PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows What else will I need?

Hello folks...

I was a BIAB user years ago. I don't even remember what version I was using. I loved the chord entry, style selection, and automatic accompaniment generation thing it did and apparently still does.

I was never very happy with crappy wave table instruments I had access to. And when I wanted to start recording me playing guitar against the backing tracks, I never liked the results, and not all of it was due to the fact that I'm a ham-handed guitarist at best.

I was looking for better midi sounds, but my options at that point did not look good.

So, when I upgraded machines, BIAB was left behind. I bought a Line 6 Toneport UX2, Cakewalk's Guitar Tracks, and some drum loops. Guitar Tracks included a soft-synth for nice drum, bass, and keyboard sounds.
I thought that I had what I wanted. I was getting good quality recordings, but I found trying to program drum tracks a pain. I really missed the convenience of BIAB for setting up a song.

I recently looked at the feature set for the latest BIAB. It sounds like it has progressed enough to get me where I want to be. However, there is so much there that feature lists, TLAs, and marketing hyperbole can mean just about anything.

1) I want to be able to structure songs from changes and styles.
2) I want the generated instruments to sound good to very good.
3) I want to be able to work within a DAW to record analog sources (through digital interfaces) synched to the tracks created with BIAB.
4) I do not want to have to become a computer music guru in order to get good to very good results.

Based on what I can read about BIAB 2011 with RealBand, it sounds like PG has me covered on items 1 and 3.
But what about 2 and 4?

My real question is can I get good to very good sounding instruments (drums, bass, etc.) out of BIAB 2011?
Which variant would be best?
If I need something else, what would specific recommendations be?

Thanks

Welcome to the forum.

I'd start by listening not only to the PG demos but to some actual compositions from some of our forum members. I think you will be pleasently surprised as to where BIAB has come over this short timeframe.

Later,

Hi, Nick Danger, Third Eye -

What's all this brouhaha?

I think that you may find you can do what you want to do by using a combination of Band-In-A-Box and RealBand (which comes with Band-In-A-Box). Realband will read BIAB files, but also allow you to record your own tracks, as well. And once you get a hold of the RealTracks, well, who needs musicians anymore? (Just kidding!)

Remember, PGMusic offers a 30-day money back guarantee, so if you are not satisfied, you'll get your money back.

Ahhh... a Firesign Theater buff... A rare find indeed.
I have modified my avatar and signature accordingly.....

I guess what I am really asking is, does BIAB/RealBand have good to very good sounding MIDI instruments in the "box?" Or, am I goung to have to also buy some soft-synth instruments (like Coyote ForteDXi for example) to get anywhere I want to be?

OK... I'm asking for a value judgement here, but you can still help me out....

Thanks for the replies...

Regards,
Ken

With the latest and greatest BIAB RealDrums & RealTracks, played by real studio musicians, you might not need to worry about MIDI quality.

I have the jv-1010 still, I am trying it with my EWI electronic wind instrument.

I have a Ketron SD-2 great sounds.

I am more and more inclined to use RealTracks and eschew the midi. (I feel a sniffle coming on.)

As to anchovies I found out early that if I ordered a pizza the other guys didn't want in on it. (I was for years the single guy in the Fire Hall) So the other half wasn't cold yet and some guys would scarf down the other half I was going to eat in the middle of the night when we came back from a call or in the morning for my breakfast...no wife at home to make me bacon and eggs. I like anchovies...I started ordering a deluxe pizza at 8 pm. with double anchovies and they left it alone. Only one guy I knew liked anchovies, and we would sometimes order a large deluxe double everything including anchovies. Yum. Memories.

I people messed up orders for pizza at 2 a.m. the guys in the delivery cars would look and if our lights were on we'd get the messed up order for free. Many times at 2 a.m. the door bell would ring and we'd have 4 or 5 large pizzas and just 4 of us. Call the adjacent station and they go for a 'drive' and come and have some pizza with us. LOL.

That was 26 years or so ago, because today is my 25th wedding anniversary to the same Scottish girl from the bush she was 25 years ago. I've kept her because she had 2 good swiss army knives in her purse and can pick the eye out of a beaver at 40 yards with a 22.

Dang beavers. Bane of my existence, but the wife has a real nice REAL beaver jacket made from the furs of the ones from behind the cabin. Pictures of the wife and cabin available on request.

Might be hard to do for the next month whilst we are in Europe though. I'm going over to explain Canada to them, and maybe they want to know stuff like snaring rabbits, and repairing snowshoes with cedar bark. Otherwise I'm going to seek out find music.

Some fine organ patches on the SD2, I let it play Santana's minor thing...Black Magic Woman, all Realtracks but the melody on the SD2 and who ever transcribed that tune for Band in a Box did a dandy job, and I must say the all RealTracks Reggae 1 style is great. After I let it play 2 times I played it with the melody muted and wailed away on my organ patches on the Korg, until my daughter came down and asked if I was to play the same song for another hour.

Don't get band in a box if you don't want to spend hours at it. I waste more time just playing and playing and playing. Then again I'm retired and my hair grew back, (Darker), and it's never been this long before so I'm thinking about rocking in the afternoon with other old dudes.

As to midi, if you are on 64 bit the choices in soft synths are limited.

64 bit is the future, but midi lives in the past, so unless someone gets motivated the soft synth marked has 'stagnated'.

If you need strings, or Chicago type horns you won't get that from Real Instruments, 'yet'.

If you take the cost of band in a box and the hours you will spend playing with it, and do the math it costs like nothing. Unless you are not into music, then get netflix and a box of crisps. (potatoe chips outside my house).

I hope you gained some insight here, and from the other posts, some knowledge as to how things work.

And don't mind me, I counted yesterday, which was the day of my 'cancer' surgery, and I had 125 doctor's appts last year, and I survived. Odd. I had to pay for parking, $148 bucks. The doc's visits were covered though, I hate paying to park in a field where I used to play football as a kid. Crazy.




.

Congratulations, John, on being here to celebrate the one year anniversary with good humor! Or is it humour?

I use Rolands TTS in BiaB, but use Jamstix, Sampletank, and TTS in RealBand. Couple those with RealDrums, and Real tracks and i got it covered.

Don't crush that dwarf and everything you know is wrong!

And I always loved the lines:

"I'm looking for the old Same place"
"Oh, you mean the same old place. You can't get there from here".

Hi Nick, If you buy BIAB you won't regret it, though it does have its fiobles like all software,
Check out the real track demos you can get such sounds instantly and its really true that you can change any chord and get a very decent result. Micro tweaking is possible in MIDI but not so in Real Tracks which are Acid type loops.
For most instruments MIDI is never going to hack it, for my ears - no matter how good the samples are this is because of the natural noises and blending of notes that most real instruments make. I could go into detail but maybe another time.

If you only use BIAB fro practice its gonig to be your best friend, and its giggable too if you wish.

Looking back at your original post, I think I would say:

1) covered for most common styles
2) Audio - covered very nicely with RealTracks. MIDI - it depends on what you have
3) covered, very nicely with RealBand or by integration with other DAW software
4) covered, although the more you know, the better you can use the tools