Eddie doesn't hide from anything. Ever.

I asked how YOU use this program to compare it to how I use this program. Some of you chose to add the insinuated attitude. I am sure that many of you use this program as your backup band. That's fine if that is what you choose to do. I prefer to use it as a tool to write songs for live recording (note, WRITE and RECORDING) with real people later because of the time involved with the writing phase of things. I only have to teach players my songs AFTER they have morphed into completed songs rather than during the compositional period. The BIAB tracks are used as reference tracks from which live players can learn the chord progressions and arrangements, and start thinking of what their improvisational touches will be.

As far as the "gig and money" discussion, that is another soap box for me and I will spend 100 or so words on it here. I don't spell it mu$ic. I make enough money on my 40 hour job as a network technician to not care about scuffling and hustling to find gigs to play for 20 people in a coffee house or a corner bar full of drunks. (As a recovering alcoholic for now 15 years I prefer to distance myself from the bar thing unless absolutely necessary.) I play music for me, not empty and shallow acceptance from a room full of people who likely don't know good from bad anyway. Impressing a crowd is the easy part. Just turn your amp up to 27 and put your right hand on the neck and hammer-on your little heart out. (Like the kid at the Guitar Center was doing until I asked him to show me how to finger a B flat maj 7th, a question which was answered by an extended middle finger when he couldn't do it.) All the "dollar" talk kind of proves the point that fewer and fewer people care about the art any more. (I am working on a CD right now that is for ME. If anybody buys them, so be it, and any proceeds will go to the county animal shelter where I got my last 3 dogs, the same shelter that is the beneficiary named in my life insurance policy and the only heir named in my will. My goal is not to be the richest corpse in the graveyard.) This is why here in my city we see all these scab bands with a non-singing guitar, bass and drums behind a marginally talented girl singer who will play for a musical prostitution level $200 a night and a bar tab, and they sound completely limp because when the guitar player solos the music just drops out. But god forbid they bring in a keyboard player to fill the sound palette and sing harmony and make $20 less per guy. Places won't hire you if you dare to play original music rather than the cliche 40 song set list that every band plays... I went to the web pages of 7 popular local bands here in town. When I compared the set lists, fully 75% of the songs were on the list of all 7 bands. How many different bands can you hear play lame oldies like "Mustang Sally" before you finally say "enough"? You need to give people a reason to drive 60 miles across town to see you, and the same old stuff isn't going to do it. Live play is fun and all, but if people leave your gig and forget about you by the time they get home you haven't really touched them. You make the same $100 either way, but having them go home thinking "Man, that ballad that was the second to last song was a beautiful piece of writing" will always mean more to me than the 100 bucks. "Vanilla" bands are like sheets on a motel bed. Someone puts them on the bed, the guest sleeps on them, soils them, and the next day they put new ones on and nobody thinks twice about them. Then the next guest sleeps on them. Again and again. I see a few bands a month but rarely do I leave the venue thinking "I want to see them again".

This thread was in no way intended to be negative toward anybody. Many of you assigned that posture to it. I asked about the relative merits of working on creating canned music as live backup versus using the same tools to make demos for musicians to learn songs for recording a CD and performing that CD live. I can do a song in 4 hours and have it written, multi-tracked, dumped to an MP3 and off via email to the band members because I don't have to record and re-record and re-re-record over and over in Sonar or Pro Tools to clean up the clams. That is what makes BIAB a great writing tool. It plays it right the first time. If I still had the luxury of being a full time musician as I was for 22 years I would not use BIAB because I would have 8-10 hours per day in a rehearsal hall with the rest of the band. Age and life situations make that kind of decision for us. I didn't have a mortgage in those days, or drive a new car (complete with accompanying new car payment), so I now have to work the straight job thing. I am also now too old for the road. 12 weeks on the road at a time like we used to do would pretty much kill me now. It was fun THEN, but now, at this age.....not so much.

Peace all. Everybody keep doing what you like most and do best. I am out of this one now. Continue to flog me if you choose.