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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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MC5 is a great entry level DAW it will do almost anything any of the oters will do. It just has less bells and whistles.

Powertracks is very similar to MC5 it has a lot of features, but does not ahndle VSTi as well.

RealBand is just Powertracks with some band in a Box features added.

All of thes will work fine. As would Reaper, Multitrackstudio (my fav) Cubase, Sonar, and many more they all work great. My thought is you are already familiar with PG stuff and their DAWs are relitively inexpensive. Powetracks is a ggod deal. If it were me and i was working on BiaB stuff i would spend the money to upgrade BiaB abd get Rb with it and you have a very powerful package that is fully friendly.


HP Win 11 12 gig ram, Mac mini Sonoma with 16 gig of ram, BiaB/RB 2026, Reaper 7, Harrison Mixbus 11 , Presonus Audiobox USB96
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks to everyone for the help. You guys rock!

Greg in Orlando

Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Sorry I didn't get back sooner on your Reaper question.

When you say BIAB files, I am assuming you mean the BIAB song files. No, they will only play in BIAB ... and possibly PowerTracks or RealBand. That I don't know.

But in essence, each BIAB song file, as best I understand, is some type of proprietary midi file, which can be easily converted/ exported to a standard midi file that can be used in any DAW. So, after you make your BIAB arrangement/ song, you then take the midi file to your DAW of choice for more sophisticated midi and audio programming. Reaper, Sonar, Cubase, ProTools, Traktion, Logic, etc., all do these things ... although as I said, Reaper is in a class by itself as far as the opportunity to fully use an uncrippled, untimelimited demo, its incredibly low price and its active user group.

You've got some great advice here and since it sounds as though you already have some versioni of Cakewalk Music Creator, you may as well start there. If you outgrow it, then you can look further into the DAW suggestions here.

Good luck!

Prado

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