From what I have been able to ascertain on the web and the PG Literature, "Soundtrack Mode" or "Generate Soundtrack" under Melody in BIAB allows you to make "royalty free" soundtrack music, if you are looking for some old school stuff I guess.

From what I have read, this and only this mode "generate soundtrack" allows you to generate "royalty free" music. Any other mode would generate PG copyrighted stuff, or at least says SOS--in a murky sort of way.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/pg-music-band-box-2017

However, I am confused.

When you are in this mode, it takes you to the "melodist" feature. Having listened to these melodies there seem to be a fairly limited number and they seem to play kind of the same thing over top of whatever chord pattern you choose--sort of. In other words, I hear a lot of repetition on melodies, in spite of the chord patterns.

Close enough to make me nervous anyway.

Is it really possible to use any of the melodist/melody functions as free and clear "royalty free" music?

It seems there is a really, really high chance that with 30,000 or more Band in a Box users using melodist, someone, somewhere at sometime must have chosen and used the same melody.

Up until this point I always just go to the piano and play my own melody off the top of my head because this kind of scares me.

But I DO like some of the melodies this feature comes up with.

I would love to use some of them but I am afraid to.

Any thoughts on how royalty free royalty free actually is, if anyone uses this feature?

Soundtrack is a great and useful program but it seems to be a somewhat underused feature.

I understand it to be a way to create custom length audio for video projects. However, Soundtrack can be used on any project where song length is a necessary consideration. Soundtrack provides links to open sgu/mgu files that ship with BIAB and these files number in the hundreds if not thousands. Since these files have been compiled and vetted by PGMusic staff and included to be specifically listed and accessible from the Soundtrack program, a program that is specific to BIAB, it's likely they're safe to use with the Soundtrack program.

Soundtrack also provides a link and selection access to the RealTrack/midi and Real Drum demo files. These are developed by PGMusic and are included in the Biab package as well.

If you are still a bit nervous over Royalties, Soundtrack will open any SGU/MGU file on any drive or flash drive connected to your computer. That means you can use any of your own original material, or any audio you have rights to, in your SoundTrack project.

Regarding the Melodist feature, first, there are nearly 30,000 members signed up but hundreds of thousands of Biab owners around the world that are not members... but not all of these folks use the melodist/solist features and with the different year versions, different RT packages, Xtra style packages that some choose to purchase and others choose not to but the sum total of all of this mixture resulting in thousands of hours of available audio that is subject to only being chosen when certain chords are entered in specific sequences, the chances of duplicating the exact melody and solo are astronomical. Those numbers become even more astronomical when you begin to tweak the Melody/solo.

When I first started messing around with BB, I used the melodist mode a lot. And yeah, there tends to be some repetition in the way it does things.

However, I would alter the chords a bit and most often, drop the melody it generated, and insert my own melody line.

Here's a few examples of songs I created based on something that the melodist gave me:

Emerald Eyes

Walking In Springtime

Others in my music list are Somewhere South of Here, Sao Paulo Nights, A Memory of You.

Regarding liking the melodies.....I love the melody on Emeral Eyes. On the song Emerald Eyes, when I posted that song in the Cakewalk Song forum, people swore up and down that it was a cover. The melody has that very familiar "I've heard this somewhere before" feel to it. I asked people to please point out the song it was a cover of..... some folks said Carlos Santana Europa.... but.... it's not even close to the melody..... in the end, no one could point out the song they thought it was a cover of. So, I guess it's an original melody until proven otherwise.

What bugged me most about the stuff the melodist created was that it often followed no particular order or structure, so it was up to me to make musical sense out of it by editing it into something I could use. Which of course, I did.

Regarding "royalty free", it has always been my understanding that anything you create in BB is yours. The exception being use of the demo songs (don't copy them verbatim) that play when you are auditioning a style. Correct me if this is wrong. You can, however, alter the chords from the demo song, and it becomes yours at that point. I've used this on a few recent songs.... not telling which ones.

"Regarding "royalty free", it has always been my understanding that anything you create in BB is yours. The exception being use of the demo songs (don't copy them verbatim) that play when you are auditioning a style. Correct me if this is wrong."

The style demos only play chord progressions perhaps with an RT solo. Since chord progressions are not copyright protected there should be no issue in using them...as is.

Bud

Yeah those are some cool songs Herb!

Thanks for the feedback!

Thanks Charlie.