Another channel-swap and remix from last year. The only difference in the rhythm section mix to "Zuzu" is that I've swapped channels on 2 of the 6 rhythm guitars; but replacing the tin whistle, tenor saxophone and dizi flute solos with harmonica, organ and guitar solos respectively makes this version a very different sounding instrumental.
1st & 2nd rhythm guitars: Jovian Divine Alt Rock Soloing ~ Mike Durham Organ: Country Rock Guitar Solo, Pop Ba ~ Gene Rabbai Enya & Sirius Warm Pads & Strings hybrid mix Drums: Nashville Radio Power Bal Solo ~ Miles McPherson Bass Guitar: Bricks Indie Rock w Guitar Solo ~ Tobin Frank Harmonica solo: Wounded Ev Fiery Harmonica Blues ~ L. D. Miller Organ solo: King Fast Blues Rock Organ ~ Charles Treadway 3rd rhythm guitar: Country Rock Guitar Solo, Pop Ba ~ Darin Favorite 4th rhythm guitar: Centaur Gtr Solo Hard Rock Bal ~ Darin Favorite 5th & 6th rhythm guitars: Nashville Radio Power Bal Solo ~ Danny Rader Guitar solo: Outback Country Ballad Soloist ~ Johnny Hiland
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
I actually had to increase the volume on this after listening to several other showcase tunes, so maybe the master volume is low? I'm out of breath just listening to that harmonica! Loved that organ middle.
Chay, another outstanding song That blues harp player has a great set of lungs Super B3 and guitar leads AS always a fantastic mix I really enjoyed this one.
Dad, how will I know when I've become an adult.
When your day is ruined because they rearranged the grocery store.
64 bit Win 10 Pro, the latest BiaB/RB, Roland Octa-Capture audio interface, a ton of software/hardware
Man, that harmonica is fast, like nothing less than 1/32nd notes. Love the organ take. Cool guitar, too. The soloists have such a nice bed to lay down their tracks. As Beth mentioned, it seems a little low in volume. YT won't raise the volume if it's lower than normal, but they will lower it when it is too high. https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ is a good place to check it before uploading.
Enjoy whatever happens! marty
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@babumusic51 SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/marty-straub Band in a Box, Reaper, Cakewalk, Ozone 12, EZDrummer
Crazy and very well tune like all your creations. Thanks1 Mike B.
Thanks, Mike! Appreciated.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Hi Chay, I actually had to increase the volume on this after listening to several other showcase tunes, so maybe the master volume is low? I'm out of breath just listening to that harmonica! Loved that organ middle.
Thanks, Beth. I'm surprised that you mentioned the volume because each time I do a channel-swap and remix I increase the volume of every stem file by 1db, so everything I'm now posting is louder than the original posts and no-one ever mentioned volume before. Also, there are a lot of lower volume recordings in YT and other sites, plus also on CDs. That said, there appears to be a trend towards making recordings super-loud, which I'm not pro. Here's a note from a PDF on common mistakes made in recordings from a guy who runs a local studio, which is alas just too far away for me to use. ======= Guidelines for a successful Studio Session (common mistakes to avoid) MISTAKE 1: MIXING TOO LOUDLY Mixing too loudly will actually just ruin your mix…. It feels great when you get a great sounding track and you crank up the volume. It can sound big and exciting. A lot of things sound exciting when you blast them but there are good reasons to mix at lower volumes. Working at a lower volume will ensure that your mix doesn’t sound too mid-range and enables you to hear the finer details in your mix and adjust them accordingly. Plus, one of the most important reasons is to protect your ears and those of others!! Exposure to any sounds at high volume are detrimental to your hearing and once you lose it, it never comes back
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Chay, another outstanding song That blues harp player has a great set of lungs Super B3 and guitar leads AS always a fantastic mix I really enjoyed this one.
Yep, L.D. Miller is a superb and very unique harmonica player! I love his style.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Man, that harmonica is fast, like nothing less than 1/32nd notes. Love the organ take. Cool guitar, too. The soloists have such a nice bed to lay down their tracks. As Beth mentioned, it seems a little low in volume. YT won't raise the volume if it's lower than normal, but they will lower it when it is too high. https://www.loudnesspenalty.com/ is a good place to check it before uploading.
Thanks, Marty. Re the volume I'll quote my reaply to Beth:
Thanks, Beth. I'm surprised that you mentioned the volume because each time I do a channel-swap and remix I increase the volume of every stem file by 1db, so everything I'm now posting is louder than the original posts and no-one ever mentioned volume before. Also, there are a lot of lower volume recordings in YT and other sites, plus also on CDs. That said, there appears to be a trend towards making recordings super-loud, which I'm not pro. Here's a note from a PDF on common mistakes made in recordings from a guy who runs a local studio, which is alas just too far away for me to use.
Guidelines for a successful Studio Session (common mistakes to avoid) MISTAKE 1: MIXING TOO LOUDLY Mixing too loudly will actually just ruin your mix…. It feels great when you get a great sounding track and you crank up the volume. It can sound big and exciting. A lot of things sound exciting when you blast them but there are good reasons to mix at lower volumes. Working at a lower volume will ensure that your mix doesn’t sound too mid-range and enables you to hear the finer details in your mix and adjust them accordingly. Plus, one of the most important reasons is to protect your ears and those of others!! Exposure to any sounds at high volume are detrimental to your hearing and once you lose it, it never comes back
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Chay, This is an excellent piece. That harmonica is great and makes quite the impact when it comes in. Love the flow, build and mix. As always, thoroughly enjoyed! Bob
Thanks, Bob! Always appreciated.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Chay, really nicely done once again. Like your instrument choices and the way you build the layers and then trade them off.
Muchas gracias, don Ron. Very much appreciated.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Very cool tune. Excellent instrumentation choice. Loved the harp. Mixing levels are a tricky one to get a handle on. I usually mix to -20dB and then export the mix to a wav. Then master the wav separately to -14dB. Mixing loud can definitely give you ear fatigue fast.
Very cool tune. Excellent instrumentation choice. Loved the harp. Mixing levels are a tricky one to get a handle on. I usually mix to -20dB and then export the mix to a wav. Then master the wav separately to -14dB. Mixing loud can definitely give you ear fatigue fast.
Thanks for listening and responding, Scott. Besides hard work, mixing is both a discipline and an art. I don't understand re the minus-dbs you mentioned as I mix in Audacity where all BiaB sample stem files start at 0db. The individual instrument samples can range from very low to very high volumes and all have varying set channel biases, so getting tracks to balance and appear in the desired channels starts from there. In Audacity the actual dbs aren't dbs at all as 2 samples can vary vastly in volume, but they're all given a 0db start.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Regarding volume - what do you use to set your levels in mastering? I've taken to using a LufsM leveler so that my tracks are consistent in level up to sending them off for mastering. Nice calm backing for a frenetic harmonica. Sorry, I didn't watch - just listened - the visuals distracted me so I scroll down to type as I listened.
Cheers rayc "What's so funny about peace, love & understanding?" - N.Lowe
Nice instrumental track...you handle the BIAB components so well! I wonder if you spend alot of time re-generating parts of the RT's to get what you want, or if you use what BIAB gives you--all the phrasing, esp the solo's are just right! Thanks for posting!
Windows 11, Intel Core i5-8600T 2.3Ghz, 16 gig ram, BIAB 2025 MegaPak, SampleTank 4, Keystation49 Kybd, Neewer NW-800 mic
Regarding volume - what do you use to set your levels in mastering? I've taken to using a LufsM leveler so that my tracks are consistent in level up to sending them off for mastering. Nice calm backing for a frenetic harmonica. Sorry, I didn't watch - just listened - the visuals distracted me so I scroll down to type as I listened.
Thanks, Ray. I assume you were asking what I use to set my levels in mixing, not mastering. In short I do everything in Audacity as I was already familiar with it before I'd heard of BiaB. … No prob's re not watching the video as the music is primary. I use YouTube as I get better results on it, though I was doing videos for others music before I started using BiaB.
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Nice instrumental track...you handle the BIAB components so well! I wonder if you spend alot of time re-generating parts of the RT's to get what you want, or if you use what BIAB gives you--all the phrasing, esp the solo's are just right! Thanks for posting!
Thanks, Tano. Re sampling I'm surprised how often I find that the first take from specific instruments is better than what follows, but I'll equally often find I have to try a few, plus fairly often I'll have to cut and paste from 2-7 samples to get exactly what I want. The first short guitar solo on my Dreaming Of" track is a hybrid of 7 segments from 5 different sample regenerations, then the 2nd shorter guitar solo is a hybrid of snippets from 6 different samples. In the above track I struck lucky and each of the 3 solos are the first samples generated. Once I've had an idea about what next I want to try I create the chord structure, then I gather as many samples as I can of all of the instruments I want to or might possibly use, and that can be anything from 20- 50 different instrument samples. Sometimes it's tricky as so many instruments work, then at other times I'm amazed at how nothing seems to fit what I want!
Some favourite Waoist Adages: #1: Play on the Way. #13: Ask not for whom the flower blooms, it blooms for you. #58: Bring consciousness to it. #63: On the road to effortlessness, effort must be made. #92: Be Love Now, the rest will come on its own.
Today's the Last Day of the Band-in-a-Box 2026® for Mac Special!
Order before 11:59pm PDT today (May 15, 2026) to save up to 50% off your Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® upgrade and receive a FREE Bonus PAK loaded with great new Add-ons to use with this new version!
Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac - Special Offers End at 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th, 2026!
Order before 11:59pm PDT on Friday, May 15th and SAVE up to 50% on most Band-in-a-Box® version 2026 for Mac Upgrade packages... and that's not all! With your version 2026 for Mac purchase, we'll include a Bonus PAK full of great new Add-ons FREE! Upgrade to the 2026 49-PAK to receive even more NEW Add-ons including 20 additional RealTracks... that's 222 NEW RealTracks available with version Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac!
Upgrade to Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac® today for as little as $49! Check out the Band-in-a-Box® packages page for all available purchase options.
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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.
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:
The 2026 RealCombos Booster PAK:
-For Pro customers, this includes 27 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-For MegaPAK customers, this includes 25 new RealTracks and 23 new RealStyles.
-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)
XPro & Xtra Styles PAK Sets On Sale Now - Until May 15, 2026!
All of our XPro Styles PAKs and Xtra Styles PAKs are on sale until May 15th, 2026!
It's the perfect time to expand your Band-in-a-Box® style library with XPro and Xtra Styles PAKs. These additional styles for Band-in-a-Box® offer a wide range of genres designed to fit seamlessly into your projects. Each style is professionally arranged and mixed, helping enhance your songs while saving you time.
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XPro Styles PAKs are styles that work with any version (Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition) of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 (or higher). XPro Styles PAKS 1-10 includes 1,000 styles!
Xtra Styles PAKs are styles that work with the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box® 2025 (or higher). Xtra Styles PAKs 1-21 includes 3,700 styles (and 35 MIDI styles)!
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With the release of Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac, we’re rolling out a collection of brand-new videos on our YouTube channel. We’ll keep this forum post updated so you can easily find all the latest videos in one convenient spot.
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Loved that organ middle.
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