Having seen the link at PGMusic.com to the new Microsoft Songsmith program, and having downloaded the demo etc., I see that PGMusic has apparently provided the basic Songsmith Styles and is offering add-on Songsmith Styles. Is there a relation between Songsmith Styles and BIAB Styles such that BIAB Styles (all of which I have) could be used -- possibly following some kind of convwersion -- in Songsmith?

And a follow-up question: Is there a list of what Songsmith Style corresponds to what BIAB Style, so if I create a tune with the former I can load it into BIAB and do further work with the latter? Thanks.

i am anxious to find out about these questions myself!

I guess that Songsmith creates a "monolithic" audio file that can't be modified with BIAB.

The input to Songsmith is your voice or some instrumental lead. The output is some chord progression and an arrangement. It should be easily possible to transfer the suggested chord progression to BiaB and identify a pertinent style for the arrangement. From there you might tweak the result with modifications of this style, with RealTracks, RealDrums, Soloist stuff and whatnot.

Songsmith output options include MIDI, for loading into BIAB or a sequencer. Alternatively, one could just manually enter the chords created in Songsmith into BIAB. Sone of the neat features of this simple but powerful program are suggestions of alternatives to a particular chord.

Thanks for clarifying. I'm really impressed by this program resulting from 'joint venture' of Microsoft Research, Garritan, Plogue and PG Music.

I downloaded the demo and best way I can describe it is that it's for folks who like to sing in the shower. Personally, I wouldn't bother. Just my opinion though. I'm sure there will be a market for it.

I would recommend making sure that the water is not on. Seriously, for me (other than that my kids are getting a kick out of it), I see it as an additional way (for only $29.95) to generate the preliminary chord sequences which are one of the first steps in my creation of a new project. I particularly like the way it provides alternatives for each of the individual chords generated, including suggested chords that I would very rarely come up with on my own, if at all. I guess what I'm saying is it is a fun program that is an additional tool in the songwriter's belt. And its simple yet appealing user interface and tweaking controls may presage what future iterations of BIAB could possibly look like. How fortunate we are to have innovative and creative minds like the PG team and the Microsoft development team (I have been following the research genesis of Songsmith for some time), and devices such as the Ketron SD2, to allow at least those whose abilities and training are as limited as mine to do so much and have so much enjoyment and pleasure in the process.

I kind of got the impression from reading the web site and looking at the videos that it basically uses it's own algorithm to create a chord progression to match your melody, and then uses the basic BIAB engine (which of course can understand BIAB styles) to generate the audio accompaniment for that particular chord progression. So rather than putting the chord progression into BIAB first as we do, you can just sing the melody and come up with a chord progression to match it (which may or may not be what you are looking for). Once the chord progression is in place, the BIAB engine can take over and render an accompaniment.

What would be nice would be to see this technology incorporated directly into BIAB in the future. That would give those folks asking how to get an accompaniment from their melody something better to work with (and then once on the BIAB grid, you could manipulate it accordingly). I guess time will tell.

Yes, the style format is the same, so you should be able to use your existing BB styles in SongSmith, and vice versa.

my interest level would be pertaining to the Garritan gm set that is included with it. If that could be used by biab, rb, ptpa as a vsc type of synth. If so, is it better than vsc, or forte? Might be worth buying just for that.

toucher

Good point. I don't the answer to that, you could contact garritan.com for that question.

Hi Peter,

I took your advice and contacted Garritan re: Aria and the GM soundset that they package with Songsmith. I inquired as to whether it would be applicable with BIAB/RB etc.

Their answer:


Hi

The singine is integrated into Songsmith. We are currently working with Band-in-a-box to product soundsets but right now there are only Songsmith packs. Please check back in the weeks ahead.



Are we looking at having another dxi synth or GM sound engine available to complimtne VSC-Dxi and Forte?

What a great addition to the song creation community. I see a lot of users having fun with Songsmith, and with the addtion of thousands of BIAB styles, there's a ton of possibilities.

Is song smith an off shoot of Bars and Pipes? There we go. Re invent new icons in biab that look like the tool icons on Bars & Pipes. That would be as much fun as when I put a hack workbench on my friends Amiga computer called scat. As soon as the pointer reach the program icon it ran off the screen. That was a fun computer the Amiga. Does this come out of those days at all. Is there anything missing that hasn't made it on the pc in terms of midi tricks?

What seems to be missing is the visual making languages set up to be easy to learn. Amos CanDo Hypeprcard where it was really easy to synchronize graphics and make demos to midi and music files.

Will Songsmith do this

I know that this is a late response to your original post but I didn't see if your query was answered so I'll post my experience..
I've been buying updates to BB since the mid 90's and have accumulated hundreds of styles.
I've been able to import these into Songsmith successfully by copying the .sty files from my BB folder into the "styles" folder under the Songsmith installation folder. I now have access to all my Band-in-a-Box styles in Songsmith.
Hope this is useful.

I missed this! Have any of you found this to really be useful for song-writing, as oppposed to, say, Melodyne?

Is it really that useful? I know PG have been involved in the development but does it really deliver? Dying to know...

Download the free demo and find out, Sam.

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Is it really that useful? I know PG have been involved in the development but does it really deliver? Dying to know...

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I just watched the YouTube ad video for Songsmith. I didn't download it to try. Since we really don't deal with vocals, I don't see any use for it. However, I think that it would really be great for kids who like music. It certainly costs a lot less than video games. I think that kids and maybe adults who are learning an instrument would have some fun with it, too. In fact, I might get a couple for my grandkids. Yes, there are some fun uses for it.

Stan