(It was suggested that I re-post this question in the General section because there are more people here that might be interested in helping me).

I am thinking of buying BIAB for Mac and would like your advice. Recently retired, I'm now living out my passion as a singer. I don't play an instrument, but use an iPad to supply my song tracks. I'm a tenor and sing mostly Irish ballads, inspirational, old time sing alongs, patriotic, religious, and similar songs, all loved by seniors, my main audience. I need BIAB to help me create the tracks I need as quickly as possible. I want to put in the melody line (either import a MIDI melody line or enter the notes) put in the chords, select a style, key, tempo, etc., then either output to Garage Band or iTunes. What do you people think? Can BIAB do it for me? Is it overkill for what I need?

Up to now I have been downloading mp3 instrumental and karaoke tracks from the internet. Then I usually have to edit the song with an app called the Amazing Slow Downer for the key and speed I want. Often I have to try to edit the song in Garage Band as best as I can. This process is slow and oftentimes is not what I really want, but it's all I have.

I really want an easier, faster, and more efficient way of getting the nice sound that I need.

I thought you would have the experience to give me the straight talk and maybe even help me learn how to use BIAB I'd that's what I get.

Thank you all in advance,
JohnO

I think BB would be excellent for that purpose. It does everything you want,,,,,, and more.

After composing in BB, you can use Real Band to render tracks that are more realistic sounding than midi tends to be.

depending too on how involved you wish to be in the process, you can make what I call radio ready backing tracks that sound top notch professional.

Compose in BB and you can edit the key and tempo right there with a few clicks and you don't get the crappy artifacts that something converting an audio mp3 or wave will have. I love that feature.

I think it will suit your purposes nicely. My advice is to buy as far up the "food chain" as you can afford to buy since the further up you go, the more features you get and the better the tracks will be.

Mega pak is a minimum....Ultra plus or Everything on a hard drive if you can afford it. Those versions rock!!!

Yes, BB should be great for what you want. However, the Mac version does not have Real Band, so you would be using Garage Band for your DAW instead.

I agree with Herb. Buy the most you can afford, as it will give you more RealTracks. The RealTracks are what makes BB really sizzle, with actual recordings of instruments, not just midi sounds. In addition to the demos you can here from the BB home page, you can hear some good "real life" examples in the User Showcase forum.

Good luck!

Steve

JohnO you might want to listen to some of the music in the user showcase forum. The songs there will give you an idea of what BiaB is capable of doing, both in the MIDI and RT sides of BiaB.

Note that the Mac version does not come with RealBand; however, you can very easily import your BIAB tracks into the free Mac program, Garageband, and mix away.

Serious users with the Mac platform should really consider buying the Windows version and running it under Parallels on the Mac.

That makes every one of the many more features that are available in the Windows version available to you

--Mac

yup... or better yet, buy or build a dedicated Windows OS music computer/DAW with a nice interface. Decent computers are so inexpensive these days...