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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Hi again - another newbie Q. In fact two sort of related issues - hope that doesn't confuse things.
1 The chord sheet window displays chord changes and the general form of the piece. But I cant see how to tell what instruments/tracks play in which sections. So, for example, if the first chorus is whole band, but 2nd is vibes only, how can you see this in the display? I have created anything yet, but am just opening pre-existing BIAB songs.
2 Also, as a general comment, the "repeats and 1st/2nd endings" button provides an easy way of laying out the piece. But when I start a new piece there is a default repeat on bar 32 in my setup, and this doesnt clear no matter what I do with the "repeats and 1st/2nd endings" settings.
It seems the only way to delete this is to set the "number of chorus's" to "one".
But this is horrible confusing, as you then end up with say 4 repeats and 1 chorus.
Have I missed something?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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there are 3 numbers about the middle of the screen. The starting bar for the repeat or chorus, the ending bar for the same, and the number of repeats. The intro is not included, nor the outro. The outro can be a tag.
As to what is playing at a particular time, no, that's not how things work.
The song, if 3 verses, and no part markers on the chord sheet, will play style subset a then b then a.
There is a built in variation. Some newer stuff has 4 subset styles for variation.
You can add drum fills and force a variation with a part marker, click to the left of the bar on the number and it goes from blue to green and back unless there is more than one subset of the style.
At the beginning of each song you should set the key, check your Time Sig is right, then the first bar after the intro, the ending of the chorus/verse/repeat. Once this is done you are good to enter chords and on from there. If you got the ending bar wrong don't worry you can change it anytime.
You can enter the song starting at bar 1, take it to bar 40, repeat it 4 times, then when done with the chords hit the Intro button and add a 4 bar intro, which will change box 1 there to 5. Then you can mess with the ending. I often change the suggested intro chords, and many times will put in say C.d for just drums for 2 bars, then G.db for both drums and bass. Doing that will give me just drums for 2 bars, and the bass comes in where it says G.db (G in this case means the bass with play a G chord in the previous bars with just drums the chord was meaningless), and then when you hit the first bar of the song whatever chord is there will have all the instruments unless you are going to get fancy and rest the guitar or something.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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OP
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Hi John - thanks for that. I see that the 3 buttons you refer to set the chorus, and you can add an intro/outro as required. Its only that I happened upon the other button on the task bar first, which also sets repeats together with DC, DS etc, and found it a bit confusing to have 2 places to do essentially the same job. Anyhow this isnt really important.
On the other point though, I'm still not sure how I can tell whats actually going on. I got the idea of using part markers for drum fills on the preceding bar - thats great. But I dont see what else they denote. If, for example the first chorus is played by say the entire band, but 2nd chorus has sax solo, and say 3rd chorus is vibes - how can I see this. If the part markers do this, how do they indicate the specific changes?
Sorry if this seems a dumb question - and I've got plenty more!
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Joined: May 2002
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PG Music Staff
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PG Music Staff
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Hello tommohawk Quote:
On the other point though, I'm still not sure how I can tell whats actually going on. I got the idea of using part markers for drum fills on the preceding bar - thats great. But I dont see what else they denote. If, for example the first chorus is played by say the entire band, but 2nd chorus has sax solo, and say 3rd chorus is vibes - how can I see this. If the part markers do this, how do they indicate the specific changes?
A Band-in-a-Box style (.STY file) has two substyles. You switch between the two substyles by entering a part marker: A (blue) or B (green). The B substyle is generally more lively and intended for the middle part of the song.
In addition to switching between A and B at part markers, styles play the B substyle in middle choruses by default. There is a setting for this in the song settings window.
BB songs use the term chorus in the Jazz convention, which means once through the song. Many of the demo songs have 3 choruses, 32 bars/chorus.
Just for your information, note that not all RealTracks instruments play differently between A and B - that is just the way those instruments are.
In terms of seeing what's going on.. part markers aren't intended to show you anything about which instruments are playing. Styles can only have one instrument per track (although the instrument may be silent in one substyle). To see which instrument it is, you can click on the track in the instrument panel at the top of the screen.
Songs can have instrument changes on a track. If there is an instrument/patch change, there will be a red outline around the bar. You can click on the bar and it will indicate the change in the status bar at the top of the screen, or you can press F5 to open the bar settings dialog.
Songs may have a solo or melody as well - to see exactly what's going on there, you can open the notation or leadsheet window.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Hi Andrew - thanks for that. As I said I'm a BIAB newbie so this is one steep learning curve.
I'm getting the idea that BIAB will do some fabulous things - especially with RT. So that makes it extra frustrating that I'm still on first base.
I guess I find some aspects rather counter-intuitive - so for example I've opened a nice smooth jazz all RT style with an alto solo - and find the alto playing on the strings track.
Also, although this is an alto "solo" the alto plays through the whole thing, every chorus.
Presumably its possible to have differnt instruments playing different chorus's?
Is there a demo like this? If I look see how thats done it would give me a head start.
For the moment I'm just looking at pre-loaded songs - maybe some of this would become apparant if I just got stuck in and got crative. But walk before you run and all that.
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The name of the tracks goes back historically to the way BIAB was originally implemented. That being said, you can put any instrument you want on whatever track (except for Drums). That's why you'll want to look at what instrument is playing on whichever track.
So generally, guitars would go on the guitar track, but there's no reason you can't put a guitar on the piano or strings track.
It's been requested in the wish list to allow the track types to match the track instruments, or even just have generic track names, but that hasn't happened yet. So for now, just realize that you have a bass, drum, guitar, piano, strings, melody, and soloist track to work with. What you put on each track is up to you (or up to the definition of the style). Click on the track name and you'll see the instrument that plays on that track and that should help you out some. Just one of those things you learn as you use the program.
John Laptop-HP Omen I7 Win11Pro 32GB 12TB SSD Desktop-ASUS-I7 Win10Pro 32GB 12TB SATA BB2026/UMC204HD&404HD/Casios/Cakewalk/Reaper/Studio One/Notion/Dorico/Noteworthy/NI/Halion/IK http://www.sus4chord.com (under rehosting/construction)
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Hi John - OK thanks. Would be nice to see more representative track label - sounds like its in the wish list, but like you say its easy enough to just click the track and check the instrument in the box below and left.
Do you have a take on the other point, ie how to get different instruments to solo on different chorus's? Do you know if any of the demos do this?
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Tom,
Click the "memo" button and it *should* give you the 411 on instruments. You can also use Edit-unfold to one long chorus and you will have the format 1- xx amount of bars. One play through from bar one.
However, as mentioned above, an unfolded song will likely NOT give you the different "variation" Biab usually plays on the repeat of 2nd, 3rd chorus musically etc . . .
Some of the PG Demo Songs use 2 or 3 instruments on melody/solo tracks. I believe the "memo" box will list them.
F5 on any bar will allow you to set/change any instrument, mute a part etc . . . The "Bar Settings" is where Biab's power lies, IMO. It allows you to be the conductor/producer at that point and have the band lay what YOU want. Pushes, shots, rests etc . . is another powerful tool that is often overlooked.
You can really change the "feel" of the song with those pushes and shots etc . . . There are short cut typing options, once you learn what each (.) represents.
(.) will rest
(..) shot
(...) hold
Such as G.. will cause ALL instruments to do a shot
G..bd will cause all except (b)Bass (d) drums to do a shot
And the (^) will cause an 1/8th push (^^) 1/16th push etc . . .
so, ^G..bd will cause all instruments to push the beat an 1/8th while ALSO doing a shot save (b)Bass (d)Drums. Again, THIS is where Biab's power comes in as a sequencer.
Trax
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Hi Trax Thanks for your helpful comment Quote:
(.) will rest
(..) shot
(...) hold
Such as G.. will cause ALL instruments to do a shot
G..bd will cause all except (b)Bass (d) drums to do a shot
And the (^) will cause an 1/8th push (^^) 1/16th push etc . . .
Yes, I discovered this from the tutorial - great feature, and easy to use.
Quote:
F5 on any bar will allow you to set/change any instrument, mute a part etc . . . The "Bar Settings" is where Biab's power lies, IMO. It allows you to be the conductor/producer at that point and have the band lay what YOU want. Pushes, shots, rests etc . . is another powerful tool that is often overlooked.
I had a look at this - but still ran into problems on a few counts.
Basically the song I loaded has Sax "soloing" on all chorus's. I thought it would be good to just have it on say chorus#2, ie tacet/mute on the others.
If I go to Bar #1 and do F5, I can set Strings (ie the sax track) to mute. This works OK, although if I do F5 again on bar #1 it hasnt held the info - so you cant check the instruction given. Anyhow it does mute it.
If I set, at the top, "settings Apply to Chorus# " to "1" then I hope the sax would fire up on chorus 2. But that doesnt happen. So I tried the "back to normal" option to reset it for the 2nd Chorus. Trouble is I'm trying to apply the intruction on the same bar as the 1st instruction to mute - but second time round - if you see what I mean.
I thought if I unfold it, as you mentioned, that might help. But no - BIAB seems to regards Bar#1 and Bar#33 as the same. So the "back to normal" command works on any bar other than the one I want.
I'm really not an awkward cuss, honest! I was just trying to keep it simple and play around with different chorus's. Maybe theres another way?
Thanks Tom
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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quick follow on - I now notice the F5 Bar edit feature does hold the command to mute/resume - it just doesnt seem to recognise or hold the Chorus setting at the top.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Journeyman
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As mentioned in Andrews post, you can regulate some of what you want to do with the Song Settings dialog. Two check boxes in particular will affect how things play - one being the Vary Style in Middle Choruses and Allow Embellishment of Chords. The others can also change how things get played if you want/need any of the specific options. I generally turn these off by default and manually tell BIAB when and where I want these things by the use of part markers and the chords that I input into the bars. As Andrew said, these are checked by default and I'm not sure what overrides have priority between Song Settings and F5 Bar Settings. That info is probably in the manual somewhere.
Good luck.
PS - you don't want to hear this, but some of what you want to do is easily done in Real Band, included with BIAB. There, you are now a newbie in 2 programs. I'm not sure that really helps.
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks for these suggestions: Quote:
As mentioned in Andrews post, you can regulate some of what you want to do with the Song Settings dialog. Two check boxes in particular will affect how things play - one being the Vary Style in Middle Choruses and Allow Embellishment of Chords. The others can also change how things get played if you want/need any of the specific options.
Lots of options here, but nothing to mute a specfic instrument for a specific chorus so far as I can see.
Quote:
PS - you don't want to hear this, but some of what you want to do is easily done in Real Band, included with BIAB. There, you are now a newbie in 2 programs. I'm not sure that really helps.
Well I wondered that - but I don't really want to transfer to RB just to layout the basic piece.
F5 on the bar settings ALMOST does wht I want - but the "settings apply to Chorus" selection at the top doesnt seem to work. Any ideas? PG person?
I am bustin' to get stuck in but am determined to sort the basics before I get started.
Thanks.
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Hey! I got it sorted.
Here's the thing.
1 To use F5 to effect changes on specific chorus, say mute strings on Chorus 2, you have to select chorus first, then do the muting selection, not the other way round. Might seem obvious but I think I happened to do it the other way initially.
2 If you re-open the F5 dialogue box it appears the change hasnt been saved - but that's because the Chorus settings always opens on "All Choruses" by default. If you then select the chorus in question, in this case chorus 2, it then displays the relevent change.
3 The strings wont fire up again in chorus 3 without the "Return to Normal Command" This is also entered in the same F5 dialogue box under chorus 3. Both settings are saved.
Slowly getting there...
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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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If you do that your see a red indication in the bar that something is happening.
John Conley
Musica est vita
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Hi John - yes thanks got that.
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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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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
Order before 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th and SAVE up to 50% on most Band-in-a-Box® version 2026 for Mac Upgrade packages... and that's not all! With your version 2026 for Mac purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons FREE! Upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks... that's 222 NEW RealTracks available with version Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac!
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- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
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- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
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Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
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April 5 (Easter Sunday): Closed
April 6 (Easter Monday): Open regular hours
Wishing you an egg-cellent weekend!
— Team PG
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