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That's why I posted this Where's This Chord or That Chord ? as it's a recurring theme in the forum year in year out.
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I disabled sour notes for the keyboard track. ... And of course I lost the mMaj7 chords This is "expected". The Fix sour notes / tuning feature (in Song Chords mode) will attempt to "correct" the notes on the track based on the current chord in the song. So that is why you are hearing an AmMaj7 chord at measure 18. What is happening is that 'Natural arrangements' is turned ON (which is the default) and the mMaj7 chord is getting mapped to a m7 chord in this style. The Fix sour notes is taking the Am7 chord and changing it into an AmMaj7 chord by changing the pitch of the G to G#. There are two ways to fix this. A) Turn off Natural arrangements in the Song settings dialog. B) Use the Auto-fix (tune) on just the first half of bar 18. I tested this with your song, and it works well. This feature in general works best for specific parts of a track rather than as a setting for the entire track. You could do something like this. 1. Turn OFF the Auto-fix track in Track Settings. 2. Use Track Actions | Copy/Move Track to copy the track to Utility track 1 where you can work on it further and preserve the original BiaB generated track. 3. Open the Audio Edit window, and highlight ONLY the first half of bar 18. 4. Click on the Edit button (in the Audio Edit window toolbar) and click Fix Tuning. Make sure Song Chords is selected and OK. This will add the G# to that bar. Repeat for the other bar of interest. This extremely valuable info needs to be preserved somewhere, in a sticky Tips and Tricks post, or an FAQ.
BIAB 2026 Win Audiophile. Software: Fender Studio One 8, Swam horns, Acoustica-7, Notion 6, Song Master Pro, Win 11 Home. Hardware: Intel i9, 32 Gb; Fender Quantom HD8 & Faderport 8, Royer 121, Adam Sub8 & Neumann 120 monitors.
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I'm just really surprised that workarounds or fiddling with all kinds of settings are required to
get a basic 'This Masquerade' chord happening in BIAB.
It is 2024 right? There's just one setting: Song Settings - "Natural Arrangements". Here's another idea that should work well, and allows you to leave natural arrangements enabled (more natural playing with longer phrases) 1. Generate the track. 2. Song Settings | Natural arrangements - disable. (but don't re-generate) 3. Highlight only 17-18 and press F8 - generate new riff for just those bars. Well this is getting really interesting.  I generated the track. I had natural arrangements disabled. I played the song and mMaj7 worked correctly on each occurrence for all three choruses this time! Strange. However I'm loathe to say this has been fixed. Because I have a new can of worms. I don't know if I should continue it in this thread or start a new one. I think I'll just continue here. I have been so fixated on the mMaj7 chords in the song that I have been disregarding the rest of the chords! Well there's a whole pile of chords that are being misplayed. Here's just a SMALL sample: CMaj7 > CMaj9 CMaj7 > C Am7 > Am9 Am6 > Am7 G7b9 > G9 G7b9 > G7+b9 Dm7 > Dm Bm6 > Bm7 E7 > E13 Now what can I say? For me this is totally unacceptable. Chords are the backbone of BIAB. If BIAB can't play chords you key in, (takes the liberty to play whatever it feels like) what's the point of using BIAB? May as well hire some musicians.  OK so what's the secret to tell BIAB to play ONLY the chords that have been keyed in? We know these chords have been recorded, they are as 'natural' as they come.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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It needs options:
A: Use substitutions for unavailable chords
B: Add PRT notes for unavailable chords
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It needs options:
A: Use substitutions for unavailable chords
B: Add PRT notes for unavailable chords A: Sure, if the chord is unavailable, go for it, use a substitution. But the chords I've given are bread and butter chords! Of course the chords are available. B: I'm not familiar with PRT notes? Are they part-time notes?
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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Hi BIABman, Here's the link to information that I posted about Playable Realtracks (PRT) in one of the other threads. Watching the video at the time stamps I've indicated will help you understand how they work. https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=801639#Post801639--Noel
MY SONGS...Audiophile BIAB 2026
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Thanks Noel. While it's nice to learn about this feature (PRT) I think you would agree that it would be a LOT better if BIAB would simply play chords correctly right from the start.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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*UPDATE*
I decided to take a deeper dive into this <cough> chord ‘misinterpretation’ problem.
I’ve made some interesting discoveries.
As I mentioned in my recent post, for the past week or so I was just focused on one chord, the mMaj7 chord.
But when things started to resolve with it, with fixes and such, I began to notice that many of my other chords were not playing properly either. I had simply focused on the mMaj7 chord because it really stuck out like a sore thumb.
Before I get to the other chords, let me return to the mMaj7 chords.
I decided to return to my saved songs (saved various versions of the same song).
For some unknown reason, ALL of my saved songs were now working!
That’s right, the songs where the mMaj7 chords were previously not sounding, were now sounding!
I took careful note of the Sour Notes On/Off and Natural Arrangements On/Off settings, because these were the two settings that I was advised would fix the problem.
Specifically, I was told Sour Notes Off and Natural Arrangements Off would fix the mMaj7 problem.
So this is what the settings were when I re-opened five different versions of the same song.
‘Natural Arrangements’ has three settings, On, Off and As in Arrangement Options.
Fix Sour Notes is abbreviated to FSN.
Natural Arrangements is abbreviated to NA.
SONG1 FSN Off, NA ‘As in Arrangement Options’.
SONG1a FSN On, (NA) On
SONG1b FSN On, NA On
SONG1c FSN On, NA On
SONG1d FSN Off, NA Off (worked in Chorus 1 only! ) Changed to J!MANCNI (midi) Worked ALL Choruses
So while I was happy to hear the mMaj7 chord being played in almost every version now,
except SONG1d (it only played it in Chorus 1) I was thoroughly confused.
Why was it working now? And why was it working with the key settings (FSN and NA)
set the ‘wrong’ way? Three of the five song versions had FSN and NA set to ON, when I was told turning them OFF would fix the problem!
But when I changed the Style from my regular _JAZOR60 to J!MANCNI (I deliberately wanted to test a Midi style) all of the mMaj7 chords worked right out of the box. I had a hunch they would.
And so I continued with my testing. I took the list of chords I posted above and tried them all out with the same Midi style (J!MANCNI).
The chords were:
CMaj7
Am7
Am6
G7b9
Dm7
Bm6
E7
I added a few more in addition to them m7b5 and m11.
They all played faithfully. No problems at all.
It seems pretty clear that the problems with chord ‘interpretation’ <cough>
are rooted in RealTracks. Midi has no problem dealing with almost anything you throw at it.
So now my questions are “Why is this?”
And “Why did my problem versions mentioned above get fixed, seemingly on their own?”
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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Well there's a whole pile of chords that are being misplayed. Here's just a SMALL sample:
CMaj7 > CMaj9
... This is expected and intentional. Jazz musicians will certainly often play the 9th if they see a CMaj7 chord on the chart. This isn't a substitution.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Well there's a whole pile of chords that are being misplayed. Here's just a SMALL sample:
CMaj7 > CMaj9
... This is expected and intentional. Jazz musicians will certainly often play the 9th if they see a CMaj7 chord on the chart. This isn't a substitution. OK that's true about jazz musicians. But if you tell a jazz musician to play specific chords they will listen to you (most of time). How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them? Is there a setting in BIAB for this? CMaj7 > CMaj9 fair play for jazz musicians CMaj7 > C not fair play for jazz musicians!Am7 > Am9 fair play for jazz musicians Am6 > Am7 not fair play for jazz musicians!G7b9 > G9 not fair play for jazz musicians!G7b9 > G7+b9 not fair play for jazz musicians!Dm7 > Dm not fair play for jazz musicians!E7 > E13 fair play for jazz musicians
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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Why was it working now? And why was it working with the key settings (FSN and NA)
set the ‘wrong’ way? Three of the five song versions had FSN and NA set to ON, when I was told turning them OFF would fix the problem! The "Fix sour notes / fix tuning" feature should not be confused with song generation features. The main reason we are talking about it is that you accidentally had it turned on as a track setting for one of your tracks. This feature processes the audio wave data that has already been generated. It uses extremely sophisticated algorithms to modify the data, and is able to adjust the tuning of individual notes in a polyphonic track. This is a very difficult task which is why it is not perfect and there can be artifacts. It is best used, as I think I mentioned earlier, when you target specific sections of your track rather than using it is a 'global' track setting. Natural Arrangements is a Band-in-a-Box setting that can affect the phrases that are used when generating RealTracks. This is a global setting (in Options | Preferences | Arrange) or a song-specific setting (in Song Settings). The default is ON, since out of the box, and when using typical chords for the style you are working with, overall the RealTracks tracks generated will tend to sound most realistic - i.e. faithful to what a real pro musician would play when reading the chord chart. Also there will tend to be more variety, since there is more material to draw from. There used to be a flash message notifying you when you first generated your song, how many of the chords were re-interpreted based on this setting, however there were some people who didn't like the flash message and requested that we remove it. If you have a LOT of chords in your song that have specific extensions, and you want Band-in-a-Box to always play those specific notes in your chord, you should turn N.A. OFF. Some prefer this set globally. MIDI tracks (that is tracks made using the StyleMaker, not MIDI SuperTracks) do not have this feature, but they work much differently than RT's. With MIDI you can throw in any note into a chord, but it's not going to be as realistic (not matter what your synth is), since it's just the computer playing samples of various note pitches and not a musician playing the music on their instrument in that style. If you have a FEW chords in your song that you want played with specific extensions, then that's where you can get into some of the tweaks that we've been talking about. There are several different approaches, which is because there are lots of different things that Band-in-a-Box can do. Let's say you have one bar you want to "fix". Some of the things mentioned in this thread are - You could regenerate a specific bar with N.A. turned off. (easiest) (Requires you to freeze your tracks) - Similar to above, but you could generate a second track with N.A. turned off and then use Bar Settings to mute/un-mute bars as needed. - You could use Playable RealTracks to insert specific MIDI notes in your track. The MIDI notes are played using samples that are supposed to match the RealTracks as closely as possible. You can use this to add some specific notes to a chord. - You could use the Audio Edit window on your track and Fix Tuning (song chords mode) at that bar (requires the track to be frozen or converted to an audio track) There are probably lots of other things you can do as well. Probably as many as there are people reading this forum.
Andrew
PG Music Inc.
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Why was it working now? And why was it working with the key settings (FSN and NA)
set the ‘wrong’ way? Three of the five song versions had FSN and NA set to ON, when I was told turning them OFF would fix the problem! The "Fix sour notes / fix tuning" feature should not be confused with song generation features. The main reason we are talking about it is that you accidentally had it turned on as a track setting for one of your tracks. .... If you have a LOT of chords in your song that have specific extensions, and you want Band-in-a-Box to always play those specific notes in your chord, you should turn N.A. OFF. Some prefer this set globally. MIDI tracks (that is tracks made using the StyleMaker, not MIDI SuperTracks) do not have this feature, but they work much differently than RT's. With MIDI you can throw in any note into a chord, but it's not going to be as realistic (not matter what your synth is), since it's just the computer playing samples of various note pitches and not a musician playing the music on their instrument in that style. If you have a FEW chords in your song that you want played with specific extensions, then that's where you can get into some of the tweaks that we've been talking about. There are several different approaches, which is because there are lots of different things that Band-in-a-Box can do. Let's say you have one bar you want to "fix". Some of the things mentioned in this thread are .... There are probably lots of other things you can do as well. Probably as many as there are people reading this forum. Thanks very much Andrew for explaining this. There is much to digest. I'll try to have a go at these solutions in the coming days.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them?
Is there a setting in BIAB for this? "A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !" No, I don't think I believe it.  In all this time you don't know the answer to this?*. *... no offense intended, just having a bit of a giggle as I follow this whole thread.
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How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them?
Is there a setting in BIAB for this? "A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !" No, I don't think I believe it. In all this time you don't know the answer to this?*. *... no offense intended, just having a bit of a giggle as I follow this whole thread. I don't mind people poking fun at me at all. That's why I deliberately included my tagline. First I must say, that I am NOT a regular BIAB user. If was I probably wouldn't be asking all of these questions. My typical BIAB usage goes like this. I'll be on a BIAB usage mode (as I currently am in now) for a few weeks or month or so. Then I won't use the program for a year or two or more. Then I'll come back to it, usually upgrade while I'm at it and rinse and repeat. Use it for a few weeks/months and put it away for a year/two etc. When you use it like this, it's almost impossible to remember all the things you learned from before, and things are always changing as you know. Second, BIAB has settings-itis. Translation: too many settings for things that should be set as default. It is my view that when a user inputs a chord (using RealTracks) that chord should sound, not a variation of that chord. Imagine if you were a composer and you went to listen to the debut of your work with a symphony orchestra and they started to alter your chords! You would be outraged! My questions, "How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them? Is there a setting in BIAB for this?" were very serious. From Andrew's latest reply, it doesn't appear there is one setting that you could "set and forget" that would allow you to do this. BIAB will continue to throw variations of the chords you input. When it is important that certain chords be played as input, he has given various options to try, to get the chords sounding correctly. My guess is that 90% + of BIAB users can't even hear the difference between the chords we are discussing and so this is a non-issue for them. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I can hear the difference.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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[quote=DrDan][quote=BIABman] It is my view that when a user inputs a chord (using RealTracks) that chord should sound, not a variation of that chord. Imagine if you were a composer and you went to listen to the debut of your work with a symphony orchestra and they started to alter your chords! You would be outraged! My questions, "How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them? Is there a setting in BIAB for this?" were very serious. From Andrew's latest reply, it doesn't appear there is one setting that you could "set and forget" that would allow you to do this. BIAB will continue to throw variations of the chords you input. When it is important that certain chords be played as input, he has given various options to try, to get the chords sounding correctly. My guess is that 90% + of BIAB users can't even hear the difference between the chords we are discussing and so this is a non-issue for them. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I can hear the difference. BIABman, Andrew's excellent posts here (and his careful patience) are exemplary. If you follow his step-by-step advice you will find a lot of solutions to your issue. What you are asking has been discussed and solved many times over the years. You can do a search and find many people have addressed this question, but you can do no better than to carefully read Matt Finley's post: https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=735441
Last edited by ThomasS; 02/28/24 06:07 PM.
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Why was it working now? And why was it working with the key settings (FSN and NA)
set the ‘wrong’ way? Three of the five song versions had FSN and NA set to ON, when I was told turning them OFF would fix the problem! ... Natural Arrangements is a Band-in-a-Box setting that can affect the phrases that are used when generating RealTracks. This is a global setting (in Options | Preferences | Arrange) or a song-specific setting (in Song Settings). The default is ON, since out of the box, and when using typical chords for the style you are working with, overall the RealTracks tracks generated will tend to sound most realistic - i.e. faithful to what a real pro musician would play when reading the chord chart. Also there will tend to be more variety, since there is more material to draw from. There used to be a flash message notifying you when you first generated your song, how many of the chords were re-interpreted based on this setting, however there were some people who didn't like the flash message and requested that we remove it. If you have a LOT of chords in your song that have specific extensions, and you want Band-in-a-Box to always play those specific notes in your chord, you should turn N.A. OFF. Some prefer this set globally. MIDI tracks (that is tracks made using the StyleMaker, not MIDI SuperTracks) do not have this feature, but they work much differently than RT's. With MIDI you can throw in any note into a chord, but it's not going to be as realistic (not matter what your synth is), since it's just the computer playing samples of various note pitches and not a musician playing the music on their instrument in that style. OK Andrew I have some time today and I am tackling your suggestions. I started just now with the most important situation: A LOT of chords that I want played as written. Unfortunately it just is NOT working. I disabled N.A., BOTH globally and for the song specifically. I am using _JAZOR60 at a tempo of 60. I have frozen the tracks so that you and everyone can hear the problems. These are the problem chords (indicating how they are written and played): CMaj7 > CMaj9 FMaj7 > FMaj9 Fm7 > Fm9 Fm7b5 > Abm EbMaj7 > EbMaj9 Ebm9 > Ebm11 Bbsus > Bb13sus Ab7b9 > Ab13b9 Here is the file so that everyone can hear the problems. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/fh4f3o7amkf4j39tvrd9k/Chords-NA-disabled.SGU?rlkey=jhofyl07yrp3okuo1lgrtip04&dl=0
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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Just to clarify we are listening only to that Organ RT which has no notation right? I have the chords playing on Utility #1, but that is just my default. So I will mute those which by the way does have notation and is spot on. That specific organ RT sounds like a Hammond B3 with draw bars which intentionally add upper harmonies such as the 9th and 13th - it is just the nature of that beast. I have recently been playing a B3 and it is a marvel at what extra sounds are added based on setup of the draw bars. If I am correct, than if you substitute a Piano RT for the Organ you should see everything settle down in your chord notes. I know you want the Organ, but you may just have to settle. Or perhaps you could try new Toontrack B3, where you can edit the beejeebiz out of the instrument and eliminate the draw bars. Just a thought. ... btw, I just tried to add the EZk2 Session Organ as a plugin on the Chords Track to hear it play over these chords, but alas... BIAB is not compatible with VST3!  Lets see what others have to say...
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Thanks for helping out Dr.Dan! Just to clarify we are listening only to that Organ RT which has no notation right? I have the chords playing on Utility #1, but that is just my default. So I will mute those which by the way does have notation and is spot on. Yes that is correct. I was just focusing on the Organ track. I had a midi bass track, but for some reason it wasn't playing on my system. I just added a Super Midi Bass track for our next go (see below). That specific organ RT sounds like a Hammond B3 with draw bars which intentionally add upper harmonies such as the 9th and 13th - it is just the nature of that beast. I have recently been playing a B3 and it is a marvel at what extra sounds are added based on setup of the draw bars. Yes it's possible that could explain some of the extraneous notes. If I am correct, than if you substitute a Piano RT for the Organ you should see everything settle down in your chord notes. I know you want the Organ, but you may just have to settle. Or perhaps you could try new Toontrack B3, where you can edit the beejeebiz out of the instrument and eliminate the draw bars. Just a thought. For the purpose of this exercise I have substituted a Piano RT for the organ as you suggested. You are correct I do want an organ sound (although it could be another organ RT) but for now I just want to hear the chords played properly, so the test continues. Piano 743 is what I am using now. Unfortunately it is actually worse than the organ! Here are the results: C > Cadd9 CMaj7 > OK now FMaj7 > F69 F > FMaj7 Fm > Fm9 Fm7 > Fm9 Abm > Abm9 EbMaj7 > EbMaj7 Eb6 EbMaj9 > EbMaj7 Eb6 Ebm9 > OK now Bbsus > Bb9sus Bb7sus > Bb9sus Ab7b9 > AbAdd9 Ab7#9 > Ab13 Cm6 > Cm9 Only two chords were corrected. Many stayed the same and a few more bad 'translations' occurred. Some real 'standouts' are: Ab7b9 > AbAdd9 Ab7#9 > Ab13 Cm6 > Cm9 Maybe PGMusic can add this as one of their 50 new features next go around? They could call them 'Real Standouts'. Here's the file: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/1qdsqjqvyvsbo4sevzijw/Chords-NA-disabled-Piano-743-Super-Midi-Bass.SGU?rlkey=iihoef29276x8k05rahh4h056&dl=0
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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I confirmed your assessment based on looking at the notation versus the chord chart. No surprizes here for me, especially since this falls into a Jazz category. The RT takes a lot of liberties. Many in this thread have acknowledged this. How do you tell BIAB to play specific chords and not stray from them?
Is there a setting in BIAB for this? By the way, the answer to your question is NO. I do have my own personnal workaround for this. One way is to use the "Chord Track" to send to a VSTi which has more control over chord voicing and extra notes, as I indicated with the Toontrack sessions organ (but you have to be working in your DAW). Or I use Scaler which voices the chord exactly as I specify. Good luck.
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Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 334 |
I think I know what the problem is. If I'm correct there won't be a solution forthcoming any time soon.
I have a bunch of questions that I am preparing wrt RealTracks, soon to be posted.
Someone has to take the recordings the RealTrack artists make and categorize them.
It's likely the artists themselves or a designated PGMusic employee.
Whoever it is that is categorizing the recordings, needs to have a fantastic ear, or problems will arise.
If the person miscategorizes chords, then we would arrive at a situation I am facing now.
The RealTrack artists record hundreds of chords in all different genres.
For genre 'X', Cm9 chords need to put in their correct 'bin'.
The same goes for Am7b5 and D7#9 etc. etc.
Because when a song is regenerated, chords need to be sounded for the chord that was typed in.
For each chord there will likely be numerous takes, inversions etc. of the chord.
But if someone has miscategorized chords, then they will not match the chord that was input by the user in the chord entry screen.
A BIAB user for more than 30 years (if you can believe it) !
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Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
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Last Chance! The Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® Special Ends Today (May 31, 2026) at 11:59pm PDT!
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Another exciting new addition is the amazing new AI-Notes feature, which can transcribe polyphonic audio into MIDI. View the results in notation or play them back as MIDI, and choose whether to transcribe an entire track or transcribe specific parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's over 100 new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®.
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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Special Offers Extended Until May 31st!
Good news- we've extended our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® special offers until May 31, 2026!
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 is packed with major new features, enhancements, and an incredible lineup of new content! The program now sports a sleek, modern GUI redesign across the entire interface, including updated toolbars, refreshed windows, smoother workflows, a new dark mode option, and more. The brand-new side toolbar provides quicker access to key windows, while the new Multi-View feature lets you arrange multiple windows as layered panels without overlap, creating a flexible, clutter-free workspace. We have an amazing new “AI-Notes” feature. This transcribes polyphonic audio into MIDI so you can view it in notation or play it back as MIDI. You can transcribe an entire track (all pitched instruments and drums) or focus on individual parts like drums, bass, guitars/piano, or vocals. There's an amazing collection of new content too, including 202 RealTracks, new RealStyles, MIDI SuperTracks, Instrumental Studies, “Songs with Vocals” Artist Performance Sets, Playable RealTracks Set 5, two RealDrums Stems sets, and much more!
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Today's the Last Day of the Band-in-a-Box 2026® for Mac Special!
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Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
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202 New RealTracks Released with Band-in-a-Box 2026!
With Band-in-a-Box® 2026, we've released 202 incredible new RealTracks (in sets 468-488) in a variety of genres—featuring your most requested styles!
Jazz, Funk & World (Sets 468-475):
Our new jazz, funk & blues RealTracks include a groovin’ collection of RealTracks and RealDrums! These include more requested “soul jazz” RealTracks featuring artists Neil Swainson (bass), Charles Treadway (organ), Brent Mason (guitar), and Wes Little (drums). There are new “smooth jazz” styles (4), which include a RealTracks first: muted trumpet, as well as slick new smooth jazz brushes options for drums. Blues lovers will be thrilled—there are more “classic acoustic blues” styles, including guitar (5), bass (4), and drums (10) with blues master Colin Linden, featuring understated and tasty background acoustic soloing, plus brushes drums and acoustic bass. There are also new electric blues RealTracks, including electric blues with PG favorite Johnny Hiland (3) and soulful electric slide guitar from Colin Linden (4). If you love funk & gospel, there are great new options this year, including gospel organ (3) from Charles Treadway, as well as new funk, tango, and rock ’n’ roll drums (3) and bass (1). And for big, bold arrangements, we have uptempo soul horns (4) featuring a three-part hip horn section with options for a full mix or stems of each individual horn — plus an accompanying rhythm section (4) of drums, bass, guitar, and electric piano!
Rock & Pop (Sets 476–482):
Our new rock & pop RealTracks bring a powerful mix of requested favorites, fresh genres, and modern chart-inspired styles! We have more of our popular “Producer Layered Acoustic Guitars (15)” featuring Band-in-a-Box favorite Brent Mason. We’ve continued our much-requested disco styles (10), and added new Celtic guitar (5) with a more basic, accessible approach than our previous Drop-D or DADGAD offerings. There are also highly requested yacht rock styles (17), inspired by the smooth, polished soft-rock sound of the late ’70s and early ’80s — laid-back grooves, silky electric pianos, warm textures, elegant harmonic movement, and pristine production aesthetics. Fans of heavier styles will love our new glam metal (13), capturing the flashy, high-energy sound of ’80s arena-ready guitar rock. We also have a set of rootsy modern-folk rock (18), with a warm, organic sound combining contemporary folk textures and driving acoustic strumming. And we’ve added lots of new modern pop styles (16) — the kinds of sounds you’re hearing on the radio today, featuring exciting new drums, synths, and cutting-edge RealTracks arrangements.
Country, & Americana (Sets 483–488):
Our new country & Americana RealTracks deliver a rich collection of acoustic, electric, and roots-inspired styles! We have new country pop (9) with legendary guitarist Brent Mason. There is also a potpourri (14) of bouzouki, guitars, banjo, and more, perfect for adding texture and character to contemporary acoustic arrangements. We’ve added funky country guitar (5) with PG favorite Brent Mason, along with classic pedal steel styles (5) featuring steel great Doug Jernigan. There are more country songwriter styles (8) that provide intimate, rootsy foundations for storytelling and modern Americana writing. Finally, we have “background soloing” acoustic guitar (12) with Brent Mason — simpler, but still very tasty acoustic lines designed to sit beautifully behind vocals or act as a subtle standalone solo part.
Check out all the 202 new RealTracks (in sets 468-488)!
And, if you are looking for more, the 2026 49-PAK (for $49) includes an impressive collection of 20 bonus RealTracks, featuring exciting and inspiring additions to add to your RealTracks library. You'll get new country-rhythm guitar styles from PG Music favorites Johnny Hiland and Brent Mason, along with modern-pop grooves that capture today’s radio-ready sound! There are also new indie-folk styles with guitar, bass, 6-string bass used as a high-chording instrument, acoustic guitar, and banjo. Plus, dedicated "cymbal fills" RealDrums provide an added layer that work very well with low-key folky styles with other percussion.
The 2026 49-PAK is loaded with other great new add-ons as well. Learn more about the 2026 49-PAK!
2026 Free Bonus PAK & 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
With your version 2026 for Mac Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, Audiophile Edition or PlusPAK purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons for FREE! Or upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for only $49 to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks!
These PAKs are loaded with additional add-ons to supercharge your Band-in-a-Box®!
This Free Bonus PAK includes:
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-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
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-For UltraPAK customers, this includes 12 new RealStyles.
- MIDI Styles Set 92: Look Ma! More MIDI 15: Latin Jazz
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 46: Piano & Organ
- Instrumental Studies Set 24: Groovin' Blues Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 19: Songs with Vocals 9
- Playable RealTracks Set 5
- RealDrums Stems Set 9: Cool Brushes
- SynthMaster Sounds Set 1 (with audio demos)
- iOS Android Band-in-a-Box® App
Looking for more great add-ons, then upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK for just $49 and you'll get:
- 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums with 20 RealStyle.
- FLAC Files (lossless audio files) for the 20 Bonus Unreleased RealTracks and RealDrums
- MIDI Styles Set 93: Look Ma! More MIDI 16: SynthMaster
- MIDI SuperTracks Set 47: More SynthMaster
- Instrumental Studies 25 - Soul Jazz Guitar Soloing
- Artist Performance Set 20: Songs with Vocals 10
- RealDrums Stems Set 10: Groovin' Sticks
- SynthMaster Sounds & Styles Set 2 (sounds & styles with audio demos)
Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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