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I am leading worship at a small church where we have a limited number of instrumentalists and sometimes all of them cannot particpate. I have several questions about what might work best for my set-up. Here are some of the details:

1. I want to have midi or audio tracks which can be brought in or muted seperately. Let's say the person on bass cannot be there for a Sunday. I would like to be able to bring the track up for just bass. There will be other times when it will just be me with guitar and the pianist or myself and the drummer. I would like to add in instruments as needed.



Actually, Band in a Box can do all of that from the laptop for you, with a little bit of setup and learning curve on your part.

*Each Auto-accompaniment track can be MUTED for an entire session through use of Mouse or Keyboard Shortcuts. If the bass player shows up, simply Mute the Bass part for that session, etc. Of course, you would have to spend some time at home or in the studio to create those Band in a Box accompaniments for your songs, typing in the chords, setting up the choruses and choosing a Style for each song, but once saved, they are there and ready to go when needed.

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2 I have several choices. I have a laptop and have purchsed Cakewalks V-20. Once I create the tracks I believe I can control them by using the VS-20 as a controller for the volumes and just pull the sliders up and down that are needed.



That may be another way to accomplish the same thing, but be advised that the V-Studio 20 wasn't really designed for the purpose. It is likely better suited for recording a guitar with its built-in COSM modeling effects. Of course, someone familiar with it might be able to come up with some workarounds for using it in live performance like you describe.

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3. I have wondered about just putting everything in audio and just using one of the smaller digital recorder/mixers to control things.



Your problem with this one would be that you would have to have separate audio tracks for each instrument in order to be able to cut one or more out of the mix as needed. That means two things that add to the complexity - and expense - First one being you would need a multiple output sound device that featured a separate audio output for each track if you intend to control via audio mixer, or a software program that had a virtual software mixing environment in it such that you could easily Mute those tracks. BAND IN A BOX would still be my preferred choice here.

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4. I have been looking at the Roland Mobile Sound canvas but cannot get a solid handle on A. Whether it would add anyting flexibility wise to the solution. B. What types of sounds does it really have. I have been comparing it as best as possible on line to the Ketron. It appears from my limited availability to demonstrations that the Ketron is a little stronger in acoustic sounds where the Roland has more lush piano's and synth sounds. I really wish there were a standard soundfile that companies would use to demonstrate. There is not any chance someone could provide and MP3 of both the Mobile Sound Canvas and the Ketron performing the same song for me to get a better idea is there? I do mostly Southern Gospel and Praise and Worship stuff so it is very Guitar, Bass and Keyboard focused.



My advice to you here is to not sweat these issues for right now. Get a MIDI solution and get started. Band in a Box ships with some fairly decent sounding software MIDI synths, but also there are the REALTRACKS, which for accompaniment in your chosen genre and use, are simply amazing, sounding like what they are, real instruments played by real pro players. The only thing that RealTracks can not do for you is to make those cuatom riffs or melodic lines that certain songs may have in them, easily overcome by playing that part yourself while the RealTracks accompany you.


What you want to do is possible to do with BiaB, matter of fact there are quite a few folks doing exactly that already. Band in a Box also has a "Conductor" feature, which, when learned and used, can allow for the selection of chorus repeats, jump to ending, jump back to beginning, etc. "on the fly" - I've used it in Worship Services while still managing to play the piano keyboard at the same time, with my laptop sitting on the piano's musicboard.

Merry Christmas!



--Mac

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