Originally Posted By: eddie1261
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BIAB is NOT a DAW.

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Repeat that 100 times until you get it.

BiaB is an auto-accompaniment app that has a ton of other features added on for your convenience.

Yes, it does have it's limitations, and as someone who writes aftermarket styles, I have discovered many of them. Every app has limitations and BiaB as an auto-accompaniment app does it better than anything else out there, that includes the software apps that couldn't compete and hardware/software devices like arranger keyboards.

Then there is another limitation, the styles. This is not the fault of the BiaB app, there are perhaps zillions of styles that could be written. If there is nothing for the young user, it is because there aren't any styles for them (or they haven't discovered the aftermarket styles I've written).

And BiaB doesn't do modal very well, major and minor modes work fine but it isn't designed to do all 12 modes. But then perhaps 99% of all popular music has been written in either the major or minor mode.

IMHO BiaB is the ultimate practice tool, almost any chord progression or the chords to almost any song, at any speed, and in thousands of different styles.

I also think it is a good scratch pad that can be exported and then imported to a DAW to take the very good output of BiaB and with some tweaks, make it 'ready for prime time'.

It has basic notation functions, quite good MIDI harmonizing functions, some very basic DAW functions and so on. I see these as a convenience because for example, you can't produce what you can in Encore or Finale. But that's not the point. I find it nice to see things in Notation and it helps me as a practice tool.

Much of today's music depends on a full fledged DAW and with the right style you can export output from BiaB, import it into a DAW and get some very modern music. But if using the DAW as a musical instrument, you have to learn how to use it and practice your skills to be good at it.

Also, BiaB styles tend to be a bit on the generic side. And this is how I think it should be. Early in my style writing career one of my customers asked me to write a style for Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel". It has a very song-specific guitar riff.

So I did a Don't Be Cruel style, and as soon as I tried it on another song that guitar riff shouted "DON'T BE CRUEL" and I realized the style was good for one thing only.

Plus it would have been much easier to export a generic rock/swing style into a MIDI Sequencer or DAW and then add the guitar riff. It would have taken less time than it did for me to incorporate that riff into BiaB.

BiaB stands alone today. It was so much better than the competition that they faded away.

IMHO every computer musician needs these tools (1) A DAW and/or MIDI sequencer (2) BiaB (3) A Notation app.

Notes

Bob "Notes" Norton smile Norton Music
https://www.nortonmusic.com

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