I've searched the PG Website and the forum, but I couldn't find any information about which specific songs are contained in the BiaB Midi Fakebooks. Do such lists exist somewhere?
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
I would imagine someone may have compiled a list. I just use the song picker and have the songs sorted by folder so they are easy to find, you can then look at all the songs in these folders and see what is there.
Probably not the answer you were looking for?
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
I don't have these packs, and therefore they will not appear in my song picker. I'd just like to know if they are worth considering to buy them - don't want to buy a black-box.
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
thanks for the link! I've already read somewhere about these books, but didn't have a link yet resp. haven't managed to search for it yet. What I've also read before is that they are without melodies and lyrics and therefore don't violate copyrights. Can you confirm that?
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
Legal midis with chords but no melodies and no lyrics are definately better than illegal midis with chords and melodies and lyrics, and therefore I'm looking forward to check out that stuff.
However, even better would still be legal midis with chords and melodies and lyrics, for sure! I think that many people would pay the appropriate price for that, but it seems like sheet music publishers unfortunately don't agree on my estimate yet.
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
thanks for the link! I've already read somewhere about these books, but didn't have a link yet resp. haven't managed to search for it yet. What I've also read before is that they are without melodies and lyrics and therefore don't violate copyrights. Can you confirm that?
You are correct. No melodies or lyrics. Some of the copyright holders refused, others wanted to charge up to $2.50 per song.
So the compromise I made was to make fake disks with off-the-shelf music books. That way you can open the BiaB file, open the page in the book with the melody, click "play" and play along with the track by reading the melody line in the book.
I put a link to the book in the same page as my fake e-disk. The link is to Amazon, but you can also get the book elsewhere.
I just bought a Fakebook-Disk and a Style-Disk at your shop. Looking forward to check them out in action.
Anyway, I would even be happy to pay 2.50 more per song, if I then (legally) wouldn't have to sightread the melody or to type the melody into a music app in order to learn it much better and much quicker (since I could then also hear the sound and could visualize the melody in Synthesia and the like).
So I'm just hoping that someone will offer legal complete (chords & melody & lyrics) Midi Editions of Fakebooks as well as of Easy Fakebooks resp. Books in the Style of HL's E-Z Play Today Series one day not too far in the future.
I own a couple of printed Fakebooks btw, but I have decided that I don't want to buy any more of them, since I simply use them too seldomly as print editions.
Last edited by MoveToGroove; 10/04/2104:23 AM.
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
haha - you're right. I think that means that such lists don't exist :-)
Last edited by MoveToGroove; 10/04/2105:46 AM.
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
You can buy midi tracks, that are legal on the web. midi-hits.com, and others exist with very professional arrangements, most sounding just like the original song they reference the artists with the songs so you know what version you are getting if there are more than one. Typically $7.99 and $8.99 USD each with discounts for quantities, instantly downloadable. I have a few of these and they are quite good.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
yeah, I have a lot of them, all legally bought from those shops over the years, and most of them are definately of a great quality. I usually display them with Synthesia (and sometimes I also import them into BiaB), and that works very well. It's simply another approach to songs than with Fakebooks, so I'd just like to have the choice between both approaches, as far as possible. Also that would make a musician more flexible in regard to band setlists (sometimes bands choose from Fakebooks, sometimes from recordings).
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
people pay 5$ per song (or even up to 10$ per song) - ok, that's for fully transcribed midis - at shops like Hit Trax, Geerdes or Midi-Hits. Sure, nobody would then buy a big package of 800 songs, but I don't think that they would buy only 3 songs and then never come back, and they would probably still buy your no-melody-bigpack-books, too.
So why not getting the license for just a couple of Realbook songs, just to try out how the customers would adopt that offer. And what about songs at all, where the copyright protection period is already exceeded? That must be the case for be a couple of Vaudeville songs, for example.
You could offer a Fakebook and an Easy-Fakebook (= quantity and quality of chords reduced/simplified as much as possible) version of those in BiaB format, and already attached to a BiaB style.
Well, these are just suggestions for sure - but however, that's at least what I'm mainly looking for at the moment :-)
Last edited by MoveToGroove; 10/05/2109:50 PM.
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
Unfortunately, you can find any number of illegal midi files on the internet. Thousands of them in fact. I don't condone it. If I need a midi file that sounds like the original artist with all the bells and whistles, and since I can't play most of those instruments, I purchase a legal midi from one of the afore mentioned vendors. I also own a great number of Mr. Notes Norton's styles, fakebooks, as well as the books they are based on. they usually do the job or at least get you close enough for a great start.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
the Broadway Disk (#29) would cost $2,050.00 in royalties alone, before charging for our work.
The Country Disk (#13) would cost $1,750.00,
my best-selling Jazz disk (#5) would cost $1,562.50,
and the disk that goes with The Real Book (#37) would be $1,000.00
plus the charge for our work, our overhead and the silent partners (shopping cart, Visa/MC merchant's account, authorization company, bank, etc.)
I don't think I'd sell many e-disks at that price.
Insights and incites by Notes ♫
Yes at quantity those are quite expensive. Most of the midi shops charge from 5.99 to 8.99 and even more for a single song. midi-hits will make a custom track for you for $99!!! So it is expensive way to go. I don't think anyone would want you to do these whole books and really the individual tracks are all already covered by these other vendors so you would be competing with them and they are already entrenched.
My wife asked if I had seen the dog bowl. I told her I didn't even know he could.
If I were to sell individual songs, I'd make MIDI sequences. BiaB tracks are more generic than the tracks the sequence sellers make.
However, it's more economical to do that out of the USA.
In the 1990s when I was interested, I checked it out. In the USA, the seller has to pay for thousands of copies in advance, whether he/she ends up selling them or not. In most other countries, they pay the royalties as they sell them.
That may have changed since then, but I spend so much time in the BiaB aftermarket products, I don't have time to compile a big catalog of individual sequences.
Currently, Mrs. Notes and I are working on 2 new style disks and 5 new fake disks. We hope to have a release next year.
It takes thousands of hours to do this and do it to the point where we are proud of our work. We haven't even watched TV since 1990. Instead, we work on music. I'm not complaining, we like it that way.
Ahh - I understand much better now! Thanks for your explanation!
BiaB Pro 2022; Windows 10 Bass: Intermediate; Piano: Beginner I came to this forum in order to suggest feature improvements for non-professional musicians like myself that use BiaB mainly as a playalong tool and as a learning tool
Currently, Mrs. Notes and I are working on 2 new style disks and 5 new fake disks. We hope to have a release next year.
Can you give a hint as to which fake disks? I am always in the market!
A huge Praise & Worship disk, a few in the Real Book Series and a Rock disk.
Style disks will be Country and Rock.
Of course, that will depend on how the fake disks turn out, and how soon the subcontractors we hire to pick the styles get them back.
I do not pick the styles for our fake disks. If we did, we would probably favor the Norton Music styles, because I know them the best, and that wouldn't be fair to the customer.
I tell the subcontractors to pick the best style for the song from all the PG and Norton styles available. I also say if a PG and a Norton style work equally well, pick the PG style, as our customers are more likely to have the PG style.
When the books come back, Mrs. Notes and I go through them together in real time, listening and checking every song, one at a time(we call it studio karaoke). We want to make sure that there are no typos (like a Cm for a Gm), the arrangement works, if a chord needs to be altered a bit to work, or anything else. Sometimes there are more chords in a measure than PG allows, and there isn't an appropriate EXPANDED style for the song, so we make our best guess as to which ones to include and which ones to exclude, but we try all the combinations anyway. Most of the time our first guess works, but sometimes it surprises us. On rare occasions, we will decide to use a style that is different from the one chosen. We want to make the disks as good as we can, after all, our name is on them.
Of course, the styles chosen by the subcontractor are only a suggestion. So many songs have been done in so many ways, sometimes picking one is hard. And if you don't like the style chosen, it's easy to change it.
Sometimes we have spent thousands of hours on a book, and found it wasn't good enough to have our name on the disk, so it never gets released. Actually it gets put in a limbo folder, hoping enough good styles will come along to revive the project.
The Norton disks are top notch. I bought the Realbooks and New Realbooks a long time ago and they are very well made. The Nortons know Band in a box so well, that you get all the complicated structures (think: Three Views of a Secret, Jaco Pastorius’ masterpiece in the New Realbook) and they work perfectly.
Sher music and other publishing companies should team up with Nortonmusic to get the melodies in there as well.
And… as I keep repeating, Pgmusic should step up their game so biab plays the chords correctly. Yeah, I’ve been saying it since the chord list got really long: 2001, if I recall correctly, and I’ll keep saying it. The Nortons have put in all the wonderful Bill Evans reharmonizations, but Band in a Box can’t play them properly.
Biab, Kontakt, Sampletank and lots of nice libraries, from Fluffy audio to Abbey Road drums. Check out these great contemporary Jazz Styles: www.jazzstylezz.com
A few excerpts:
"The Tracks view is possibly the single most powerful addition in 2024 and opens up a new way to edit and generate accompaniments. Combined with the new MultiPicker Library Window, it makes BIAB nearly perfect as an 'intelligent' composer/arranger program."
"MIDI SuperTracks partial generation showing six variations – each time the section is generated it can be instantly auditioned, re-generated or backed out to a previous generation – and you can do this with any track type. This is MAJOR! This takes musical experimentation and honing an arrangement to a new level, and faster than ever."
"Band in a Box continues to be an expansive musical tool-set for both novice and experienced musicians to experiment, compose, arrange and mix songs, as well as an extensive educational resource. It is huge, with hundreds of functions, more than any one person is likely to ever use. Yet, so is any DAW that I have used. BIAB can do some things that no DAW does, and this year BIAB has more DAW-like functions than ever."
Convenient Ways to Listen to Band-in-a-Box® Songs Created by Program Users!
The User Showcase Forum is an excellent place to share your Band-in-a-Box® songs and listen to songs other program users are creating!
There are other places you can listen to these songs too! Visit our User Showcase page to sort by genre, artist (forum name), song title, and date - each listing will direct you to the forum post for that song.
If you'd rather listen to these songs in one place, head to our Band-in-a-Box® Radio, where you'll have the option to select the genre playlist for your listening pleasure. This page has SoundCloud built in, so it won't redirect you. We've also added the link to the Artists SoundCloud page here, and a link to their forum post.
We hope you find some inspiration from this amazing collection of User Showcase Songs!
Our User Showcase Forum receives more than 50 posts per day, with people sharing their Band-in-a-Box songs and providing feedback for other songs posted.
Video: Enhanced Melodists in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows®!
We've enhanced the Melodists feature included in Band-in-a-Box® 2024 for Windows!
Access the Melodist feature by pressing F7 in the program to open the new MultiPicker Library and locate the [Melodist] tab.
You can now generate a melody on any track in the program - very handy! Plus, you select how much of the melody you want generated - specify a range, or apply it to the whole track.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you over the phone. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday, and 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST Saturday. We are closed Sunday. You can also send us your questions via email.
One of our representatives will be happy to help you on our Live Chat or by email. Our hours of operation are from
6:00AM to 6:00PM PST (GMT -8) Monday thru Friday; 8:00AM to 4:00PM PST (GMT -8) Saturday; Closed Sunday.