I only bought BiaB a few days ago, but I cannot begin to tell you how IDEAL this software is for my intended use.

I am an old hand at songwriting, having written a LOT of tracks for both band-oriented music as well as various videogame and indie film soundtracks.

Oddly enough, NONE of the material I've written over the decades is in the "jazz" territory, even though I've been STEEPED in the jazz standards, having absorbed and performed a LOT of songs from the usual suspects (Cole Porter, Sammy Cahn, Jimmy Van Heusen, etc.) over the years.

So, loving this classic material so much, I recently got it into my head to write and record some NEW songs that have that "timeless" vibe. I've been playing around with melodies and chord progressions in my head for a while, but hadn't really committed anything to paper or recording.

Having not looked at BiaB for a while, I stumbled across it again by accident, and thought, "Hey, if this let's me play with arrangements the way I think it will, it could shave a lot of time off of my songwriting process, and let me experiment with song ideas in semi-finished form without having to re-record on a traditional DAW every time I want to go back and tweak a song.

The idea for me was, I'll get the songs tuned and "perfect" in BiaB before I ever open up my DAW to start "real" tracking.

Well, as I have discovered very quickly, this BiaB thing is a godsend. Having already spent a few days coming up to speed with the software, last night I FINALLY got some uninterrupted time with BiaB, and I was stunned to find that at the end of the evening, I had managed to write and arrange THREE ENTIRE SONGS. I've got full arrangements, lyrics, melodies, everything I need to start laying down tracks. Wow.

As an incredible bonus, BiaB let me discover that I really DO have a flair for writing this swingin' jazz stuff. Yeah, having lived and breathed the classics for so long probably has a lot to do with how easy it feels for me to do this "new" thing, but having BiaB around to instantly play back my arrangements as I build them, with the proper feel, goes a LONG way toward inspiring me as I write.

I also love the way I can record scratch tracks of vocals, so I don't have to write charts or other notation to remind me of some cool lyrical phrasing or melody for my songs. This combined with the lyric sheet capability gives me all I need to do some SERIOUS songwriting without opening up any other apps or using pen-and-paper.

Let me also mention that I'm probably going to have to buy that Coyote Forte sampler plugin before the 30day trial runs out. It makes the MIDI parts much more pleasant and listenable than the normal GM instruments. I'm surprised in particular that the brushed drums and upright bass patches are so usable. This keeps my RealDrums/RealTracks usage to a minimum, so re-generation times are reduced and I have the option of exporting some of the midi as a foundation to drive even better virtual instruments when it comes time to put together finished tracks.

Is it PERFECT? No, no software is perfect. Is it ideal for what I'm doing? Yes, yes it is. It's like the developers read my mind and said, "Let's make an app so that EightString can write his jazz album with minimal fuss and maximum creative flow."

SWEET!

Oh, and all this songwriting is being done on my little Acer Aspire netbook and some earbuds.