Packed with features for musicians, songwriters & music students Automatically generate professional quality solos - includes 100 Soloists! Record melodies using the built-in sequencer or step-time entry View/edit the music and lyrics in piano roll or music notation Automatically generate complete songs from scratch, including chords, melodies, intro, & even a song title! Harmonise the melody or play along with harmonies in real-time Create and edit new songs, Styles, Harmonies, Melodists and Soloists Reads and writes Standard MIDI files (.MID) so you can transfer your work from/to other music programs Supports General MIDI (GM/GS), sound cards and non-GM modules/ synthesisers Add-on disks available for Styles, Soloists, Melodists, Harmonies and more!

Main Screen Leadsheet Harmonies Bass Fretboard Chord Diagram

New Features Available in Band-in-a-Box 2008 for Windows are..

• RealTracks.  With the previous release of Band-in-a-Box, we added RealDrums.  Now we’ve added three additional “Real” instruments, including Real Pedal Steel, Real Acoustic Guitar, and Tenor Sax soloing (RealSax).  These tracks replace the MIDI track for that instrument, and can be controlled just like the MIDI instrument (volume changes, muting etc.).  Best of all, they follow the chord progression that you have entered, so that you hear an authentic audio accompaniment to your song.  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.  RealTracks can be built in to the style, and would replace either the bass, guitar, piano, or strings part, or they can be generated to the Soloist (or Melody) track using the Soloist feature.
• MultiStyles.  We’ve added MultiStyles to Band-in-a-Box.  These are Styles that can have anywhere from 4 to 24 substyles!  Previous Band-in-a-Box Styles were limited to 2 substyles (“a” and “b”).  Now, for example, a MultiStyle with 4 substyles (First Verse, Verse, Chorus, Break) can be used, and you select the various sections using “a”/“b”/“c”/“d” part markers.  Some of our newest Styles Sets are MultiStyles, typically with 4 substyles, but some Techno Styles have 24 substyles.  You can easily make your own MultiStyles, either from scratch, or combining parts from existing Styles to make a MultiStyle.  For example, if you have 10 favorite Country Styles, you can quickly make a single MultiStyle that has 20 substyles available within the same song.
• Audio Chord Wizard Enhancements.  The Audio Chord Wizard is the amazing feature that automatically figures out the chords from MP3 files (or other audio files like WAV, WMA, and audio CD etc.).  Using the Audio Chord Wizard is a great way to learn and practice popular songs, as you play along and see the chords.

  1. We’ve added a Lead Sheet window that shows the chords for the whole song on a single screen.  This allows you to click on a bar on the lead sheet to jump to that area of the song.
  2. You can mark sections of the song using part markers, and the sections begin on a new line with a line space between, so are clearly seen.  So you can then also learn the form of the song, as you can see the various intro/verse/chorus/break sections at a glance, or quickly jump to the break simply by double clicking on that part of the lead sheet.
  3. Chord editing
• Change of Key Signature at any Bar.  Now you can have multiple keys in a song!  The new key signature is shown on notation.
• The GUI has been enhanced.

  1. Support for Windows® ‘Themes’ – Band-in-a-Box will use the current theme that you have selected in Windows Control Panel to use for Windows and dialogs.
  2. Copying of sections or selections can be done using drag-and-drop, simply drag regions around the chord sheet to quickly rearrange your song.  Hold down the ctrl key for finer control about insert/overwrite/ etc.
• Section Paragraphs.  When you’re reading a book, a new section begins on a new line, with space between; now we’ve done that for chords too!  Whenever a new section occurs (a part marker), Band-in-a-Box starts the new section on a new line, and draws a grey line above to clearly mark the new section.  For example, if you have a song with a 7 bar section, followed by 8 bar sections, the previous version of Band-in-a-Box wouldn’t start the other sections on a new line.  The result there was that it was hard to delineate the sections, as if an entire story was told within one paragraph.  With the Section Paragraphs feature you’ll see all of them on a new line so that the form of the lead sheet is easier to see.  This feature is configurable and optional.
• Medley Maker.  Would you like to make a Medley using Band-in-a-Box, of various BB songs (MGU)?  This is easily done with the new MedleyMaker.  Inside the MedleyMaker, simply select the songs that you want, and Band-in-a-Box will make the medley for you.  A medley is not simply joining songs together –a good medley uses a “transition” area between songs, to introduce the new style, key, and tempo.  The MedleyMaker automatically creates a nice transition area for you, writing in chords that would smoothly transition to the next song/style/key and tempo!
• Import Song. Easily import part or all of an existing Band-in-a-Box song to your current song, with options to specify source and destination range, type of information to import (chords, melody, lyrics, etc.) and more.
• Karaoke MP3/CDG Files.  Audio Karaoke files are popular using several formats.  The most common is CDG format, which includes the lyrics in graphical format on Audio CD’s.  Since the computer user doesn’t typically use audio CD’s, there is now a format that combines MP3 (containing the music) and CDG (the graphical lyrics).  Now you can open up MP3/CDG files inside Band-in-a-Box and see the scrolling lyrics from your Karaoke files.  Best of all, you can use the Audio Chord Wizard to figure out the chords as well, making Band-in-a-Box a great choice to play your Karaoke files!
• RealDrums Enhancements. 

  1. The RealDrums feature replaces MIDI drums with audio drums.  You can now have style changes - multiple RealDrums styles within a song, either using the RealDrums from a Band-in-a-Box Style, or specifying a specific RealDrums style to use at a bar.
  2. We have “artist” support; this allows you to choose among different drummers playing the same style.  For example, we have multiple artists playing the “Jazz Brushes” style you can set Band-in-a-Box to choose a different artist with each play, or always choose a specific artist.
  3. You can now select RealDrums styles within the StylePicker.  Highlight a MIDI style that you like, and press the RealDrums “Best” button, to see a list of the most compatible RealDrums styles for that Style, or the “RD” button to select from all available RealDrums.
  4. Hot key to turn RealDrums on/off (Control+Shift+F6).  This also works while the song is playing.
• StylePicker enhancements. 

  1. StylePicker categories/subcategories redesigned, with new categories for Blues, Country (6 types), Jazz (9 types), and many more.
  2. Do you have Styles that don’t appear in the StylePicker (because you’ve just made them, or got them from a 3rd party)?  Now the StylePicker will automatically find those Styles and add them to your list in an “Other Styles” category.  The information regarding Style name, Even/Swing, 8ths/16ths, and time signature are filled in for you.
  3. Long Style names appear on the main chord sheet screen beside the short Style name
  4. You can also specify a long Style name (up to 32 characters) when saving a Style from the StyleMaker or Hybrid Style, and the 32 character name will appear in the StylePicker and on screen.
  5. RealDrums selection from the StylePicker
  6. Support for up to 20,000 entries in the StylePicker.
• Find File.  So many files, so little time?  This feature is a “Swiss Army Knife” that allows you to find a Band-in-a-Box song (or any file that BB can open), including filtering by words found in file name or any text in the file.  Example uses, you can:

  1. Get a listing of all Band-in-a-Box songs on your PC with the word “Blues” in the title.
  2. Get a listing of all Band-in-a-Box songs in the BB folder with the word “Reggae” in them. This produces a list of over 50 songs in the MegaPAK, so you can quickly choose from them and know that, if you’re a reggae lover, you haven’t missed out on any Band-in-a-Box songs or Styles with Reggae.
  3. A similar listing for “Blues” reports 454 files.  The listing stays between sessions, so you can then take your time to explore all the Blues that Band-in-a-Box offers.
• FadeOut Song.  You can now quickly choose a Fadeout ending, just press the Fade button in Song Settings, and Band-in-a-Box will fadeout the last “X” bars of the song (you can specify how many bars).  Or customize the fadeout with precise values for each bar.
• File-Open.

  1. The File | Open now shows and opens all available file types (MGU, WAV, WMA, MP3, MID, KAR, CDG, and CDA).  It remembers your preferences, so you can restrict it to a certain file type.
  2. If MySong.MGU is loaded, and a same named audio file (MySong.WMA, MySong.MP3, MySong.WAV etc.), Band-in-a-Box will open the audio file to the audio track.  This allows third parties to make audio files with chords in them, by making a MySong.MGU and MySong.MP3 pair of files, which will load into Band-in-a-Box, yet will have the audio compressed to take up little disk space.  For example, make a teaching set of trombone files for Band-in-a-Box, with audio trombone track, and a Band-in-a-Box file with chords, all fitting in a small file size.
• StyleMaker Enhancements.

  1. Long Style Name can be stored in the Style (up to 32 characters), and this will appear on screen and in StylePicker.
  2. Style Log options.  For people making styles, this text files shows exactly which pattern was used in the song generation for every instrument and bar/beat.  Useful in fixing errant patterns.
  3. Styles can now contain RealTracks.
  4. Styles can now use MIDI soloists.  For example, make a style with a banjo part that has the same quality as the Band-in-a-Box Banjo Soloist.
  5. Feature added to turn embellishment on/off for entire Style.
  6. Style Flipping; convert “a” section to “b,” and vice versa.
• Style Wizard enhanced. The Style Wizard converts a MIDI file to a style. Now you can also use Chord masks so that specific patterns over chords will get added to your style, and they will play exactly as in your MIDI file (just transposed).
• Chord Editing (in-place entry/editing).  Press Ctrl+F2 or right click on a chord, and an Edit control allows you to see and edit the current chords.
• “Fixed Do” Chord Entry and Display.  In Italy, and parts of Europe, chords like C7 are always referred to by the Solfeggio name (“Do 7” for C7) regardless of the key signature.  Band-in-a-Box now supports entry and display using “Fixed Do” (in addition to the Normal, Solfeggio, Nashville, and Roman numeral types.
• Changes at any Bar (F5), can now specify a chorus.
  Previously, any changes at a bar would apply for every chorus.  Now you can specify the change to happen for every chorus and/or a specific chorus.  This applies to bar settings like: tempo changes, Style changes, RealDrums changes, patch changes, volume changes, and Harmony changes.
• Notation Window Enhancements

  1. Feature (confirmation dialog) to prevent accidental entry of a duplicate note (same pitch near same time).
  2. Feature (confirmation dialog) to prevent accidental entry of a very high or very low note (large # of ledger lines).
  3. Bar Number options
     • Setting for bar # size on notation, lead sheet, and printout.
     • Bar # options to include bar # on lead sheet and printout (every bar, part marker, page).
     • Option to include substyle name when printing out “a,” “b,” etc.
     • Bar # offset for printout and lead shee

  Plus more!

 

New Features Available in Band-in-a-Box 2007 for Windows were...

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. These are not "samples," but are full recordings, lasting from 1 to 8 bars, 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, and 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, WAV or WMA 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),
* key of the song,

An included Audio Piano Roll displays many of the notes found in the file. This serves as a helpful guide to transcription. 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 Band-in-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 file!

Soundtrack Generator

Need to generate some original, royalty-free music for backgrounds, home videos, slide shows, voiceovers, jingles, themes, underscoring scenes or 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 an audio music clip of any duration, in the genre of your choice!

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 an entirely new chord progression for a complete song, or a portion of a song. 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 brand new progressions for tunes without chords.

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.).

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 2007 through walls from 30 feet away! The backlit LCD provides a two-line readout, while 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®, Sonar�, Logic®, Cubase®, Digital Performer® and others. Note: the TranzPort is sold separately and is available from PG Music for only $199. Band-in-a-Box/TranzPort® bundles are also available. Click here for details.

Audio 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 on-screen, and choose these options.

Other Audio enhancements.

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. 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 right-click on the audio window to set bar 1. The Audio settings dialog is now also accessible from the MIDI Drivers dialog or Audio menu.

Batch-convert a folder of songs to Audio files (MP3, WAV, or WMA)

Do you need to convert an entire folder of Band-in-a-Box songs to Audio files? This can now be done easily by a single command. There is an option to name the resultant audio files based either on the original file name or the song title name.

Chord "Breaks."

This feature is great for practicing tempo control. 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 and play along. 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.

The Keyboard "QWERTY" Wizard now works with MIDI keyboard input

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). Now you can also use a MIDI keyboard to play the Keyboard Wizard. The MIDI keyboard also sends volume information (unlike the QWERTY keyboard), so is a better choice if you have a MIDI keyboard connected.
# 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.

A new "Practicing 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.

The Soloist has been enhanced. You can now select "Genres" of soloists (e.g. Modern Jazz) and see only soloists matching the genre. 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.

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 information. Select font type and size, copy/paste text from other programs.

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. 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!

Notation enhancements

When mousing over notes, summary information about the note is displayed (pitch/channel/velocity/duration). 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.

DXi features are enhanced

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 soft synths. 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 output.

A Patch list (.PAT) is now provided for the Roland VSC DXi synth, and the list of available synth DK/PAT files is enhanced to support newer sound cards.

Fakesheets can now optionally include the 2-bar song ending.

MIDI Latency Calibration. For software synths with latency, there is now a "Latency Calibration" dialog that allows you to accurately set your soft synth'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.

There is a function to auto-determine the correct key of a song, given only the melody.

Yellow "Fly-By Help Hints" have been expanded throughout the program to provide more information and tips.

Chord Entry and Editing are enhanced. "Nudge" Chords feature allows moving a range of chords by any number of bars/beats.

A "Fold" routine converts a song with a single large chorus to multiple smaller choruses, with optional tag ending.

A Search/Replace Chords feature is added. Search and replace chords, including support for asterix (*) 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.

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.

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.

Direct Render to MP3 button is added to the Render Dialog (this uses existing the 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, loading "song demo" on Style menu and more.

Jukebox option added to stop the Jukebox when set is completed.

StylePicker now auto-rebuilds when new styles have been added.

The 50 New Features in 2006 for Windows were...

 

 

 

Band-in-a-Box 2008 for Windows Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista 256MB 120MB - 1GB Hard Drive space. PC Soundcard or MIDI module.

Band-in-a-Box 12 for Mac The Latest Version of Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh is built for OS X 10.2 or higher. NOTE: This version is OS X-ONLY. It will not run in Mac Classic Mode (OS 9.x and earlier). 64 MB of available memory