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Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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New FREE EXPANDED User Style for Band-in-a-Box.

Band-in-a-Box has always had these limitations.

1) You can't put a chord both on a beat and the eighth note before that same beat

2) You can't put more than 4 chords in a bar of music

Norton Music invented EXPANDED styles in the 1990s to overcome these limitations. Using EXPANDED styles you can put up to 8 chords in a 4/4 measure and that means you can put a chord on a beat and the eighth note before the same beat.

You can read an explanation on how it works, listen to an audio demo, and download a FREE EXPANDED style for Band-in-a-Box here:

It's a simple, basic Rock/Country/Pop style. It demonstrates how Norton Music EXPANDED styles work and it's yours FREE for the download.

For more information and your FREE style, go to: http://www.nortonmusic.com/expanded.html

Enjoy


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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This is great!
I wouldn't have mind seeing a link to your Styles Disk #17 on that page,
to check out more of your "expanded" styles.

Thanks Notes!
LLOYD S

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Thanks for the kind words Lloyd.

I figure if people want to find Disk #17, they can find it on my site. If not, it won't seem like I'm pushing it on them.

I have had a number of people e-mailing me about EXPANDED styles over the past few months, and I thought long and hard about doing this.

I didn't want to be spamming the group, but having a web page keeps me from explaining the same thing again. Plus with the graphics, it's easier to see what it's all about.

After making a demo EXPANDED style, I figured "Why not share it with the group?"

If you like it and find it useful, enjoy. If you want more I'm happy to sell some. If you don't like it, just remove it.

It took a week to get this all together, write the style, make the pictures, code the web page, etc., but I'm not gigging due to COVID so it was a good use of 'sheltering at home' time.

Notes


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks for the effort, Notes! I just picked up Disk #17 yesterday and need to do some noodling now with those expanded styles. Looking forward to it!

Question: do you compile/put together custom disks of your existing styles?

Specifically, I'd like to pick up just your blues and reggae styles? Anything like that possible?

TIA!


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I don't compile custom disks, but if you go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/styledemo.html you can order single styles. There is a built in discount, so as you put more single styles in the cart, the price per style goes down.

For those who asked, you can get an entire e-disk of EXPANDED styles at http://www.nortonmusic.com/style17.html

Notes


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Got it. Thanks.


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I know Notes does some classy midi styles, but have to say I was always waiting for a sale similar to what PG music run every December where I could do a bulk buy a package such as The Everything Pack (all styles and fake disks to date) or Total Style disk or Total fake disk which would include either all styles or all fake disks to date.

The small discount for buying multiple disks is just putting me off.

Martin

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For about 5 years I did a mega-pack with a deep discount, and sold two. It was over $600 less than retail. It wasn't as popular as I thought, so this summer when I added 5 new disks, I dropped it rather than doing the math, updating the files, updating the web page, updating the shopping cart. etc. There comes a point where the time invested vs. the return doesn't make sense.

It wasn't worth the time for me.

The discounts on this page http://www.nortonmusic.com/mega.html are automatically applied by the shopping cart, and you can save hundreds of dollars with them.

With a small business like mine the fees for shopping cart, web host, Visa/Mc authorization company, Visa/MC merchant's account, bank, etc., are still paid every month, but spread out over a fraction of users.

By the time a shopper will rack up big discounts on my discount page, you'd be surprised at how little is left for me. I have to eat too.

If you think the products are worth the price, consider buying them, if not, that's OK too. I offer them for those who see the value in them, and most people after buying one come back for more so I guess that speaks for itself.

Notes


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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Originally Posted By: martin57
I know Notes does some classy midi styles, but have to say I was always waiting for a sale similar to what PG music run every December where I could do a bulk buy a package such as The Everything Pack (all styles and fake disks to date) or Total Style disk or Total fake disk which would include either all styles or all fake disks to date.

The small discount for buying multiple disks is just putting me off.

Martin


After having gone through many of my books and entering songs, finding the right styles, or creating them I quickly became a customer of Notes styles and fakebooks. It is much nicer to have it done for you! Worth every penny I have spent over the years.


My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
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Notes, I have a question. Your expanded styles are MIDI. What happens if I were to replace one of your instruments, say an acoustic guitar in a Bossa style, with a RealTrack guitar? Would it ‘make sense’ musically? Would I need to alter the timebase?


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Originally Posted By: Matt Finley
Notes, I have a question. Your expanded styles are MIDI. What happens if I were to replace one of your instruments, say an acoustic guitar in a Bossa style, with a RealTrack guitar? Would it ‘make sense’ musically? Would I need to alter the timebase?

It would depend on the track you choose, as it will play twice as fast.

I can see where in some cases it might work, but in most cases it would be very busy.

Still there is no harm in trying. A twice as fast rhythm guitar on a bossa track could make a hybrid between a bossa and a samba.

Notes


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
Band-in-a-Box for Windows
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Thanks, yes, I suspected I would need to change the timebase to half-time.

BIAB, with all its RealTracks, does not have a samba acoustic guitar at some of the tempos I like.


BIAB 2025 Win Audiophile. Software: Studio One 7 Pro, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Presonus 192 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Slate VSX, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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Yes, the EXPANDED styles are designed to work at twice the tempo but sound right. There are literally thousands of editing things you can do with MIDI that you cannot do with audio.

A good MIDI sound module can sound almost as good as a sample, but with editing can be hundreds of times more expressive and/or customizable. Everything has its price.

Insights and incites by Notes


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

100% MIDI Super-Styles recorded by live, pro, studio musicians for a live groove
& Fake Disks for MIDI and/or RealTracks
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