|
Log in to post
|
Print Thread |
|
|
|
|
|
Songwriting
|
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 8,242
Veteran
|
Veteran
Joined: Sep 2010
Posts: 8,242 |
Remember when there used to be numerous solo hit songwriters like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Carly Simon, Carole King, Stevie Wonder,
Billy Joel, Sting, Paul McCartney etc.? This singer/songwriter trend was kicked off when singers found it more profitable to write their own songs than to share rights with songwriters. This is just a similar market-driven trend. And remember when there usually would be no more than 2 songwriters on a hit single which would be written by such teams as Leiber and Stoller, Goffin and King, Bacharach and David, Lennon and McCartney and Jagger and Richards? The majority of these were teamed up as musician/lyricist teams, assigned by companies to sit in a room and write songs together. So why is this a bad trend? Well, first of all there is the old proverb: Too many cooks spoil the broth. The songwriter who first has that creative moment of comin up with a melody or lyric has had an artistic vision, and when other collaboraters try to develop that vision they often degrade what the original songwriter felt
in the moment of the song's origin. But this has never been about artistic vision, it's been about writing songs that will be popular with the public. This is also a bad trend for us songwriters. I don't know about you folks, but i find it lowers the value of what a songwriting credit represents when people who have not written a single note of melody and not a single word of the lyric receive a songwriting credit. You're not going to get much disagreement about that. This is also a bad trend because when there are many songwriters, writing the songs on an album, instead of one or two, the album loses a sense of
artistic vision. There are some thematic albums, but they are few and far between. For example, Burt Bacharach and Hal David would often write all the songs on a Dionne Warwick album. This gave Dionne's albums a unified vision. If you compared the songs on a Dionne Warwick album, you'd be hard-pressed to find a "unified vision" there. And Dionne Warwick was an exception. Barcharach and David hired her to record demos for them, and eventually hired her to sing their songs on albums that they released. Dionne Warwick was acting on behalf of them, not the other way around. Somehow, that Barry Manilow song, I Write The Songs would just not mean as much to people if the title had been We Write The Songs. Well, a couple of points. First, the song was written by Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys, not Barry Manilow. And second, the singer in "I Write The Songs" isn't some songwriter - it's literally music personified: I've been alive forever
And I wrote the very first song
I put the words and the melody together
I am music, and I write the songsSimilarly, would Killing Me Softly With His Song have meant as much to people if it had been titled Killing Me Softly With Their Song? Well, the title of the song is "Killing Me Softly", and it's not about songwriting - it's about the experience of hearing your own experience in someone else's song. Or would Elton and Bernie Taupin's Your Song had the same poignancy if instead of the lyrics being 'My gift is my song and this one's for you', it had instead been 'Our gift is our song and this one's for you'? The personal touch is no longer communicated when you go from the one to the many. Writers don't write about the experience of songwriting, they write songs. And song that sell are still one-on-one stories, even if fourteen people are credited on the song. I just think that this trend of having a greater number of songwriters writing each song is just one more factor in the decline in The Gentle Arte of Songwriting
and Musicke that has occurred over the course of the last half century and it devalues the significance of what a songwriter actually does. Just like when the focus moved from singers being the interpreters of songs, and we moved to the singer/songwriter paradigm? And it is also a bad trend when a singer like Adele, who has collaborated on most of the songs she has sung, is referrred to as a singer-songwrier.[quote]
By that logic, and song that McCartney and Lennon collaborated with would not be written by a "songwriter"?
[quote]I have a feeling that this sort of thing was not done as much in the 60s and 70s as a result of so many solo artists writing their own songs, and even bands
writing their own songs. In the 60's and 70's, plenty of singers never wrote any of their own music, and no one gave it a second thought. But it looks like this sleazy practice began to become pervasive again after the end of the 90s when the music industry took a huge nose dive. Over the course of only a decade or so the American music business was only raking in around 1/3 of what it had previously taken in a decade before. You're ignoring a vast number of other factors, such as digital music, which had a huge impact on the music business. And the music business has always been sleazy and unsavory. As a result of this, musical artists who had been making millions of dollars in artist royalties a decade before were now not selling enough records for the record companies to make a profit, and so those artists who were only selling a million or so albums were not getting a single penny in artist royalties. What is this "record" thing you speak of? That's not how the music business works anymore. So, that is why singers were starting to blackmail songwriters into giving up half their royalties. The singers were motivated purely by financial greed. Besides being an overly broad statement, it ignores that it was the managers and record companies who were doing this, not the individual artists. I recall reading Barry Manilow complaining how tightly Clive Davis controlled what songs he could and couldn't put on his own albums. I suspect that other artists had little say-so on many aspects of their albums. It is just as much the fault of the indiscriminating public which relentlessly buys poorly written songs as long as those songs have a good singer and a good beat. Isn't this was selling to the public has always been?
-- David Cuny My virtual singer development blogVocal control, you say. Never heard of it. Is that some kind of ProTools thing?BiaB 2025 | Windows 11 | Reaper | Way too many VSTis.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Songwriting
|
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 32
Enthusiast
|
|
Enthusiast
Joined: Oct 2009
Posts: 32 |
Songwriting teams have created some of my very favorite songs: Rogers & Hart, Rodgers & Hammerstein, Kander & Ebb, Lerner & Loew, Bock & Harnick, Lennon & McCartney, Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Jagger and Richards, Bernie Taupin and Elton John, Bacharach & David, Leiber & Stoller, Ashford & Simpson, Holland/Dozier/Holland, and hundreds more. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim on "West Side Story" weren't too bad either.
Many of the biggest hits of today are written exactly this way. Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas, Taylor Swift and a lot of different collaborators (but usually only one on a song). Adele co-writes with a few trusted collaborators. Ed Sheeran and Lana del Rey are also pretty famous for collaborating with many artists. I don't see how Billie Eilish and her brother and Adele and her collaborators are any different from Lennon & McCartney, in terms of the technical process of songwriting. The difference is how people of different generations respond to the results.
Nowadays the majority of songs begin with a producer or producers. They create the original track, which doesn't have any lyrics. It's just a pop arrangement. Then you can bring in "topliners" who improvise over it. If the topliners don't deliver, they just bring in more topliners. The lyrics are just raw material and are edited into something that sounds like a song. Then they bring in a singer/star, who makes their contribution and possibly records it.
More common are songs written in rooms by many people at the same time. Usually at least three people--a producer with a DAW, a songwriter, and a singer/star. They work for a day and at the end of the day there's a song. There are also camps that songwriters are paid to go to and write with others. If there are three songwriters in a room with two producers, and then laterr it goes to the star, you can see how there can be a lot of credited songwriters.
This system is rooted in the Nashville Room. A lot of people gathered in a room to write a song. The result was credited to whoever was in the room, regardless of how big or small their contribution was.
I read an article about Amy Rose Allen, who co-wrote "Espresso" and other hits with Sabrina Carpenter. She also collaborated with Dua Lipa, Harry Styles, Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Halsey, Shawn Mendes, etc. And she said something like, "Okay I had this huge hit, but before that, I wrote hundreds of songs that didn't go anywhere."
This is the way the modern music business works. It's not just the US. A lot of K-pop and other world hits are written by Max Martin and other Swedes. But I am old enough to remember what the 60s was actually like, and we had song factories from the likes of Don Kershner. Yes, it was the time of the Beatles, but also The Archies and The Monkees. And The Wrecking Crew and the Motown house band played on most of the songs. And some of these "products" were amazing, just as a lot of the pop factory songs of today are equally amazing.
Personally I find Taylor Swift's "Cruel Summer" and the K-Pop Demon Hunters' "Golden" to be irresistible. Just like "Louie Louie" and "Wipe-Out," and the oeuvre of Paul Revere & the Raiders, when I played them in bands as a teenager.
But are these pop hits as meaningful to me as songs by Mitski, who writes all her songs? No, her work touches me in a deeper way. But I had to find her work and listen to it. But that's the way it was when I was a teenager too. Tim Buckley's albums never charted, but I loved them. The first Velvet Underground album went nowhere. There's a lot of good stuff out there if you are willing to look and take the time to seek it out. A ton more songs than I have time to listen to--because I have my own songs to write. : )
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ask sales and support questions about Band-in-a-Box using natural language.
ChatPG's knowledge base includes the full Band-in-a-Box User Manual and sales information from the website.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Holiday Weekend Hours
It's Victoria Day Long Weekend in Canada. Our Customer Service hours are:
Saturday, May 16: Closed
Sunday, May 17: Closed
Monday, May 18: 8:00am - 4:00pm
Regular hours resume Tuesday, May 19th!
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!
Don't wait - order today!
Check out all the new features in the redesigned Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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.
Learn more about the Free Bonus PAK and 49-PAK here.
If you have any questions about which package is the best option for you, just let us know. We're here to help!
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:
- 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)
Learn more about the Bonus PAK and 49-PAK for Band-in-a-Box® 2026 for Mac®!
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.
What are XPro Styles and Xtra Styles PAKs?
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)!
The XPro & Xtra Styles PAKs are not included in any Band-in-a-Box® package.
The XPro Styles PAKs 1-10 are available for only $29 ea (reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the XPro Styles PAK Bundle for only $149 (reg. $299)! Listen to demos and order now! For Mac or for Windows.
The Xtra Styles PAKs 1-21 are available for only $29 ea (reg. $49 ea), or get them all in the Xtra Styles PAK Bundle for only $199 (reg. $349)! Listen to demos and order now! For Mac or for Windows.
Note: XPro Styles PAKs require Band-in-a-Box® 2025 or higher and are compatible with ANY package, including the Pro, MegaPAK, UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, and Audiophile Edition.
The Xtra Styles require the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition of Band-in-a-Box®. (Xtra Styles PAK 19 requires the 2025 or higher UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition. They will not work with the Pro or MegaPAK version as they require the RealTracks included in the UltraPAK, UltraPAK+, or Audiophile Edition.
Supercharge your Band-in-a-Box today with XPro Styles PAKs and Xtra Styles PAK Sets!
Band-in-a-Box 2026 for Mac Videos
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.
Whether you're exploring new features, checking out the latest RealTracks or Style PAKs, this is your go-to guide for Band-in-a-Box® 2026.
Check out this forum post for "One Stop Shopping" of our Band-in-a-Box® 2026 Mac Videos!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Forums57
Topics86,309
Posts803,138
Members40,090
| |
Most Online64,515
Apr 8th, 2026
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Dansk
Deutsch - Windows
Español
Français - Windows
Italiano - Windows
Nederlands
Polski
Português
Svenskt
русский
Japanese
Simplified Chinese
Traditional Chinese
Korean