Will anyone here admit ...

[funkychickendance]

Some clarification:

Here's Band in a Box, officially, latest version announced at KVR about a week ago:
http://www.pgmusic.com/bandbox.htm

Their marketing is terrible, but it's a usable product for helping to flesh out song ideas.

-Scott

It's okay if you only use it as a 'sketchpad,' and to my mind that's the purpose for which it was intended. If you get mo' ambitious, you're in for a letdown.

Say you are trying to work through a song that needs a less predictable chord sequence, or a better bridge. BIAB can give you a reading on those changes in no time. Chuck 'em in by name, and off you go. And with its 'Styles' it can approximate the final product. You can transpose, you can crank the tempo, you can undertake major surgery.

What it can't do, IMHO, is make a finished product, or anything near it. The output sounds like desperately unhip middle-aged white guys playing a gig at the Alzheimer's clinic: pure muzak. There are ways to tart up the final output, but the whole process becomes far too time-consuming. In the latest version, it at least allows the use of VSTs after --doh! -- how long? Which removes the curse of the vile GM sounds from your sketches.

Having gotten a halfway decent structure, you can save to a MIDI file, strip out the (say) keyboard and bass, and use those as the basis for better construction, using piano roll editor or whatever in your sequencer.

In theory its 'melodist' and 'soloist' functions generate original tunes in a style, or solos 'along the lines of' various named headings. Well, if you have tin ears, maybe.

It's funny, though. Whenever I make this vaguely positive defence of how one could creatively use BIAB to folks I personally know, they fall about laughing.

But when I listen to their own product, it's all locked to a 120 bpm tempo in 4/4, in either A, C or E, and either has nary a chord in sight, a metal fistful of 'five chords', or just the I/IV/V.

But then, maybe that's what they want to play. Who am I to criticize?

/fcd
"it's better to travel hopefully than to arrive" :Virgin Airways

[birrbits]

Haven't used Band in a Box, but I sometimes turn to Melody Maestro (now psuedo free since Microsoft bought out Blue Ribbon years ago). Runs in XP with compatibility-mode set to 9x. Outstanding AI.

http://www.musicmachines.net/index.htm

think the download links still work here.

[lion_cub]

The UI is still perfectly terrible! They've had more than 10 years to fix it, but no. It's right up (or down rather) there with babya, even if the software itself is usable.

Yes I agree.

I still like the concept though, but found the interface to be too much of a hindrance.

I even sent them an email more than a year ago asking them to consider improving their GUI by making it less cluttered and more organised, and I even asked them to implement vst support.

They basically said 'no'.

[dougsyo]

... to using Band in a Box

Yes, but not for my own music development.

I use it as a scratchpad/idea generator, and I use it when I need a quick-and-dirty backup track for fake book songs if musicans aren't available (for example, the pianist at church is on vacation - stick the disk in the Yamaha keyboard and I'm set to lead singing).

Doug

[rockstar_not]

The UI is still perfectly terrible! They've had more than 10 years to fix it, but no. It's right up (or down rather) there with babya, even if the software itself is usable.

Yes I agree.

I still like the concept though, but found the interface to be too much of a hindrance.

I even sent them an email more than a year ago asking them to consider improving their GUI by making it less cluttered and more organised, and I even asked them to implement vst support.

They basically said 'no'.

By the way - it now has VSTi support.

I don't use it myself. I came into the computer based recording world through their sister product, PowerTracks Pro Audio - which still is a value for nothing other than it's handy notation display and editor.

Most of the output that I hear at the PG Music forums from BIAB is karaoke sounding General Midi tripe.

But there are a couple folks on the PG music forums that can really do a nice job massaging decent output from it then polishing in a different sequencing package. They are the people that realize that MIDI means more than drums on channel 10. One doesn't have to limit oneself to the pre-packaged chord progressions. Yes those that are I VI V7 are boring, but that's not the limit of the product.

It's no different than grabbing an acoustic guitar to compose on, then properly recording the song with other instrumentation.

PG are terrible marketers and industrial designers. Their UI is awfully cluttered. Their print ads are even worse. I've got old Electronic Musician magazines from the 1980's and the Band in a Box ads from then look almost identical to what they look like now.

But the product is cheap, and fairly unique and does serve a purpose for those that can't program drums or do a pedestrian job of programming a bass line. It's much less money than probably most of those reading this thread paid for a soft synth, so I cut them some slack.

I almost bought it for the drum/bass help but then I decided to buy an electric bass from www.rondomusic.net and got BFD on the CM cover disc a couple months back - glad I went the route that I did.

-Scott

[funkychickendance]

It's no different than grabbing an acoustic guitar to compose on, then properly recording the song with other instrumentation.

Exactly. And less likely to drive you to the same old cliches, I find.

PG are terrible marketers and industrial designers. Their UI is awfully cluttered. Their print ads are even worse. I've got old Electronic Musician magazines from the 1980's and the Band in a Box ads from then look almost identical to what they look like now.

-Scott

I think we can safely assume that both are 'in house' products, eh? They are indeed diabolical, and I often cite them to my marketers when they get 'too busy'

/fcd

[beergeek]

What it can't do, IMHO, is make a finished product, or anything near it....

Having gotten a halfway decent structure, you can save to a MIDI file, strip out the (say) keyboard and bass, and use those as the basis for better construction, using piano roll editor or whatever in your sequencer.

Exactly...if I have some guitar noodled out and I want some quick keys, bass, strings, brass...etc, I plug it in, output to midi, import and play along with the pieces I like as a jumping off point...

It's handy for me because I don't have a boatload of time and I love to play...

So yeah, I use it, so what... Wanna make sumpin of it?

[kevvvvv]

NoSocialSkills

Yes, but only for the songname generator...

My next hit is to be called: 'Burning Girlfriend'

Some classics come out of that thing!

[Kingston]

My next hit is to be called: 'Burning Girlfriend'

Are you a smiths fan? 'Girlfriend in a coma' is a brilliant song.

[agincourtdb]

had BIAB about 10 years ago, used it to blow over changes to standards. Didn't think there was any other use for it.

[Improv]

had BIAB about 10 years ago, used it to blow over changes to standards. Didn't think there was any other use for it.

An alternate to BIAB is:
Soundtrek's Jammer Pro 6. Much nicer interface.


http://www.soundtrek.com/content/module ... age&pid=25

[Rabid]

had BIAB about 10 years ago, used it to blow over changes to standards. Didn't think there was any other use for it.

An alternate to BIAB is:
Soundtrek's Jammer Pro 6. Much nicer interface.


http://www.soundtrek.com/content/module ... age&pid=25

Oh Duh! That is the one I have, not BIAB. I kept wondering what was so bad with the interface. Has Jammer been updated in the last 5 years?

[yemski]

I agree with the general tone of this thread. Band in a box is a poorly implimented product with an execrable gui. Having said that it is useful when used as a conceptual device rather than a means of generating a finished product. I have used it as a quick and easy way of analysing popular tunes and standards, and improving my faciliity at playing keyboard solo's and singing over different (common and uncommon) changes in all keys. As a generator of musical parts, arpeggios, basslines, and guitar strumming, which I then edit in Cubase S.X or Logic, and assign to a decent sound source. I treat these midi parts in the same way I would a drum break. I have some pretty good D&B and sound design chops,so by the time I'm finished the original sounds is often very remote from it's humble G.M beginnings. A good example would be an arpeggio part derived from one BIAB's of "Jazz" settings, based on chord progession which was itself from a reharmonization of Round Midnight I had come up with. After editing the part in Sx using Absynth, and the Cube as sound sources, I ended up with a sort of hybrid of something that sounded like a Jazz tune, crossed with Warp records style weirdness and Koan syle generative music, with elements of counterpoint. This was then used as a intro for a drum and bass ballad written using more conventional means, but's thats another story. I often try and learn to play parts programmed like this, since they are often very different to what one would write normally and can help you escape your usual patterns of playing. Though I often come up against the barrier of programmed parts being humanly impossible to play. I also put parts generated by BIAB into the phrase synthesizer in an older version of Cubase, as another means of generating ideas, and hope to use BIAB with the Z3ta and Karma in a similar way quite soon. So like sampling, creative use of a product can lead to unintended consequences that are far more interesting than the original intended purpose.

[Kingston]

Something like BIAB inside cubase or logic would be awesome.

"give me a secondary keyboard backing NOW!"
*click*
"thankyou"

[Improv]

had BIAB about 10 years ago, used it to blow over changes to standards. Didn't think there was any other use for it.

An alternate to BIAB is:
Soundtrek's Jammer Pro 6. Much nicer interface.


http://www.soundtrek.com/content/module ... age&pid=25

Oh Duh! That is the one I have, not BIAB. I kept wondering what was so bad with the interface. Has Jammer been updated in the last 5 years?

Click on the link!