Eddie,

To answer your question, my skill level lies between D and E. I have had intermediate theory training, played bass and guitar for 50 years, and sung for longer than I remember. I read fluently for bass and voice, but am otherwise semiliterate; I can’t transcribe or write sheet music, although I consider myself a composer.

But you raise a most interesting point. Several times I have brought up a program called Master Writer, a songwriting aid. It doesn’t do what BIAB does; there is nothing automated about it. It is simply a set of tools (text processor, rhyming dictionary, rudimentary sequencer, Creative Commons links, spelling check, etc.).

Nevertheless, each time I have mentioned it, someone here has said, and I quote: “THAT’S CHEATING!” Would anyone care to explain or defend that?

Having attempted to hijack your thread, I will return to your topic and say that the likelihood of an untrained user creating listenable music with Band in a Box is somewhere in the neighborhood of a billion monkeys with a billion typewriters eventually turning out the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Richard

"My primary musical instrument is the personal computer."