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eddie1261 "Looks like" you could use some wall treatments. Your mixing position looks very "live". If you clap your hands and you can hear "reverb/echo" . . . room treatments will help a lot. This is specially true for any recording environment if you record. For everyone: A good STUDIO Headphone is an ABSOLUTE MUST !! Buy one that was DESIGNED for STUDIO use and spend at least $100 on one. AVOID consumer and DJ models. Average consumer models are usually NOT designed with a flat frequency response. DJ models have a heavy hump in frequencies that help you hear the headphone in a loud ambient environment . . . like a night club. My personal choice is a Sony 7509. I know this headphone intimately because I've used this model for many years. Everyone can hear. There are far fewer number of us who has LEARNED TO LISTEN. Yes, CRITICAL listening ability IS AN ACQUIRED TALENT . . . and it takes as much time, effort and PRACTICE to develop this talent as it takes to become a good guitarist. Everything we have ever heard in our life time is a result of the sound source and ITS REACTION to the environment. This is the difference WHY you sound different in the bathroom compared to the living room. If you do not have a properly "treated" Listening room (where you mix your music), the headphone eliminates the "environment" to a minimum. The only "environment" left is the air space between the headphone diver and your eardrum. Each HEADPHONE sounds different . . . even within the same "model number". The more you pay . . . the less are the minor difference within a "model number". Flatter response you get from a good pair of headphone is usually not as pleasing as listening to a nice stereo system. This is because the "pleasing environment" we are used to has been eliminated. "Consumer" headphones have built-in EQ curve to replicate the "missing environment". So, if you mix to a "consumer" headphone and you play the result in your stereo system, some areas of the EQ curve can become over or under emphasized. Once you buy your "reference" headphone, its time to start the learning process. This is a LEARNING process and it requires many hours of listening. You need "REFERENCE TRACKS". You need to select CD tracks from your CD collection that you think they SOUND great to you. These tracks don't necessarily be one that you are fond of . . . just the ones with production quality you want to emulate. These reference tracks should contain a wide range of genre. Include few examples from Orchestral music like Movie soundtracks to solo acoustic instruments and everything in between. If you decide to burn a reference CD, make sure you do in a WAV. file format so there are no digital compression is involved. Now its time to spend MANY HOURS of LISTENING. Concentrate on trying to isolate and listen to each instrument or an area of frequency range. Learn to listen in parts of the sound as well as the whole. eventually you will learn YOUR headphone's sound and begin to trust it. It is often helpful to listen to a reference track while mixing to check your progress. If the production quality of you mix comes close the the production quality on your reference track . . . then the audio CD you burn should translate well in your stereo system. If you compare your work against a reference track from a "Big Label CD" . . . through YOUR headphone, then your work should come very close to or equal a commercially produced CD !! If you can not come close enough to your satisfaction . . . then its time to think about equipment upgrade. Blindly spending money on equipment is hardly a good solution. Always do plenty of research before spending your hard earned money. Studio Monitors and Control room . . . that is a different can of worms. Its easier said than done but . . . . . Learn you headphone and trust it. Hope this helps someone. Just my 2 cents worth.  Ed Layola PS: click on my studio web site below to see my "studio photos"
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Yoda, with anything but the vocals it's all line level so there is no concern about room echo, and when I record vocals I am behind a carpeted partition that sits 90 degrees to an open door. Totally isolated, and covered with a thick moving mat, and it's totally dead.
I WILL indeed have some treatment as I bring players in and record with live mics. I have some foam that I collected from other studio builds I assisted on, and there is also a love seat that gets moved into that room. With angled ceilings, do I need baffling ON the ceiling or where it meets the flat wall? I have seen it both ways. One thought is that on the flat wall it catches sound as it rolls. The other thought is to keep it FROM rolling. Right now though, the room sound is just for me to hear and none of it gets recorded.
It's a fairly small room and not much foam is needed for the ceiling if I put it there.
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.
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eddie, you should also have some acoustic treatment in there so you can hear those monitors in the nearfield without room reflection or standing wave probs.
First rule of thumb, that will not break the bank, is to have about 50/50 soft and hard reflection on all six surfaces (six meaning walls, floor and ceiling). One can get away with a lot by hangind tapestries or rugs centered on each wall such that there is a border around them of reflective plaster that is about the same surface area ss the tapestry. A throw rug can account for the floor. Ceilings can be a bit tricky, sometimes hanging netting, etc. can help stop the ceiling ping. And, of course, Bass Traps for that Standing Wave. A nice old couch can be pressed into service, when pulled out away from a flat wall a couple of feet or so. Not precise, but rather amazing what such can do. Pinewood bookshelves (without rattly stuff on 'em.) with books on 'em can also serve as ersatz Helmolz filters on a wall or two of the home studio, breaking up undesirable reflections.
Don't laugh, the original Dreamworks studio used Tapestries as described and they made a helluva lotta movie soundtracks in there.
The good news is that if the Control Room is made to sound good for mix playback, it ought to sound good for the occasional Tracking Session as well.
--Mac
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks for all the replies guys, this has been very helpful in getting me up to speed. Last question ( at least for now), what do you guys use to build the midi tracks, the computer keyboard or a midi controller? I assume most are using a midi keyboard, any suggestions appreciated.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Search Keyboard suggestions or recommendations in Forum search box (upper right); there have a been a few threads recently .. lots of input.
Make your sound your own!
.. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Acoustic room treatment and room design philosophy are dime a dozen. Other than the basic acoustic principals, even the professional acoustic designer can differ greatly from one to another. None of them are truly WRONG . . . Some work better than others. The best solution depends on each individual space.
I don,t feel too comfortable giving advice about room acoustics without hearing the actual room, so I won't.
Here are the basics. Your PRIMARY GOAL is to make your MIX POSITION as accurate as possible. That means, at the very least eliminate DIRECT reflection (first order reflection) from reaching your ears at your mix position. Direct reflection from ceiling, side walls and floor needs to be minimized as much as possible. These Surfaces should be acoustically absorbent and not reflective or diffusive.
That usually means an area in all surfaces that are about perpendicular to the monitors for about 4 feet in front of your monitor. This is your critical surface area. Your monitors should be symetrically placed at least 12 to 24 inches from the side and rear walls. The center line of your monitors should converge at the mix position, horizontally and vertically. Your monitors should be pointed right at you. Your mix position should be about 4 to 5 feet in front of the monitors. This generally works for a small room (less than 12'x12' room with a 9' ceiling.) With a larger room, its time to think about moving up to some Mid Field monitors.
If you treat this critical area with foam, use at least a 3" thick foam. If you use carpeting use 2 or 3 layers in the critical area and hang them with about an inch of air space in between them. A single layer carpeting should NOT be glued to the wall. Instead, hang them with at least half inch space from the wall surface. These treatment should absorb frequency above 120 Hz. Most effective for frequency above 600 Hz. Surface treatments are not very effective for frequencies below 300 Hz. Generally, low frequencies are amplified in the corners. Low frequency requires mass. Foam bass traps do help but not a whole lot. A real bass traps are not cheap but you can build them. You can find plans available on the internet.
Once you do this minimal treatment, you will notice an improvement in imaging and clarity. The problem with small room is the small critical listening area. Usually about 24 to 30 inch sphere around the mix position. When you move out of the mix position, you will start to hear standing waves and acoustic distortions. Once in a while due to the room shape, you end up with a bad standing wave at your mix position. If that happens, you might have to re-locate the mix position or introduce a 31 band EQ in the monitor chain.
The wall behind the monitors is usually preferable to be dead.
Myself included, 99% of us can not afford to "build" a studio and have the rooms designed by an architect specializing in building recording studios. So we end up adopting existing spaces.
My control room and the isolation booth used to be an "extra bedroom" that was illegally built into a 2 car garage. Now that its no longer rented and renamed as a hobby room, I didn't have to tear it out.
I prefer rooms that are as dead as possible. I prefer not to hear any short reflection in the control room or the iso booth. When I mix, the first thing I do add "room ambiance" as needed before adding effects. If had larger spaces, I can start thinking about controlling room ambiance. For me, small dead spaces has always been a friend.
The best room treatment you can do, is research. Read about it as much as you can. Then do what your particular room needs. Just compare what you hear in your room against your reference headphone. The room is telling you what it needs.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Ed
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Eddie, loved your pics. It inspired me to clean up my setup  . Here is my home studio and my road gear. Actually found a great deal on a 32 inch plasma monitor in B stock at CDW. Brought it howm and no stand in the box so back it went- boy it would have looked great! Otherwise, my modest version of a home recording studio (..aka, spare bedroom  ) Home  Road (before addition of VLT..) 
Dan, BIAB2024, SoundCloud Win11, i7(12thGen), 32GB, 1TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD), 2TB Libraries, 1 TB(WD-Black), 2TB SSD(M.2 NVMe SSD)Data, Motu Audio Express, Keystation 61, SL88 Studio, Reaper
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Dan is that an old school Epiphone Riviera?
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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You people with clean studios embarrass me. I have notes and drives laying all over the place.. on my desk right now are three RAM chips, three DVD drives, two hard drives and about 17 CD's ..a few adapters .. PCM adapter with CF card in it ... a pen , and a cup of coffee. Oh, and two soundcards laying behind the stack of drives (I just noticed).
I need to do some straightening up. :embarrassed:
Make your sound your own!
.. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
I need to do some straightening up. :embarrassed:
Rharv, I'll send my wife over - she'll put you to work , hell she makes be dust the cables on the floor...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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My wife doesn't come in here much because she's the same way. I just make sure to keep the door closed.
Make your sound your own!
.. I do not work here, but the benefits are still awesome
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Dan is that an old school Epiphone Riviera?
No, its a slightly more modern circa 1995 Sheraton II. I've been plaing it for about 15 years and while my eyes have strayed, I have been faithful allthese years - although I also have the Strat for those wild nights.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
I have notes and drives laying all over the place.
Me too!! I tripped over a protruding eighth note this morning and I clearly remember telling it, "B flat, minor!!!"
I am using the new 1040XTRAEZ form this year. It has just 2 lines.
1. How much did you make in 2023?
2. Send it to us.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Some pizza and spagettii on the walls please. And beer stains.
You guys crack me up!
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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I'm not a power user like many of the folks here but right now my studio looks like a before picture from an episode of "Hoarders".
The harder I work the luckier I get.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Jazzmandan, Nice ! Looks like an efficient set up. By the way . . . I don't see the MOST IMPORTANT item !!!! LAVA LAMP !!!! To all of you . . . Any self respecting studio engineer/producer/musician MUST have a LAVA LAMP !!?? It doesn't matter if the studio space is small, cluttered, dusty or even disgusting . . . We can say, "Well, at least he has a LAVA LAMP . . ." 
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
Thanks for all the replies guys, this has been very helpful in getting me up to speed. Last question ( at least for now), what do you guys use to build the midi tracks, the computer keyboard or a midi controller? I assume most are using a midi keyboard, any suggestions appreciated.
Some of the USB M-Audio keyboard controllers also have audio and midi interface built-in, so for a very low price you can get all 3 things at once. I recently got one on Craig's list for $50
One caution: When windows 7 came out, a lot of us had to replace gear that didn't have a win 7 driver available. If you buy USB devices used, make sure there is a windows 7 driver available for it.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Quote:
How about sound playback, what are you guys using for the playback output? Where I plan to do some recording, I would think some studio monitors would be ideal, what do you suggest for amplifier for monitors? The other option would be to output through a small PA, but I don't want to purchase both.
are you planning to play live, record for distribution, create jam tracks for practice, or all of the above?
If you plan to play live, I don't see how you can avoid buying a PA or at least a clean amp such as a keyboard amp at some point. But if you are recording songs you want to distribute online or sell, you'll definitely need studio monitors.
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
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Update Your PowerTracks Pro Audio 2024 Today!
The Newest RealBand 2024 Update is Here!
The newest RealBand 2024 Build 5 update is now available!
Download and install this to your RealBand 2024 for updated print options, streamlined loading and saving of .SGU & MGU (BB) files, and to add a number of program adjustments that address user-reported bugs and concerns.
This free update is available to all RealBand 2024 users. To learn more about this update and download it, head to www.pgmusic.com/support.realband.htm#20245
The Band-in-a-Box® Flash Drive Backup Option
Today (April 5) is National Flash Drive Day!
Did you know... not only can you download your Band-in-a-Box® Pro, MegaPAK, or PlusPAK purchase - you can also choose to add a flash drive backup copy with the installation files for only $15? It even comes with a Band-in-a-Box® keychain!
For the larger Band-in-a-Box® packages (UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition), the hard drive backup copy is available for only $25. This will include a preinstalled and ready to use program, along with your installation files.
Backup copies are offered during the checkout process on our website.
Already purchased your e-delivery version, and now you wish you had a backup copy? It's not too late! If your purchase was for the current version of Band-in-a-Box®, you can still reach out to our team directly to place your backup copy order!
Note: the Band-in-a-Box® keychain is only included with flash drive backup copies, and cannot be purchased separately.
Handy flash drive tip: Always try plugging in a USB device the wrong way first? If your flash drive (or other USB plug) doesn't have a symbol to indicate which way is up, look for the side with a seam on the metal connector (it only has a line across one side) - that's the side that either faces down or to the left, depending on your port placement.
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows® Today!
Update your Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows for free with build 1111!
With this update, there's more control when saving images from the Print Preview window, we've added defaults to the MultiPicker for sorting and font size, updated printing options, updated RealTracks and other content, and addressed user-reported issues with the StylePicker, MIDI Soloists, key signature changes, and more!
Learn more about this free update for Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows at www.pgmusic.com/support_windowsupdates.htm#1111
Band-in-a-Box® 2024 Review: 4.75 out of 5 Stars!
If you're looking for a in-depth review of the newest Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows version, you'll definitely find it with Sound-Guy's latest review, Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows Review: Incredible new capabilities to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs.
A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
Convenient Ways to Listen to Band-in-a-Box® Songs Created by Program Users!
The User Showcase Forum is an excellent place to share your Band-in-a-Box® songs and listen to songs other program users are creating!
There are other places you can listen to these songs too! Visit our User Showcase page to sort by genre, artist (forum name), song title, and date - each listing will direct you to the forum post for that song.
If you'd rather listen to these songs in one place, head to our Band-in-a-Box® Radio, where you'll have the option to select the genre playlist for your listening pleasure. This page has SoundCloud built in, so it won't redirect you. We've also added the link to the Artists SoundCloud page here, and a link to their forum post.
We hope you find some inspiration from this amazing collection of User Showcase Songs!
Congratulations to the 2023 User Showcase Award Winners!
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Our User Showcase Forum receives more than 50 posts per day, with people sharing their Band-in-a-Box songs and providing feedback for other songs posted.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed!
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