I ordered some RealBook thing and got burned. They promised a library of band in a box songs. I looked at the first 30 songs, and then in my main library of songs I've collected and it was like they cloned my directory. All the songs, warts and all, starting with * or _ to preecede the A's were IDENTICAL, so they downloaded off the net whatever and charged me for it. And the RealBook stuff was just a quick photocopy. Sad. Sadder that I fell for it.

Ask for the names of the songs, and an example of the pages before you take the leap.

A comment about this being illegal or not. Of course it is. But, if we're all going to be that tightassed about it then we have to dump any files we've downloaded from anywhere that includes a melody. Chord changes alone are ok but not melodies if we want to be strict about it.
The one really useful thing about this is having the original recordings to listen to because it's true, if you're trying to do a tune you've never heard before, you can be the hottest reader in the world but you're not going to do it right just by reading a fake book chart. Not even close unless it's just another 12 bar blues and even then there's probably song specific licks and rhythmic punches in it that are not on the chart.
I can't comment about the support but it can be useful to have it all in one package. I also agree you can recreate the whole thing yourself just by reading this forum and doing some downloading. All these original recordings are also available to listen to legally on various radio type sites, Rhapsody is one, there's others. If you want to keep a copy, just set your sound card to record whatever is playing at the time. The quality is not the best but for learning the tune, it's plenty good enough.

Bob

I went to the site and read some of the stuff. The guy talks about pdf's being cumbersome to work with. I have Real books 1,2, and 3; the New Real Books 1,2, and 3; and 5 other Real books on pdf. It comes with a master list so you can find whatever song you are looking for. I've never had a problem with it. I use it mostly on a gig when someone requests a tune that I don't know. I don't know what product that guy is really selling but I can tell you that I'd rather carry around 11 fake books on my laptop via PDF rather than lugging around the real thing.

Honestly I don't remember, I think an army buddy of mine gave it to me. I'm not trying to promote pirating. The point I was making is that the guy at that site was stating that his software is better than the pdf's. I know most of us, myself included has used or bought a Real book some time in their lives. Is that legal? I was told it's illegal to sell a Real book but not to buy one. I don't know if that's true or not. I do have a few legal Fake books. And just for the record you CAN buy Real Book on Amazon.com

I started 15 years ago with Biab. On the internet I found all what they sell. I educate people in useing BIAB in Denmark and all what I have collected of songs, real books, songs with melodies, jazz you name it I have among 19.000 songs. First I used BB finder but it don't work anymore with W7 but now I use songs in BIAB and that's fine. All my student got the whole thing free on a CD. Maybe it's a kind of pirate collection, but they don't pay for it.


Hans from Denmark

The word student is a key, mostly in my mind. It is Amazing to think of all the work Band in a Box users have done to put all those songs in to the software. I need to go through and clean mine up. I think a special routine to strip all the spurious data from everything would be in order, all the add on stuff most of us don't want. That's maybe just me, but weird changes in instruments, the pop ups all that I don't want, just would put in myself. So many files, so little time.

The batch strip file edit utility. Too bad someone couldn't do that, then sort out the ones that say they have a melody due to one note and don't, then strip out the files that are the same, and clean up the lyrics, and make them all...WWOW..I'm outta control again.

If your looking for legal charts, you should try www.myrealbook.com. Only charts (no melodies), but legal. And if you want to listen to the original recordings, search Youtube !

One method i have used that is pretty cool is to open a BiaB song file in RB, and run through it to see what all it has, and then find the same midi file on the net, that has the lyrics and melody in it.

Then make sure that they have teh same number of bars, and that the key and tempo are the same. Strip all the tracks out except the melody and lyrics and import that into the BiaB file inside RB and it should work great. Sometimes you have to highlight copy, cut and paste it to get the midi in line with the BiaB file.

A few years back there was a site where you could download the real books pdfs for free located in Holland. Haven't seen it up in years. But I got all of mine from there. I also had purchased several original fake books from music dealers under the counter. A couple of my favorites where the tune dex books one and two. I finally tore them apart and scanned them into pdf format as they are much easier to use. I have seen several cd's listed from time to time on ebay for sell with huge collections. They come and go. Most of the ones I see on ebay seem to be from Canada for some reason. At the present time I have copies of real books in C, Eb, Bb and Bass clef, "The Book" "The Colorado Book" Cuban book, dixieland book, and the Blues Book. And yes, you are all correct, these are all illegal. But they do come in real handy when I'm looking for an old tune. And yes, I will admit I have given copies of the disk away on occassion to friends. I will also admit I got my first copy of biab from a friend but I also don't have a clue as to how much I have spent over the years updating to the latest version so I could get the latest and best with documentation. BTW, I think I've still got a copy of that disk copy of biab 3.1 in my floppy disk case!!! Will never throw that away cause it was the best advertisment PG Music could have ever made!

jazzmammal,

Howard Leonard is indeed publishing the original Real Book series legally now, paying licensing.

That is available lots of places, such as Amazon.

Identical, but legal.


--Mac

Holy crap Mac, I've got to get out more. Where's the fun now? No more furtively sneaking into that little shop up on Pico? Twenty bucks on Amazon? You're right, they sure look the same to me. It cost me a cool C note 8 years ago for the 3 volumes and they're getting pretty dog eared. Then a friend got me the CD and I've been printing out pages to replace those that are either missing or too messed up to use any more. I've been thinking about springing for some new books. Sixty bucks is better than a hundred and it's legal even. Hmmm, isn't that the same argument concerning some other things that society's been fighting about for the last 40 years?

Bob