I'm currently singing/ playing guitar for a living mostly to nursing/convalescent homes. I'd love to have accompanyment and after seeing and hearing BIAB 2009.5 demo I'm drooling to get it but I need to check first to see how "easy" it is to really use and can it simply play with me by adding a laptop to my mixer. I am a guitar player with limited computer point and click skills...i don't even have a usb port on my yamaha mixer for a computer. I don't have a laptop either so I'd need to find out if windows or mac makes a difference other than personal preference. I currently have windows xp simple home computer.
welcome all replys
thanks

Welcome, We have a number of players here who travel the Retirement Village circuit.

Ask yourself this, will you performance be enhanced with the addition of drums, piano and bass. If the answer is yes then you should begin the process. Your connection between tlhe laptop and your mixer will be simple audio cables from the headpone out jack of the laptop to the board. If you have a home PC then you will want a laptop PC. The home PC will be where you lay out all your arrangements. I use a single portabee USB 500 G external dirve so I just move the drive between my laptop and home PC. Teh external drive has the entire BIAB application and all your arrangements in one place.

Is it easy? Well it does require some apptitude with software based music applications. And the learning curve can be steep, but given how much it can add, it can be worth the effort.

Good Luck,
Dan

Of course you could record your backings using BIAB and then put them on a CD - either wave files or high quality mp3s. This way you would not need to take a computer round and it might even be more secure as your computer could crash and need a reboot! Never a good feature during a performance! If you have a minidisc player or ipod then that's another method too.

I have an entire page explaining how I do it, from the creation of the songs to using them on stage:

http://www.nortonmusic.com/backing_tracks.html

Feel free to take what you want and leave the rest.

Notes

in addition to Notes Norton's input user mac on these forums has great proven ideas on biab's use in live performance including the benefits of using the Conductor feature

A Mididisc player is the way to go. you can set a Mididisc player to pause. CD's, MP3's Ipod's that I have used you have to hit the stop button between songs. Not good if you are a distance from the player. A foot switch is the key to pause and play. I also have a remote that I can type in any number song I want from a distance. Great for request.

To me, the advantage of using a laptop live with BIAB is that you can edit on the fly, especially when my horn player shows up and prefers different keys to play in. I change them on the spot and the number of choruses, if needed. And for vocals, with the scrolling lyrics, that eliminates a book, stand, light, etc... That's worth a lot. But I wonder, too, what happens if the computer crashes? I'm waiting for the solid state drives to come down in price so I can make it the primary laptop with the other as a backup. I've tried CDs and mp3s, but still prefer the laptop. By the way, my laptop has two audio outputs. Didn't realize that when I got it. I run both outputs through a mixer then into two sets of powered speakers. Talk about a big sound!

Another good thing. With a Mini-disc player-recorder you can also change keys. But I agree, a computer is the way to go. Maybe having a mini-disc in line as a backup would not hurt.

Yes, you right. Decision on laptop running BIAB or players (mini disk, mp3/mp4 players, iPOD, etc) depend of type of live performance and even of music styles. Some live shows or gigs don´t let you much room for change anything, if you must stick to scheduled time, you have go song after song, for example, radio or TV, band competition or even a live recording that is ideal scenario for backing tracks playing from a mini disk or any player of your choice. "Band in a Laptop" is great if you need to change keys, styles,lyrics, tempo, number of chorus (jazz soloists with modal attitude ) or even to select songs on fly, the ideal way for take adventage of outstanding BIAB live features, specially the Conductor useful tool. I would think of both things, BIAB running live in my laptop and my show songs backup "canned" in my iPOD or CD.

My .02

Using BIAB live has many advantages such as being able to change the key, tempo, style, choruses, etc. Being able to switch drums from sticks to brushes 'on the fly' has been a lifesaver for me on many occasions. I still bring a MP3 player with my songs in case of a computer failure but have not needed it yet (Knock on wood). One time, BIAB lost it ability to play audio so I had to switch from RealDrums to Midi. I was not happy but got through. A System Restore after the gig brought the audio back.

A disadvantage is when using RealTracks. They take about 8 - 10 seconds per RT to generate. If you use several in a song, you can do the math. To speed up the process you can 'Freeze' the song, which makes an audio file. The song will load and play instantly, regardless of the number of RTs. However, once frozen, the advantages mentioned above don't apply.

R

rachel

Quote:

---

Being able to switch drums from sticks to brushes 'on the fly' has been a lifesaver for me on many occasions.

---

how do you switch drums from sticks to brushes 'on the fly'