Lets Talk About Using Band-In-a-Box 2018

I have not ever used this New 2018 program but many many of my friends certainly do and love it in the studio & on stage also. It looks like a very interesting concept for sure to create music your own way & style to play along with. I'd love to hear about your experiences if your a user of this BIAB program and what you think about it going forward as its always updating too which is great.. Thoughts?

Thanx

adding Vocals too nice feature..

Hey!
I am a guitar and keyboard player, and have used Biab since Atari time. At that time the program was on a 720 kb floppydisc. Today, it's much more advanced with Real drums and Real Tracks. I love this program. Updates it every year (Audio file version). I use Biab in my studio to make backing tracks. You can modulate and mix with the Tracks how you want. There are no restrictions on what to do. Let the imagination flow.
You can sync Biab with your arranger keyboard. Enter the chords and let Biab play the style in the keyboard. Replace tracks in style and use real tracks from Biab. There are no limits on what to do. Great program that I can really recommend, but there is a lot to learn before you master this program.
Download and try before you buy, and see if this program is for you.

// Fozzie

Donny, as I mentioned before...BIAB has matured into a useful production tool for song writing and production. It has also become a somewhat daunting task to master all of it’s capabilities.

I have 2017 and have yet to dive into it. I know you have more time being partially retired, so you may be up for the challenge.

If you do...keep us informed on your progress.

jingleman

Fozzie thanx for the info it is something now that I have a bit more time was thinking of giving it a shot. The creative flexibility within BIAB certainly lends it self to the player who wants to
CREATE MUSIC it is really a bargain at only $769.00 for the FULL OMNI Pak.....take care

Jingleman thank you, ....I hope I am not too old school when it comes to creating tracks...I'm more of a workstation multitracker sequencer per say BUT I am always willing to try new creative things regarding music....I hope you delve into BIAB much more or update to 2018 too and let us know your experiences..

Hi Fozzie
.had mine since it came out too. It is amazing how the program has developed over the years.
Think the syncing with keyboard is a much overlooked function. Had a ball with it a few years back with my pa 800 and psr1500, had them both synced if I remember correctly.
Took a bit of working out, but worth it.

Personally I don’t use it a great deal nowadays, though I still keep it updated. Prefer playing my keyboards, BUT, if I was into creating backing tracks, I couldn’t think of a better way of doing it than with biab.

So there is a major learning curve with this program?... Is that due to all the things it can do?,..or is it just deep in content hopefully after a while you will get the hang of it somewhat?

Donny, if I do dig in I’ll certainly share my experience. As Rikki stated...most of us are spoiled by the immediacy of creating ideas with workstations and arrangers.

That’s one of the drawbacks to BIAB. No real-time functionality.

jingleman

Yes I understand that, .....Perfection does take time..

Hi Donny, basically could be used straight away. Type in Chord progression , pick style, press play instant backing. Don’t like the style, choose a different one.

But there is also a lot of depth to it , if you want to explore, it can do so much. You can do as little or as much as you want.

Put it this way if what I needed was backing tracks for vocals or an instrument, or I was a songwriter , I’d probably be more inclined to choose biab over an arranger keyboard.

But, I enjoy playing keyboards, so they’re my focus.

Thanx Rikki,....I can certainly see how this could be very useful to some for many reasons as you well know. It's loaded with features to explore. I don't see a Trial version? but I am thinking about it.

Thank you

BIAB controlling a TYROS....interesting?

Hi Donny
Basically what we were referring to, biab chords and your keyboard follows it.
Didn’t watch the whole thing, but I used to have mine playing a mix of biab tracks and keyboard tracks iei I was using a country style on my pa800, I could mute the guitar track or drum track , whatever and replace it with suitable real track from biab to play instead.
Only useful for recording purposes.

No, there isn’t a demo, but they’re pretty confident in their product, they offer you a 30 day money back guarantee. I’m guessing your activation code mustn’t work after the 30 days, or maybe some sort of limitation, don’t really know, how that part works.

Thanx Rikki you have been very helpful as always ....

I have been using BiaB for 4 years now to make backing tracks for videos and recordings in my home studio. One of the best parts about BiaB, imo, is the ability to import the tracks you create into any DAW for further manipulation/processing or for adding vocals or other instruments and for mixing. You can import each instrument to its own track in your DAW by simply dragging the appropriate track into your DAW package.

I also use BiaB as a practice tool for my saxophone and with my piano. The ability to easily make a backing track to any progression and then play it back at any speed is quite useful. I know you can also easily do this with an arranger, but BiaB lets me input progressions that I couldn't easily play on an arranger (keyboards aren't really my forte).

The user forum is also quite friendly and extremely helpful.

BiaB does A LOT of things, and because of this, the interface can be a bit busy and confusing. It also has a few quirks, but on the whole I find it quite useful for what I do, and I am a fan, to be sure.

I did the backing track for this vid with BiaB. I recorded the saxophone directly into BiaB using its audio record feature. I then synced the resulting track to the video using Windows Movie Maker. Because I was particularly lazy that day, I even used Biab's Auto Song Title Generation feature to give my video a title.



The best time to buy BiaB is in December when PGMusic offers it at a significant discount - something on the order of 30 or 40 percent off.

Dan

Hi Dan sort of a bit like my point earlier, if one doesn’t actually play keyboards, biab would possibly be a better alternative for backing than going to the expense of buying a good quality arranger keyboard.

Totally agree, the forum is very helpful.

Do you ever use Real Band?

Hi, rikki. I have poked around Real Band a little bit, but no, I really haven't used it very much. I am somewhat tempted to try and get more comfortable with it because of the added ability to regenerate just a part of a track instead of the whole track. I think you can do that with Real Band, anyway.

Dan

Hi Dan, I haven’t used it in ages, but I vaguely remember I tried it out with gm midifiles . Because of its ability to generate individual biab tracks, I experimented with replacing a gm midifile track with biab real tracks. The midifiles had chord progressions, so the real tracks just followed the chord progression. I wasn’t reliant on realband guessing the chords. The audio drum tracks certainly sounded better than some of the old gm tracks.

Probably a better way of replacing an arranger track too instead of having keyboard midied to biad, just record the backing track on arranger , load into real band, and generate the real tracks required.


Slowly talking myself into getting my biab back out of mothballs again. Haha

Rikki.... do you have the 2018 version there are certainly many new features.?

Hi Donny
I do. I update basic program nearly every year, don’t necessarily buy the extra’s. Got it a few weeks ago, but, hubby decide we needed a 4th /5th bedroom ,so we could sell the house. Been renovating and had little time to do anything.
Downsizing so having to sell stuff including 1 or 2 of my keyboards. Been a nightmare haha.
Actually nearly gave up the keyboards for band in a box a few years back, thought piano and biab might work, BUT, my piano playing is far worse than my keyboard playing. Haha
So keyboards won.

Rikki I understand we all do what we must......but later on can always reconstruct our needs to be happy thanx

Whats the best package to start out with?
......a bit confusing with so many packages to choose from?

My 'brother in law' have used BIAB for years, updated every year and has all addons.
He simply loves it, and use it to 'compose' backingtracks for himself and others. (He is a pretty good singer).
The software is amazing, audiotracks and styles has grown to be really good stuff.
Myself, I have been fooling around a bit with it, but 'till now, I'm more pleased by sit down and play by the keys,
rather than write chords and do all at the PC before press play....

I guess if your good enough a player to compare to BIAB tracks and can do the same with an arranger KB or multitrack all the parts for your backing tracks to play on top of or sing, etc, vs repetitive styles etc its a good thing and leaves you more creativeness to accomplish the project any way you desire yourself. It does offer alot for the money.

Hi Donny,
For starters you would need the first time purchase pack.
The difference between the audiophile and the ultra pakI believe is sound quality of the
audio tracks. I only have the ultra pack.
You might want to check it out, I think audiophile maybe wav files, ultra pack files are wma files.
I have 90 gigs in just the wma files.
I’m pretty sure the files used to be in wav, but they changed it a few years back when they got so big. At the beginning it was mainly drum tracks then over the years they added more and more instruments.

The mega pak and the pro pack don’t give you all the real tracks and midi super tracks.

If you did decide to go for something like the ultra pack maybe consider getting it shipped, they’re pretty huge downloads.
From memory if you choose ship, they give you the download as well.


Could be worth your while having a chat to them. They are very helpful. Haven’t actually spoken to them personally, just used the online chat function.

One thing, if you’re not sure about the program, double check the money back guarantee offer before you buy.

BIAB 2018 is kindof like having a Geno's vs an old psr2000. The sounds of real tracks and real drums are fantastic!! As to the learnig curve it is much like an arranger. There are many who get an arranger and turn it on and play the presets and nothing more and get a great deal of enjoyment from their keyboards. You can simply enter in the chord symbols and hit play and it sounds good. The program has many other features though. Like on TOL arranger you can add fills, breaks etc. You can change styles in the middle of the song. It has a score feature that will print out lead sheets.

The user base is huge and very active on the forum. Support from several programers of the program are regually on line, Peter Gannon (head guy at PG answers some of the more difficut questions personnally. The program allows users to create there own real tracks and several do and share them o line. Now this is where the learning curve gets steep! But if you never use any of the advanced features you will get your moneys worth just using the basics.

PG offers a 30 day money back guarentee and everyone that does business with these guys claim they are best company in the business to do business with.

Thanx Rikki for the info,...the optional vocal Oohs/Ahs package add on is interesting also for VH backgrounds too..as an alternative to using just styles which are repetitive this BIAB program certainly can keep you busy creating and arranging songs to play, recording additional tracks with your keyboard also, and sing on top the way YOU want it to sound and beyond.

Earl...Thanx so much for the great info,....I am on the fence at this point but ready to jump in the pool once I figure out what packages to buy for MY needs,.....are you using it with a KB or Guitar, or?? I also love the TC Helicon Vocal harmony plug in ..

Hi Donny, have you tried the forum, there are a lot of knowledgeable users.
Or talk to pg direct, they are helpful. Explain your needs.

I use it with kb controller.

As to which package I will say get as much as you can afford. The main difference is # of styles. Once you have a large pac its rather affordable to update every year, I have the ultra & it costs $99 each year to update during the Christmas sale.

I don't use the harmonizer as I have it on the keyboard in real time. Quite frankly I'm one of the users who use but 5% of the features, but I do love the program.

Donny, you'll probably be satisfied with the .wma files. They are significantly smaller file sizes and probably require less computer horse power. If your not afraid to spend time staring at your pc screen...it's worth giving it a shot. They make it almost impossible to avoid upgrading every year due to the good deals they offer.
The integration with real band I found a little confusing...but I'm sure my adhd has something to do with that. I'd say go for it! It's cheaper than another keyboard, and who knows...maybe you'll love it!

thanx for all the info and suggestions would love to see a video someone playing KB on top a BIAB song...

Band In A Box

Wow, that was awesome Donny.

You really can do so much creatively with this BIAB program for sure...

Hi Donny.
Wow, if I could play like that, I definitely wouldn’t need an arranger keyboard . Haha
I thought it was a demo for an arranger piano, didn’t realise it was biab till I went to utube site.
That really was worth listening to. Thank you.

He don't need no stinkin' arranger keyboard ...

Wow.. I had an idea ... the next version of vArranger will be able to import the song chords of BIAB files;
There is so much existing Jazz realbook grids for BIAB..

Load this in vArranger, select a Yamaha or Korg ketron roland technics style, and play or generate backing tracks

Dan....wow...can't wait to see that new Varranger / BIAB update in action1

When I used it, I could type in a 32 bar jazz tune in minutes chose one of maybe 50 to 100 styles to use at your fingertips.

Many features I don't know mostly for guitar I think.

My favorite feature is improvisation. There are so many artist styles in the solo section to choose from, Sax players, trombone players, clarinet, guitar for any style. You chose a soloist and if you don't like what it plays, go back to the solo box and pick another until you find one you like. Each time you go back it creates a new solo. If you like the solo you can save the tune(file) and it keeps that solo. You can save as many solos as you wish. You can play along, or print the solo out to catch the licks. If it is to fast you simply slow the tempo and it works great. Play it slow and keep practicing faster and faster. Some of the licks for a turnaround and also at the 4-bar point where you are transitioning to the 4 chord or the 2-minor chords I'm amazed at the licks that I have learned.

Some of the licks should turn you on and make you want to learn it. I started with BIAB in 2003 maybe and upgraded all the way to 2012 or so. It does everything I need with the pro version.

All of the other gadgets for me are not necessary. When I played my sax with the backing tracks people were listening to my sax. It worked great.

I can make it accent the 2nd and 4th beats at any turnaround with the Bass pedal like you hear on Jazz records and it gives me a little extra hmph getting into my solo.

You can also make the solo feature play four bars and you play the next four bars alternating for as many choruses as you'd like.

If this BIAB was around in the 50's, I'd be Dexter Gordon today. This is the best for those of you who are interested in Improvision.

Boo BIAB has surly progressed alot further upgrading from 2012 to 2018 will you be upgrading to 2018 now as well?....thanx for the info.

I mentioned this before on an old post..

I use BIAB 2014.. before that 2012..


I gave this example before..

You can take a song you want to make a backup track to use...

BIAB will take the original recording (audio)..interpret the chord progression and allow you to copy and paste the progression into the style edit..

You can select any style you want (hundreds to choose from)..

You can add solos etc.. like maybe Jimmy Smith will take a verse or any other famous player.. Montgomery on guitar..

You can go to the next level and use real audio instruments in place of MIDI instruments..

Add the parts you want to play live...and when you are done you can print the score out, as a fake book version for easy reading.. also add lyrics..

You can save the final result as an audio file , ready to perform..

Fran, I tried the catching chords for a song and was always disappointed on the Jazz Standards. The Chords in a fake book and ones I can figure out are much better to my ear. Like I said. Backing tracks for my sax playing and the solo feature are my bag.

Boo, I consider that a starting point... then we can embellish based on the BIAB capture..

It saves us time figuring out a new tune..

You'll save much more time and get the right changes using a modern Fake Book. The chord capture to me is a toy and a waste of time compared to a book with the original chords that were written.

Now I agree with you 100% if there is no book or sheet music for a particular song, BIAB could help get started.

Most of the stuff I enjoy playing is in a Fake Book. The chords of many tunes on the internet sites by folks figuring out there own chords leaves much to be desired. Some chord changes on these sites suck, especially if the tune has b9ths #9ths, sus 4ths so on and so forth. Many of those guys do not know how to play a b9th, #9th or a sus4. GET A FAKEBOOK.

Glad to see you on the forum again Boo.

Sparky thanks to you Chas and others for the welcomes back, buddy.

Boo was always here you just didn't see him lurking backstage .....lol

Haha, Donnie! I've been living on Facebook. PLenty of my old High School buddies and friends from Algiers Louisiana which is part of Orleans Parish visit everyday on FB.

Great too see you Boo.