It's time to put A Better Band In Your Box

Two years in the making!!! New, fun, toys and tools for Band-in-a-Box from Norton Music.

Introducing 8 new style and fake disks in these genres: Country, Jazz, Latin American, Praise/Worship, and Rock/Pop. We have something for everyone. These e-disks are the results of your requests and are available via instant download.

So let's get right to the point. Here are your eight, new, BiaB add-ons.

--- #1 ---

Norton Music's User Style Disk #30 - Nashville styles for Country and Southern Rock

20 new, great multi-styles plus, 71 FREE, compatible MIDI intros and endings - 91 BiaB and MIDI styles in all.

For style names, descriptions and mp3 demo files, go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/style30.html

--- #2 ---

Norton Music's User Style Disk #31 - Pop, Rock and Motown styles

20 more new, great multi-styles, plus 63 FREE, compatible MIDI intros and endings - 83 BiaB and MIDI styles in all.

For style names, descriptions and mp3 demo files, go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/style31.html


--- #3 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #46 - The Real Latin Fake Disk (with optional Real Latin Book)

This disk contains the chord progressions of Hal Leonard's "The Real Latin Book". It's a Musica Latina gig in a box. 400 Great Latin American Tunes in the following genres: Salsa, Merengue, Mambo, Rhumba, Bolero, Cumbia, Bossa Nova, Samba, Cha Cha, Son Montuno, Tango, Guaracha, Beguine, Son, Lambada, Songo, Calypso, Baiao, Flamenco, Paso Doble, Descarga, Ranchera, Partido Alto, Mercumbé, Latin Funk, Latin Rock, Latin Swing, Latin Pop, Latin Disco, Latin Jazz, Afro/Cuban, Nuyorican, and more ...

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake46.html


--- #4 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #47 - The Praise And Worship Fake Disk (with optional Praise And Worship Fake Book 2nd Edition)

This one has been requested quite a few times.

If you are a Praise & Worship Musician, you need this disk. An Essential Tool for Worship Leaders, Praise Bands and Singers!.

Over 400 songs, from the classics to the well-known and well-loved contemporary songs by your favorite artists. This is a fantastic collection of music, most of it newer, with many classics from the last 30 years or so, along with a few traditional hymns.

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake47.html

--- #5 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #48 - The Real Book Fake Disk Volume 3 (with optional Real Book Volume 3)

Continuing the famous Real Book transcription series, 400 more essential jazz tunes. It's a "Who's Who" of Jazz Composers.

This is our most requested collection. Remember, there are no duplicate songs in the Real Book jazz series.

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake48.html

--- #6 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #49 - The Real Book Fake Disk Volume 4 (with optional Real Book Volume 4)

Another of the famous Real Book transcription series, 400 more essential jazz tunes. Along with the classics, this volume features many contemporary jazz compositions.

Our most requested collection. Remember, there are no duplicate songs in the Real Book jazz series.

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake49.html


--- #7 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #50 - The Real Book Fake Disk Volume 5 (with optional Real Book Volume 5)

And the hits just keep on coming. Continuing the famous Real Book collection, 400 more essential jazz tunes. This one also has pop songs adopted by the jazz masters along with the classics. I get so many requests to complete the Real Book series, and we are happy to fulfill it. We have one more to go, stay tuned for our next big release.

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake50.html

--- #8 ---

Norton Music's Fake Disk #51 - The Real Pop Disk Volume 2 (with optional Real Pop Book Volume 2)

Another frequent request from people who bought volume 1 of this series. 200 more songs your audience knows by heart. Not just head charts, but full arrangements. It's a Pop/Rock gig in a box for BiaB.

For a complete description, song listing and a couple of free songs (.sgu), go to http://www.nortonmusic.com/fake51.html

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And as always, with the "Roll Your Own Discount" http://www.nortonmusic.com/mega.html the more you buy, the more you save. Buy all 8 disks and save almost $100.00

Disks? They aren't on disk anymore. They are available via instant download. (E-disk???)

I've been making add-ons for BiaB since the 1990s. Thank you for your support and all the kind comments you send to me. I am happy that you like my offerings, and hope you enjoy these e-disks as much as the ones you already have.

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And a "Thank You" to Peter Gannon for allowing me to post a one-time new product announcement here.

There is some outstanding source material here! And we know the quality of your work is exceptional.

I agree. Outstanding material.

Charlie

Thanks for the kind words. I think they will make a good enhancement for my favorite music software app, BiaB.


Notes ♫

Now you know what Mrs. Notes and I did during the plague lockdown

I just purchased 'disk' #46, the Latin Fake Book. I'm very happy with my purchase.

I spot checked about 12 songs I know very well, and Bob has done a great job here. All the songs had the right 'feel', no easy task as I have transcribed many of these songs. This particular fakebook and downloaded fakedisk would have been tremendously helpful to me earlier in my career. Even now, I'm looking forward to hearing some of the songs in this huge collection that I don't know, by reading the printed Hal Leonard fakebook while hearing Bob's BIAB versions.

Since I specialize in Brazilian jazz, I know many of these songs better by recordings of jazz performers doing their own version. Bob has done here the more authentic versions that sound like the original artist performances. Of course, with BIAB, you can always make changes easily and play them however you like. If you haven't used Bob's songs before, they use MIDI rather then RealTracks, but you can always try substituting.

Bravo, Bob 'Notes'. Excellent work as always. We users, and PG Music, are fortunate to have someone as dedicated and talented as you producing aftermarket products to enhance BIAB.

Thank you for the kind words, Matt.

I'm glad that you are happy with the software.

Notes ♫

Speaking of Brazil Jazz, I love Jobim songs, especially when interpreted by people like Stan Getz, Luiz Bonfá, Maria Toledo and Mark Murphy. I really like Milton Nascimento, Ivan Lins, Tania Maria, Gilberto Gil, and others.

-----------------------------------------------------


Change of subject.


I've had reports of people telling me because I don't have https on my site, some browsers and malware apps are calling my site unsafe.

The shopping cart, where you enter your private information has always been https, so there never has been a problem with your data.

But I listen to my customers, so I have paid the money, and am now waiting for the SSL and the s at the end of my http

So hang in there. They tell me 24-48 hours, but it's already been 48 hours. That's pretty normal in today's world.

They assure me it's on the way.

Notes ♫

This may be corrected by now, but I had no problem just saying 'Ignore' to my browser and proceeding to the site to make my order. I had one more 'Ignore' when downloading.

Bob, I think that you're making a wise move. There are many potential customers that would be put off by the "Unsafe" warning message. I know that when I get that message on sites that I'm not extremely sure of, I back off and go somewhere else.

Ignoring the warning works, and when you enter anything into the shopping cart, it's a secure server.

Even though it's not necessary, I'm going for the SSL. I paid the money last week.

Now I'm jumping through one hoop after another.

First rep says, "All you need to do is this..." Done

Sounded easy-peasy.

A day or two later, a second rep says, "Now all you need to do is this..." Done

Now a third says, "All you need to do now is this..." Done

I'm waiting on the fourth rep.

I never imagined getting a stupid little S at the end of my http: would be suce a PITA.

-------

Why are the fake e-disks assigned to MIDI styles?

1) If I assign the song to a MIDI style, more often than not the PG robot will suggest an appropriate Real Track Style

2) If I assign a song to a Real Style, the robot will not suggest a MIDI style.

Therefore, to provide a style suggestion to both MIDI and REAL users, the only way to do it is to use a MIDI style. You are also free to change the style to anything you want.

Notes ♫

So now I call Digicert who tells me to prove I'm a real business, I have to send a letter from my in-house attorney and my in-house accountant.

I explain it's a cottage business and I hired a lawyer to get started back in the 1990s, and he has long since retired, and my accountant is me and quicken.

I explain I have a website, that uses a shopping card service, have business bank account and play state sales tax, and furnished documents. I even send a copy of my county business license. What more can I do?

He says provide a utility bill with my phone number. I'm on auto-pay and don't get bills. I tell him to go to my website, which he does, and says it's not enough.

He refers me back to my web host telling me to have them send them a DV request. I do that immediately and The web host tech says he cannot do that and wants to send me back to the web host.

So for 4 days now I've been sent from the webhost to digicert to the webhost to digicert to the webhost to digicert to the webhost to digicert and so on.

So I did something very unusual for me, I lost it and yelled at the webhost tech telling him I've been in business longer than his hosting company I started with cyberlink who was bought value web who was bought by hosting com who was bought by somebody else with a few initials and now by this company.

I added that my shopping cart was originally americart which was bought by americommerce which was bought by capital one/sparkpay which was bought back by americommerce and is now cart dot com.

And I said I've been in business longer than you, the shopping cart and digicert, I've paid my money, it was supposed to be easy, and now you want to keep playing ping-pong between you and digicert. I want to speak to supervisor NOW. He said he would have one call me in a few hours.

This got me madder and said if I don't get satisfaction, I am going to find a new webhost, and trash this company, first with the 8,000 people on my mailing list and then on every social media and forum I frequent.

I told him I paid the money for them to do the footwork, if I was to do this all myself, I could save myself the setup fee and the monthly fee. All I want is that stupid little S at the end of my http, I paid the money, and I want results NOW.

A supervisor called in about a half hour, and told me he was on a chat with digicert and they are escalating, and I should get results in 2 or 3 hours. That was an hour ago.

I'm not holding my breath.

I got to the breaking point and had to yell at some poor technician. But sometimes you have to do that to get some results. I asked the supervisor to apologize to the tech that I yelled at.

To be continued ....

If I ever get that pesky little S, I'll let you all know so you can go to my site without the warnings.

If you do visit anyway, if you put something in the shopping cart, you get their https and you are fully encrypted and safe.

Aaaaaarrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhhh

Notes ♫

You could tell them that you are going to sing a song like this guy did when United Airlines broke his guitar. This is a true story. United wouldn't fix or replace the guitar so he did this song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo

True enough; I know more about that song than I do about United Airlines.

You have my absolute sympathy. This kind of "service" is shockingly common and maddening. I once spent three whole days on the 'phone to a bank trying to sort out a new account that they and various other banks said didn't exist.

Hopefully this Flanders and Swan song from many years ago will give a laugh.
"The Gas Man Cometh"

Thanks Mario for the video Mrs. Notes and I laughed out loud.

Gordon thanks for the sympathy and the video.

And now for the next chapter.

By close to midnight, I e-chatted with tech representative number 11 or 12 or 1100 (I lost count).

Me: "Where is my approval?"

He: "You have to call DigiCert tomorrow."

I told Him ||: You told me to call DigiCert, DigiCert said to call you, :|| (Repeat ad infinitum)

I told him that I am tired of being a human ping-pong ball (In retrospect, I could have used pickleball) and that up to now, I have refrained from using the name of the web hosting company (web-hosing-company). But if I don't get some satisfaction soon, I will be blasting the non-customer service all over the Internet. I reminded him that I'm paying the web-hosing-service to do the work for me, and what am I getting for my money?

He gave me a long CV number to use when I call DigiCert this morning. So far, they haven't answered.

Is it time to take a poll?

Do you think I will ever get my S out of this jam?

Will the dumb S people ever realize I've been in business longer than they have?

Will the lame S customer service ever give me a piece of that hallowed S?

Will my customers come back after I show them my S?

To be continued ... ... ... ...

.... continued from page above

DigiCert answered the phone a little after 9, was on the phone until 9:30, had to raise my voice again.

He said he couldn't find any official source to verify my business, Florida State Sales Tax Forms, county business license, and asked how can I not be a business and pay business taxes?

He said those aren't official government documents. Finally, he said he could possibly get around that and certify me, as personal representative of my business.

He called on the business line, asked me the same 7 questions again which I answered "yes" to and said I'll get an e-mail in 5 minutes. It's been 7.

To be continued... ... ... ...

One of the bizarre things about this is that you shouldn't even need to be a business to set up a secure server, all they're doing is setting up a verification certificate that assures encryption of the traffic.

It's another issue with processing credit cards, but most organisations use a third party for that, as I think you do.

I used to use the free "Let's Encrypt" for the certificate, but one has to renew the certificate every three months, which is tedious. Now I just no longer bother, but then my websites aren't now for business.

I did get a laugh out of "The Gas man Cometh". Yes. we've ll been there, doing our best to work with totally inflexible bureaucracy.

... continued from previous page

FINALLY - I GOT MY S COVERED

When we last left off, our hero (that would be me) was waiting for the e-mail certification from DigiCert. It didn't come in the suggested 5 minutes, but it got here soon enough so that panic and/or depression didn't set in.

I checked -- still no S on my address, I figured it was too soon, but if I contacted the web host, perhaps I could hurry it along.

So I opened a chat with my web host, and the tech who helped me asked for a ticket number, so I gave him the ticket number from the web host, the ticket number from DigiCert, the ticket number I was told by the webhost to give to DigiCert, the ticket number DigiCert said to give to my webhost, my customer number, my support ID number, a few other reference numbers I kept on the pad by the phone (old-fashioned, I know but accessible) and said "Pick one."

"Please wait while I do some research"

||: "Thanks for your patience" :|| (only a few repeats - probably bot-generated)

And finally he said I'm approved and sent me this link

https://www.sslshopper.com/ssl-checker.html#hostname=nortonmusic.com

I think I'm going to frame it and hang it on the wall.

The links for the new products should resolve with the https instead of plain old http, if it doesn't add the S yourself. Sometimes the Internet never forgets.

So this chapter ends with satisfaction.

And if all the potential customers who got scared off by the warnings that I'm insecure come back and buy something that I hope they will enjoy, I could use the business to help me after 2 years of covid unemployment from my main job, gigging.

So Mrs. Notes and I are going to uncork a bottle of wine with our lunch, and then I'll get back to catching up on all the work I put off while spending uncounted hours trying to get that all-hallowed s.

I've learned that when you have a good reason to be angry, yelling at the poor representative on the phone, and then immediately apologizing for yelling out of frustration can possibly yield results -- or at least some sympathy.

So please, if you tried to buy something from Norton Music and were scared away by that warning, come back and try again.

Thanks,

Notes ♫

Bob,

The new link you posted is interesting but not what I expected.

Definitely. I can code a basic website, but don't have the knowledge to create a bulletproof shopping cart.

I could probably learn, but instead I could take the time to make more style and fake e-disks, learn and sequence more backing tracks for my duo, gig 14-16 one-nighters (mostly in the daytime) per month, and spend some quality time with my best friend, Mrs. Notes.

I started with Americart, which was bought by some company with initials for a name (I forget) but still called Americart, then by Americommerce, then by Sparkpay/Capital One, then back by Americommerce and now cart dot com.

The shopping cart has always been secure. They have always had that all important S.

Because I am more careful about my customer's safety than my own, I do not download their credit card numbers to my computer, and I have the cart erase them so many days after I resolve the order. Furthermore, I take all my customer's, personal data like name, address e-mail, etc., and transfer it to a computer that has an encrypted hard drive and is never-ever connected to the Internet.

I feel I have a responsibility to do everything I can to protect the data my customers trust me with.

I've been in the mail-order turned internet-order business since 1990. I've never taken a business course, but go by one rule. Treat my customers the way I would want to be treated if I were the customer.

After that, it's all paperwork and dealing with my silent partners who take a piece of everything (shopping cart, credit card authorization service, credit card merchant's account, bank, insurance company, web host, state tax man, federal tax man, local taxing authority and now the S company). Fortunately, they leave me the crumbs off the table.

Notes ♫

That's just proof I'm certified.

Go to https://www.nortonmusic.com and see the little padlock icon to the left of my address.

It makes me feel proud and gives me a sense of accomplishment.

Perhaps if it weren't so difficult, I wouldn't be so elated about having it.

Notes ♫

That is a shame you had to do those hurdles. My website host took care of that for me as part of their annual fee. I use a business credit card with that account, perhaps that kept them from demanding other proof (which, in New York, is handled by each county).

I’m glad it’s solved.

Thanks Matt

Sometime life gives me stumbling blocks. All's well that ends well, I guess. It was frustrating, I lost my temper once, but I guess I could use the adrenalin once in a great while. And I found if I yell, then apologize, the guy on the other end of the phone actually sympathized with me and tried harder to help. I'll file that away in case I need it in the future.

Oh, and I do get the increased fee.

As the situation finally got resolved, the problem seems to have been on DigiCert's end. But the solution was really weird.

They wanted proof I am a business, and I furnished, county license, state sales tax forms, website with shopping cart, pre-internet receipts when I was mail-order selling BiaB add-ons, business bank account, visa/mc merchant's account, visa/mc authorization company, and a few other things.

Because I didn't have a utility bill with my phone number on it (I use auto-pay) they didn't think I was legit. Think about that for a while.

Then finally someone at DigiCert did a Google search and found me, called the phone number listed, and said, "Now we can approve you." Go figure.

Seems to me what I furnished was a lot more difficult to forge than getting found on a Google search, but then, that's just me.

In retrospect, that's pretty funny.

The good thing is I own the certification, and it's not tied to the web host. If the web host starts screwing up, I can change easily. Since my shopping cart is also independent, there would be minimal problems.

I've been with this web host since they were the 4th company to buy out my original CyberGate web host. Unless things change, I'm not going anywhere, but it's nice to know I can.

We had a nice morning gig today, that went long, and I'm tired (a good kind of tired). So tomorrow I am going to resend my new product info with the secure announcement. Hopefully that'll make the people who want the software but were put off by the warnings feel better and be able to enjoy the new toys.

Notes ♫