Which other softwares do you use to supplement BIAB? In this thread, I suggest we only talk about 'semi-automatic' softwares.

I am thinking of the Ezkeys software, and perhaps EzDrummer, both are made by Toontrack.

Captain Plugins, by Mixed in Key, are also relevant.

I tried the demo of ORB Producer Suite and was also very impressed. Perhaps I will buy it in the near future.

For guitar, in theory, RealGuitar seems to be the most appropriate. However, when I used it, I found it a bit clunky and clumsy.

UJam's guitar Softwares are very good. However, at this time of writing, I understand that you still cannot drag the midi patterns into your DAW and have to play it live.

Agree with you on the Toontracks software.


I'm confused on this comment. I can take a MIDI file from BIAB/RB and import it into Pro Tools and have the UJAM guitarist or bassist play the MIDI riffs. Sometimes I have to transpose an octave here or there to get the MIDI to trigger but I've never had an issue. Could you elaborate? Thanks!

Hi, I don't talk about the sound of Ujam Softwares. I only referred to its rhythm patterns in the Guitar softwares.

Ujam Beatmaker 2 allows users to simply drag the midi patterns into the DAW without playing anything on the midi keyboard. But their guitar Softwares are not yet updated with this feature.

That is not true.

I own Virtual Guitarist Iron and Virtual Bassist Royal. I've been working with these products for a year and they can both play MIDI files directly on import of the MIDI file into Pro Tools.

UJAM Basses ver 2 now drag export the midi pattern of current chord, I asked them to put the pattern and chord name in the file name.
I think they will have the same for Guitars and Drums soon.
The good thing with them is that they are session players playing the phrases as well as having a sample set of the instrument.
Watch for EZBass out soon.

The new RapidComposerVST beta has audio tracks as well as midi tracks in the VST. You can create phrases for any virtual instrument containing the keyswithes, they can be moved and will automatically fit any chord/scale. You can use it in Biab with Element as you can't chain midi plugins in Biab. It will import the BB Chord Output midi track.

IF BIAB would come into the 21st century with how it handles midi it would be a great partner with my new favorite Chord and Scale tool, Scaler!

This post https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=591383#Post591383 gives you an idea how I use Presonus Notion for better sounds of the Melody and Soloist tracks, for my composition demos.

I also use Cakewalk by BandLab as my DAW, and Adobe Audition or WaveLab Elements for finished stereo editing.

I often use MuseScore to read and convert Music XML scores.

I write music in Encore (not recommended to anyone else; it's too buggy).

I sometimes use either ScanScore or Transcribe to grab parts of PDF sheetmusic to save me the time transcribing it.

This is probably only half of what I use, but these are the main ones. In other words, use the right tool for the job.

A can of worms opened here sure, but it's alwise nice to know what others use.
Toontrack, i once bought EZdrums, then a sale deal on superior drums. Latter i really like, a recommended SDX is Metal machinery, even if you don't like head banger stuff.

I prefer Cubase Pro, especially for it's extensive midi and audio tools.

EZ keys is a handy quicky tool, buy you usually spend a lot of time fixing occasional notes.

Matt, any experience with Dorico or even Cubase notation?

I usually stick to BIAB for lead sheets, melody/chords. Might be not enough for Jazz and Classical arrangement works.

Yes, I tried Dorico. And more than a dozen others. I hate them all. None come close to the ease of data entry of Encore. But Encore (which I beta tested for decades) is dreadfully buggy unless you know exactly how to avoid the crashes, and even then it crashes on me several times each session. So I move my score out of Encore as fast as possible.

I tried Cubase briefly when I thought SONAR was a lost cause. It’s strength is MIDI. But I had no overriding reason to change from the DAW I knew.

Hi,
for notation I tried Dorico Elements which makes very good output, but has limitations (it's elements). So the best thing for quick use and good output (even a kind of book) is EasyABC. Install is a little bit tricky, but it has good Xml in- and output and makes nice Pdfs. And, it is free.
Maybe ABC is not for the real professionals, more for hobbyists and folkies, mostly celtic or irish.

Reaper has a decent Notation Editor.

I don't have it but believe any guitar player would find +++ MidiGuitar2 +++ by JamOrigin useful software to have in their musical toolbox.

MidiGuitar2 is software designed to convert an analog guitar signal into midi. Unlike many software programs MidiGuitar2 is pretty good at converting polyphonic guitar. Where it fails is while it can detect multiple notes played at one time, the program can not determine the string each note is played on.

The Encore-case! As Matt points out, that was some genius software, but it crashed on you at the blink of an eye. Still, was so intuitive.

Tried Forte Notation, Musescore, Finale. To me, nothing comes close. Funnily, the Finale notepad strikes me as one of the best available, right now.

And for me, I need to see the melody while practicing tunes. So, I use the Melody track in BIAB and have the Sheet window open. I’m sure a lot of musicians work the same way.

The trouble with the Sheet or lead sheet window is:
*Inconsistent use of accidentals
*Displaying the whole sheet (8 or 10 single staff lines, 4 bars per line...) makes Biab crash often and this has been so since biab 2012. Has something to do with the screen resolution, but I can’t fix it.
*Displaying the whole sheet makes the chords unreadable. If you make the chord font bigger, the chords are no longer well placed, even with the engraver option. *And chords with extensions are often made really small.
*The sheet doesn’t display pushes, holds and other accents... as in the New Real Book
*First endings, tags, endings... are a mess to work with. Should be as used in notation: al coda, coda, 1st, 2nd
*A-B sections should be more flexible: every chorus is either “as on the chord window” or “all parts play B-style” in the middle sections.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to be able to stay inside biab: in theory you have everything you need: chords, melody, notation, arrangement options and the underrated conductor. All that exporting to DAW or notation, makes you lose all the possibilities of biab, like
*switching styles and feels,
*Rearranging chords
*Making other tag-endings and trying them out
*Using Bar settings for altering instruments or volume of accompanying instruments

These are critical points, and thanks for highlighting them. Why is/should there be a requirement to take the song outside of the native operational environment to enable it to deliver a feature that should / is supposed to be part of the product's environment. If the feature-set is identified as available 'in the box' then it needs to do everything the feature states, whether this is notation, multi-riff inclusion, or other.

Externalizing the music to actually deliver a feature that the product states it can already do shouldn't be a requirement.

You guys are doing a great job at articulating a fundamental problem at the core of BIAB. It tries to be "too many things to too many people", in other words "jack of all trades, master of none". It simply "can't always finish what it starts". As a result it is not always the "right tool for the right job". The "swiss army knife" of music apps. But lets not "through the baby out with the bath water".

BIAB's strength in my eyes is "feeding the inspiration and getting the creative juices flowing." That is where it shines. All those areas you guys have mentioned allow you to think about what more can be done and needs to be done and how to go about doing it. The fact that there are better tools to accomplish many of those things is simply our good fortune.

I long ago decided I needed to start in-the-box and then get out of it as quickly as possible to take advantage of tools of the trade which excel at each of their individual functions. My wish-list item for BIAB is better integration with the rest of the music app world.

And with that I will get off my soapbox.

And to answer the original question, here is a sampling of my go to standalone apps (excluding plugins). I have a couple more I would recommend but they are currently not on my top tier listing for shortcuts.

These are good points, Dan.

Surprisingly, I rarely take my music out of BiaB. I rarely import into a DAW and add other features.

If BiaB states it can deliver certain functionality that meets my requirements, then that's what I need and BiaB should be my one-stop-shop.

Problem is, that it can do some of these things as long as it is acceptable to the the user to export to another product to actually deliver those features. BiaB is no longer 'in the box' at all.

I do not even come close to using all of the BIAB features. Simply put I needed quality backing tracks (not wanting to sound like the record) but to do my own arranging that fits my take on every song and BIAB was and still is the answer. BIAB got me out of the studio into live paying venues, hopefully it will again after the virus is under control, and because of that I am thankful for P.G. Music everyday.

Later,

Ha, Dan’s setup looks a lot like mine: Pianoteq, Sampletank, Musescore, Cakewalk. I’m sure a lot of users have similar collections. Much as we love our box, we are always trying new and different stuff.

Videotrack puts it most eloquently: in the box. And make the box better, cause the idea itself is good. But in a more powerful and smart wording.

Danny C, I get you, I think. With all shortcomings and frustrations in the box, it is still the best.

In addition to Band-in-Box, I use RealBand, Diamond Cut Audio Restoration Tools for wav file editing, and Cakewalk by Bandlab for the VSTi plugins that RealBand doesn't handle well.