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Post your own Tips and Tricks here
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Joined: Mar 2017
Posts: 877
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2017
Posts: 877 |
As someone who first picked up the guitar in his mid-teens, and then eventually took up playing the bass as well in my early 20s, I have always been a slave to tablature. I am not a musician by profession, but it is my number one passion in life, and my time spent playing and learning is unfortunately limited. I've always wanted to learn the piano, various woodwinds, and string instruments such as the violin, cello, and others because each instrument is not only unique in its timbre and 'vocal' qualities, but they each have an inherently unique approach based on a number of factors-from the geographic locations in which their use flourished, he purposes for which they were employed, and many others (think Appalachian fiddles and banjos played against a backdrop of mighty mountains and earthy labor, the jazz saxophones blaring in Greenwich Village jazz cellars in the early 20th century, baroque orchestral strings played to the ripple of subdued claps of landed British gentry…). Each of those elements left their trace in their instruments, in their fingerings, etudes, exercises, scales, --in the notation itself. As a guitar player who was always fascinated by the different approaches other instruments took in assembling melodies and phrases, I yearned to have songbooks that would display OTHER instruments in tablature. Yes, there are hundreds of fantastic jazz guitar players, but none of them would approach standard's fake sheet in quite the same manner as would Dizzy Gillespie or Miles Davis. Now, even if I DID read standard notation, and hence could properly identify the notes to be played, it would require a tremendous amount of brain processing power (for me at least) to target where a given note should be played on the fretboard. For instance, a "g" note in given certain octave could be played on the third fret-6th string, on the eight fret second string, on the 12th fret-third string, etc. Which of those options to choose would, in turn, be contingent on the notes that precede and follow it, leading to more calculations. Therefore, the option to display standard notation as tablature for instruments not generally notated in that manner throws the door open to entirely new musical horizons. Then I stumbled onto a startling discovery when I had a Medley RT Guitar-Silence-Trumpet-[something else] playing and figured out how to replicate those results, so, without further ado, I present to you my findings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Jyd1Y7u6MI
Band-in-a-Box 2024. Custom Build Desktop PC W/ Windows 10 Home 64-bit. CPU: Intel Core i5-9600k @ 3.7GHz (6 core x 6 threads) RAM: 16GB DDR4. Storage 238GB SSD + 2.7 TB HDD. GPU: ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
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Post your own Tips and Tricks here
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Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 8,807
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Veteran
Joined: Apr 2013
Posts: 8,807 |
Enjoyed the tutorial and will be giving it a try.
BIAB 2025:RB 2025, Latest builds: Dell Optiplex 7040 Desktop; Windows-10-64 bit, Intel Core i7-6700 3.4GHz CPU and 16 GB Ram Memory.
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Post your own Tips and Tricks here
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Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 2,312
PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
Joined: Sep 2006
Posts: 2,312 |
What a great video - very helpful! Thanks for taking the time to make it and post it here 
Callie
Marketing Representative
PG Music Inc.
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Post your own Tips and Tricks here
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Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 10,972
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Veteran
Joined: Aug 2011
Posts: 10,972 |
Very interesting tutorial. Band-in-a-Box certainly provides many learning paths to improve your musicianship. Thanks for sharing your find. It's a great tip!
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Post your own Tips and Tricks here
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Joined: Mar 2017
Posts: 877
Expert
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OP
Expert
Joined: Mar 2017
Posts: 877 |
Thanks guys, I'm glad you enjoyed!
FWIW, a while back I was considering recording and uploading and entire course/YouTube series on learning bass--everything from learning intervals by use of that incredible option to have the scale degrees display in the notes themselves), reading tempo notation (which I can do in tandem with the tab for the notes themselves).
The beauty of using BiaB to learn bass specifically, is that for bass you need to internalize different types of lines based on how many measures a chord repeats, and which chord degrees precede and follow the measure you are playing. With guitar, it's rare that you have to "bridge" the measures.
For example, just playing a root-5 pattern might work over 2 bars, but you'll have to throw something else in to spice it up if it goes on any longer than that. And when playing chord transition fills--you need to take into account how many degrees you are ascending or descending. Will you 'walk' up or down the scale or will you arpeggiate? Will you use chromatic notes?
With BiaB, entering the exact number of measures you like, and the specific scale degrees you select your chords from, you can have it generate basslines with just about any possible permutation. Forcing the track to simple is a great feature for beginners, and then they can use the bar settings to have the bass stop playing-or use the wood-shedding feature--to come up with their own lines...
Band-in-a-Box 2024. Custom Build Desktop PC W/ Windows 10 Home 64-bit. CPU: Intel Core i5-9600k @ 3.7GHz (6 core x 6 threads) RAM: 16GB DDR4. Storage 238GB SSD + 2.7 TB HDD. GPU: ZOTAC NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4GB
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Windows Special Offers End Tomorrow (January 15th, 2026) at 11:59 PM PST!
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Happy New Year!
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Season's Greetings!
Wishing everyone a happy, healthy holiday season—thanks for being part of our community!
The office will be closed for Christmas Day, but we will be back on Boxing Day (Dec 26th) at 6:00am PST.
Team PG
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: The Newly Designed Piano Roll Window
In this video, we explore the updated Piano Roll, complete with a modernized look and exciting new features. You’ll see new filtering options that make it easy to focus on specific note groups, smoother and more intuitive note entry and editing, and enhanced options for zooming, looping, and more.
Watch the video.
You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 Video: AI Stems & Notes - split polyphonic audio into instruments and transcribe
This video demonstrates how to use the new AI-Notes feature together with the AI-Stems splitter, allowing you to select an audio file and have it separated into individual stems while transcribing each one to its own MIDI track. AI-Notes converts polyphonic audio—either full mixes or individual instruments—into MIDI that you can view in notation or play back instantly.
Watch the video.
You can see all the 2026 videos on our forum!
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- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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