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In a few months, I will be the featured artist at the pops concert of our regional symphony orchestra. They called and asked me to orchestrate four of my original Brazilian jazz compositions and perform as soloist along with my guitarist and pianist. After I fell out of my chair, I got back up and started work on the project. BIAB has been invaluable in all parts of the preparation, and I thought it might be helpful to others if I made a few notes about how I have used it so far. Sorry in advance for the length.
Writing the songs
Not to overlook the most basic use of BIAB, I composed all four of the songs in BIAB. Three have been recorded and are available on iTunes, Pandora and Spotify. Two of those are played regularly on Music Choice TV on the jazz channel. One was among the twelve finalists for best jazz composition at the 2009 Los Angeles Music Awards. I play horns but not piano, guitar, bass or drums, so BIAB is invaluable to me in hearing those parts during the creative process.
Getting a starting pitch
This job required writing instrumental parts based on some of the playing that was improvised in the studio during the recording sessions, so I did a lot of transcribing from my own CD. Since I don’t have perfect pitch but do have great relative pitch, all I need to do transcriptions is a starting pitch once in awhile. I usually keep BIAB running, so instead of picking up a horn (no piano, remember), it’s quicker to just use my mouse and the built-in keyboard of BIAB.
Voicing chords
In BIAB, you can write a chord and then use Shift+ENTER to hear the chord. If you keep pressing Shift+ENTER, you hear alternate voicings of the chord (some more open, some more closed), and see them on the keyboard display. I did this frequently on some of the more complex chords to help me decide how to voice them for a full orchestra.
Reharmonizing soli sections
For some soli sections, I let BIAB make suggestions by taking the soli lead line I wrote back into BIAB. I placed that over the chords of the song, and used the Soloist Harmony to select the style I wanted (for example, an open-voicing trombone section). BIAB produced some great ideas for section harmony parts. BIAB should get a co-arranger credit!
Double-checking the song form
To make sure I had not missed any measures, I compared the measure numbers of major events in the BIAB song to my notation program. Sometimes, I played back the notation program and BIAB at the same time and listened to make sure all was well. Doing this with audio from different sources will occasionally result in one of the programs getting a bit out of sync, but I can make small adjustments of the BIAB tempo on the fly to keep it sounding good.
Changing a melody to cut time
Here’s a nifty trick that may be unique to BIAB. I wanted to redo one chart in 2/4 time that was originally notated in 4/4. I was surprised to find out that my notation program would not do this conversion. Instead of re-keying in the whole melody and written soli, I remembered that BIAB had the Edit Reduce and Edit Expand Duration commands. I saved the melody as MIDI, took it into BIAB, made the changes of duration and tempo, and then plugged the exported MIDI back into the notation program. This saved a lot of time.
Preparing a recording for the orchestra
The orchestra conductor requested a recording of each of my arrangements so she could focus on the string, horn, brass and woodwind parts she would have to cue. This recording was primarily made from the notation program. By itself, though, it sounded pretty sterile, so I used BIAB from my original tunes and muted some tracks to supply just background percussion and piano/guitar backing to put the parts into context.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Super big congrats from me, that sounds like a major accomplishment (and pretty scary too -- ha, ha). Sounds complicated, but you given us all a few tips to consider in our own songwriting.
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Thanks, Kevin. It occurred to me I had not played first chair in an orchestra in 42 years. If I live through this, I'll let you know how it went!
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Quote:
Super big congrats from me, that sounds like a major accomplishment (and pretty scary too -- ha, ha). Sounds complicated, but you given us all a few tips to consider in our own songwriting.
BIG +1 here Matt, there is no doubt in my mind you will knock'm dead!
Keep us posted and hopefully where we can see/hear the performance.
Later,
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Quote:
Quote:
Super big congrats from me, that sounds like a major accomplishment (and pretty scary too -- ha, ha). Sounds complicated, but you given us all a few tips to consider in our own songwriting.
BIG +1 here Matt, there is no doubt in my mind you will knock'm dead!
Keep us posted and hopefully where we can see/hear the performance.
Later,
Another big +1 and super big congrats!
Also thanks for the Shift+Enter tip on alternate voicings, I didn’t know that.
Life is short so make sure you spend as much time as possible on the Internet arguing with strangers.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
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"Also thanks for the Shift+Enter tip on alternate voicings, I didn’t know that." Matt - I didn't know that either. (Although I'm just a novice with the programs).Thanks! Knock 'em dead at your concert! What an honor. (Do I have to call you "Maestro" now?)  Regards, Bob
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Excellent writeup Matt and congrats. Lets hope someone videos this concert and it can be put up on YT so we can all see it.
Bob
Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.
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Quote:
Sorry in advance for the length.
no problem
thank you for the informative documentation
have you thought about an encore? you know they'll want one
hope all goes well
Last edited by pghboemike; 03/08/13 10:14 PM.
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Yes.
And thanks again, everyone, for your good wishes.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Hi Matt,
A MIGHTY CONGRATULATIONS!!! That's fantastic news. Also, thank you for your guide to using BIAB for orchestrating. I wasn't aware of the Shift+Enter tool. I dare say I'll be using this in the near future.
All the best,
Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Er....Noel....that's "Maestro" now.
First chair? That's worthy of such respect!
Regards,
Bob
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Hey Bob, Thanks for the heads up! I'll watch my words in future posts  Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Hello Matt,
You are obviously a very talented and dedicated musician and someone who is very deserving of “the featured artist”. I am very happy for you and can't wait to hear what the experience was like.
Congratulations!
Mike
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Matt - please let us know the details of the event. My wife and I were looking to do a trip up to New York (state, not city) and if the timing works out, we would love to come hear it.
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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Congrats Matt! And thanks for the tips.
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Hey Matt:
Congratulations. That's a nice honor. And Thanks for the tips.
John
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Congrats on the accomplishment and thanks for sharing the good news with us! Another great testimony as to what BIAB can do in the right hands! If it is possible for you to get a video of the event, I am sure all here would love to see it.
My TunesPsalm 57:7 My heart, O God, is steadfast, my heart is steadfast; I will sing and make music.
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occasionally i'll be reading a post and be deep into the replies when someone will thank either the original poster or one of the respondents for mentioning a biab or realband feature i don't know about or missed when it was originally posted i copy the item and then use ctrl-F to find all mentions of the item throughout all the posts related to the topic in this case it was Shift+ENTER Quote:
Voicing chords
In BIAB, you can write a chord and then use Shift+ENTER to hear the chord. If you keep pressing Shift+ENTER, you hear alternate voicings of the chord (some more open, some more closed), and see them on the keyboard display. I did this frequently on some of the more complex chords to help me decide how to voice them for a full orchestra.
thanks matt
M4 pro Mac mini 1tb HD 24GB mem M3 MacBook Air 16GB mem casio wk7500 presonus audiobox i2 usb interface
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Funny how so many have picked up on this little Shift+ENTER tip that I've used for more than a decade and considered pretty ordinary, although what it does is quite remarkable. I'm pleased it helps some of you to know about it. And once again, many thanks for all the kind wishes.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 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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