event density is one event per 10 ticks. Repeated events of the
same value are not inserted. Therefore, long gradual Line Tool fades have a lower density than short extreme Line
Tool fades.
Pencil Tool:
Move the cursor over white space and hold the Shift+Ctrl keys. A Pencil Tool appears. Shift+Ctrl-drag to
freehand-draw a curve. If you don't get the curve quite right o n the first pass, just keep holding the mouse button
and move the mouse back-and-forth to draw your desired freehand curve. When the mouse button is released, a
series of events are inserted to follow the freehand curve.
To avoid choking the MIDI stream, the maximum event density is one event per 10 ticks. Repeated events of the
same value are not inserted. Therefore, many freehand curves have a fairly low density.
Delete Events
Make a selection of events with the Ruler or by clicking on events. Then tap the Delete key. You can also rightclick and choose the “Delete Selected Events” item in the pop-up menu.
Right-Click Contextual Menu
The pop-up menu can be accessed by right-clicking on the notes, graphic events, or any of the rulers.
Undo:
Duplicates the Band-in-a-Box Edit | Undo (or Ctrl+Z) action.
Delete Selected Events:
Deletes any selected events (highlighted in red). This can also be accomplished by tapping the Delete key.
Select All Notes and Graphic Events:
If the “Chan” combo box is set to All, this item will select ALL EVENTS on ALL CHANNELS (all events in the
track). Otherwise, ALL EVENTS are selected which match the CURRENT MIDI CHANNEL.
Select All Note Events (Of Current Channel): (right-click the Note Panel or Note Ruler)
If the Chan combo box is set to All, this item will select ALL NOTES on ALL CHANNELS, but it will not select
any non-note events. Otherwise, ALL NOTES are selected which match the CURRENT MIDI CHANNEL.
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Select All Note Events (Of Current Channel): (right-click the Graphic Event Panel or Graphic Event Ruler)
If the “Chan” combo box is set to All, this item will select ALL GRAPHIC EVENTS of the CURRENT
VIEW/EDIT TYPE on ALL CHANNELS. Otherwise, ALL GRAPHIC EVENTS of the CURRENT VIEW/EDIT
TYPE are selected which match the CURRENT MIDI CHANNEL. For instance, you could select all channel 4
modulation events, then Delete, to easily remove all of those events from the track.
Cut:
Copy selected events to the clipboard and then remove them from the track. Can also be accomplished with the
menu Edit | Cut (or Ctrl+X) action. If you wish, it is possible to cut from the Piano Roll, and then paste into the
Notation window, or vice-versa.
Copy:
Copy Selected Events to the clipboard can also be accomplished with the menu Edit | Copy (or Ctrl+C) action. If
you wish, it is possible to copy from the Piano Roll, and then paste into the Notation window, or vice-versa.
Paste - Replace:
If no events are on the clipboard, this item is dimmed.
The paste occurs at the time location of your right-click. Move the mouse cursor to the desired insert location.
Right-click on the Note Panel, Graphic Event Panel, or any of the Rulers. Then choose this item from the pop-up
menu. Any previous event types in the paste range which match event types in the clipboard are removed before the
clipboard data is added to the track.
If the “Chan” combo box is set to All, pasted events keep their original (copied) MIDI channel. Otherwise, the
pasted events will be re-channeled to match the “Chan” combo box.
Paste - Merge:
If no events are on the clipboard, this item is dimmed.
The paste occurs at the time location of your right-click. Move the mouse cursor to the desired insert location.
Right-click on the Note Panel, Graphic Event Panel, or any of the Rulers. Then choose this item from the pop-up
menu. Events from the clipboard are merged with existing data in the track.
If the “Chan” combo box is set to All, pasted events keep their original (copied) MIDI channel. Otherwise, the
pasted events will be re-channeled to match the “Chan” combo box.
The feature can also be accomplished with the menu Edit | Paste (or Ctrl+V) action (to match the Notation window,
which also uses a merge style of pasting). Before using the main menu Edit | Paste (or Ctrl+V), first make sure the
insertion marker is set to your desired paste time location.
This is easy to do. Just click or drag in the Chord Ruler to place the insertion marker where you want it. Then tap
Ctrl+V.
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Re-Channel All Events to the Track Channel (Ch = xx)
Re-channel all notes and graphic events (the entire track) to the MIDI Output channel assigned for this track.
Sometimes this can come in handy to bring some “sanity” into Piano Roll editing.
For instance, though the default Melody output channel might be channel 4, meaning that Band-in-a-Box transmits
any events in the Melody track on channel 4. The actual events in the Melody track might be channel 1, or a
mixture of several channels.
For ordinary playback or note tweaking, it doesn't matter if the event channels are “mixed up,” as long as you have
the view channel set to All. But if you wish to use Paste - Replace, the Paste - Replace function is smart enough not
to “stomp on” a track's events that differ from the channels of the clipboard MIDI data. So if you force all events to
the track channel, the Paste - Replace function will always replace appropriately.
Re-Channel Selected Events to the Track Channel (Ch = xx)
Re-channel only the selected events to the track channel.
Re-Channel Selected Events to the View Channel
When editing a multi-channel guitar part or editing an imported multi-channel MIDI file, this command may be
useful. Beware that it might initially appear confusing.
For instance, one might set the view channel to ALL, and make a selection (intending to set these events to Ch 12).
Then set the view channel to 12, and of course the selected events disappear (if the events had some other MIDI
Channel). But then when you invoke “Re-Channel Selected Events to the View Channel,” the MIDI events will
reappear on the Piano Roll.
Eliminate Overlapped Notes
Overlapping notes are displayed in bold Aqua color, making them easy to identify. Selecting this menu co mmand
will remove the overlap.
Horizontal Scroll Bar, [+] and [-] Buttons
Scroll in time, and zoom the horizontal display.
Vertical Scroll Bar, [+] and [-] Buttons
Scroll to see different note ranges (does not scroll the Graphic Event Panel) and zoom the vertical display.
Zoom Buttons
Use these buttons, found in the right border of the Graphic Event panel, to zoom and un-zoom the Piano Roll view.
Zoom to Selection
Make a selection of notes, and then click the Zoom To Selection button. The vertical pitch range and
horizontal time range adjusts to fill the note panel with the selected notes.
Un-Zoom
Return to the previous view range after zooming in on a region.
Zoom All
Zoom the window so that all track notes are visible at a glance.
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Lead Sheet Notation Window
The Lead Sheet Notation window displays a full page of notation with lots of options such as a selectable number of
staves per page, clefs to show, font size, margins, scroll-ahead notation, and lyrics. You can set it to a big font size
and read the notation from across the room. Since the notation scrolls ahead, you can read ahead without waiting for
a page turn.
Launching the Lead Sheet Window
You can launch the Lead Sheet window from the main screen by pressing the Lead Sheet button (or
Alt+W). The Lead Sheet button is also accessible from the Standard Notation window.
During playback, red rectangles highlight the current bar. If the bar is empty (or in Fake Sheet mode), the Lead
Sheet will draw the staff lines and bar lines in red.
Multiple Tracks of Notation
Multiple tracks of notation can be viewed together in the Lead Sheet window. To select tracks, hold down the Ctrl
key and click on the part buttons at the top of the screen in the order that the tracks should appear from top to
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bottom. For example, clicking on [M], and then on [P] and [B] with the Ctrl key held down would display and print
the multi-stave staff system shown. Multiple tracks can also be printed like a score.
Band-in-a-Box Lead Sheet Notation window displaying multiple parts.
Multiple lines of Lyrics on Fake Sheet.
If your song has 1st and 2nd endings or multiple verses of lyrics, multi-line lyrics can be displayed, so you’ll see all
verses on the same fake sheet. Load in the song c:\bb\ Tutorial - BB 2005\Listen Multi-line lyrics Demo.MGU.
This song has a 1st/2nd ending entered, with separate lyrics for each ending. Multiple lines of lyrics will also appear
if there are lyrics in multiple verses (choruses).
In the Notation Window Options, “Lyric Position” allows you to vertically position the
height of the lyrics.
Open the Lead Sheet and select “Fake Sheet Mode.”
Lead Sheet “Lyric Text Block”
A large text block can now be appended to the Lead Sheet window and printout. This is ideal for song
lyrics that you want entered as a text entry appended to the end, multiple verses of lyrics, or any other text.
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Open the Lead Sheet window and select the [Memo] button to launch the Lead Sheet Memo.
Select any available font type, size, and style. Type text or copy and paste from other
programs. The memo appears on the Lead Sheet and printout after the last line of notation.
Lead Sheet Printing
Click on the [Print] button to print your song as sheet music. There are print options for “# of copies to
print” and “print specific page #.”
In the Print Preview screen the notation can be saved as a graphics file to be imported to a document or uploaded to
an Internet page.
Choose the file type that you'd like to save to. If you want an exact rendition of the screen, choose MONO BMP,
since bitmap files are saved without any loss of quality. If you want a smaller file of your composition for Internet
use, choose a format like JPG, or PNG. These are smaller, because they compress the data, with some loss of
quality.
To save a JPG file, press the [OK -Preview/Graphics] and [Save…] buttons and then select “Save to File Type:
JPG.” You can then see the estimated size of the file, and can change settings by pressing the Low/Medium/High
resolution buttons.
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The notation can also be copied as a bitmap to the Windows clipboard and then pasted into any
application. This is done by clicking on the [Clipbd] button in the Print Preview screen.
To print a specific page, press the [OK -Preview/Graphics] and [Print
Page] buttons.
Full-page view of Band-in-a-Box MultiTrack notation.
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Multi-Channel Notation (Sequencer Mode)
Normally you would want a single part on the Melody and Soloist tracks. But, since MIDI information can have
separate channels, it is possible to store 16 separate parts on each of the Melody and Soloist parts. When one of
these tracks has been set to “Multi (16)-Channel” we refer to this as sequencer mode.
Now, when you are in this multi-channel mode, output from the Melody/Soloist part will be on whatever MIDI
channel the information is stored on, and will not be using the Melody/Soloist MIDI channel.
If you click on the Lead Sheet window, you’ll see the entire MIDI file displayed on separate tracks of
notation. This is likely “too much information” to read, unless you are a symphony conductor.
To customize the notation display for sequencer mode, press the lead sheet op tions button and see the
settings for Multi-Channel Track display.
Note: These settings are only visible when the track type for the
Melody or Soloist is set to Multi (16) – Channel.
Select “CUSTOM channels play/display” and press the [Set…] button to launch the Sequencer Window (Multichannel track on Melody/Soloist) dialog. Then you can customize which channels will play and display.
This dialog can also be opened by clicking on the [SE Q] b utt on on the t o ol bar.
In the example picture, we have set Channel 2 (Bass) and Channel 4 (Trumpet) to show on the notation, and have set
all of the channels to play (to hear them).
For a specific channel, (e.g. channel 3: piano), we see the following information.
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Channel 3: Acoustic Piano (this is the patch name found on the track).
842 There are 842 events in the track; usually every note is an event.
We have customized the piano track so that it can be heard (play=true), but not seen in notation (Show=false).
There is a small button at the right of the track line that allows you to delete/ rechannel or
merge the channel with another channel.
You can also change the patch (instrument) for
that track by using the instrument patch combo box.
Now that we’ve customized the display, we are seeing bass and trumpet on the notation, and hearing the entire track.
The Guitar Window
This is a window for guitar and bass players! The on-screen fretboard displays any track on guitar, bass, mandolin,
ukulele, or banjo. This feature has many option such as auto-setting of correct positions, notes named on-screen,
auto-octave adjust to play in selected position, and a resizable guitar fretboard.
Launching the Guitar Window
To launch the Guitar window, press the Guitar Button, or Ctrl+Shift+G, or choose the Window | Guitar
Window menu item.
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Notice the various areas of the Guitar Window.
- The top title bar states the key of the song is Cm, the Melody track is the track displayed, and the guitar is at the
th
position.
8
- The fretboard is displayed with the highest notes of the guitar at the top, and the open position of the guitar on
the left.
- There are names for the open strings displayed on the left (E B G D A E).
- There are fret positions marked at the bottom of the fretboard. You can mouse click on these positions to
change the current fret position.
- There are Note Names displayed for two positions on the guitar fretboard. One of the positions is the scale
beginning with the third of the scale on the lowest string. In the key of F, this is the 5th position beginning on
an A note (the third of the scale). Because it begins on the third of the scale, this position is referred to as the
Phrygian Position (since an A Phrygian scale is the same as an F scale). Similarly, the other popular scale is the
scale beginning on the 6th of the scale, in the key of F, this is up at the 10th position, and is called the Aeolian
Position.
- There are note names displayed in color, with ellipses around the notes that are in the scale. The root note of
the scale is highlighted in red, the third and fifth of the scale are in purple, and the rest of the scale tones are
circled in gray.
- Pitch bends show up on the Guitar Fretboard. As the pitch bend occurs, a blue line moves along the string in
real time, illustrating the height of the pitch bend. Load in the c:\bb\Tutorial\Pitch Bend demo song. You’ll
then see pitch bends written as a blue color moving along the string.
Automatic Settings for Guitar Display
Band-in-a-Box does a lot of things automatically on the Guitar window to ensure that the notes are displayed
intelligently on a guitar fretboard. These include:
- Automatically setting the two positions that will display the note names based on the key.
- Auto-Scanning the track to be played, and adjusting the display octave on the guitar fretboard to ensure that the
best octave is picked to minimize the number of notes that will be outside of the current position displayed on
the fretboard.
- After Auto-scanning the track, the best position for displaying the music on the guitar is determined. This is
always one of the two positions, Aeolian or Phrygian, though you may over-ride this by clicking on any fret
position.
- Color-coding note displays. In addition to the note names being outlined in the colors, when the note is played
it is highlighted in green if it is a scale note and yellow if it is an out-of-scale note.
Alternate Guitar Tunings
The Guitar window supports alternate tunings, including DADGAD, Drop D, Double Drop D, Open G, and 11
others. You can also select “Nashville High Strung” tunings, which tune certain strings up an octave. These tunings
are supported in Styles, Chord Diagrams, Guitar Tutor, Notation, Tab, and Printout. Learn how to play these
tunings by watching the on-screen Guitar Fretboard or Notation/Tab window. Easily change any style to use the
alternate tuning that you want.
In this discussion, we’ll be referring to DADGAD tuning, a popular alternate tuning. The same reasoning applies to
all of the other alternate tunings available.
There are four ways you can use Band-in-a-Box playing in DADGAD (or any alternate) tunings.
1. See any Melody (or Soloist track) displayed in DADGAD tuning. This will display on the guitar fretboard,
tab, and printout.
2. See guitar parts (chording etc.) in DADGAD tuning, using correct chord shapes. For this, choose a style
that has DADGAD tuning, and v i ew the guitar part.
3. Use the Guitar Tutor, to view DADGAD chording for any style.
4. View guitar chord diagrams in DADGAD tuning, by setting the Notation Window Options “Guitar
Chord” to “DADGAD.”
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Guitar Fretboard
To see the guitar neck displayed in DADGAD, choose Melody | Track Type | Guitar – DADGAD Tuning.
When you open up the Guitar window and choose the Melody track, you’ll see the DADGAD tuning.
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Any melody will now display in the chosen tuning. Similarly, you can set the Soloist track to an alternate guitar
tuning with the Soloist | Track Type menu.
The Guitar track (or Piano, Strings) is controlled by the style, and will only reflect the type of tuning stored in the
style. Load in some alternate tuning styles included in Styles Set #44 – Requested 4 to see the chording on the
guitar track in alternate tunings. Another way to see the guitar play chords in alternate tunings is to use the “Guitar
Tutor.”
Select DADGAD tuning, and enable guitar Tutor.
Now, during playback, you will see guitar chords on the guitar fretboard in DADGAD tuning.
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The examples above are for DADGAD tuning, but apply similarly to all 11 alternate tunings included.
Some of the tunings are “Nashville High Strung.” These tuning have the lowest 3 strings tuned up an octave, to
achieve a close sound. So a DADGAD High Strung tuning would have the lowest 3 strings “DAD” tuned up an
octave. Listen to some style examples that use this tuning.
One of the tutors uses 3 note Jazz voicings to simulate the famous BigBand chord guitar comping styles. If you use this tutor you'll only see 3 notes in the chords of course. Since it
sometimes helps to see the entire 4 chord voicing in this case, there is the option to show the muted note as well.
The Tutor normally just shows the guitar part without
writing it to any track. If you want to see the track in notation copy it to the Melody or Soloist track.
Guitar Window Toolbar
At the bottom of the Guitar window is the toolbar.
The [Set…] button opens the Guitar Settings dialog, which allows you to set the guitar
numeric keypad and will advance or go back one chord at a time, leaving the chord displayed on the guitar.
This is the name of the current note that the mouse is over. If you click on the guitar at that position, the
note will sound.
If the Notation Window is open (in Editable Notation or Staff Roll mode), that note will get inserted on the notation
at the current position on the timeline – you can disable that option to insert notes.
options.
These buttons will chord step advance, or note-step advance. The chord step advance is the
most commonly used function. It is also accessible by the hotkeys Ins and Del on the
When you open the Guitar Window, the first thing you'll want to do is choose the track
that you want to display. Usually this will be a Melody track or a Soloist track.
In the diagram here, the Melody track is the current track, and it has a red rectangle around it to indicate this.
To get to the Soloist track, you would click on the [S] button or use the hotkey Ctrl+F5, which toggles between the
Melody and the Soloist. Similarly, you can display other tracks like Bass, Piano, or Strings.
The “position” button. This toggles between the two popular positions displayed with note names.
There is a Guitar Tutor button.
Generate a guitar chord solo based on the existing Melody track using correct guitar fret positions.
guitar chord changes to a different voicing, cycling through the available 5-10 voicings possible for each chord.
(Some notes won't have any chord voicings, for example a C# note on a Cmaj7 chord, because it is always a passing
tone.)
When you have a note or chord highlighted press the [Ch-] or [ Ch+ ] (insert guitar chord) button on the
guitar, or 7 or 8 on the NUMPAD keypad. Each time you press the [Ch-] or [Ch+] you'll see that the
In a similar manner, you can convert a chord to a guitar note using the insert guitar note button.
Pressing the [N+] (or 3 or 4 on the NUMPAD keypad) repeatedly cycles through playing the
same note on all 6 strings.
Big Piano Window
The Big Piano window can display the notes of any track on a resizable piano keyboard. You can also set the range
of the piano and number of octaves to display. Additionally, you can display notes names or guide notes --showing
the scale notes of the current key. Notes can be displayed using a different color for each note. There's an “AutoOctave” setting that will scan the track to be displayed and auto-size the piano to the largest size that would display
all of the notes. This 'Big Piano' makes it easier to learn piano parts from within Band-in-a-Box.
The Big Piano window is launched (or closed) by pressing the piano icon on the toolbar at the right-middle
of the screen, or by pressing Ctrl+Shift+N, or choosing Window | Big Piano Window.
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- The default settings for this feature can be customized by pressing the [Settings…] button.
- The Big Piano window displays a single track on the piano.
- The piano can be resized by dragging the bottom of the window to enlarge it vertically.
- The key of the song is displayed at the top.
- The range of the piano is set automatically (based on the actual notes in the track) to show the largest possible
piano).
- The notes of the scale are circled on the piano, with the note names included.
- The root of the scale is colored in red. As the song plays, scale tones are colored green; other notes are colored
yellow.
- The name of the note that the mouse cursor is over is highlighted at the top of the window. Clicking on the Big
Piano plays a note (using the Thru part) and this can be recorded or sent to the Notation window when entering
notation. You can select the track to use by clicking the [B|D|P|G|S|M|S] line of buttons.
Play the Jukebox
Use the
play all or the songs in a folder. The Õ Juk button plays the previous song in the
Click the [Juke] button to open the Options for Juke Box dialog where you’ll see a list of options that lets you
control how the songs in the chosen list or directory are played.
You could choose to only play songs with melodies or solos, and to randomly change the melody instrument.
Songs can be played in random order, or in the order they are listed.
Hide the song titles and play the “Guess the Song” game.
You can optionally disable the count-in.
The “Change Harmony” setting will randomly assign harmonies within a specified range of harmony numbers.
Solos can be generated over all the songs selected for Jukebox playback.
“Auto-Choose Soloists” lets the program choose the soloists, and “Change Soloist Instrument w/ each chorus” has
the program select a new instrument for each chorus of the solo.
Use the “Preview” feature to audition a complete directory of songs automatically by playing a part of each song and
then moving on to the next one.
Specify a selectable time delay (in seconds) between songs.
Check “Loop Jukebox at end” for continuous jukebox play rather than stopping at the end of the list.
You can type a folder name directly, or click on [Change Directory] to use the folder dialog.
When you have chosen the options you want, click [PLAY JUKE BOX] to play all the songs in the selected
directory folder.
directory; the Juk Ö button plays the next song in alphabetical order. The Jukebox
will play continuous background music while you move to other Windows programs.
Jukebox for continuous playback of a whole list of Band-in-a-Box songs or to
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Band-in-a-Box Jukebox options di al o g.
In the main screen, click on the [F] button to open the Favorite Songs list and make your own
custom set lists for the Jukebox.
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- Use the [Clear] button to blank the list.
- Songs can be added or removed from the list with the [Insert], [Append], and [Delete] buttons.
- Use the [Save Set..] button to save the list of selected songs.
- The [Load Set] button loads a saved list of songs.
- The [Juke..] button plays through the list of songs automatically, like a jukebox.
This is a great feature for saving a list of current song projects, or for performing a live set with Band-in-a-Box
accompaniment.
Import a MIDI File
With the amazing Band-in-a-Box Chord Wizard, you can conv ert any MIDI file into a Band-in-a-Box song,
complete with Melody and Soloist parts. Then apply all of the powerful music making features of Band-in-a-Box to
create new accompaniments, add harmonies, add soloing, and embellish the melody. And when you're finished, you
can always resave your song as a MIDI file again.
MIDI File Chord Interpretation Wizard
You can open up any MIDI file in Band-in-a-Box, and Band-in-a-Box will automatically figure out the chords of the
song for you. It automatically analyzes the MIDI file, figu res out w here the bass, piano, melody and other tracks
are, and then figures out the chord changes for the song. The chords are written onto the Band-in-a-Box Chordsheet
like any other song. You can also read tracks into the Melody and Soloist tracks.
To interpret a MIDI file, go to File | Import Chords from MIDI file or use the keystroke combination Ctrl+Alt+I.
This launches the Interpret Chords from MIDI file dialog where either user settings or presets can be applied to
specify how the chords should be interpreted.
Select a preset or choose custom settings for the MIDI Chord Wizard.
You can open an entire MIDI file into Band-in-a-Box. The chords will be automatically interpreted by the Chord
Wizard and the MIDI file will play and display on the Melody track. A “silent” style will be load ed so you'll only
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hear the MIDI file. When the file is saved, the extension will be MGX, allowing you to easily identify the BB songs
that you have that contain entire MIDI files.
Sequencer Mode
There are 2 tracks in Band-in-a-Box to add your own recordings. These are the Melody and Soloist tracks.
Normally you would want a single part on each of them. But, since MIDI information can have separate channels, it
is possible to store 16 separate parts on each of the Melody and Soloist parts. When the track has been set to “Multi
(16) -Channel” we refer to this as “Sequencer Mode.”
If you want to use the 16 separate parts for the Melody track, you need to set the Melody Track type to “Multi (16) Channel.”
This is done from the Melody (or
Soloist) menu, or can be done by
pressing the Sequencer button.
Now, when you are in this multi-channel mode, output from the Melody part will be on whatever MIDI channel the
information is stored on, and will not be using the Melody MIDI channel. Both the Melody and Soloist tracks can
be set to multi-channel play, for at total of 32 channels.
Automatic Songs - “The Melodist”
Feel like composing a brand new song? With Band-in-a-Box you can compose a new song, in the style of your
choice complete with intro, chords, melody, arrangement, and improvisations, all created by the program! All you
have to do is pick from one of the “Melodists” and press [OK] - the program then automatically generates the intro,
chords, melody, and arrangement in the chosen style. It even auto-generates a title! You can go from nothing to a
completed song in less than 1 second!
You can also auto-regenerate any part of a song and modify it to suit you. The Melodist will also generate a melody
over an existing chord progression. A “Melodist Juke Box” mode creates and performs new compositions in
succession.
Launching the Melodist
To launch the Melodist, press the [Melodist] button on the main screen, or use the Shift+F5 hot
keys.
Melodists can be filtered by “Genre” (e.g. EZ listening) to show
only Melodists in that genre.
You can also filter to show/not show Melodists from Melodist
sets that you don’t have.
Check “Show if N/A” to list all Melodists, even if they are not
present in the :\bb folder.
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Choose Melodist settings in the Generate Chords and/or Melody dialog.
Note: Band-in-a-Box also has a SoundTrack feature that allows you to generate music in the style you choose
for any length of time you specify. Click on the SoundTrack toolbar button to launch this feature.
Make Your Own Songs
Now that you see how much fun it is to play music with Band-in-a-Box, you’ll be pleased to discover how easy it is
to make songs of your own. This section shows you how with step-by-step instructions from start to finish.
Making a New Song
Clear the Chordsheet
Click on the [New] button to blank the Chordsheet.
Name the Song
Enter the title of the song by clicking in the title area and typing in the name.
Choose a Key
Click on the Key Select List and choose the key of your song instantly.
It's easy to change the key by simply selecting another key from the list. Click on “YES” when the
program asks, “OK to transpose WorkSheet” and Band-in-a-Box will automatically transpose the
entire song into the chosen key.
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Type in the Chords
The chords we will enter are F, Bb, and C7. Mouse click on the first cell in the Chordsheet
Chord Box
and type f. The letter f will appear in the chord box. Press the Enter key to enter the chord
F on the first beat of bar one. The Enter key advances the chord cell ½ bar at a time, i.e., 2
beats in 4/4 time.
Next, type the letters bb and press Enter to put a Bb chord on beat three of bar one. The highlight cell will advance
to bar two, type c7 and press Enter.
Tip: A chord can be entered on each beat. To enter two chords in the highlight cell type a comma between the two chord
names as shown in the example above.
This song will have no intro, and the chorus will be 32 bars long. The chord sheet we want to end up with will look
like this:
Chordsheet and Song Title window with chords and song settings.
Copying and Pasting Chords
Since many songs repeat the same sequence of chords throughout, a faster method to enter a song into Band-in-aBox is to COPY and PASTE the repeating chords.
Highlight a section of chords by dragging the mouse over them while holding the left mouse button. The area will
be highlighted in black. You can also select a region of the chordsheet by cl i cki ng o n t he first bar in the region and
then holding down the Shift key and clicking on the last bar in the region. This will highlight all bars in the region.
Press Ctrl+C, or select the Edit | Copy menu item. The highlighted area will be copied to the Windows clipboard.
It can then be pasted back into the Chordsheet at any location, and reused as many times as you like.
Use the arrows keys or the mouse to move the
highlight cell to the destination bar where you
want to paste the chords.
Paste the copied section with press Ctrl+V command, or select the Edit | Paste menu item. The chords will then
appear at the new location.
Choose a Style
Pressing the [Style] button will open the Select Style dialog box where you can choose from the
hundreds of available styles.
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Load Previous Style, Load Next Style.
This function, analogous to the Load Next Song function, loads in the previous (or next) style in alphabetical order
of the file name. These functions are found in the Styles menu, or with the hot keys Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F8 (or
Alt+Shift+F8).
“Framing” the Song
A typical song contains the following three basic components:
- Intro: If present, an intro is typically 4 bars long.
- Chorus(es): Typically 3 or 4 choruses in a 3 minute song.
- Ending: Typically a 2 bar ending following all of the choruses.
Note: We use the term “chorus” here as it is used in Jazz music. A chorus therefore means once through the entire form of the
song. The typical length of a chorus is 32 bars. A song may have the form AABA where the A sections are verses and the B
section is the Bridge. This entire form AABA is considered one chorus.
Intro
In Band-in-a-Box, you can select the beginning and ending bars of the chorus (see below). If you select a bar
greater than 1 for the first bar of the chorus, then the program assumes that you want to use the bars prior to this for
an Intro.
Example: 4 bar intro to a song.
Type in the 4 bars of intro chords, starting at bar 1 of the chordsheet. Then, at bar 5, you will begin typing-in the
main chords of the chorus. Set the beginning of the chorus to bar 5 by clicking on the chorus begin button.
Framing a song designates the first and last bars of each chorus and the number of choruses Band-in-a-Box will play
before playing the standard 2 bar ending.
Here we have selected bar one to be the first bar of the chorus and bar 32 to
be the last. The chorus will play three times, jumping to the two bar ending
the third time through.
With the “Loop” checkbox enabled the entire song will keep repeating until stopped. (This is a different feature
from the “LoopSec” checkbox, which loops a selected section of the song.) The “FakeSh” checkbox is for a “fake
sheet” style of chordsheet display with 1
st
and 2nd endings and repeats.
The [S] button opens the Song Settings dialog for additional settings such as endings, tags, style variations, pushes,
rests, and chord embellishments.
Set the tempo
The tempo is displayed on the main screen under the title with a default setting of 120 beats per minute.
Let’s set the tempo to 160 beats per minute (bpm). Click the mouse on the arrow buttons to adjust
the tempo.
- LEFT mouse click to change by 5 beats per minute at a time.
- RIGHT mouse click to change by 1 beat per minute at a time.
You can quickly enter a specific tempo for the song by clicking on the tempo (hot key is Ctrl+Alt+T, or menu item
Play | Tempo | Set Tempo…), and a dialog will open up allowing you to type in a tempo. Similar dialogs are
available for Volume, Panning, Reverb, Chorus, and Bank settings.
Tap the tempo
Not sure of the tempo for your song? Tap it in real time on either the minus [-] key or the equals [=] key on your
computer keyboard. Four taps on the minus key sets the tempo, four taps on the equals key sets the tempo and starts
the song playing. This can also be done by clicking the mouse on the onscreen [-] and [=] buttons to the right of the
tempo box.
Finishing the Song Arrangement
Use the powerful musical intelligence of features like the Harmonies and the Soloist to add the final touches to your
song. The Edit Settings for Current Bar dialog (F5 function key) lets you fine tune your arrangement by changing
patches, styles, harmonies, tempo, and meter anywhere in the song.
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Add variations in the Edit Settings for Current Bar dialog.
Record a Melody
Band-in-a-Box has two built-in sequencer tracks so you can record and edit your own melodies or solos. These
tracks are recorded from a MIDI keyboard (or other MIDI controller) connected to Band-in-a-Box by your MIDI
driver.
You can record up to 16 separate tracks on the Melody or Soloist part. Or simply load any MIDI file to
the either part and edit the channels.
This allows for counter-melodies or additional instrument parts. Simply set the track to “Multi-Channel” then
record the part, and specify the channel number. Each channel displays separately on the notation window.
A Sequencer Window dialog allows for easy editing of the channels and patches with commands for deleting and
re-channeling.
If you want a metronome to play while you are recording, you can select it in the Opt. | Preferences dialog. You can
even have a visual metronome if you like.
Press the [Rec] toolbar button to begin recording. This launches the Record Melody dialog box, which prompts
you to set the position (bar and chorus) where you wish to start recording.
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Pressing the [Record] button will start
Band-in-a-Box recording what you play
on the Thru track. An audible count-in is
played prior to recording.
You can punch in/out, overdub, and record
directly to the ending or the tag, and use
the filter to choose which MIDI events are
recorded.
Once you have completed recording your
melody, Band-in-a-Box will ask you if you
would like to keep the take and if you
would like to copy the recorded chorus to
the whole song.
Tip: Looking for inspiration? At the click of a button, the Band-in-a-Box Melodist will write entire new songs from scratch, complete
with Chords, Intro, Melody, Solo, Ending, and even an original Title. Or you can enter your own chord changes and let the Melodist
create a new melody over them. There are more than 100 Jazz, Pop, Rock, Latin, Country, and Classical melody styles.
Embellishing the Melody
When musicians see a Lead Sheet that has a melody written out, they almost never play it exactly as written. They
change the timing to add syncopation, change durations to achieve staccato or legato playing, add grace notes, slurs,
extra notes, vibrato, and other effects. Now you can have Band-in-a-Box do these automatically using the
Embellisher.
If you enable the Embellisher, any Melody will be embellished as it is played so that you hear a
livelier and more realistic Melody - and it's different every time.
The Embellisher button opens the Melody Embellisher dialog with many user options to control
the embellishment settings. The Embellisher Presets allow you to choose a combination of
common settings for the Embellisher quickly.
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The Embellisher Memo describes the current
embellishment, with statistics counting the number of
embellished notes.
You can save/load your own presets for the Embellisher.
When you have made a custom setting in the Embellisher dialog, press the Export button to save
the data as an .EMB file.
When you want to recall the saved preset, press the Import button, and load in a previously made .EMB file. You
can share your favorite presets with other installations of Band-in-a-Box using the EMB files.
Adding Note-Based Lyrics to Your Song
Open the Notation window by pressing the notation button.
Press the [L] button on the Notation toolbar. The Lyric Edit window opens up and the current no te is
highlighted. In this example, lyrics have already been entered in bars 1 and 2, and the first note of bar three
is highlighted. The first syllable of the word “Swanee” has been typed in the lyric box.
Now by pressing [Enter] or [Tab] “Swa –” will be entered under the highlighted note and the highlight will
automatically advance to the next note.
Viewing the Lyrics
The big [L] button in the user configurable toolbar opens the Big Lyrics/Karaoke window. The font and
colors are selectable, you can show or hide the chords, and words highlight as the music plays.
Entering note-based lyrics.
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Band-in-a-Box Big Lyrics window.
Digital Audio Features
There is a File | Open Audio command, to open WAV,
WMA, MP3, WMV, or CD Audio files. Once opened, you can play the audio track along with a Band-in-a-Box
song.
Open an MP3/WAV/WMA or audio CD track, and play back at 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8 speed without affecting pitch. This
is great for transcribing or analyzing audio. To play it at a slower speed, choose the desired speed on the Play |
Tempo menu.
Audio Chord Wizard (Chords from MP3)
This amazing wizard automatically figures out the chords from any MP3, WAV, or WMA (Windows
Media Audio) file and displays them in Band-in-a-Box.
Just load in any MP3 file and you’ll instantly see the chords.
As well as the chords of the song, the Audio Chord Wizard also figures out,
- the tempo of the file,
- bar lines throughout the song,
- fine tuning detection (e.g. 5 cents sharp from A440),
- key of the song,
The digital audio capability offered in Band-in-a-Box enables you to combine MIDI music with live digital audio
recordings of voice and live instruments in a fully produced arrangement.
It also offers the ability to render a MIDI or MIDI+AUDIO composition into a single digital audio wave file. This
file can then be converted into a CD-Audio or streaming Internet audio file.
Digital audio features are fully described in the Working With Audio chapter.
Record a Vocal or Any Live Instrument
To start recording audio, plug your instrument or microphone into the computer’s sound card. The Line Out from
electronic instruments or amplifiers can be plugged directly into the Line In jack. To record your voice, or an
acoustic instrument such as a flute, plug a microphone into the Mic jack.
If you have a Sound Blaster card, this button is used to select the Micropho ne input and/or Line In input
to record digital audio. The Windows mixer Record settings can also be used.
Open the Record Audio dialog box with the [R. Aud] button. This dialog box lets you set the parameters
for the recording session.
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