PG Music Band in a Box - 2009 Windows Upgrade Manual
Band-in-a-Box
Version 9
for Windows
Copyright PG Music Inc. 1999. All Rights Reserved.
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PG Music Inc. License Agreement2
Table of Contents
PG MUSIC INC. LICENSE AGREEMENT 2
TABLE OF CONTENTS 3
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 6
CHAPTER 2: SUMMARY OF NEW FEATURES 7
Notation Enhancements 8
StyleMaker Enhancements 10
CHAPTER 3: QUICK-START TUTORIAL 12
Quick-Start Tutorial For Version 9 Upgrade 12
Band-in-a-Box: Over view 12
Explore BB Version 9.0 12
Find these buttons on the main screen: 13
Let's RENDER a BB song to audio. 15
Let's Add a GUITAR CHORD SOLO to an existing song. 16
Let's input some Lyrics to Old Folks at Home 18
Let's check out Styles Disk #19 … 20
CHAPTER 4: AUDIO FEATURES 21
Audio Features Overview 21
Using The New Audio Features. 21
Audio Items on Main Screen 22
Audio Menu 23
Audio Track Recording 25
Applying Audio Plugins 29
Audio Rendering 31
CHAPTER 5: LYRICS FEATURES 36
Table of Content s 3
New Lyrics Features 36
Other Lyric Functions 42
CHAPTER 6: GUITAR ENHANCEMENTS 44
CHAPTER 7: THE 'GUITARIST' 48
Select Guitarist Window. 48
Guitarist Maker 52
Strumming Settings 54
CHAPTER 8: STYLE SELECTION ENHANCEMENTS 57
CHAPTER 9: STYLEMAKER ENHANCEMENTS 59
CHAPTER 10: BIG PIANO WINDOW 61
CHAPTER 11: NOTATION ENHANCEMENTS 63
CHAPTER 12: HARMONY ENHANCEMENTS 65
CHAPTER 13: OTHER NEW FEATURES 67
APPENDIX A: "AUDIO PLUGINS" 71
DSP Effects - A Primer 71
APPENDIX B: STYLES DISKS #15 – #19
DOCUMENTATION 91
Styles Disk #15 : Nashville Country Styles for Band-in-a-Box 91
Styles Disk #16: All Blues Styles for Band-in-a-Box 94
Styles Disk #17: Unplugged Styles for Band-in-a-Box 98
Styles Disk #18: Praise and Worship Styles for Band-in-a-Box 102
Table of Content s4
Styles Disk #19: 'Requested' Styles for Band-in-a-Box 105
PG MUSIC INC. CONTACT INFORMATION 111
PG MUSIC INC. MUSIC SOFTWARE PROGRAMS 112
INDEX 125
Table of Content s 5
Chapter 1: Introduction
This documentation covers the new feature s in Band-in-a-Box Version 9.
!
Chapter 2 is a Summary of the New Features
!
Chapter 3 is a Quick-Start Tutorial
!
Chapters 2-13 and Appendix A-B describe the New Features in detail
This major ne w upgra d e t o Ba nd -in -a -B o x includes over 5 0 new feature s! We've
added a full featured digital audio track, so you can add live vocals or guitar
playing to your song. There's also an intelligent style selection wizard which
shows you what style s would wor k best in your son g, high lighti ng all styl es t hat
have a similar tempo, genre, and feel. Guitarists will love the guitar
enhancements, tablature display, and a great automatic feature that creates a pro
quality guitar chord solo to any melody, displayed perfectly on the guitar
fretboard. There's a new
Big Piano Window
names. And much more…Read on for details!
There have been many improvements and added features in Version 9.0 for
Windows. People familiar with the previous versions of Band-in-a-Box will be
pleased to know that we have kept the same functionality of our previous
releases. All of the new features are optional and don't interfere with familiar
methods of using the program. All songs, styles etc. are completely compatible
with previous versions, so that you can upgrade without losing any of your
existing work.
Big Lyrics Window
that displays a piano with large size keys and optional note
with selectable font and size, and a
Chapter 1: Introduction6
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features
New Features in Band-in-a-Box Version 9 are ...
•
Audio Track! –
live guitar part. No problem with version 9. You can easily record a track of
CD quality audio using the new audio features. Plug in your guitar or a
microphone to your soundcard, press the Microphone record button in
Band-in-a-Box, and Band-in-a-Box will add your track to the song. You can
overdub the audio parts to add in harmonies etc. The MIDI and audio tracks
are compatible with other sequencers and sound programs (like
PowerTracks Pro Audio, SoundForge, Cubase or Cakewalk), so your full
MIDI and Audio performance can be used in these other programs.
•
Save Song as wave file (.WAV)
as MIDI files. Now you can directly export the song as a .WAV file as well.
This is referred to as 'rendering' the file from MIDI to audio. Once you have
it as a .WAV file, you can send it to others, or put it on the Internet, and
they will hear it exactly as you did. Or use "CD-burning" software to save
the .WAV file onto a conventional audio CD, so your Band-in-a-Box
creations will play in standard audio CD players.
•
Save song in Internet formats.
audio files that take up less space than a wave file. Band-in-a-Box can save
files directly in these 'compressed audio' formats, using the drivers that
come with Windows. (Note: you must have already have these drivers with
your Windows system, t hey are not inc luded with Band-in-a-Box.)
•
Note-based lyrics.
a "line at a time". We've added note-based lyrics. This allows more accurate
placement of lyrics as you can place a word under each note. As you enter
the lyrics, the note is highlighted, and pressing the TAB or Enter key moves
to the next word. Note-based lyrics are saved with the MIDI file, so you can
use them in your other MIDI programs.
Feel like ad ding voca ls to your B and-i n-a-Bo x song? Or a
Band-in-a-Box normally exports it songs
There are many new formats for saving
Previous versio ns of Band-i n-a-Bo x had lyri cs based on
•
Big Lyrics (Karaoke) Window.
Band-in-a-Box. Selectable font, font size, and Window size. This is great
for singalongs or 'Karaoke' .
•
Style Selection Enhancements
been made much easier, and more fun! When you open the new StylePicker
Window, it shows you which styles would work best in your song,
highlighting all styles that have a similar tempo, genre, and feel to your
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features 7
We've added a 'Big Lyrics Window' to
. Selecting a styl e to use for your so ng has
song. You can
they'll sound li ke in your song. T he windo w rememb ers the st yle and ge nre
that you've used, and will return to it the next time you visit the window.
preview
styles before loading them so you can hear what
•
Big Piano Window
the notes of any track on a piano keyboard. You can set the size of the
Window, range of the piano, and number of octaves to display. You can
also 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 "Auto-Octave" 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-aBox.
•
Guitar Tablature.
Tablature, that displays any track in standard Guitar TAB. This can be seen
on the notation screen, leadsheet window or printed out.
•
Automatic Guitar Chord Solos to any Song!
and learn a professional quality guitar chord solo to your favorite song!
Load in any song with a Melody into Band-in-a-Box (or generate a song
with a melody). Then open the Guitar Window and Press the 'AutoGenerate Chord Solo' button . Band-in-a-Box then generates a chord solo on
guitar for that song, using the same guitar chords that the pros use. Chord
types can be selected to use standard, advanced, or embellished chords. The
chord solo plays on the correct positions on the guitar window, so you can
see the performance played on guitar. Or view it in notation, or TAB , and
print it out!
. We've added a new Big Piano Window, sho wing you
The notation screen now has an option for Guitar
Now you can e asily make
•
'Jazz Up' the Chords, 'Jazz Down' the Chords.
(from Pop to Jazz, or Jazz to Pop) , its often necessary to change the chords
from 'Pop/Rock' chords (C) to Jazz Type chords (Like CMaj7) . Now you
can quickly do this, by new menu options called 'Jazz Up', 'Jazz Down'.
•
Convert Harmony Part to Notation track.
harmony, the har mony parts woul dn't be seen on the notat ion, you would
only see the lead part. Now you can write the harmony part directly to the
notation track, so you can see it and print it out, just like any other part.
When switchi ng genres
Previously if you added a
Notation Enhancements
•
Keystroke Note Editing.
now. By stepping through the notes one-by-one, when a note is highlighted
you can cha nge the pitch using the cursor keys, and ot her values (timing,
You can easil y edit notes usi ng only keystr okes
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features8
duration, cha nnel) with other hot keys. T his speed s up edit ing of note s. For
example, you can record a song using the Melody Wizard, which will have
the correct timing and durations but incorrect pitches. Then you can quickly
step through t he note s of t he song, u sing t he cur sor up/ do wn keys to fix t he
notes, and you'll end up with a Melody as good as if you had played it on a
MIDI keyboard.
•
Notation range.
You can specify an upper limit of a note range so that
high notes won't result in an excessive number of ledger lines.
•
Enhanced Event List Editing.
You can edit events including all MIDI
events and lyric events using the new Event List.
•
Harmony enhancements.
You can specify a harmony to only occur for
notes longer than a certain duration. There are new options for how the
program 'fixes' the harmony when chord changes occur during a sustained
note harmony. And there's a 'use guitar voicings' harmony type that uses
real guitar chord voicings that display correctly on the guitar fretboard.
We've enhanced the existi ng harmoni es file to t ake advanta ge of these new
features, so your harmonies will sound better.
•
Solo Around The Melody option.
There's a new option for the Soloist part
to create a solo around the melody, that is solo at times when the Melody is
silent.
•
Add your own chord shortcuts.
Have you found a chord that BB doesn't
recognize? If so, add it to the your chord shortcuts file, and BB will allow
you to type in that chord in the future. This also lets you define chord
"shortcuts", one letter abbreviations for longer chord names ('J" for "Maj7"
etc.).
•
Read in Chords from a PowerTracks or Band-in-a-Box MIDI file.
Many of PG Music's programs have MIDI files with the chords in them.
You can open these files in Band-in-a-Box, and the chords will be imported
onto the chord sheet.
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features 9
StyleMaker Enhancements
•
Larger style limit.
allowing for bigger styles.
•
Copy all 'a' substyle patterns to 'b' slots.
a volume increase tweaking is required for the 'b' substyle.
•
Delete all patterns
•
Pattern trim routine
(optionally) a specified distance from the end of a pattern.
•
Event list
•
Enhanced Song List Window.
pressing the SONG button) used to have a limit of 800 songs. This has been
enhanced to 5,000 songs, and full information shows for each song (title,
filename, stylename , Melody/ Lyric / style present status). The window
auto-sizes to fill the screen.
•
Song Endings option.
to the end of the song. This new option gives you an alternative to end the
song on the last bar of the song. Band-in-a-Box will still play an ending on
the chord that you specify, and the ending will occur as a 2 bar phrase
beginning 2 bars before the end of the form. This results in more natural
endings for many songs.
for Editing Notes in patterns using a list.
Previous limit was 40K for styles. This is now 65K,
This feature is handy when only
in this row option added.
that deletes notes past the end of a pattern, or
The Song List Window (accessed by
The usual Band -i n-a-B ox e ndi ng is 2 ba rs ap pe nded
•
New Lyric Functions
lyrics and the new note-based lyrics), we've added functions to convert
note-based lyrics to line lyrics. This will update your old songs that might
have line-based lyrics to note-based. The copy-lyrics-to-clipboard feature
has been enhanced, you can select which elements should be copied, margin
size, etc.
•
Enhanced Volume Control.
increase the volume) , if you hold down the Alt key while clicking on the
volume change, it will also decrease the volume of the other parts. This is
especially useful when you've reached the maximum volume of a part, but
still 'want it to be louder'. By holding down the alt key, the other vol umes
get reduced, which has the desired effect. This is most useful for Melody
parts, or the THRU part that you are playing along.
. Since there are now 2 types of lyrics (line-based
When adjusting the volume of a part (say to
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features10
Easy
•
STEREO/MONO panning menu items
set the instruments to a stereo panning or mono panning.
. These allow you to quickly
•
Total time for song in Minutes and seconds
are now displayed at the top
of the screen (e.g. 4:58).
•
Polyphonic adjust of Melody tracks
. This function will convert a
polyphonic track to a monophonic track by eliminating note overlap,
optionally preserving the double stops (chords) in the track.
If a song has an intro, its usually not necessary to play the 2 bar lead-in
•
count. There's a new option to always
OMIT the lead-in
if an intro is
present.
•
"K"- Quick-Copy-Option.
By simply typing K at a bar (followed by
ENTER key), you can instantly copy the last 8 bars to the current position.
By adding additional keys in the K command, you can customize this (e.g.
Typing K12,3 would copy from bar 3 for 12 bars to the current position.
The current position is advanced to the bar beyond the cop y. This speeds up
song entry!
… and more!
Chapter 2: Summary of New Features 11
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial
Quick-Start Tutorial For Version 9 Upgrade
The full description of the new features in Version 9 of Band-in-a-Box are
provided elsewhere. This tutorial is a
Version 9.
Band-in-a-Box: Overview
It is assumed that you are somewhat familiar with the previous relea se of
Band-in-a-Box. If not, here is a brief "primer".
automatic accompaniment program. Type in the chords to any song (like C or
Fm7b5) , pick a style, and press
referred to) then automatically generates a full backing arrangement of piano,
bass, drums, guitar and strings. This allows you to, by typing in the chord
progressions, quickly build up a library of songs. Over the years BB has added
new features, such as a Notation Window, Notation Printout, Melody track,
auto-Harmonization and a StyleMaker allowing you to create your own styles.
With recent releases of BB (version 7/8), we added major new features called
"The Soloist" and "The Melodist". BB can, using the Soloist, automatically
generate a professional quality solo improvisation along to any chord
progression. This is written to the Soloist Track. The Melodist creates songs
from scratch, including Chords, Melodies and even a Title.
quick-start
PLAY
. Band-in-a-Box (or "BB" as it often
tour of the new features in
Band-in-a-Box is an
Explore BB Version 9.0
OK, let's begin to explore BB version 9.0.
We'll begin the tutorial in earnest when we get a song playing with the new
guitar, audio, lyric, style selection and guitar features. But first, let's just look
around the main screen.
Boot up the program, and look at the main screen
There are several new areas visible on the main screen:
New Buttons for Version 9
•
New Menu Items
•
New Windows
•
There are new audio features, allowing you to record an audio track along
to any song.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial12
.
Find these buttons on the main screen:
Find the microphone button, this is the way to launch the recording of
audio.
There is a button that allows you to set your Recording inputs. This is
essential, since you need to select Microphone or Line-in if you plan on
recording audio.
Find the playback audio settings button, this allows you to view levels of
playback, and also can lead to the Recording Panel by choosing OptionsProperties-Recording.
Look at the new audio menu, with access to all of the new audio features.
Locate the Render MIDI to Stereo .wav menu item
. This allows you to
convert a BB song to a .wav file, with all of the BB music on it. The other items
on the menu allow utility functions to erase/ delete/ insert p ortions of the audio
that have been recorded.
Let's record an audio section!
Note: We'll assume we're recording vocals using a microphone. Alternatively,
you could be recording a guitar using the line-in on your soundcard.
Load in a song, like Old Folks at Home . MGU (or any song).
Press the microphone button to start recording, or choose the Audio-Record
audio menu item. You'll now see the Audio – Recording Dialog.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial 13
The Dialog usually ope ns up with anot her window at the right – t his is the
Recording Cont ro l .
(Hint: If your soundcard doesn't open with the recording control shown, and
instead shows the playback control, you'll need to select Options-PropertiesRecording in the menu o f t his Mixer – or upgrade from Windo ws 95 to
Windows 98.)
If the Recording Control has not launched, you can manually launch it by
pressing the Recording Control button on the audio dialog.
As you can see from the Recording Control checkboxes at the bottom, we've
selected to record the input from Microphone, and have de-selected the other
options (line-in, audio CD). We've also de-selected record of outgoing MIDI,
since we don't want this to 'bleed' on to our audio track.
Now that we've set the Recording Properties, we can set our VU levels of the
recording.
Press the Test Recording Level button to
do this. As this dialog displays, you can test the level of your microphone
("testing 1 2 3"), so that the VU levels are not too high (should be green/yel l ow,
but not red).
OK, now we're ready to record.
Set the record audio to the start of the song, and press
RECORD.
You'll now hear the 2 bar count-in and can record your voice singing along to
Band-in-a-Box!
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial14
As the song plays, you can look at the VU meters to ensure that you haven't
sung too loud and got into the red zone of the VU meters – indicating a 'clipping'
of the sound.
When you've completed recording your section (say after 16 bars of singing),
press the ESCAPE key or STOP button on the main screen, answer YES to
Keep Audio Take.
Now press SAVE, and Save yo ur new vocal arrangement. Call it "Old
Folks at Home With Vocals. MGU"
Technical note: There'll now be an Old Folks at Home With Vocals .MGU song
with just the BB MIDI information, and there'll also be an Old Folks at Home
With Vocals .WAV audio file with the audio information. If copying this file from
one computer to the next, you'd need to copy both the song and the .WAV file.
Adjust the volume of the wave file using the Audio – Adjust volume permanent
command, or just use the playback Volume Control.
That's the end of the record audio portion of the tutorial.
Let's RENDER a BB song to audio.
Rendering a song i nvolves recor ding the outgoing M IDI and convert ing it to a
.WAV file. This is separate from the recording of an audio track as we've done
in the previous tutorial (though you can include any audio track in the final
rendered wave file).
Load in one of your favorite BB compositions.
Press the Render to .WAV button or choose Audio – Render to .WAV.
This opens the Render Dialog, and the Recording Control panel.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial 15
Use the Recording Control to select recording of OUTGOING MIDI, and deselect everything else, including microphone, line-in and audio CD.
Now press the Render to WAV fi le button.
This begins the process of recording the outgoing MIDI to WAV. The Rendered
wave file name is shown at the top. It will be called "_Old Folks at Home
.WAV" in this example. Note that the underscore at the beginning is a
convention that BB uses to indicate that this is a Rendered wave file.
Press the STOP Render button after about 10 seconds, so that we can test the
level.
Pressing the Test WAV allows us to hear the WAV played by the
Windows Media Player.
If we're satisfied with the recording levels
and playback, then press the Re-Render-to WAV, but this time let it play for the
whole song, and it will auto-stop at the end.
We've now rendered the whole song to audio. We now have the Rendered
WAV file in a file called "c:\bb\_Old Folks at Home.wav". We can work with
this file in a ny o ther p ro gra ms tha t we have , co nvert in g it to othe r aud io for mats
for example.
We can also make a compressed wave file of
this directly inside the BB Render dialog if we want. This is discussed
elsewhere.
That ends the Render to Audio Portion of the tutorial.
Let's Add a GUITAR CHORD SOLO to an existing song.
Load in a song with a Melody on it. We suggest the song GIT_TE ST that should
be in your c:\BB directory. If it isn't there, choose the song "Old Folks at Home"
or any other song with a Melody.
Open the Guitar Window. (Ctrl-Shift-G)
Press the Chord Solo button (or alternatively, you could
choose menu Melody- Convert Melody to Guitar Chord Solo).
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial16
You'll see the Select Guitarist Dialog.
Choose Guitarist #2 "Jazz Guitar Single Position".
(If you've been already changing these setting make sure that the other settings
haven't been changed from their defaults, and that the Fret Position is at 5, Track
is Melody, and Generate is set to Whole song.)
Press OK
You'll now see a confirmatory dialog, indicating that a chord solo has been
added. The music will begin playing and you can hear the chord solo added to
your song. In this case, the whole solo is using chords within the current
position, other Guitarists use a wider range. Listen for the strumming effect on
the guitar, see the authentic guitar voicings on the fretboard, and choice of when
to voice note vs. chord for the arrangements.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial 17
STOP the song. Let's edit this chord solo a little.
Open the Notation Window.
You'll notice that there is guitar tab displayed. This is because the track type for
the Melody has been set to Guitar (automatically by the Chord Solo routine).
You can change this on the Melody menu if you don't want to see tab, b y settin g
the track type to Normal.
On the Guitar Window. Press the Chord Step Advance buttons (INS
and DEL on the NUMPAD). These advance and highlight a chord at a time.
When you have a note o r chor d highl ighted press t he C h- o r 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 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.)
In a similar manner, you can convert a chord to a guitar note, and
use the Insert Guitar Note button for this. Pressing the N+ (or 3 or 4 on the
NUMPAD keypad) repeatedly cycles through playing the same note on all 6
strings.
Save the song as a BB song. The guitar information is stored on channels 11 to
16 of the Melody track, so it will be saved with the correct information. You can
make a MIDI file which will preserve this information, as long as the Melody
Track Type menu item is set to "Guitar".
That ends the guitar portion of the tutorial.
Let's input some Lyrics to Old Folks at Home
Load in the song, Old Folks at Home. MGU.
We'll add lyrics for the first 4 bars, "Way down upon the Swanee River …".
Open up the Notation, and choose the Melody track so that you can see the
Melody for the first 4 bars of Old Folks at Home.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial18
Click on the Lyrics button on the notation
window, this is an L button (on the notation toolbar) , or press Ctrl L. The lyric
edit will open up.
Use ENTER to advance by a chord, and Shift TAB to move back by a chord.
When the highlighted note is on the note for the word "Way" (i.e. Bar 1 Beat 1),
then type "Way" into the edit, and then press Enter to move to the next chord
and type "down" <ENTER> then continue with the rest of the notes, until you
have entered the lyrics for the first 4 bars.
They should now look like this!
You can adjust the heig ht of the l yrics b y pressing t he Notatio n Optio ns butt on,
and setting the lyric height (smaller values like –7 are higher on the notation).
Press Ctrl L (or the Lyrics L button again) to get stop the entering of lyrics.
Now,. Press PLAY and open up the Big Karaoke Window, by pressing
Ctrl-Shift-L or the Big Lyrics Button. (on the main screen).
You'll now see the lyrics in a big font.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial 19
You can see that they are interleaved with the chord names. This is called the
"Busker format", since Buskers usually work with a sheet of chords and words
only.
You can press the Options button to de-select the show chords option, and you'll
just see the lyrics without chords interleaved.
Choose the Option – Lyrics – Copy to clipboard. This will copy the lyrics we've
done, with or without the "Busker format" chords interleaved, to the text
clipboard, so that we can paste the text into other applications like Word or
Notepad for future work.
That ends the Quick Tutorial.
Many other features are described in the documentation of the new features.
Let's check out Styles Disk #19 …
Note: Styles Disk #19: If you ordered Band-in-a-Box 9 as an upgrade, the
package includes Styles Disk #19 (this is not one of the styles disks that are
included in the first time purchase). If you have the first time version of
Band-in-a-Box, and don't have a \bb\styles19 directory, instead use the
\BB\SOLODEMO directory of BB for this example.
To try out the new styles from Styles Disk #19, press the OPEN button and load
in a song from c:\bb\styles19. Once you have a song loaded in, the directory will
be set to c:\bb\styles19. You can then press the SONG button to see a full list o f
the songs.
Since the songs are shipped as short file names, let's convert them to long file
names, using the title of the song as the new file name. Choose File - File
Utilities, Auto Rename to Long File Names. Use the default settings. After
pressing OK, the songs will be converted to long file names. The program may
then rebuild the songlist.doc file. Now load in the demo songs for styles disk
#19, and listen to the new styles.
Press the JukeBox button to hear all of the styles demo'ed.
This is the end of the tutorial. The next sections examine the features in
detail.
Chapter 3: Quick-Start Tutorial20
Chapter 4: Audio Features
Audio Features Overview
•
Audio Track! –
live guitar part. No problem with version 9. You can easily record a track of
CD quality audio using the new audio features. Plug in your guitar or a
microphone to your soundcard, press the Microphone record button in
Band-in-a-Box, and Band-in-a-Box will add your track to the song. You can
overdub the audio parts to add in harmonies etc. The MIDI and audio tracks
are compatible with other sequencers and sound programs (like
PowerTracks Pro Audio, SoundForge, Cubase or Cakewalk ), so your full
MIDI and Audio performance can be used in these other programs.
•
Save Song as wave file (.WAV).
as MIDI files. Now you can directly export the song as a .WAV file as well.
This is referred to as 'rendering' the file from MIDI to audio. Once you have
it as a wave file, you can send it to others, or put it on the Internet, and they
will hear it exactl y as you did. Or use "CD-b urning" software to save the
.WAV file onto a co nventiona l audio CD, so your Band -in-a-B ox creatio ns
will play in standard audio CD players.
•
Save song in Internet f ormats.
audio files that take up less space than a wave file. Band-in-a-Box can save
files directly in some of these 'compressed audio' formats, using the drivers
that come with Windows. (Note: you must already have these drivers with
your Windows system, t hey are not inc luded with Band-in-a-Box.)
Feel like ad ding voca ls to your B and-i n-a-Bo x song? Or a
Band-in-a-B ox no rmall y expor ts it so ngs
There are many new formats for saving
Using The New Audio Features.
You can do the following with the new Audio Track in Band-in-a-Box:
1. Add an audio track to your Band-in-a-Box song, such as vocals, guitar, sax
etc.
2. Process the Audio track using Audio Plugins like reverb, chorus etc. (over
20 plugins included).
3. Export the Audio (and MIDI) track to sequencers like PowerTracks Pro
Audio, Cubase or Cakewalk for further work.
Chapter 4: Audio Features 21
Even if you aren't recording an audio track, you can use the new "
Features
can do the following:
1. Convert a Band-in-a-Box song file to a stereo 44K (CD Quality) .WAV file
2. Use the Rendered .WAV file in your other sequencers (PowerTracks etc.)
3. Convert your compositions to "compressed .WAV" files that don't take up
4. Use third party CD-R burning software like Adaptec EZ-Creator to write
5. Use third party conversion programs (such as Real Player Plus or
There are two types of Audio Features in Band-in-a-Box.
1. The first refers to the "
2. The second refers to "
" to convert an all MIDI "Band-in-a-Box Song" to a .WAV file. You
(with the audio track included as an option)
much space, and are more suitable for Internet use.
the Rendered wave file to an audio CD. This means you can go from a new
song in Band-in-a-Box to a completed song on an audio CD – all on your
PC!
Microsoft Windows Media Tools –available from www.microsoft.com)
to convert your Band-in-a-Box compositions (.WAV files) to the newest
Internet streaming formats.
Audio Track
Mono track that you can use to add vocals etc.
Rendering
MIDI performance in BB to a stereo .WAV file.
". This is a single audio track, 44K
" which is the process of co nverting a
Rendering
The "
Audio Track
" file includes the entire performance (MIDI and Audio Track).
WAV
First we'll describe the features of the Audio Track.
" just includes your added vocals, whereas
the "Rendered
Audio Items on Main Screen
If you look at the BB screen, you can see the new additions for the audio track.
There is a microphone button on the main
toolbar. This is used for audio recording. The 'Record' button to the left of it is
used for MIDI recording.
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Audio Menu
There is now an
The
Record audio
plugged into your soundcard, or a guitar (optionally plugged into a mixer) and
then into the line-in on your soundcard. This launches the Record Audio Dialog
(discussed elsewhere).
The next 2 ite ms (
want to simultaneously record an audio track (vocals etc.) as well as a MIDI
piano part. You can record the MIDI to the Melody or Soloist track.
The
Plugins
applies an audio effect such as Reverb or Chorus to the already recorded audio
part. BB comes with a large selection of high quality audio effects built in –
Audio menu
function is used to Record Audio (using a microphone
Record audio and MIDI
menu command refers to running a 'plugin' audio effect. This
, where all of the audio functions are found.
) refer to the situation where you
The
Kill Entire Audio
menu item is used to erase the Audio Track.
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Erase Audio Choruses
will erase some of the choruses.
Erase Region
Adjust Output level – quick
will erase a specified region of bars/beats of audio.
uses the Wi ndows Mi xer to a djust the output
level of the audio track. You can also use the Windows Mixer directly by
pressing the Speaker icon.
Adjust Level of .WAV file permanently
changes the volume of the audio track
itself. It uses a sophisticated peak-limiting algorithm to ensure that increases in
the volume do not result in 'clipping' of the sound (which would be heard as a
loud distortion). It accepts units of decibels (dB). Zero means no change in the
level, whereas +6 would be a doubling of the sound, and –6 is a halving of the
sound level.
Timeshift audio
in ms (milliseconds) is used to timeshift the whole audio track
a certain number of milliseconds. Normally you wouldn't have to timeshift a
track at all. There are settings in the Audio-Options Dialog (see below) that can
adjust for synchronization differences between your soundcard and MIDI
devices (for example, the VSC-88 has a 430ms latency). But the timeshift audio
command can be useful in special cases. (1000ms = 1 second. Positive values
move the audio track ahead, negative values move it back)
Insert Beats in Audio
and
Delete Beats in Audio
are used to insert silence or
remove parts of the audio track. You can specify the region to use. For example,
if you decide to add an extra 2 bars to the intro in Band-in-a-Box, and you've
already recorded an audio track, you should insert 2 bars (8 beats in a 4/4 time
signature) in the audio track as well.
Render MIDI to Stereo .WAV file
This command launches the dialog that
allows you to Render (convert) the BB song (with or without an audio track) to a
stereo .WAV file. This rendering is discussed in detail elsewhere.
Audio Options Dialog –
this allows you to set options for the audio track, and is
discussed elsewhere.
24
Audio Track Recording
Band-in-a-Box has a single audio track. It is a 44 K mono track (CD quality).
This allows you to record vocals or other instruments using a microphone or
line-in from a mixer or guitar.
To record audio to your song, first prepare the Band-in-Box song (i.e. type in the
chords or load in an existing song).
Then press the microphone button (or choose menu Audio-Record). This
launches the Audio Record Dialog
Before you begin recording, you' ll need to:
1. Set the Recording Properties, this tells
your soundcard (and BB) what sources you would record from. You'd normally
be recording from a microphone or a line-in plug into your soundcard, and you
select those items.
A soundcard is capable of recording from the following sources:
•
Microphone
•
Line –in
•
CD-ROM
you wouldn't be doing this in BB.
•
Outgoing MIDI
'Rendering' the whole BB song to Audio.) This is an important point to
understand when using audio in BB. The soundcard is capable of recording
the outgoing MIDI* that is being sent from your soundcard out to the
speakers. When recording an audio track (vocals etc.), you'd almost
want to record the outgoing MIDI as well (or it would 'bleed' onto t he audio
–plugged into the soundcard e.g. vocals, sax
. e.g. Guitar or Mixer
player – this would record the audio from an audio CD, normally
. (not used when recording audio tracks, but is used if
never
25
track), whereas when Rendering the whole composition to a single .WAV
file, you
always
want to record the outgoing MIDI. It is essential that you
understand this!
*Technical Note: This is only true if you are using the soundcard for your output
MIDI driver. If you have an external MIDI device like the Roland Sound
Canvas, the outgoing MIDI doesn't get recorded – you'd need to route it back
into the line-in to record the MIDI.
When you press the Recording Properties Dialog, you'll see the Recording
Propertie s panel of your soundcard's Mixer.
The Panel displayed here is the typical panel that soundcards use. Newer
soundcards (like the SoundBlaster Live) have additional panels.
From this panel, you can set the recording level for the items you want to record.
Since we are discussing recording of an audio track, this is usually vocals, guitar
etc. We'll be using a microphone input or a line-in. Let's assume we're using a
microphone.
We select the check box to record the microphone.
We de-select the items that we're not using (recording outgoing
MIDI, CD audio recording, and line-in recording).
Then we set the level of the recording input for the microphone.
To do this properly, you'll need to see a
"Recording VU Meter" that shows you the level of input on your soundcard.
This should be done
prior
to recording. You do this by pressing the "Test
Recording Level (VU Meter). While this dialog is open, you can sing (or talk
…"Testing 1 2 3") and you should be able to see the levels of the recording
color coded as green/yellow/red. Ideally the sounds should remain in the green
and avoid the red altogether. Unlike analog recording (where its good to get a
26
"hot" high signal, digital recordings need to absolutely avoid high levels, since
any overload (clipping) of the signal will result in a ruined recording.
When you press the "Test Recording VU Meter" button, this launches the
Windows mixer. The recording settings are on the recording panel of this Mixer.
Note: BB opens the Windows Mixer with the window titled "Recording
Control". On some older systems (Win 95) ,it may open with the Window titled
"Volume Control"- this is the playback window, and you'll need to select the
Recording Control manually by choosing Options-Properties - Recording.
If you don't see any movement on the VU meters , then its possible that your
soundcard shows its VU meters on the Playback panel - the SoundBlaster Live
does this. In this case, you should set the option "Recording VU Meter" to "is on
the Playback Panel"
Next, you should set the start point for the recording. You can record from the
Start of the song, or somewhere in the middle, by choosing a bar and chorus # to
start the record.
In most cases you will only be recording audio, so you should set this to "No
MIDI recording". But if you want to record MIDI at the same time (in a situation
where you were playing a MIDI piano at the same time as you are singing for
example), then you could set this setting to "Also Record MIDI to Melody
(assuming that you wanted the MIDI to get recorded to the Melody track - use
the Soloist setting if you want it recorded to the Soloist track).
If you have previously recorded audio on
the track, and want to overdub (to add a harmony for example), then you should
select the Overdub underlying Audio. It is not essential to select it at thi s point,
since you'll get another chance at the end of the recording. Note that the audio
track will not play during record, so you'd have to sing the harmony without
hearing the original audio part.
When you press RECORD, the audio recording begins.
27
If you've set the 'SHOW VU Meter"
option, then the Recording VU Meter will open up and display during recording,
so you can monitor the VU meters.
.When you are finished recording, press STOP or hit the Escape Key.
You will then see the "Keep the Audio Take Dialog"
If you are happy with the recording, you should choose
Keep Take. Then the Audio will get added to the Audio Track. You can liste n to
the results by pressing PLAY. If you are then not happy with the results, you can
choose Edit - Undo Keep Take, and you will be back to where you were prior to
the recording.
You can also choose the option to "Take Again". That rejects the take, and starts
the Recording dialog again.
Technical Details: The recorded take is recorded to a temporary wave file
called TEMP_REC.WAV. This resides in the BB directory or the directory of the
current song. Once you decide to keep the take, the TEMP_REC.WAV is merged
with the main wave file for the program, which is usually titled with the same
name as the song (e.g. MySong.wav).
If you've recorded only 1 chorus of the
song, you can choose the option to copy that first chorus of audio to the whole
song. This will fill up the whole song with audio. T hen you'd just need to do
another recording and record to the ending of the song.
28
At the end of recording, you get an option to
Overdub with the underlying audio.
Playing the Audio File.
Now you can play the Audio file that you've recorded.
The size of the audio file will be displayed at the top of the screen. If you
haven't saved the song yet, your window title will look like this. In the example,
above, the song is titled NoName.SG1, and there is a 3.4mb .WAV file
associated with the file, and that's 38 seconds of audio. The total duration of the
song is 3 minutes and 20 seconds.
You should save the song, give it a name of "My First Song". Then the window
title will look like this…
Once the song is saved, the wave file will be called with the sa me name as the
song, that is "My First Song.wav". So if you ever need to work with the .WAV
file in another program, you can just directly edit the wave file. If you do this,
make sure the .WAV stays a 44K mono .WAV file .
Applying Audio Plugins
When you've recorded audio, you'd likely want to apply some type of effect to
the audio recorded. The usual one is Reverb. Choose the Audio Plugin that you
want from the Audio -Plugins menu. For Reverb, choose the Reverb option.
You'll then see a plugin with its own settings, specific to the type of plugin. The
plugins are described in Appendix A of the manual. There is also extensive online Help, accessed from the plugin directly. Inside the plugin, you can Preview
the plugin effect, and if you like it, you can then Proceed with processing the
entire .WAV file. You can UNDO the plugin effect from within Band-in-a-Box
by choosing Edit-Undo.
Technical Note for Programmers: Writing Band-in-a-Box Audio Plugins.
External Audio Plugins can be easily written for Band-in-a-Box. When BB calls
the plugin, it writes an c:\bb\input.txt file that includes information such as the
tool number for the plugin, and the name of the input wave file and the output
wave file. The plugin gets registered on the BB menu by including a small
P^NNN.INI file, where NNN is the name of the Plugin's EXE. If you have a
29
look at the Delay plugin, i.e. the P^.DLY.INI file and then look at a sample
INPUT.TXT file that BB writes prior to launching the plugin, and the small
Output.txt file that the plugin writes on completion, you should have what you
need to write a plugin. There are more DOCS available on our web site
www.pgmusic.com, and sample Delphi code to write plugins if you're interested.
The plugins can be written in any language, since they just need to interface
with BB through the Input.txt, Output.txt and P^NNN.INI file.
Audio Options Dialog
Most of the settings in this dialog are set automatically by the auto-testing of the
soundcard. This test can be repeated by pressing the "GET FROM
SOUNDCARD" button. This includes the DMA Size and Offset settings. The
usual value for all of these settings is zero.
You can over-ride these settings (if you know what you're doing!). Otherwise,
just press the Get From Soundcard button, and they'll set themselves.
The Offset in MS is not a setting that gets
set automatically. It defaults to zero. This allows you to adjust the timing that
the soundcard plays audio in relation to MIDI. Normally you'd leave this at zero,
but if you nee d to fine t u ne t he s ync be t wee n a ud io a nd MI DI , you c o uld change
this setting.
When Opening songs, show message if WAV file not found.
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