I first learned of BIAB in a music mag of some sort. My first version was either 7 or 8, (or maybe even 6). Up until that time I’d been using a “rhythm machine” of some sort, Boss or Yamaha, for practice. It sucked pretty bad.

My first computer was a Dell with a whopping 266MHZ processor and really big 2GB hard drive running Win 95. Top of the line at the time. I think I bought one more after that, and I’ve been building my own since then, with the exception of one other one which was a gift. I taught my son how to build them and he built the one I’m currently using as a Christmas gift last year. It’s pretty sweet.

I really liked BIAB right off the bat. It was far more advanced than what I’d been using, but it was very limited for bluegrass music because of the incorrect time values in the bluegrass styles. It treated bluegrass as a 16th note based music, when virtually ALL of the sheet music for bluegrass and fiddle tunes are written in 8th notes. I’m running BIAB 2009.5 and it still treats them the same way. According to the upgrade list for BIAB 2010, they have tried to address that, but I can’t afford the upgrade since I lost my job, so I’m not sure.

I've tried to recruit friends into using BIAB over the years, but once they saw the incorrect time values for fiddle tunes and bluegrass, they weren’t interested.

I haven’t changed my setup or “gear” to accommodate BIAB. I use it almost strictly for practice, with the exception of using it to program chord progressions for songs I’ve written so I’ll remember them.

It’s a powerful tool, and I’d highly recommend it to any musician, even though the verdict is still out for me concerning fiddle tunes, bluegrass, traditional, New Acoustic, Dawg music, “Jazzgrass” and any other up tempo acoustic music. 8th notes are 8th notes, regardless of the tempo.

Bob
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http://soundcloud.com/bobcflatpicke/music-in-the-mountains