Originally Posted by Stefan1976
Hi all,

I am new and hope you can help me.
Can you play midifiles with Band in Box without a midi soundmodule and instead the “virtual” instruments in Band in A Box?
Same question for the styles, does Band in a Box works with virtual instruments?

Thank you for your help.

Regards
Stefan
Hi Stefan and welcome to the fora.

This sounds like a pre-purchase question, so if I mistarget the amnswer, please forgive me.

If by soundmodule you mean an external hardware MIDI module, no, you do not need one.

BiaB comes with a default virtual MIDI-player that plays all of the GM sounds. It's OK, though there are better-sounding engines and soundfonts that can be used instead, quite a few are free and, oddly, there's a really quite good one bundled with BiaB but not installed by default. Alternatively you can use VST instruments like Kontakt, for example.

I'm fairly confident that most people use the "RealTracks" for much of their work and those are pre-recorded snippets by real musicians that are assembled together to make a very realistic performance. There are, though, also a number of adherents to MIDI for some very good reasons, Ulitimately you have more control over how a MIDI song plays by using top-quality virtual instruments and suitable CCs, but of course it takes more work. Both approaches can work very well and a song can comprise a combination of RealTracks, MIDI tracks and audio recordings.

Jazz relative beginner, starting at a much older age than was helpful.
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