PG Music has announced the release of RealBand 2008.5 - a new fully-featured and powerful music arranging, sequencing, and digital recording program. It combines the most popular features from PG Music's PowerTracks Pro Audio and Band-in-a-Box programs into an all-in-one sequencing program with automatic accompaniment.

With RealBand you can create an arrangement with Band-in-a-Box tracks; type in the chords, add RealTracks and RealDrums that follow the chord changes, add your own tracks, and then edit and produce the finished song without ever leaving the program. RealBand is loaded with powerful features that make it easy to produce your own song arrangements as if you were in the recording studio with top session musicians.

Features:

• Intelligent automatic accompaniment by Band-in-a-Box.
• RealTracks and RealDrums - automatic live instrument parts. Generate Real Instruments or other new tracks to add to an existing audio file. The added parts play in sync as they follow the original tempos from the audio file.
• Generate an entire song or parts of a song.
• The Audio Chord Wizard figures out the chords from any MP3 or other audio files and writes them to the Chords window in RealBand. Using just this one feature alone, you can easily learn to play MP3 songs, by seeing the chords displayed in RealBand.
• MIDI music can be displayed in standard music notation on the screen and using the on-screen piano keyboard or guitar fretboard.
• 48-track MIDI/audio mixer with multiple FX busses (up to 16 effects per track).
• Support for popular audio file formats - MP3, WMA, WMV, WAV, and CDA.
• Built-in DirectX audio effects.
• DirectX and VST plug-ins supported.
• Band-in-a-Box files load directly.
• Compatible with all Band-in-a-Box styles and Real instruments.
• Shares native .SEQ file type with PowerTracks Pro Audio, directly compatible.
• Professional recording, editing, and playback features. Create and edit music using piano roll, music notation, event list, bars view, track view and more.
• Supports all major audio and MIDI file types, including PG Music's PowerTracks Pro Audio files (*.SEQ) and Band-in-a-Box files (*.?G?).
• Support for MIDI and Karaoke files.
• Karaoke lyrics window.
• Piano roll window with graphic controller editing.
• Onscreen notation and lead sheet style printout.
• Virtual guitar fretboard and piano keyboard.
• and much more...

Pricing & Availability

RealBand 2008.5 is available for Windows for $129, and included with every MegaPAK 2008.5, SuperPAK 2008.5, and UltraPAK 2008.5. If you already own Band-in-a-Box 2008 you can purchase the RealBand PlusPAK for $89 which includes RealBand 2008.5, the Band-in-a-Box 2008.5 Update, and RealTracks Sets 2-12. PG Music also offers a RealBand PAK for existing Band-in-a-Box 2008 users which includes RealBand 2008.5 and RealTracks Sets 10-12.