Hey all,

I just found a video on YouTube showcasing BIAB and I was wondering if this software could help me a little bit. As there doesn't seem to be a trial version, I thought I'd ask you so please excuse my lack of knowledge or if my questions sound stupid.

I'm a media composer. I mostly work for TV in the various cinematic orchestral genres. Sometimes synth-based underscores, sometimes (but rarely) pop and hip-hop. I normally work with insane deadlines (think 4-5 mins of fully orchestrated, mixed and stemmed music from scratch per day) so anything that can help me is welcome. Also, I work on Mac exclusively so all my questions are related to the Mac version in case there are any differences.

1. Can I import a MIDI melody into BIAB?
2. Can BIAB suggest chords based on an imported melody? (That's the most important feature for me.)
3. Where can I find a list of all the instruments available in BIAB? I work mostly with the full symphonic orchestra, from the strings, brass, woodwinds to the percussion and choirs.
4. Can BIAB export MIDI?
5. Do you see any feature of BIAB that could help me with my job?

Thanks a lot for your time and answers!

Anthony

Hello and welcome to the forum.

I compose for big band jazz, chamber orchestra and (rarely) full orchestra. I'm glad I don't have your deadlines.

BIAB is "a" tool you can certainly use. I do, along with many others.

1. Yes
2. Yes (using the Reharmonist feature, which is fairly new; you can then even have it suggest alternate chord progressions).
3. I think your question might mean, can BIAB use VSTi so you can use your own libraries. Yes. There are 24 tracks and you can mostly put most instruments on these. Huge improvements here recently should continue.
4. Yes. And even better, Music XML
5. Tons. I love the quick melody entry by mouse since I don't play keys. It can analyze keyboard input and suggest what chord you are playing. Over 100 harmonization choices for a melody are available, really useful in arranging. I make jazz backing tracks with BIAB and use them in my notation software, Notion 6, or my DAW. This is just a few of the ways I use it daily. It can also generate a melody, a song title, or even a movie soundtrack of a specified length.

This sounds great, is there a video tutorial?

This might help:

Welcome to the forums.
Definitely Matt's answer should give you valuable feedback on what you can achieve.

I do believe it would be an excellent tool. My only additional advice is to start with the highest Pak version you can afford. Do note that the 'Pro' is a starter pack with very limited track sound options.

If you need commercial quality, consider the Audiophile version.

Welcome Anthony,

You have received good answers to your questions so I will add to question #3. BiaB's included sounds are General MIDI (GM)and as you know they are at the bottom of good sounds' category. So here is my workflow using BiaB.

Construct a chord progression and sometimes a melody using the included GM then transfer them to my DAW. BiaB has a number of ways to transfer your song so that is not a problem. In my DAW I will use my much better sounds.

Note I find it much easier to work in my DAW than in BiaB but others do a lot and sometimes all of their work in BiaB. It is a personal choice. I add this as I assume, based on your initial post, you are using a DAW and good sounds so it might be easier for you to do a lot of your work there.

I should note that I work almost exclusively in MIDI.

I hope this helps.

I'll delve into question 3 as well.

I don't work with midi very much. However, using BB to create the midi tracks, and then exporting them to your DAW should be relatively easy and quick. MarioD says he works with midi a lot and drags them to his DAW. Just drop in your favorite VSTi and load the sample you want and you have exactly what you need.

As you pointed out, there is no trial version. HOWEVER.... PG is very generous in their return policy. Right on the main page.... Unconditional 30-Day Money Back Guarantee on all products purchased from PG Music Inc. Try it and if you don't like it, you can return it. Chances are good it will help you with your track creation. I believe there are a few orchestral styles in the program that may or may not help you get a jump start on writing. AT the very least, it should give you a basic track list and then you can add the unique tracks you want to fill out the score you're working on.

I have used it to create a few tracks that were used in film and TV a few years back. SO it has the potential to be a good writing tool.

I forgot to mention in my previous message that many RealTRacks have MIDI charts accompanying them. That means you can take a RealTrack and load it as a MIDI file into your DAW. Yes the MIDI chart track will lose many of the RT's audio nuances but you can do your MIDI magic with them This will give you many new MIDI track options.

AnthonyMueller, Welcome to the forum and hopefully to Band-in-a-Box!

Band-in-a-Box is a great tool for creating combo and small ensemble music. It's strength is in quickly combining small instrument groups to create popular music in such genres as country, folk, rock and jazz. Select a style, the style creates a combo, enter chords and the combo will follow the chord sheet.

Band-in-a-Box has not focused as much on obtaining the tools needed to create or reproduce television and movie scores or orchestrations.

Anthony, give us some feedback if this is helping.

I was going to add to #3, and I see Mario and Herb have done so. Another way to talk about virtual instruments is that, for me it's not relevant as I do not use BIAB as my DAW. BIAB has many DAW-like features, and comes with the free RealBand if you have Windows; RealBand is a simpler DAW with a major advantage that it reads native BIAB files. [So does MuseScore 3 notation, by the way.] But I prefer to compose in BIAB and then move the MIDI or audio tracks to a DAW for finishing. So I do not use any VSTi sounds in BIAB; I use my Roland hardware MIDI synth. But, you could; I just cannot comment because I've never done it. Hope that clarifies.

Thanks everyone! I'm floored by all these detailed (and fast!) answers.

I will then go for it and see what happens! In any case, I will report back in this thread with my findings :-)

That's great.

If you have any questions feel free to ask. You have stumbled onto the friendliest site on the web. You will never get a read the freaking manual here. We all started like you, most all of us have asked questions, and now many if not all of us answer any question. The only dumb question is one that is not asked.

Have fun and keep us posted.

Thanks a lot! I will most likely go through the manual because I really plan to make the best out of this software (just finished downloading, went for the UltraPak+.) Today, I've received a pop-rock brief with a fast turnaround for a scene and I'll try to use BIAB for that.

(and yes, the community definitely seems friendly. I've been reading the forums for a while. It's a breath of fresh air when you are used to deal with people on VI Control and Gearspace!)

"Today, I've received a pop-rock brief with a fast turnaround for a scene and I'll try to use BIAB for that."

BiaB's RealTracks will be perfect for this one. In the style window search for pop, rock, and/or pop rock and you will get a number of styles. You may not need any MIDI for this one.

While I definitely support Band in A Box to deliver at least some of your requirements, another program that is not a competitor by any means, but may have usable features is SonicFire Pro from SmartSound

It creates royalty free music in very little time, and has many sound library options available including Cinematic scores. It is specifically designed to create customized music for adding to video.

I have many of their libraries, and use them for music soundscapes to go with video.

You don't need to have the video loaded to use it, you can just set the length you want and style details etc, and export the audio for adding to your own NLE if required.

There's a short video presentation available also:

Just to note


Noting the above, any references to Realband in previous responses will not apply (only Windows based versions include this)
That said, I DO think you will find it a valuable tool in your toolbox.
Keep us posted, we like to help

Good pickup rharv. Yes, RealBand is not an option for the O/P.

Thanks. Actually, SonicFire is defintiely not the tool for me. This one lets you browse a list of royalty free music, buy a license and edit the stems to your video. My job is to actually write the music, much like composers write music that is then sold through SonicFire. I kinda do the same as what the software does... ...except that I'm the one writing custom themes to the visuals :-)

Thanks! I figured this out while reading about BIAB so that's why I mentioned that I am on Mac :-)

Now, BIAB is fully installed. Where should I start to get a thorough tutorial on it? There are so many menus and sub-menus! I already figured out some stuff, exported stems in my DAW to mix them, etc. For example, I couldn't figure out how to arrange a song. For example, I'd like an intro, a verse without soloist, a chorus with a soloist, back to the verse, then a bridge with a different scale, etc.

Really happy to be here. I'm quite amazed at the quality of the tracks produced and the flexibility of BIAB :-)

Explore F5...

Oh! Excellent! Exactly what I was looking for. Thanks.

Of course you do know you should never mix new software with current project work? New software can turn around and bite you at the worst of times. Don't underestimate the learning curve associated with this software. But you know that...

Oh totally! I've had some bad experiences in the past with updates gone wrong and all that jazz. Today, I have a pretty solid Cubase/Pro Tools setup and an awesome team to keep it running like clockwork. Yet I always keep an eye open for new tech (or in the case of BIAB, older tech that I didn't know about) that can help me do more :-)

Anthony.
Heres some tips.
Really peruse the faq’s and vids in pg support…includeing tutorials on you tube.

Make sure you save your settings by saving option with patches.

If you have a big commission // project split it into more than one bb file.

In the style picker..dont just go thru a few styles when youve laid out in bb your chord arrangement. Ive found many golden nuggets of sound by not following standard procedures. For example i do mainly rock, and occasional ballad…but i might explore other styles outside the rock and ballad genres. Ie happy accidents. I know it can be a lot of work going thru thousands of styles..but ive some v interesting results.

I make my own custom drum intros , and dont bother bout metronome…so lets say i have a ballad in key of E i enter in bb e.d/e.d/e.d/e.d ie 4 bars lead in only playing drums. This also useful for drum solos in conjunction with part markers….also lets say you need a 12 bar drum solo…experiment with 12 bars of e.d with different part marker colors at each or other bar. The KEY is experiment cos bb is very deep.

A final tip as i dont have loads of time today….what i do is …lets say i’ve done my chord arrange, what i do is go thru loads of styles , and lets say i go “hmm i like that soloist”..then what i do is save…and i give the save a filename like 2356NICESOLO as the file name whereby the number is the bb instrument number OR i might save as INSTRUMENT ID + INSTRUMENT TYPE + COMMENT eg 857BASSVERYFUNKY…now i’m on pc so on mac things might be different…

what i’m trying to say and its very important is i apply my final chord arrange to a ton of styles and then as i come across nuggets i save…THUS on any song i might end up…like a song i’m doing now 40 saved files….
FROM THESE 40 saves i then assemble my final bb song file….think of it like in a big studio a project one auditions session musicians for a major project , and then one decides which musicians are in the band.

Hth
om
ps..and please keep an open mind, try reaper for mac from reaper.fm...try a test run. its fast and nimble with small footprint. if you doubt me read up the thousands of fans at reaper.fm. and talk to users who have moved from other daws.
happiness.

You may also want to look at "EDIT" "SONG FORM" "SONG FORM DIALOG" and generate your own Song Form.

F5 is one way and it’s very powerful. Basically you generate a bunch of complete tracks but use F5 to Mute them where needed. The opposite command is called Back to Normal.

You can of course do this kind of editing in your DAW, but it’s non-destructive in BIAB too, to use Mute via the options in F5 at different bars.

One thing you will run into for song form is that BIAB uses the term ‘chorus’ in the jazz sense, meaning ‘once through the song’. For example, ‘take a chorus’ means to blow a solo once through the tune. There are a few things in Edit, Song Form you might like to look over.

EDIT: I see Song Form was mentioned. Good. There’s more. There’s almost always more in this program.

i Suggest you explore the user showcase choosing different genres where folks who use Band-in-a-Box post their creations and usually indicate which real tracks they use and sometimes other production details

The user to user section can also help to ease the learning curve

Of course the band in a box Mac forum is another resource

User Joanne Cooper is also a resource worth checking out
https://www.playiit.com/

BIAB I think, now defaults to a linear structure as opposed to the previous multiple chorus format. Just enter the chords as you want to get the structure you want. Shame you don't have RB. I find it much easier to use for manipulating individual tracks and cutting and pasting large chunks of music.
Edit - at least that's how BIAB 2022 works. The mac version is still 2021.

That's absolutely fine. Better for you to know about it and not need it rather than the other way around

Thanks for all these great tips!



I know about Reaper, for sure. I've even made some plugins for it years ago. Now the reality is that film scoring is mostly done using one of the "heavy-hitter" DAWs (Cubase, DP, Logic, ...) and the mixing done with Pro Tools. My setup relies on Cubase, slave machines wired using VEPro, video on another slave runnning Video Sync 5 and everything routed to Pro Tools for stemming/mixing.



Awesome! This is even more what I was looking for.



This is something that was puzzling me, yes. Thanks for pointing it out.



Very good tip! Will do!

I'm still going through the manual. Should be done shortly :-)

You’ll find updates and other support info here including online manuals

You can save the pdf version in iOS/Mac books app

You could then markup the pdf in ways you find helpful