PG Music Home Forums General Discussion Beginners Forum Writing in 6/8

My first BiaB and my second computer was also Atari. I had a TI99 before the Atari. I remember seeing the ads in Electronic Musician magazine for BiaB, but it was for “IBM Compatible” computers only. And then one day they added Atari. Three instruments, piano, bass & drums, no endings, no user styles, no notation just bare bones. I bought it right away.

Although I play 7 instruments, my primary instrument is saxophone. To practice new improvisation ideas without boring a band, BiaB was a godsend. I had a backing band, and could try things out that were more experimental than the safe things we always use. Many failed, but the ones that worked became part of my tool kit.

Then came user styles. I particularly didn't like the Musica Latina styles in the BiaB built-ins, they might fly in Canada, but not near Cuban influenced Miami, Florida. So I wrote some, added some rock styles, and gave them to a few friends who also had Atari computers. My friends told me they liked my styles better than the PG Music styles (Aren't friends great?), so I took out an ad in EM magazine.

One day I got home and Peter Gannon was on my answering machine. I nervously gave him a call back, fearing he would tell me to stop writing styles for his app. To my delight, the complete opposite was true. Peter told me that his biggest market was IBM (now Windows) and if I sent him my Atari disks he would convert them to the IBM format, so I would have a bigger market. To this day I think of his kind response and appreciate it very much.

I bought an IBM Compatible computer, that had DOS5 and Win3.1 on it. BiaB on the PC was still DOS only. I hated DOS because my fingers have typos built in, so I continued to write on Atari, transferring to the PC, until the Win3.1 version of Band-in-a-Box came out.

As my little aftermarket cottage business grew, I bought a Mac Classic II computer and worked on all 3 platforms.

I'm still writing style and fakebook collections for BiaB, and have customers in over 100 different countries. (Again, thank you, Peter Gannon for giving me the initial boost).

Right now, Mrs. Notes and I are working on revising my e-disk #2, the Pop/Rock Fake Book companion. There have been so many new styles written since we did that one the 1990s, we wanted to improve it. We've been working it for almost a year now.

The update will be free for anyone who bought the e-disk. We thought about a small charge to cover our time involved, but decided that free was the right thing to do. I try to treat my customers the way I would want to be treated if I was my customer.

I still write my fake e-disks and suggest MIDI styles. Why? Two reasons:

• If a MIDI style is assigned, the BiaB robot will usually suggest a Real Style. On the other hand if a Real style is assigned, there will be no MIDI suggestion. So to satisfy both BiaB camps, we are still submitting MIDI styles. Of course, you can always change them.
• MIDI is thousands of times more editable than audio. Quite often, to get close to an accurate rendering of a song, it has to be done with a MIDI style. Real styles just won't make the grade there. Still, the user has the choice. You might not want it to sound close to a famous recording.

I did The Real Book in all Real Styles, and I got complaints from the MIDI folks, so from then on, I went back to MIDI.

I, too, wish PG Music would support 6/8, 6/4, 7/8, 5/4, 6/4, 9/8 and other common and uncommon time signatures, without us having to resort to a work-around, but not knowing the architecture of BiaB, I don't know if it can be done and still have the back-compatibility that I commend PG Music for keeping.

For those of us who started on Atari, DOS, and Mac OS6, we've seen BiaB grown from a cute little program, suitable for practicing, to the giant mega-music machine that it is today. You've come a long way Mr. Gannon, and there are plenty of us who appreciate that.

Insights and incites by Notes ♫