PG Music Home Forums PG Music Product Forums Band-in-a-Box for Windows BiaB long time user needs input on upgrading

Hi Everyone,
I have posted several times in years past. I have always respected the uniqueness and (for the most part) ease of use of Band in a Box. I have certainly touted it's features to my friends and fellow musicians. In the age of very sophisticated DAW's, I believe that the ability to create music in the unique way that BiaB allows is unmatched. That said, the price of the upgrade from an older version like mine (2019) something that I have to come to terms with. Yes, I have spent a lot of $ on Studio One, Melodyne, Native Instruments, gear, guitars, blah, etc. What does the latest version of Band in a Box have to offer in the scope and integration with the modern recording/production platforms available today?
I am not a pro. Just a long time musician seeking advice from this outstanding community.
Todd

From 2019, I would cite these evolutionary improvements to start:

• many more RealTracks
• many more Styles
• more tracks available
• extremely faster song generation time
• partial regeneration of tracks (in other words, selectable measures regenerated)
• smaller audiophile storage requirements
• subdivision of chord timing up to 16 per measure

I'm sure I and others can come up with many more, but these stand out to me.

Whole PGM content library (RT's, RD's, MIDI, Styles, Songs, etc.) had been consolidated into single non-modal tabbed librarian.
You can try out items in near real time without opening and closing picker dialogs.

"What does the latest version of Band in a Box have to offer in the scope and integration with the modern recording/production platforms available today?"

Well, this question could have many answers. For one, unlike AI stuff that is likely stolen from copyrighted sources and to my understanding can't be copyrighted, BIAB offers ethical way of writing tunes, as PGM musicians were paid for their work... To try to answer your question more directly, in my opinion, a combination of a new Track View and Partial regeneration are the strongest combo of features in the past few years. You have significantly more control over tracks now.

I'm someone who always uses far more than the usual 5 instruments, so the ability to use the Utility tracks in the same way as ‘normal’ tracks (via the F5 shortcut) is the biggest improvement for me.

If the price of the update is an issue for you and you're NOT in a hurry, just post your songs regularly in the Showcase forum (and participate there in general) and chances are you'll end up in this year's "Showcase Awards" and get the latest version for free.
PG Music is very generous in this regard!

< What does the latest version of Band in a Box have to offer in the scope and integration with the modern recording/production platforms available today? >

High quality integration, that's pro-level quality, with all of the " Studio One, Melodyne, Native Instruments, gear, guitars, blah, etc." you've accumalated.

By 'pro-level quality', meaning today, BIAB backing tracks are broadcast and streamed world-wide on every main-stream streaming service like Apple Music, Amazon Music, YouTube Music, Deezer, Spotify, Pandora, and Soundcloud. I've no doubt we've also heard BIAB backing tracks tucked into major, mainstream commercial releases from major artists. The quality is there which makes me think it's been at least, experimented with.

As a long time musician but not at a pro level, BIAB addresses this three ways.

. It provides you studio quality audio recordings performed by real session musicians playing real instruments over any chord progression, at any tempo, in any key for instruments you cannot play.

. It provides you studio quality audio recordings performed by real session musicians playing real instruments over any chord progression, at any tempo, in any key for instruments you can play, when BIAB's product is better than you can play.

. It provides you studio quality audio recordings performed by real session musicians playing real instruments over any chord progression, at any tempo, in any key for instruments you can play, but is useful in times it's inconvenient for you to play.

BIAB's RealTrack content is a pristine data base for thousands of instruments with hundreds of hours of isolated audio for samples and loop creation.

If you're a music teacher; BIAB 2025 makes it easier than ever to create tutorials, practice tracks and to include transcription and notation for students to practice over.

This includes using BIAB to speed up, slow down, change key signatures, loop and to also use features such creating multiple SGU playlists on the fly, view the guitar fretboard fingering the notes and chords.

Students self-teaching can use these tools also.

To get an idea of the value of BIAB 2025 for 'serious' recordings. Serious teaching aids and a seriously high level of arrangement and creative self-contained, complex productions, Check out BIAB's Artist Performance sets on their main page.

You're a guitarist, so I recommend Artist Performance #4, Brent Mason and I posted a screenshot of PG Music's description of the set.

Everything that PG Music describes, all the tools and features are included in BIAB for a user to create their own Artist Performance Sets just like what you'll see in Brent's and all the others Artist Performance sets.

You don't have to create an entire Performance Set, this can also be done at the track level. With 2025 BIAB for Windows that includes a Stem Splitter; In conjunction with the updated Audio Chord Wizard, original as well as commercial recordings can now be imported, synced and aligned with the BIAB Chord Sheet to use with a BIAB project.

It's now possible to practice or learn a piece from the original recording from a hit song from 1967 and have notation and tab, transcription and see the notes on the Guitar fretboard.

That's pretty cool I think.

If I read the original post correctly, Todd has BIAB 2019 and knows what that does. He just doesn’t know about the changes in the program since then. In other words, he doesn’t know what it is he doesn’t know.

Utility Tracks, correctly mentioned above by BD Thomas, are what I meant by ‘more tracks’. We are no longer limited to the legacy tracks of bass, piano, guitar, drums on one track only, etc.

I should add Drum Stems to the list. There are starting to be some drums where you now have control over individual parts of the drum kit, each in its own track.

With an UltraPak version of. BIAB and just about any major brand of DAW you can create professional level, performance quality backing tracks. If you wish to record an album (excuse my age) using nothing but You and your instrument and a kickass backing band in a million (maybe more) genre’s you can.

With only a decent DAW and BIAB. I use Logic so I don’t even use DAW mastering plug ins anymore.

Think about what you’re trying to do and we can help dial it in a little for you.

I too have paid a lot of $$$ to Native instruments for sound libraries. Do I use them??
ALMOST NEVER !!!
Truth is the Real Tracks included with BIAB get most of my backing track work so I rarely use midi any more. I realize midi gives you utmost control over every nanosecond of every track. Truth is, I don’t need that. I want my bass player to outline the chords and the drummer to keep it all honest. A few other instruments and I’m done. If I have Ron Carter playing an upright over a set of changes, my bass player is probably not the problem…. Ron’s right there, tuned up and ready to go, whenever I think he fits the bill.

That’s me. Others do other things. It’s because they are others. They have not yet learned my way is the path to total musical and spiritual enlightenment.
Yea, hardly.

I’m sure if you outline some of your objectives you’ll get straight answers on how to do what you’re after. BIAB is a complex pile of code. It does many things for many people.
In many ways.
But never at the same time or Location…. Heisenberg.

Well, this is incredible! It has been a long while since I posted here and (I'm not surprised) that this community is always willing to help and not bash because some breach of etiquette in the location of the post. I felt it important to address all of the excellent responses to my post in the same reply. I want to call out each of you though. Matt, I know you have been around here for a long time and I have learned much from your guidance to so many in this community. Same with Charlie Fogle (thanks for the attachment! I love Brent) and mrgeeze. Rusty and BD, nice to meet you.
That said, upgrading is a no-brainer for me now.
I am a worship band player. I have used Band in a Box to create chord progression snippets to practice improvised solos over (although I usually get replaced by our younger guitar hotshots!, oh well). I do also use BIAB to create tracks for my song ideas. And I love the BIAB plugin that I use with Studio One. Port the tracks over and then I can use my Presonus recording gear to complete the song.
For separation stems (legally) I use Moises. I purchase the songs from Itunes. I have made many backing tracks using Moises that my singing partner from church and I use when she and I do acoustic sets for hospice patients and nursing facility residents. I know that you can record songs with Audacity and bounce to MP3 but I am opposed to that.
Sorry to be lengthy but I wanted to do justice in responding the the thoughtful replies.

Nicely said. Thanks.

What breach of etiquette? This is exactly where your question should be.