Version 2005 for Windows ® Copyright PG Music Inc.1989-2005. All rights reserved.
PG Music Inc. License Agreement CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS BEFORE COMPLETING THE INSTALLATION OF THIS SOFTWARE. USAGE OF THE SOFTWARE INDICATES YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS. LICENSE A. The program may only be used on a single machine. B. You may transfer the program and license to another party if the other party agrees to accept the terms of this Agreement.
Table of Contents PG MUSIC INC. LICENSE AGREEMENT.............................................................................................................2 TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................3 CHAPTER 1: WELCOME TO BAND-IN-A-BOX!.................................................................................................6 WHAT IS BAND-IN-A-BOX? ..................................
SAVING SONGS .......................................................................................................................................................102 THE JUKEBOX .........................................................................................................................................................105 CHAPTER 7: NOTATION AND PRINTING ......................................................................................................107 EDITABLE NOTATION MODE .............
MIDI MONITOR......................................................................................................................................................225 SOUND BLASTER SUPPORT .....................................................................................................................................226 CHAPTER 14: REFERENCE................................................................................................................................227 BAND-IN-A-BOX MENU DESCRIPTIONS ..
Chapter 1: Welcome to Band-in-a-Box! Congratulations on your purchase of Band-in-a-Box, the favorite of musicians, students, and songwriters everywhere. Get ready to have fun! What is Band-in-a-Box? Band-in-a-Box is an intelligent automatic accompaniment program for your multimedia computer. You can hear and play along to many song ideas and go from “nothing” to “something” in a very short period of time when you have Band-in-a-Box as your “on demand” backup band.
Installing Band-in-a-Box for Windows ® Minimum System Requirements - Windows® 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP. At least 16MB of available RAM for MIDI features. MIDI features require a 486DX processor or faster. Digital Audio features require additional RAM (at least 32MB recommended) and a Pentium-class (or faster) system. 35MB to135MB available hard drive space. Add-on products and Digital Audio features require additional space and memory. PC sound card or external MIDI device (synthesizer, sound module, etc.).
The next dialog you encounter is the MIDI Driver Setup. If the driver that was selected is not the best choice, simply make an alternate selection from the MIDI Driver Setup dialog. Select a MIDI Output Driver to use for MIDI sound playback and optionally a MIDI Input Driver if you are using an external MIDI controller keyboard or guitar. If the setup is panned to mono, the program offers to change it to stereo. Perhaps the easiest way to configure Band-in-a-Box is to press the [Run Driver Wizard..
DirectX Instrument Synthesizer (DXi plug-in) Support Software synthesizers allow Band-in-a-Box to play high quality sounds directly through your computer sound card, without requiring any external MIDI hardware. Most new software synthesizers are released as “DXi plug-ins,” so they will work in a standard way with many programs. Connecting Band-in-a-Box to the software synth as a plug-in provides several advantages over the previous method of connecting as a MIDI driver.
The Synth Track tab edits Synthesizer settings, and the Audio Track tab edits Band-in-a-Box audio track DirectX plug-ins. Select your desired DXi synth in the top plug-in Insert Slot 1. To apply DirectX audio plug-ins to the synth, insert DX audio plug-ins to Insert Slots 2, 3, or 4. This can be useful to add EQ, Reverb, Compression, or Peak Limiting plug-ins, if the “raw sound” of the synthesizer needs sweetening.
Chapter 2: QuickStart Creating music with Band-in-a-Box is as easy as 1-2-3! In this chapter, you’ll see just how easy it is to get Band-ina-Box working for you. Step 1 – Typing in the Chords There are numerous ways of entering chords into Band-in-a-Box. We’ll discuss five fast ways of entering chords: 1. Using the computer keyboard. 2. Playing directly on a MIDI controller keyboard. 3. Using the Chord Builder feature. 4. Importing chords from a MIDI file. 5. Loading an Existing Band-in-a-Box format song.
normally typed using standard chord symbols (like C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E), but you can enter them in any of the supported chord symbol display formats like Roman Numerals, Nashville Notation, and Solfeggio. Enter Chords Using a MIDI Controller Keyboard If you have a MIDI controller keyboard, you can use it to enter chords into Band-in-a-Box. Play a chord on your MIDI keyboard, and then type Ctrl+Enter. The chord will be entered into the chordsheet at the current highlight cell position.
When the dialog opens, press the [Open (Change)…] button to choose a MIDI file that you want Band-in-a-Box to interpret the chords from. To help Band-in-a-Box interpret the chords better, you should choose a genre (Preset) for the song. Choose from among such genres as Pop, Rock, or Jazz Standard. Tip: It helps if you’ve previously listened to the MIDI file, in order that you can choose a genre most appropriate to the song. Loading an existing Band-in-a-Box format Song Press the Open Song button.
Method 2: You can use the StylePicker window to select your style. Select the button above the chordsheet, or type Ctrl+F9 on your computer. This window shows styles listed by Category and by Styles Set number. Select a Set or genre from the left pane, and choose the specific style on the right pane. There are Memos and examples for each of the Styles.
Method 3: Styles that you’ve used previously show up in the Favorite Styles dialog. Choose this with the [f] button next to the [Style] button in the song title window, from the Styles menu, or type Shift+F9 on your computer keyboard. You can choose to save a Favorites set for use later. You can also load a set of favorite styles in this manner. Method 4: In the Styles menu, you can choose from among the 24 “built-in” styles.
Locate the framing buttons. There are three of them, one each for Beginning of Chorus, End of Chorus, and Number of Choruses. In the example above, the chorus starts at bar 1, ends on bar 32, and is going to play 3 times. Setting the Key In the example above the key is set to C. However, you can set this to any key. In our first view of the chordsheet the Blues song was in the key of E. If you do change the key, Band-in-a-Box will offer to transpose the chordsheet for you.
Chapter 3: Band-in-a-Box Version 2005 New Features in Band-in-a-Box 2005 New Fully-Featured “Piano Roll” Window! Now you can edit your tracks using the new “Piano Roll” window, similar to the type found in many sequencer programs. Edit the Melody or Soloist tracks with greater ease and precision. There are 2 panes in the window – one for notes and the other for controllers, velocity, and other data. All notes and controllers are displayed as bars on a grid.
“Auto Endings” added for Styles without Endings! If you‘ve made a style, and haven’t included an ending, a 2-bar ending can now be generated automatically, based on the style. This makes it easier to make complete styles using the Style Wizard, which makes a style by analyzing a MIDI file. Patch List Converter Make Synthesizer Patch file lists (.
StylePicker now Editable! You can now add your own styles to the StylePicker list by pressing an ADD/EDIT button on the StylePicker. You can see all the information about the style, including memo, genre, feel, tempo, range, etc. “Vocal Wizard” finds the best song keys for your vocal range! This feature helps you choose the best song key for your vocal range from your vocal type (baritone, tenor, etc.), or a custom range. The wizard analyzes the song and recommends the best keys for that song.
Entire song name displayed in Taskbar hint when Band-in-a-Box is minimized! This is useful to find the name of a song playing when Band-in-a-Box is playing in the background. Multi-colors for Event List! Different colors are used for different event types in the event list, to visually distinguish notes, patch changes etc. Song Picker Enhanced – Subfolder Support! The SongPicker has been enhanced and now can optionally display songs from subfolders.
“Play Selected Area as a Loop” function! Shift-click on the Play button, or press F10 (Play Selected Area as Loop) and the program will play a selected region as a loop. For example, you can select bars 10 and 11, and then press F10, and bars 10 and 11 will play looped. StyleMaker Enhancements! If you don’t save the style, the previous style will load in, instead of reverting to “ZZJAZZ.STY.
QuickStart Tutorial for the Version 2005 Upgrade. The full descriptions of the new features in Version 2005 of Band-in-a-Box are provided elsewhere. This tutorial is a QuickStart tour of the new features in Band-in-a-Box 2005. Note: It is assumed that you are somewhat familiar with the previous release of Band-in-a-Box. Explore Band-in-a-Box Version 2005 First, we’ll take a quick tour of the new features in Band-in-a-Box 2005. Then we’ll do an in-depth tutorial for the new Piano Roll window.
Let’s examine the improvements in the SongPicker. Open the SongPicker. (The program may rebuild the song list prior to opening the dialog.) Look at the folder name displayed at the bottom of the dialog. Select the checkboxes “Always open in this folder” and “Include Subfolders.” If the folder name isn’t already c:\bb, press the [Change] button near the bottom of the dialog, to change the folder to c:\bb.
So you use the “Allowable Keys” preset in this dialog, and set it to “Jazz keys,” and then the Vocal Wizard revises its recommendation to the key of C. If you select “Auto-transpose to best key when a song is loaded,” every song will automatically be transposed to the best key for your vocal range when loaded. For now, let’s de-select that option, since we don’t want songs to be transposed when loaded.
Set the 4 harmonies to the first vibrato setting “1 BNatural Vibrato,” and press the [PREVIEW] button. You’ll now hear these harmonies, generated from MIDI notes in the Band-in-a-Box harmony, but with various types of vibrato and scooping pitch effects. On held notes, the vibrato is essential for a natural vocal sound. Now let’s move on to the Piano Roll Tutorial. Piano Roll Tutorial The Piano Roll window enables precise graphic editing of note timing and duration.
Playback Control In addition to other Band-in-a-Box methods, you can start playback by double-clicking the Chords Ruler above the Note Time Ruler. When polishing edits, it can be convenient to double-click the Chords Ruler to hear a couple of bars, and then click the Ruler or tap the to stop playback and continue editing. When you click or drag in the Chords Ruler, it sets the Insertion Point. The Insertion Point determines the location that pasted events would be added to the track.
Note Editing Move the mouse cursor over the left side of a note, then click-drag horizontally to edit the note's start time. To drag a group of selected notes, hold Shift while dragging the head of one of the notes, and all of the selection will follow! Move the mouse cursor over the right side of a note, then click-drag horizontally to edit the note's duration. To drag a group of selected notes, hold Shift while dragging the tail of one of the notes.
Program Changes The Piano Roll demo song contains some embedded program change events as a demo of this new method. Set the “View/Edit” control to “Program,” and the few program changes are displayed in the Graphic Event panel. Program changes are zero-based. For example, General MIDI piano is zero rather than one. The demo song intro has a flute program change. Then the first chorus is trumpet, the second chorus is flute, and the third chorus is soprano sax.
Modulation Controller Set the View/Edit combo box to “Control” (Controller MIDI Events). Then select “1 Mod Wheel MSB” in the controller type combo box. The Modulation controller is not firmly defined, but it is usually a Vibrato or Tremolo effect (especially in General MIDI synths). Play the Demo Song, and watch how Modulation has been added to some notes to add Vibrato. It is usually best to use tasteful amounts of Controllers.
Chapter 4: The Main Screen Main Screen Overview The main screen gives direct access to the major features and program settings of Band-in-a-Box for ease and convenience during a session. There are five different areas on the main screen. 1→ 2→ 3→ 4→ 5→ The main screen of Band-in-a-Box with a new, blank song. 1. The Status Bar is used to show program running status messages and path names of the currently loaded song. 2.
Personalizing the Main Screen Band-in-a-Box gives you many options to personalize the main screen. Screen Layout The Chordsheet area (or Notation Screen) can be placed at the top of the screen if desired by selecting the “Put Notation/Chords on Top” from the Window menu or by pressing Ctrl+T. (This is reversed by selecting the same option.) Display Options Go to Opt. | Preferences or click on the [Pref] button to open the Preferences dialog.
To make your own color scheme, click on the name of the element you wish to change (Chord Area, List Box, etc.), then click on the [Choose…] button to bring up the Windows Color palette and click on the color you desire. Status Bar The name of the open song is identified in the status bar at the top of the screen. The full file name and path name are shown, as well as the length of the song in minutes and seconds and the current position of the highlight cell.
Synth Window / Piano Keyboard The Piano Keyboard: This keyboard displays the notes (in different colors) that are being played by all instruments on various parts of the piano keyboard during playback (except drums). The MIDI Thru/Soloist is also displayed on the piano keyboard. Instruments and Parts: Part Settings: The Bass/Drum/Piano/Guitar/Strings/Melody/Soloist and Thru buttons refer to instrument parts.
Pressing the [F] button produces a list of your favorites; the 50 most recently loaded harmonies. The keystrokes Shift+F10 allow or disable the Melody harmony. Tip: You can also search for a harmony by a keyword (i.e. typing in the first few letters of a harmony name) in either the Harmonies or Favorite Harmonies dialog. The [T] button is for Thru/Soloist harmony.
The [.MID] button allows you to make a Standard MIDI File and save it to disk as a file with extension .MID or to the Windows Clipboard with type “Standard MIDI File.” Type 0 and Type 1 MIDI files are supported, or you can also choose to save the song as a Karaoke file with the .KAR extension. This is the “Render to WAV file” button, which will convert (render) your MIDI arrangement to an audio wave file. Transport Controls These buttons are like the transport controls on a CD player or a media player.
This button resets General MIDI devices by sending a GM mode On message and then setting up the Band-in-a-Box patches. Floating Toolbars These are Copy and Paste buttons for chords or notes. They copy to the Windows clipboard, and paste from the clipboard. The Folder button allows you to change song and style folders or directories from within the program. Use the Favorite Folders button to select a folder from previously used folders. Shift-click on this button to choose any folder.
The Audio Edit window displays a graphical waveform and allows editing. Hold Shift when pressing to open a moveable window. Use the Print button to launch the Print Options dialog, which allows you to print Lead Sheet or Fake Sheet style notation. The Drum button launches an animated Drum Kit window. Press it to launch this fully functional (and fun) GM-MIDI “virtual” drum kit. The Song Title button generates a song title for the current song. Each time it is pressed a new title is generated.
Title Window The Title window shows the basic information about the current song at a glance - its title, style, key, tempo, and the length and number of choruses. It also gives quick access to the Song List, the StylePicker, Memos, and Song Settings. The [Song] button launches the Load Song by Full Titles dialog box. The [F] favorites button opens a list of the last 150 songs played. The [Style] button launches the StylePicker window. This window offers detailed information about each style.
Chorus End button: Click on the Chorus End Button to select the last bar of the chorus. The Bar number that you select is displayed. The number of choruses possible for a tune is 40. Click on the chorus button and choose how many choruses you require. As the song is playing the current chorus is displayed at in the chorus button. 2/3 shows that the second of three choruses is playing.
Chord Entry The basic way of entering a song into Band-in-a-Box is to type in the chords to the song on the chordsheet (worksheet). The arrow keys move the active (highlighted) cell around in the chordsheet. The Enter key advances to the next ½ bar. Chords can be entered from the QWERTY keyboard or an external MIDI keyboard (see Window | MIDI Chord Detection…). Chords are typed in using any of the supported chord symbol displays: 1. Standard chord symbols (e.g., C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E). 2.
Chapter 5: Guided Tour of Band-in-a-Box With Band-in-a-Box you can arrange, record, save, and print your own song ideas. Just type in the chords to any song; choose a style and press [Play] to hear the “band” play a full arrangement. Then record a Melody - either MIDI or live audio – or have Band-in-a-Box write an original Melody for you.
Band-in-a-Box SongPicker window. The folder settings are at the bottom of the SongPicker. The Current Folder name is displayed. The folder can be changed, either by: 1. Going “up” a folder (e.g. from c:\bb\styles to c:\bb). 2. Choosing a folder from recently used favorites folder. 3. Selecting the new folder. When the new folder is chosen, the song list for that folder will be displayed. The song list may need to be rebuilt; the program will do that automatically.
you have subfolders to c:\songs like c:\songs\country and c:\songs\jazz, you can see/search all of these songs in the same SongPicker dialog. Tip: If you choose c:\ as your folder, the SongPicker would find every Band-in-a-Box file on your hard drive and display it in the SongPicker. You might instead find it easier to put all of your songs within a folder like c:\songs, and have various subfolders to that. And then set the SongPicker to always open up in the c:\songs folder.
Harmonize your play along part by pressing the [T] button in the Synth window to choose a harmony, just as you would for the Melody. Change the Style Try different styles by clicking on the [Style] button to choose from a list of the styles available in the StylePicker window. Styles that have the same feel (triplets, eighths, sixteenths) and a similar tempo range to the current prototype will be indicated with an (*) asterisk. Styles with (^) caret have a similar feel but a different tempo range.
The Band-in-a-Box Synth window controls instrument settings. Solo an Instrument Part While listening to Band-in-a-Box, you can easily solo (isolate) a certain part by holding the Control key and mouse clicking (left or right) on the instrument at the top of the screen. For example, if you want to hear only the Piano part, Control-Click on the Piano part. If you want to use hot keys for this, you can press Alt+2 (Mute-All) and then Alt+4 (Unmute Piano).
Enable the Embellisher, and the Melody will be embellished as it plays. You hear a livelier, more realistic Melody, and it's different every time. The Embellisher is only active while the music is playing; the recorded Melody track isn’t affected. There is an option for the Embellisher to only humanize the timing of the music if the timing was “stiff” to begin with. This allows the Embellisher to leave the timing of human input melodies alone, and humanize only the ones that were entered in step-time.
Play Along with the Wizard The Wizard is an intelligent play along feature that is controlled with the bottom two rows of your computer’s QWERTY keyboard. The bottom row of keys plays chord tones; the second row plays passing tones. You play any key in either row and never make a mistake! In the Play menu, toggle Wizard uses “Smart” notes to “off” (unchecked) to have the Wizard provide you access to the chromatic scale. Toggle it “on” to have access only to the notes based on the chord/key of the song.
Use the preset Soloist settings, or choose a Mode and which Choruses to solo. The Soloist Maker [Edit…] button gives access to the advanced settings in the Soloist Editor where you can edit existing profiles or create new Soloists of your own. To see the Soloist part play in standard music notation open the Notation window and press the [S] button at the far right of the instrument buttons. View and Print Notation Open the Notation window with the Notation button.
Print out any part with the Print Button. In the Print Preview window save your notation as a graphic file to upload to the Internet or to e-mail. The [#] button opens the Event List for editing the Melody or Soloist tracks. This is the button for note-based lyrics, which are automatically aligned with the corresponding note in the Melody track. Use the plus and minus buttons to zoom the Notation in and out. The text button lets you enter section text or boxed text into the notation.
Note roll Notation Mode In addition to the editing features of the Editable Notation mode, in Note roll mode the velocity (vertical line) and duration (horizontal line) of notes can be edited with the mouse. Piano Roll Window You can edit your tracks using the “Piano Roll” window, similar to the type found in many sequencer programs. Edit the Melody or Soloist tracks with greater ease and precision. There are 2 panes in the window – one for notes and the other for controllers, velocity, and other data.
The Piano Roll may be opened as a movable window, which floats above the Band-in-a-Box main window, or it may be opened embedded, in the same position as the Chordsheet/Notation panels in the Band-in-a-Box main window. Track Selection Select the Track - Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Solo. It is most practical to edit the Melody and Solo tracks. The other tracks for the accompaniment are rewritten every time Band-in-a-Box rebuilds the song (every time you click the [Play] button).
Graphically display and edit non-note MIDI events. This panel only shows MIDI events specified in the Chan, View/Edit, and Controller Type controls. Zero-value events are drawn as small hollow squares, to make them easy to identify. With events such as pitch bend or controllers like modulation and sustain, it is important to take care to end a “gesture” with a zero-value event.
View/Edit Graphic Data Determine what graphic data to view or edit in the bottom Graphic Data panel. Choose Velocity, Controller, Program Change, Channel Aftertouch, and Pitch Bend. If Chan is not set to “All,” only the selected channel events will be displayed. Controller Type If “View/Edit” is set to “Control,” the Controller Type control becomes visible. The Graphic Data panel will display the chosen controller type. If Chan is not set to “All,” only the selected channel events will be displayed.
Note Editing Edit Note Time Stamp (start time): Move the cursor over the left of a note. An east-west cursor appears. Then click-drag the note to a new time (horizontal dragging). If multiple events are selected, and you want to move all selected events, use Shift-click-drag. Otherwise a click on a note will deselect the previous selection, and it will only select/edit the clicked note. Edit Note Pitch: Move the cursor over the middle of a note. A north-south cursor appears.
Pencil Tool: Move the cursor over white space and hold the Shift+Ctrl keys. A Pencil Tool appears. Shift+Ctrl-drag to freehand-draw a curve. If you don't get the curve quite right on the first pass, just keep holding the mouse button and move the mouse back-and-forth to draw your desired freehand curve. When the mouse button is released, a series of events are inserted to follow the freehand curve. To avoid choking the MIDI stream, the maximum event density is one event per 10 ticks.
Copy: Copy Selected Events to the clipboard can also be accomplished with the menu Edit | Copy (or Ctrl+C) action. If you wish, it is possible to copy from the Piano Roll, and then paste into the Notation window, or vice-versa. Paste - Replace: If no events are on the clipboard, this item is dimmed. The paste occurs at the time location of your right-click. Move the mouse cursor to the desired insert location. Right-click on the Note Panel, Graphic Event Panel, or any of the Rulers.
Vertical Scroll Bar, [+] and [-] Buttons Scroll to see different note ranges (does not scroll the Graphic Event Panel) and zoom the vertical display. Zoom to Selection Button Make a selection of notes, and then click the Zoom To Selection button. The vertical pitch range and horizontal time range adjusts to fill the note panel with the selected notes.
During playback, red rectangles highlight the current bar. If the bar is empty (or in Fake Sheet mode), the Lead Sheet will draw the staff lines and bar lines in red. Multiple Tracks of Notation Multiple tracks of notation can be viewed together in the Lead Sheet window. To select tracks, hold down the Ctrl key and click on the part buttons at the top of the screen in the order that the tracks should appear from top to bottom.
This song has a 1st/2nd ending entered, with separate lyrics for each ending. Multiple lines of lyrics will also appear if there are lyrics in multiple verses (choruses). In the Notation Window Options, “Lyric Position” allows you to vertically position the height of the lyrics. In the Print Preview screen the notation can be saved as a graphics file to be imported to a document or uploaded to an Internet page. Choose the file type that you'd like to save to.
Full-page view of Band-in-a-Box MultiTrack notation. The Guitar Window This is a window for Guitar and Bass players! The on-screen fretboard displays any track on Guitar or Bass. This feature has many option such as auto-setting of correct positions, notes named on-screen, auto-octave adjust to play in selected position, and a resizable guitar fretboard. Launching the Guitar Window To launch the Guitar window, press the Guitar Button, or Ctrl+Shift+G, or choose the Window | Guitar Window menu item.
When you have a note or chord highlighted press the [Ch-] or [Ch+] (insert guitar chord) button on the guitar, or 7 or 8 on the NUMPAD keypad. Each time you press the [Ch-] or [Ch+] you'll see that the guitar chord changes to a different voicing, cycling through the available 5-10 voicings possible for each chord. (Some notes won't have any chord voicings, for example a C# note on a Cmaj7 chord, because it is always a passing tone.
Alternate Guitar Tunings The Guitar window supports alternate tunings, including DADGAD, Drop D, Double Drop D, Open G, and 11 others. You can also select “Nashville High Strung” tunings, which tune certain strings up an octave. These tunings are supported in Styles, Chord Diagrams, Guitar Tutor, Notation, Tab, and Printout. Learn how to play these tunings by watching the on-screen Guitar Fretboard or Notation/Tab window. Easily change any style to use the alternate tuning that you want.
Guitar Fretboard To see the guitar neck displayed in DADGAD, choose Melody | Track Type | Guitar – DADGAD Tuning. When you open up the Guitar window and choose the Melody track, you’ll see the DADGAD tuning. Any melody will now display in the chosen tuning. Similarly, you can set the Soloist track to an alternate guitar tuning with the Soloist | Track Type menu. The Guitar track (or Piano, Strings) is controlled by the style, and will only reflect the type of tuning stored in the style.
Now, during playback, you will see guitar chords on the guitar fretboard in DADGAD tuning. The examples above are for DADGAD tuning, but apply similarly to all 11 alternate tunings included. Some of the tunings are “Nashville High Strung.” These tuning have the lowest 3 strings tuned up an octave, to achieve a close sound. So a DADGAD High Strung tuning would have the lowest 3 strings “DAD” tuned up an octave. Listen to some style examples that use this tuning.
The “position” button. This toggles between the two popular positions displayed with note names. When you open the Guitar Window, the first thing you'll want to do is choose the track that you want to display. Usually this will be a Melody track or a Soloist track. In the diagram here, the Melody track is the current track, and it has a red rectangle around it to indicate this.
In the Options for Juke Box dialog you’ll see a list of options that lets you control how the songs in the chosen directory are played. Use the “Preview” feature to audition a complete directory of songs automatically by playing a part of each song and then moving on to the next one, or use the onscreen [<-Juk] and [Juk->] cursor buttons to navigate manually through the list of jukebox songs. Band-in-a-Box Jukebox options dialog.
- Songs can be added or removed from the list with the [Insert], [Append], and [Delete] buttons. - Use the [Save Set..] button to save the list of selected songs. - The [Load Set] button loads a saved list of songs. - The [Juke..] button plays through the list of songs automatically, like a jukebox. This is a great feature for saving a list of current song projects, or for performing a live set with Band-in-a-Box accompaniment.
You can open an entire MIDI file into Band-in-a-Box. The chords will get auto-interpreted by the Chord Wizard and the MIDI file will play and display on the Melody track. A “Silent” style will be loaded so you'll only hear the MIDI file. When the file is saved, the extension will be MGX, allowing you to easily identify the BB songs that you have that contain entire MIDI files.
Make Your Own Songs Now that you see how much fun it is to play music with Band-in-a-Box, you’ll be pleased to discover how easy it is to make songs of your own. This section shows you how with step-by-step instructions from start to finish. Making a New Song Clear the Chordsheet Click on the [New] button to blank the Chordsheet. Name the Song Enter the title of the song by clicking in the title area and typing in the name.
Choose a Key Click on the Key Select List and choose the key of your song instantly. It's easy to change the key by simply selecting another key from the list. Click on “YES” when the program asks, “OK to transpose WorkSheet” and Band-in-a-Box will automatically transpose the entire song into the chosen key. Type in the Chords The chords we will enter are F, Bb, and C7. Mouse click on the first cell in the Chordsheet and type f. The letter f will appear in the chord box.
Load Previous Style, Load Next Style. This function, analogous to the Load Next Song function, loads in the previous (or next) style in alphabetical order of the file name. These functions are found in the Styles menu, or with the hot keys Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F8 (or Alt+Shift+F8). “Framing” the Song Framing a song designates the first and last bars of each chorus and the number of choruses Band-in-a-Box will play before playing the standard 2 bar ending.
the song playing. This can also be done by clicking the mouse on the onscreen [-] and [=] buttons to the right of the tempo box. Finishing the Song Arrangement Use the powerful musical intelligence of features like the Harmonies and the Soloist to add the final touches to your song. The Edit Settings for Current Bar dialog (F5 function key) lets you fine tune your arrangement by changing patches, styles, harmonies, tempo, and meter anywhere in the song.
Pressing the [Record] button will start Band-ina-Box recording what you play on the Thru track. An audible count-in is played prior to recording. You can punch in/out, overdub, record directly to the ending or the tag, and use the filter to choose which MIDI events are recorded. Once you have completed recording your melody, Band-in-a-Box will ask you if you would like to keep the take and if you would like to copy the recorded chorus to the whole song.
The Embellisher Memo describes the current embellishment, with statistics counting the number of embellished notes. Adding Note-Based Lyrics to Your Song Open the Notation window by pressing the notation button. Press the [L] button on the Notation toolbar. The Lyric Edit window opens up and the current note is highlighted. In this example, lyrics have already been entered in bars 1 and 2, and the first note of bar three is highlighted.
To start, plug your instrument or microphone into the computer’s sound card. The Line Out from electronic instruments or amplifiers can be plugged directly into the Line In jack. To record your voice, or an acoustic instrument such as a flute, plug a microphone into the Mic jack. If you have a Sound Blaster card, this button is used to select the Microphone input and/or Line In input to record digital audio. The Windows mixer Record settings can also be used. Open the Record Audio dialog box with the [R.
Add Audio Harmonies You can apply a harmony to the audio part – allowing you to automatically create up to 4 part vocal harmonies from your singing. And don’t worry if your singing is not in perfect tune, Band-in-a-Box can now “fix” vocals to the correct pitch - automatically! Band-in-a-Box generates the harmonies using the world-leading TC-Helicon Vocal Technologies engine.
Add Audio Effects You can add professional audio effects like reverb, echo, and compression by choosing a plug-in from the Audio menu (Audio | Plug-in). Band-in-a-Box comes with a large selection of high quality audio effects built-in, and DirectX plug-ins are supported. The plug-ins apply audio effects or utilities such as compression to the already recorded audio part. A typical plugin dialog is shown.
The Render to Audio File dialog box permits you to save your file as either a wave file (*.wav) or a Windows Media Audio (*.wma) file to upload to the Internet or e-mail to a friend. You can direct render “MIDI only” songs into high quality wave files with the Roland VSC3. The MIDI parts are converted directly to audio without being rendered (recorded) in real time, usually in just a few seconds. Burn Your Own Audio-CD You can burn your Band-in-a-Box composition directly to an audio CD.
Note: This feature requires that you have a CD-R or CD-RW drive. If your drive is not recognized by MiniBurn then you should burn the rendered .WAV file to CD using the software supplied with the CD drive. Congratulations! You can now produce a complete song in Band-in-a-Box with a Melody, Solo, Harmonies, plus an audio track with harmonies and professional effects. You can print out beautiful notation in a stylish Jazz font, complete with chord symbols, lyrics and your own text markers and annotations.
Chapter 6: Band-in-a-Box PowerGuide This chapter is a guide to the advanced settings in Band-in-a-Box. Any user can use these settings to quickly and easily become a Band-in-a-Box power user. Descriptive Hints The pop-up hints make it “too easy” to become a power user. They are comprehensive fly-by hints that appear when you move over an item, including hints for the dialog boxes and various windows. Go to Opt.
The custom Open File dialog has several advantages over the traditional Windows dialogs: - The window is much bigger than the traditional one, allowing more room. - There is a selectable font size and typeface. - You can adjust the widths of the various columns. - The Window remembers your settings. - There are tabs at the top that allow sorting by name, date etc. - Additional information is displayed (file size, time of file). - You can open a song without typing the extension.
- Use 3 for a sharp #, e.g. for F#7 type f37. Use / for slash chords with alternate roots, e.g. C7/E (C7 w/E bass). Use a comma to separate the ½ bar, enabling you to enter 2 chords in a cell. In the example below, we would type Ab9,G9 to get the 2 chords in the cell on beat 3 and 4 of bar 2. Note: We're able to type A7#9 as “a739” because Band-in-a-Box knows to use the uppercase of the 3, which is #. The > indicates a carriage return, or the Enter key.
Copying chords to the clipboard. Select the region to copy. To select a region of the Chordsheet (or the Notation or Audio Edit window), you can Shift-click on the end point to easily select a large area. - Click on the starting bar. - Shift-click on the ending bar. Another way to select a region is by dragging the mouse over it. Place the mouse cursor at the bar to begin the selection. Then, holding down the left mouse button, drag the mouse over the region.
Support for other chord display types You can enter or display chords in Roman Numeral notation, Nashville notation, or Solfeggio notation. For example, the chord Gm7 in the key of F would be displayed as IIm7 in Roman Numeral Notation, 2m7 in Nashville Notation, and Rem7 in Solfeggio. These systems are very useful for learning or analyzing tunes, since they are independent of the key signature.
Play Selected Area as a Loop Click on the [Loop] button, Shift-click on the [Play] button, or press F10 (Play Selected Area as Loop) and the program will play a selected region, and loop the selection. For example, you can select bars 10 and 11, and then press F10, and bars 10 and 11 will play looped. To use this function, select a region on the Chordsheet. Choose Play | Play (loop) Highlighted Section (or press F10). The selected region will then play, and continue looping until STOP is pressed.
The “Play within loop” command allows you to quickly play a looped section. Highlight the range of bars to loop on the Chordsheet, press NUMPAD 2 to open the Loop Section Settings dialog, and click the [Play within loop] button. To enter settings manually in this dialog, you start by choosing either “Loop a Single Screen of Notation” or “Loop Range of Bars.
Notebook users should set “Simulate NUMPAD Keys” to “ON” in the Preferences dialog, then use the regular number keys to trigger looping. The Title bar at the top of the main screen indicates the looping status. If a song has a looped section, this will be listed at the top of the screen (e.g. “Will loop Middle Choruses” or “Currently looping Middle Choruses”). So you can tell what is going to happen with the looping during a live performance.
Choose the file c:\pt\patches.INI. You’ll then see a menu of synths stored in the patches.INI file. Select one to convert. Create a name for the .PAT file (e.g. My Patch List.PAT) and save it to c:\bb. Converting a Cakewalk .Ins file to a Band-in-a-Box .Pat file. This is done using the same process described above for PowerTracks, except that you open the individual .INS file instead of a PATCHES.INI file. For example, if you have a Cakewalk file called “My Synth.INS” you would select this file name.
- - General MIDI 2 support: If you're using the Roland VSC3, or a newer Sound Canvas then choose this GM2 support. Roland GS (older Modules): “Older” Sound Canvases (SC55/SC88) support GS, but not GM2. The good news is that they have the same patches available, just at different locations. So if you choose this option, Band-in-a-Box will find the patches at the “GS” locations instead of the “GM2” locations.
Muting Instruments To mute/unmute all parts as the song is playing, simply press Alt+2 or right-click on the “Combo” radio buttons at the top of the screen. To mute an instrument click on the name of the desired part with the right mouse button. Click again to unmute. When the part is successfully muted, the instrument name will turn to red in color, indicating that the part is muted.
Settings for Current Bar The number of beats per bar, tempo changes, patch, style, and harmony changes can be made by selecting the Settings For Current Bar option on the Edit menu or by pressing [F5] after you have selected a bar to edit. Number of Beats this Bar The initial time signature of the song is determined by the style (e.g., Jazz =4/4, Waltz =3/4). In some songs you will want to change the time signature, for example, you might want a single bar of 2/4, or 8 bars of 3/4 time.
Tempo Change If you want to change the tempo at a certain bar of the song, then use this dialog box to type in the new tempo in beats per minute. The tempo change takes effect at the beginning of the bar and remains until a new tempo change at another bar is inserted. Alternatively, you can specify a percentage change in tempo.
This buttons opens the Edit Settings for Current Bar dialog. This button opens the Chord Options dialog where you can edit chords and add rests and pushes. Options and Utilities These settings are found in the Opt. menu and the Opt. | Utilities submenu. Language Selection This allows you to change language from English to another language for display. If there are other languages supported by your version of Band-in-a-Box, then they will display in this dialog box. Edit Chord Shortcuts file (shortcut.
Using the StylePicker Window The StylePicker window is opened by pressing the [Style] button or the Shift+F9 keys. It lists all of the styles that are present in the \bb folder. The StylePicker window allows easy selection of styles by category or from a complete list of all styles. For example, you can select Jazz styles and see a list of all of your Jazz styles. Then you can select any style to see its full title, description, and examples of songs appropriate to the style.
Styles that are similar to the prototype are indicated with an asterisk (*). These are styles that have the same feel (triplets/ eighths/ sixteenths) and a similar tempo range. Styles with similar feel but a different tempo range are marked by a caret (^) symbol. So you can quickly see styles that are similar to Jazz Swing (in this example). The styles J_BASIE and J_DIXIE could be substituted with a perfect match so are marked with an asterisk (*).
The category here is called “My Styles,” you can change the name using the yellow “Category Name” area. For this example, change the name to “Favorite Jazz.” Let’s add a Style to the list. Press the [Add New Style] button. A style has been added, called NONAME.STY. You now need to fill in all of the information in PINK, to supply the information for the style you have added. Note: For this example, we’ll add a Jazz style called NEWONE.STY. This style is included in the C:\bb folder.
4. We now enter settings to tell Band-in-a-Box what Soloist it should use when making improvisations using this NEWONE.STY. For this, we need to know the genre of the style (Jazz, Country, and Pop etc.), whether it is in an even or shuffle feel, and whether a soloist should be playing primarily 8th or 16th notes. From the drop down combo box that appears, for this Jazz Swing style (newone.sty), we should choose “Jazz Swing Triplet feel 8th notes.
You will then see a rebuilt style list, and your category “Favorite Jazz” and your new style “NEWONE.STY” will appear in that category. Technical notes: The information is stored in a file called A_USER.LS3. This is a text file, but it is better to edit it using the StylePicker editor. You can make other .LS3 files using the StylePicker editor, using the [Save As] and [Open] buttons. You can also erase an .LS3 file from disk. Band-in-a-Box will load in all of the .
Style Aliases Dialog This dialog is found in the Styles menu. Let's say you've got a new style for Jazz called “Wynt_K.” You can create an alias so that when Band-in-a-Box looks for a Jazz Swing style, it will load in “Wynt_K” instead, so you don't have to make changes to all your songs. And when you have found a new favorite style, just change the alias. You can also load or save sets of “Alias” files and share them with others. To type in a style name that you don't have, use the [Custom...] button. 1.
indicates a C chord that is a REST. indicates a C chord that is a SHOT. indicates a C chord that is a HELD CHORD. Selecting BREAKS for different instruments. You can specify that some instruments not be affected by the rhythm break. The coded names for the instruments are: - B for Bass - D for Drums - P for Piano - G for Guitar - S for Strings To type a rest for all instruments on a C chord type C. To exempt instruments, add their letters following the break. For example, C.
To use keystrokes, type the caret symbol [^] before the chord. The caret symbol is located above the numeral 6 on your computer keyboard. - Type a single caret to get a chord an eighth note before the beat, e.g., ^C7. - Type a double caret to get a chord a sixteenth note before the beat, ^^C7. Part Markers Part markers are used to indicate a substyle change or to insert drum fills. and Part markers beginning of any bar. are placed on the chordsheet to indicate a new part of the song.
Allow Embellishment of Chords The Jazz styles include embellishment of chords. This means that if you type a C7 chord, the piano part may play a C13 or a C7b9, a common practice in Jazz. Tip: If you are hearing b9 and b13 embellishments on a C7 chord that is clashing with the melody, you should rename the chord C9 or C13, which will ensure natural 9 and 13 embellishments. Tag Settings A tag (also referred to as a coda) is a group of bars that are played in the very last chorus of a song.
Use the checkboxes to choose which instruments you would like to save and whether you would like to save the Melody and Thru harmony assignments and the Soloist selected to play on the song. You can also save the instruments as “On” or “Off” for each song. For example, you could have a song with no piano part. Other parameters that may be saved (Volume, Reverb, etc.) are shown on the right side of the window. Press the [Save] button to save the song to disk.
By default, Band-in-a-Box writes Type 1 multiple track Standard MIDI Files. You can also save Type 0 MIDI files, they have all of the parts on a single track and are used by many hardware modules and other devices that play MIDI files because they are simpler to play (since they only have 1 track). Karaoke files (.KAR) are a special type of sing-along MIDI file with text events for the lyrics and a specific order for the tracks.
The Jukebox The Jukebox will load and play an entire subdirectory (folder) of songs. Songs play continuously, one after the other. The Jukebox will continue to play while you move to other Windows programs, providing continuous background music. Click the [Juke] button to open the Options for Juke Box dialog. Jukebox Options Only Play song with melodies: If set to YES, the program plays only songs with melodies, that is, songs with an .MG? file extension.
Generate Solos: Set this option to “On” to permit the Soloist to play a Solo over all the songs selected for Jukebox Playback. 1. Change to this directory by loading/opening a song from the c:\bb\solodemo directory. 2. Instead of playing the song you have loaded, press the [Juke] button. 3. Ensure that the Generate Solos checkbox is set to “Yes.” 4. Select [PLAY JUKE BOX]. The Soloist Select Dialog will pop up with a suggestion to use a Soloist for the first song in the Jukebox list. This is normal.
Chapter 7: Notation and Printing Band-in-a-Box offers a variety of notation and printing features, both for viewing parts on-screen as they play and for printing them as sheet music. To view the notation, open the Notation window by pressing the notation button on the main screen. Close the Notation window by pressing the notation button again. Band-in-a-Box Notation screen displaying the melody track in Standard Notation mode.
Clean Notation The “Clean Notation Mode” cleans up the notation by eliminating display of redundant grace notes and glitches for easier reading. Loop Screen While a song is playing, click the “LoopScn” button and the song will loop for the 4 bars shown on the notation screen. Track Select You can display or print any track from the program. Press the appropriate button to change to the desired track.
Editable Notation Mode Enter the Editable Notation mode from the Standard Notation screen with a single mouse click on the [N] button. In the Editable Notation mode you can enter, move, and edit notes and rests using standard mouse techniques – point and click, drag and drop, and right click to open the Note Edit dialog box. This is the screen for step-entry of a melody or for editing existing parts. Notice the grid of vertical lines, which sub-divide each beat.
Entering Notes To insert a new note on the staff move the mouse to the location that you want. If you want beat 1, move to the first dotted line in the bar. Click on the staff over the note that you want. The Current Note box in the toolbar will give you the name of the note that you're on. Click with the left mouse button to insert the note: - To insert a sharp: Hold down the Shift key as you click the note. - To insert a flat: Hold down the Ctrl key as you click the note.
Editing a note's values. Right click on a note. This brings up the Note edit dialog box that lets you change any values about the note in numerical data. In the Note edit dialog box, you can manually change the characteristics of a note by entering the exact values you wish for any given note. For example, you can change the Velocity and Duration by increments of 1 tick, as well as the note's pitch and relative positioning in the bar.
Note Roll Notation Mode In the Editable Notation mode, click on the [N] notation mode button to enter the Note Roll mode. In the Standard Notation screen click twice. This mode is similar to the Editable Notation Mode, except that the beats begin right on the bar line. You can see the duration of the note visually represented by a horizontal blue line and the note’s velocity displayed as a vertical blue line. Tip: If you can't see these lines, press the [Opt.
Notation Window Options Press the [Opt.] button in a notation window to bring up the Notation Window Options dialog box: Track Type Normally you'd leave the track type set to Single Channel, but you can also set it to Multi-Channel, Guitar, or Piano. Multi (16) All MIDI channel assignments are preserved and output on playback. This would be useful for -Channel: importing an entire MIDI file, and playing it from the Melody channel using a silent style.
Load notation layout w/songs When this box is checked your Notation Option settings will be saved with the song and restored the next time you load the song. Show Key Signature If turned off, you won't have the key signature box displayed on the Notation Screen. This will save some space on the screen. Show Bar/Beat Lines This setting is for the Note roll mode only. When turned off (unchecked) only the staff lines will show, helpful for editing note Duration and Velocity lines.
Note Names There is an option to display note names in the center of the note head. You can display absolute note names (A, Bb etc.) or you can display numbers relative to the key or the current chord. This is helpful for learning to read music. Combined with the ability to display large font sizes, this achieves the big note look common to “EZ-2-Play” music books. Channel numbers are also displayable on the notation. When editing notes, it is often helpful to see the channel number of each note.
Enharmonics for chord tones are automatically based on the chord. Enharmonics for passing tones are based on chords if “Use Chord Scale Enharmonics” is set to true. For example, on an F#7 chord in the key of Eb, the Ab note is part of the F#7 scale (as a G#, the 2nd of the scale), but is also part of the Eb key of the song. If you want to display based on the chord scale, setting “Use chord scale enharmonics” will display the note as a G# instead of an Ab.
Jazz Chord Symbol Graphics (circles, triangles) Jazz and Pop music often use certain non-alphabetic symbols for chord types. These include a delta (triangle) for major chords, a circle for diminished, and a circle with a slash for half-diminished. Also, tensions like b9 and b13 are stacked vertically and contained in brackets. You can now select this option, and see these symbols for display/printout on the Chord Sheet, Notation, and Lead Sheet windows.
Chord Vertical Position This controls how high the chords will be written above the staff. If set to = 5 the chords will be written 5 notes above the top of the staff. If your piece contains a lot of high notes, then set the chord position to a high setting. Lyric Position You can adjust the height of the lyrics by setting the lyric height (smaller values like –8 are higher on the notation).
R/L Cursor Edits is used in the keystroke note editing features. More.. This button opens the Other Notation Options dialog. Inserted Note Defaults These settings determine the default values for notes that you enter manually. Duration % Notes are not always played for their full duration. If a whole note is inserted with a duration of 80%, the note would play for 80% of 4 beats = 3.2 beats. Velocity The loudest possible note has a velocity of 127; a velocity of 0 is silent.
2. 3. 4. Move to the note that you want to edit, and then press the Chord Advance (INS or DEL key on the Numeric Keypad). This highlights the current note. With the note highlighted in red, use the cursor up/down keys to change the pitch of the note. You hear the pitch change as the note changes. Use the cursor left/right keys to change the note's start time, duration, channel, or velocity (depending on the setting of the “Right/ Left Cursor Edits” field in the Notation Options Dialog.
Selecting Parts in the Lead Sheet Clicking on the track selection toolbar will select a different track. The track names are [B]ass, [D]rums, [P]iano, [G]uitar, [S]trings, [M]elody, and [S]oloist. To view multiple parts click on the button for the top part you want to view, and then hold down the Ctrl key and click on the other parts you want to view in the order you want to see them, from top to bottom. You will then see a group of tracks, displaying in the order that you have requested them.
Treble Clef and Bass Clef These checkboxes choose which clefs will display in the Lead Sheet view. AutoSet Clefs When set Band-in-a-Box will attempt to pick the clef for you, automatically displaying the bass clef when you are on the bass track or any other track with low bass notes. It will show both clefs when on the piano or drum track.
Margins Set margins for the Lead Sheet window, just like the margins in a word processor. This feature has no effect on printout; the Print dialog has its own margin settings. Show Chords above each track When using multiple tracks of Notation, this determines whether each track will show the chord names or not. Show track names for multi-track notation If checked, the Band-in-a-Box track names will be inserted at the start of each part in the multitrack notation display.
When Fake Sheet mode IS selected, the form will show like a lead sheet, with only one chorus showing, and 1st/2nd endings and repeats displayed. The Fake Sheet can show multiple lines of lyrics for 1st and 2nd endings or several verses stacked in multiple lines. Multiple lines of Lyrics on Fake Sheet. If your song has 1st and 2nd endings or multiple verses of lyrics, multi-line lyrics can be displayed, so you’ll see all verses on the same fake sheet.
In the Notation Window Options, “Lyric Position” allows you to vertically position the height of the lyrics. Harmony Notation Display Harmonies can be displayed on the Lead Sheet window (or printed) with separate notation tracks for each harmony voice. View each harmony on a separate track, or view/print a single harmony voice. To examine the harmony display features, load in the song “Night_T.MGU.
Lyrics Band-in-a-Box supports lyrics in three different ways, Note-based Lyrics, Line-based Lyrics, and a Big Lyrics (Karaoke) window. The complete list of lyrics functions is found in the Lyrics menu. See the Reference chapter for itemized descriptions. Note-based Lyrics Note-based lyrics offer accurate placement of lyrics as you can place a word under each note. As you enter the lyrics, the note is highlighted. Pressing the Tab or Enter key moves to the next note.
Lyric Document Window The Lyric Document window displays a full screen of fully formatted lyrics so you can easily copy and paste lyrics to and from your favorite word processor. If you have the lyrics available you can quickly paste them into Band-ina-Box. You may already have the lyrics to your song typed into a word processor, nicely formatted with font/color/bold choices etc. Previously, you would need to retype them into Band-in-a-Box and would lose your formatting.
If you have the Lyrics window option “Auto-open lyrics window for songs with lyrics” selected, and a MIDI file (or .KAR) containing lyrics is opened, the lyrics window will open to show the lyrics. The popular Karaoke file format (.KAR) can be opened directly into Band-in-a-Box just like MIDI files. Chord symbols are displayed (Band-in-a-Box intelligently analyzes the chords of the song), as well as the lyrics from the Karaoke files.
Treble Clef Normally you will want to include the treble clef unless you're printing a bass part or left hand piano part alone and want to save space. Bass Clef For melodies or solos, you probably won't want the bass clef printed. For other parts (piano, bass, drums, etc.) you should set this option to YES. AutoSet Clefs With this setting the program will print only the clefs that are necessary.
Print Preview This feature allows you to preview what the printed pages will look like by displaying them on-screen. Use the [Prior], [Next], [First], and [Last] buttons to navigate additional pages. Press the options button to open the Preview Options dialog. In the Preview Options you can set the exact number of pixels to display for the print preview, the same settings are also used if you choose to save the pages to a graphics file in the popular .JPG, .TIF, or .BMP file types.
Chords-Only Lead Sheet Display and Printout Need a simple fake book style chord chart? You can display just the chords in the Lead Sheet window or print out a lead sheet with just chord symbols. To print a chords-only lead sheet, uncheck the Staff lines checkbox in the Print Options dialog. Printing Multiple Parts To print more than one track of notation: - Open up the Lead Sheet window. - Click the mouse on the track that you want on the top stave.
Chapter 8: Automatic Music Features Automatic Songs – “The Melodist” Feel like composing a brand new song? Using the “Melodist” feature you can compose a new song in the style of your choice, complete with intro, chords, melody, arrangement, etc. All you have to do is pick from one of the many “Melodists” available and press [OK] button. The program then creates the intro, chords, melody, and arrangement in any given style. The Melodist will also generate a melody over an existing chord progression.
The [Melody] button will set the options to generate only a Melody (no chords) over an existing chord progression. Insert Bass Pedals When selected Pedal Bass figure will be inserted during the intro and at the end of sections. Solo in Middle Choruses This will generate an improvisation in the middle choruses of the song. Allow Style Changes When selected, this option allows a Melodist to load in the style associated with it.
The Memo area displays a Memo for the current Melodist, as well as the name of the Database (e.g. MELPOP1.ST2) that the Melodist is based on. Instrument / Harmony / Style / Change Instruments Melodists can store patch and harmony settings, and these are displayed in the Instrument area of the Melodist selection screen. You can also set the instrument to change each chorus. You can override the settings of the current Melodist and choose your own patch, harmony and change instrument settings.
- Intro Length (bars) - This sets the duration of the intro to 2, 4, or 8 bars. Starting chord (after intro) is - This setting assures the generated intro smoothly transitions into the song. Remove Intro - Pressing this button removes the intro. Pedal Bass - Inserts a pedal bass figure throughout the intro. Use Maj7 instead of Maj6 - Choose between using Maj7 or Maj6 chords.
Pick a type of Soloist in the “Soloist type” list box and choose the appropriate style, or enable the “Auto” checkbox and press the [Suggest] button next to it. This brings up a list of Soloists in that style; simply choose which one you like. If you can’t find the Soloist you’re looking for, try pressing the [Search] button to type in part of a name to search for. The [Fav] button finds your favorites by opening a list of the last 50 Soloists used.
Soloist Wizard This option enables the “Soloist Wizard.” As you play notes on either a MIDI keyboard connected to the computer or on the QWERTY keyboard, the program will play “correct” notes in the style of the current Soloist! This means that you can play a “perfect” solo every time, simply by pressing any key on your MIDI keyboard or QWERTY keys. Tip: The Soloist will use the velocities you play or pick its own, depending on the setting in Opt | Preferences (2) | Use MIDI velocity for Soloist Wizard.
Force to # of Choruses Allows you to set a song to a definable number of choruses (e.g. 5) so that there are enough choruses for everyone to take a turn Soloing. This box allows you to quickly decide how many choruses you would like Band-in-a-Box to generate without having to open the User | Force song to # choruses menu item. The default is 5. The Soloist Maker [Edit] button launches the Soloist Editor module where you can make your own or modify an existing Soloist.
This dialog can also be accessed from the Opt. | Preferences [Soloist] button. Set “Use MIDI Volume for Soloing Wizard” to true if you want MIDI velocity information sent to the Soloing Wizard. If you have a velocity sensitive MIDI device attached to your computer and you want to control the dynamics of the Soloist, you should enable this feature. Set the “Trigger Playback Early” to true to enable song playback to start before the Soloist has actually completed composing a solo.
Here are the steps to generate a Guitar Chord Solo: 1. Select the Guitarist to use. In the main list at the left of the Window, you see the list of the Guitarists that are already defined. For example, you can see that Guitarist #2 is called “Jazz Guitar, single position.” That will create chord solos that stick to a single position on the guitar neck whenever possible. 2. Select Melody (or Soloist) track. Normally, the Guitar Chord solo is written to the Melody track.
If you already have a guitar track that has guitar channels (for example if it was played on a guitar controller as a single string guitar part), then you might want to tell Band-in-a-Box not to change the guitar positions of the notes that it finds. Otherwise set “OK to change existing guitar channels” to true. 6. Press OK to generate the Solo. You'll then see a dialog box that tells you the solo has added a solo to the track, adding about how many notes to the existing number of notes.
Automatic Embellishments – “The Embellisher” Overview When musicians see a lead sheet that has a melody written out, they almost never play it exactly as written. They change the timing to add syncopation, change durations to achieve staccato or legato playing, add grace notes, slurs, extra notes, vibrato and other effects. You can have Band-in-a-Box do these automatically using the Embellisher so that you hear a livelier, more realistic Melody - and it's different every time.
setting that is on the main page checkbox. If enabled, embellishment will occur during every playback. If disabled, embellishment will not occur unless you choose the [Embellish NOW] button in the dialog. Embellisher Settings The settings that affect the embellishment can be turned on and off, and given a certain percentage strength. Humanize The velocities, durations (legato), and timing of the notes are humanized. The original velocities etc. of the notes are ignored.
Anticipations An anticipated note is playing a note early (“ahead of the beat”). Unembellished notes. ANTICIPATIONS on beat 1 and 3. Less Anticipations This is the opposite of anticipations. This finds notes that are anticipated, and “embellishes” them by playing them later (on the beat). Grace Notes The grace notes are brief notes played just before, and a semi-tone below the original note. The grace notes intentionally don't show on the notation, so that it will remain easily readable.
Vibrato Vibrato can be added according to the additional vibrato settings available in the “More” dialog. The vibrato can't be seen on the Notation window, but you can examine the events in the Event list (Notation | Event List Editor). If set, the Melody will be delayed a little, providing a “laid-back” feeling. There are additional settings, in the Embellisher Additional Settings dialog box. This allows you to set advanced settings for the Embellisher.
The Embellisher Memo describes the current embellishment, with statistics counting the number of embellished notes. If the song is playing and the embellisher is enabled, you can update the embellishment by pressing this button. This is useful if you've changed settings, and want to hear what the new embellishment sounds like. Normally the embellishment occurs live when the song is playing, and doesn't affect the Melody permanently.
Chapter 9: MIDI Recording Band-in-a-Box has two built-in MIDI sequencer tracks. They are named the Melody and Soloist tracks, but they can be used to record any MIDI part you like – such as drum overdubs or layered accompaniments. MIDI can be recorded in Band-in-a-Box - Live with a MIDI keyboard, MIDI guitar, or MIDI wind controller. - In step time by entering notes in the Notation window with the mouse. - Using the Wizard feature to “play” notes with your QWERTY keyboard.
Keep Take (yes/no) saves the take you just recorded. Remember that it’s easy to fix small glitches in the Editable Notation window or in the Event List editor. Take Again lets you quickly reject a take and start the recording again. Press the “A” key to do this with a keystroke. Cancel ends the recording session; nothing is saved. To start again press the [Rec.] button or the [R] key.
Recording with the Wizard Feature This is a very helpful feature if you don’t have a MIDI keyboard but you want to record with a “live” feel. Use the Wizard to record notes from the computer’s QWERTY keyboard for a track that’s more natural than step time. Here’s how: Enable the Wizard checkbox. 1. 2. Press [R] key to record. 3. As the song plays, play the melody on any keys on the bottom two rows of the QWERTY keyboard, in the rhythm of the melody.
Import Which Channel(s)? You'll need to know which channel(s) of your MIDI file the melody is on. You then select these channels for Bandin-a-Box to read-in. If you select all of the channels, Band-in-a-Box will read in all of the channels and merge them to the Melody track. You can import and play the complete file on the Melody track if the Track Type is set to Multi (16) -Channel in the Melody menu.
As you can see, we have broken down the Humanize effect into 5 main categories: tempo, lateness, 8th note spacing, legato, and feel. The best way to learn how these parameters combine is to try them (you can always press the UNDO button if you don't like the results.) Press the [Quantize NOW] button to apply your changes to your song. Editing the Melody Track Event List Editor You can edit events including all MIDI events and lyric events using the Event List Editor. It can be launched in several ways.
The Event List Editor allows you to modify, insert, and delete notes: - Double-click on an event to edit it (or press the [Edit] button.) - [Insert] puts an event before the current event. - [Append] puts an event at the end of the track. - [Delete] removes an event. - [Update] redraws the notation screen. - [Edit Lyrics] – [Edit Soloist] – [Edit Melody] selects which track to edit. The Event Type to Edit dialog opens when either the [Insert] or [Append] buttons are pressed in the Event List Editor.
Notation Window Editing You can use the Notation Window to edit notes instead of the Event List window. To do this, open either Editable Notation or Note Roll Notation mode. In both of these modes, notes can be dragged and dropped with the mouse. For precise note editing, right mouse click on the note you want to edit. This opens the Note dialog where all of the parameters of the note can be addressed.
Chapter 10: Audio Recording and Rendering There are two types of audio features in Band-in-a-Box: 1. The first refers to the Audio track. This is a single 44K mono or stereo track that you can use to record vocals or live instruments. 2. The second refers to rendering which is the process of converting a MIDI performance in Band-in-a-Box to a stereo .WAV file. The audio track includes only your live recording, whereas the rendered .WAV file includes the entire performance; MIDI parts plus the audio track.
Technical Note: This is only true if you are using the sound card for your output MIDI driver. If you have an external MIDI device like the Roland Sound Canvas you'd need to route the Line Out from your Sound Canvas back in to the Line-In of your sound card in order to record (render) the MIDI. When you press the Recording Properties button, you'll see the Recording control panel of your sound card's mixer. The panel displayed here is the typical panel that sound cards use.
The VU meters show the average strength of the signal, with a dB scale, and a clip indicator. “Clipping” indicates that the signal has overloaded, and will sound distorted (“clipped”). The green area represents normal levels, while red indicates an overload. Ideally, the sounds should remain in the green and avoid the red altogether.
Set the start point for the recording. You can record from the Start of the song, or somewhere in the middle, by choosing a bar and chorus # to start recording. Also Record MIDI? In most cases you will only be recording audio, so you should set this to “No MIDI recording.
Playing the Audio File You can play the Audio file that you've recorded by pressing [PLAY]. The size of the audio file will be displayed at the top of the screen. If you haven't saved the song yet, your window title will look like this. In this example, the song is titled NoName.SGU, and there is a 6.1mb .WAV file associated with the file, and that's 1 minute and 9 seconds of audio. The total duration of the song is 3 minutes and 20 seconds. Save the song with the name “My First Song.
This button plays the selected area, and then stops. The other instruments are all muted; you just hear the audio. This button selects the whole track, useful for applying one of the built-in audio plug-ins. Non-Destructive Audio Track Editing The changes you make to the audio track are non-destructive and only become permanent if you save the file. If you have a song file called MySong.MGU, the audio track is stored in a MySong.WAV file.
In this dialog, there are 3 types of harmony that we can choose from: 1. Melody Pitch Tracking only (this would change the pitch of our singing to the correct pitches found on the MIDI Melody track). 2. Harmonize to the MIDI Melody. This applies a 1-4 part audio harmony – turning your singing track into a harmony singing quartet. 3. Harmonize to the chords of the song. If your song doesn’t have a MIDI melody, you can still create a vocal harmony, based only on the chords of the song.
The 4 columns labeled Melody, Voice 2, Voice 3, and Voice 4- 8va are the 4 part MIDI harmony that will be transformed to an audio harmony using our original voice. The “8va” tells you that Voice 4 will be above the melody. Each of the voices have sliders for “Level” (loudness) and “Gender.” The “Gender” slider makes the voice sound like a male or female (raise the slider to make it more female). Higher pitches of harmony should have a female gender applied. Make the settings as in the picture above.
Melody Pitch Tracking Now let’s use the Audio Harmonies for a different purpose, to “fix” pitches that may be out of tune, or to change some pitches to more interesting notes. For this, reload the song Listen.MGU. Now resave it by [Save As] and give it the name “Listen Pitch Tracking.MGU.” Now, we’re going to change some notes of the MIDI melody. Open the notation, and change the pitch of the D note at the end of bar 2 to an E. Also change the ‘B’ at bar 7 to a ‘G’ below it.
The Pitch Styles are especially useful for harmonies generated from MIDI tracks, because these lack any vibrato. Now by applying these pitch effects, you can get a natural sounding vibrato for these harmonies. Pitch Styles Preset Details (one per voice) Each of the four voice banks has a Pitch Styles preset selection list. This control allows pitch scooping and vibrato effects to be added to the harmony voices.
9 Funk Vibrato An energetic sound from the 70s. 10 Head Voice Vibrato A very resonant vibrato, using pitch and amplitude modulation. 11 Hi Energy Vibrato A fast vibrato. 12 Lite Jazz Vibrato A lighter Jazz sound. 13 Lounge Vibrato The bold and big sound of the lounge entertainer. 14 Mellow Folk Vibrato A sweet, mellow sound. 15 Mellow Pop Vibrato Light accents to a Pop vocal. 16 Nervous Tremolo Vibrato A very fast, “nervous,” and choppy vibrato.
To process a WAV track with a DirectX plug-in, choose Audio | Plugin | DirectX Audio plugins. Apply DirectX Audio Plug-ins (or more precisely, “Audio Transform Filters”) to a track. Important! This feature requires that you have Microsoft DirectX installed. You can download the latest version of Microsoft DirectX from www.microsoft.com.
The file is saved using the high quality Sound Canvas sound set powered by the included Roland VSC3. To use Direct-to-Disk Rendering, make sure that you have installed the Roland VSC3. If you have installed the Roland VSC3, you'll see it listed as one of the output drivers when you choose Opt. | MIDI driver setup. You don't have to select the Roland VSC3 to use the Direct-to-Disk Rendering; you just need to have installed the driver at some time. Then press the [.
You can elect to include the 2 bar lead-in for the WAV file, and include the Drum Count in sound. Press the [Direct Render (Save WAV) w/Roland VSC3] button. This launches the Roland VSC3 Virtual Sound Canvas. You'll see the two panes of the Roland VSC3. If you only see one of the panes, then you need to open up the “Player” section by pressing the [Player] button. Then you'll see the “Player” section, which has the MIDI file already prepared and ready to convert to a WAV file.
Rendering is a 3 step process: It's quickest to do this with a small sample of the wave file. Once you have the volume mixed properly, you can record (render) the whole file. This process takes as long as the song takes to play in real time, typically 3-4 minutes. 1. Set Recording Properties Set the inputs to record your outgoing MIDI. This would be MIDI if you use a sound card for MIDI, and Line-In for an external module. 2.
From this dialog, you can choose the type of compression that is appropriate (from the available installed codecs). You can save your settings as named presets by using the [Save As] button. Saving as Windows Media File Band-in-a-Box has enhanced audio support for saving in Windows Media Player format. Once you've saved a WAV file, you can compress the file for Internet use, using the Windows Media Player audio format (.WMA).
Note: Any CD you create won't be playable in an Audio CD player until the disc is finalized. Therefore, if you choose [Burn CD - No Finalize] make sure that when you burn the CD for the last time the disc is finalized. If launched from Band-in-a-Box, the current BIAB song has automatically been added to the Burn List. If MiniBurn is running standalone, you must add Wave files to the Burn List. Burn List Burn list files are displayed in MiniBurn’s central file list region.
Select a Burner If the computer contains multiple burners, select a drive with the Burner drop-down menu. If a computer doesn’t have any supported drives, the Burner menu will be empty and burning is not possible. Set the Burn Rate MiniBurn automatically selects the fastest rate reported by your drive. It is typical to use the fastest rate, unless you know from previous experience that your computer doesn’t burn well at high speed. In that case, set a slower burn rate to ensure a good burn.
Stop Burn Stop burning before the disc is finished. Note: If you prematurely Stop, the CD will almost certainly be ruined. Burning Progress While a CD is burning, progress is indicated in the lower-left of the MiniBurn window. Progress messages are also displayed in the Status Bar at the bottom of the window. Read Buffer %- The computer’s disk read buffer usage. If Burn Proof is not available, you may have burn errors if this drops to zero in mid-burn. In this case, try a slower Burn Rate.
Chapter 11: User Programmable Functions The StyleMaker™ The StyleMaker is the section of the program that allows you to create brand new styles or edit existing styles. This is done by recording patterns for each of the drums, bass, piano, guitar and strings parts, or by entering these parts in the StyleMaker Pattern Editor notation window. If you don't want an instrument in a style you don't need to record any patterns for it.
The StyleMaker always opens to the Drums window, as indicated by the highlighted button to the left of Drums. Other parts are selected by clicking on their buttons, just as in the main Band-in-a-Box screen. The rows of cells are for the musical patterns that have been recorded for the style. Each numbered cell is a pattern; the blank cells are for new patterns. The numbers are the weights assigned to the pattern, a higher number, or weight, means that a pattern will be played more often.
Let’s examine the pattern in detail. The highlighted cell shows that the Bass Drum is being played on beat 1 at a velocity of 83. (The loudest possible note has a velocity of 127, while 0 is silent.) Moving to the right, you will see that the Bass Drum plays again on the second eighth note of beat 2 with a velocity of 73, and then on beat 3 with a velocity of 93, the familiar “boom-baboom” Pop/ Bossa Nova beat. The Closed High Hat plays straight eighth notes at different velocities.
Bass Patterns Click on the button to the left of Bass to open the bass pattern window. Notice that the status bar gives the Row and Column number for the current pattern. You’ll see that this window is different from the Drums window, it has rows for different lengths of patterns – 8 beat, 4 beat, 2 beat and 1 beat – for both the A and B substyles, and a row for endings. To see a bass pattern, select any numbered box and click on the notation button.
When recording stops, a Record Options dialog opens. The options are explained in the Help, and they can always be changed after the style has been saved. Click on OK to save the pattern. Click Cancel to erase the take and try again. To hear the pattern you have just recorded click on the [Play] button. Remember that the pattern can be edited in the StyleMaker Pattern Editor; you don’t have to redo a “close” take because of a small mistake.
Late Notes The [Late Note] button is found inside the Misc. Style Settings dialog, it opens a dialog with “Settings for Making Late notes quieter.” There are settings for allowing or not allowing late notes, and for how late the notes can be. The global setting for late notes in Opt. | Preferences [Arrange] will reduce the volume of the late notes for a smoother transition from one chord to another.
Piano, Guitar and String Patterns Piano, Guitar and String patterns are recorded in the same way as live Drums or Bass patterns, but with added features and options. Guitar styles can be created with authentic strumming and rhythm patterns using correct fret positions. Guitar Styles with the StyleMaker Guitar Styles with incredible authenticity are possible in the StyleMaker.
In the Settings for Guitar chord macros dialog choose the tracks that you want to put guitar parts on. Use the Piano and Strings to layer multiple guitar parts. In the dropdown “Guitar Chord Types to Use” combo box, set the type of chords to use: Jazz, Pop, Folk, Half Note (sax), Ukulele, Mandolin, 5-string Banjo. Set the complexity of the chords to use. These can be single chords, chords with variations, inversions, and chord “walking” patterns.
Guitar Macro Notes Tip: Middle C is C5 or note number 60 The main Guitar Macro notes to use are: Strummed Chords C6 note Plays a guitar chord, with a slow strum. D6 Plays a guitar chord, with a faster strum. For example, if you want a simple 4-in-the-bar pattern that plays a slow-fast-slow-fast strumming pattern, play the notes C6 D6 C6 D6 for the pattern. Additional strumming macros are: F#6 Back strum, chromatic below. G6 Back strum. G#6 Back strum, chromatic above.
Hybrid Styles The “Hybrid Styles” feature allows you to play and create a style that has instruments from up to five different styles! You can, for example, play a song with a Reggae bass, Rock drums, Salsa piano, or any combination of up to five styles that you want. Create a name for your hybrid style and you can save it with the song so that it will play that way in the future. To use the Hybrid Styles feature, choose Styles | Make a Hybrid style or click on the hybrid [STY] button in the toolbar.
This feature also works well to modify existing styles. Import an instrument from a similar style to make interesting style variations in minutes. Try some instruments from dissimilar styles for fun and surprises! You can also add parts that were not present in the original style this way. Importing Patterns from a MIDI file You can use any MIDI file as a source for new StyleMaker patterns by accessing Pattern | Import Pattern from MIDI file menu item.
Style Checker Analogous to a “Spell Checker,” this function analyzes your style-in-progress and identifies possible problems. The results are output to a text window, allowing you to examine the patterns and fix them if required. It identifies patterns that might be “too busy” or incorrect macro notes etc. To access the Style Checker, open up the StyleMaker (Ctrl+F9), and choose Style | Style Checker. You'll then get a text report about the style, listing possible problems with the style.
- The chords for the MIDI file are interpreted and written on the Chordsheet. The “part markers” for the file are displayed on the Chordsheet. For Violet.MID, the Style Wizard has found the correct part markers – by looking for drum fills and other signs of a part change – and has assigned substyle “a” to all of them. We'll change some of them to “b” later. - The channels used in the MIDI file are displayed in the dialog, with the patches used and # of notes played on each channel. (For Violet.
we'd like for the Jazz tune. After listening to the tune, we notice that there is a “2-feel” Jazz section, and a “4-in-thebar” section. We want those as “a” and “b” substyles, so we enter the bar #s that correspond to these settings. In the Snapshots area of the Style Wizard: - Enter “1-20” for the bars for the “A” Substyle. - Enter “21-28, 37-68” for the “B” Substyle. - Enter “12, 20” for the “A” Drum Fills. Enter “28, 36, 44, 52, 60, and 68” for the “B” Drum Fills.
The Harmony Maker The Harmony Maker allows you to create or edit your own or existing harmonies. Each harmony can use up to 3 channels. Harmony Channel A, B, and C. If your harmony only has one instrument, then you will use Channel A for all the voices. If your harmony uses Flute and Bass, then you could use Flute on Channel A and Bass on Channel B. You'll see the voices down the left side of the dialog box.
Settings For Each Voice Chan. A 1-instrument harmony will use Channel A only. Additional instruments can use Channel B and C. Tip: These channels are set to numbers in the Harmony Channels Dialog box, accessible by selecting the [Harmony] button under the Opt | MIDI Channels, options… menu. Octave This allows the harmony to “drop-down” or “go up” by a number of octaves. This octave change will only happen in a certain range, as chosen in the LOW, HIGH settings.
Additional Harmony Options Press the [More…] button to launch the Additional Harmony Options dialog. Use Close Harmony This only applies to 2 and 3 part harmonies. If set to = 0 it will use only close harmonies, mainly 3rds for 2 part harmonies. If set to = 1 it will use mostly 3rds, with some 6ths for 2 part harmonies. If set to = 99 it will use mostly 6ths, with some 3rds for 2 part harmonies. If set to = 100 it will use only wide harmonies, mainly 6ths for 2 part harmonies.
Use Guitar Harmony Voicings Harmony Maker will use real guitar chord voicings that display correctly on the guitar fretboard. Selecting this checkbox means that guitar chord voicings will be used, instead of any other voicings specified in the Harmony Maker. Check out Harmony #32 (J Pass) for an example of this Use voicings in 4ths Modern Jazz harmonies often voice chords in 4ths. For example, a C chord with C melody might be voiced C, G, D, A, E.
10 easy steps to make a Soloist 1. Bring up the Soloist window by pressing the [Soloist] Button. 2. Select a blank spot in your list of soloists and press the [Edit] button. 3. Insert the title of your soloist and any memo note you wish to add. The Num field will be filled in for you. Call this one Bebop Saxophone. The memo might say, “extra legato, straighter 8th notes, on top of the beat.” 4. Choose the type of soloist (i.e. swing 8th notes, straight 8th notes, 16th notes, etc.
Tip: You can have these values preset to the values you'd like by first selecting the range of bars that you'd like from the Spreadsheet screen, and then clicking on the [Soloist] button. OK to solo for an extra beat Usually, Soloists end a little after a bar's end – they play a couple of extra notes, spilling over to the next bar. Selecting this option the gives Band-in-a-Box soloist this ability also.
The Melodist Maker This module lets you define or edit your own Melodists. Press the Melodist Maker [Edit] button from the Select Melodist dialog to launch the Melodist Editor. Num The Num selection box allows you to select the Melodist that you'd like to edit. The top area of the Melodist Maker screen also allows you to set the Title of the Melodist and supply a Memo. Choose ST2 Database Select the associated ST2 database for the Melodist. Some ST2 Melodist databases are MEL1.
The Patch Change area allows you to select an instrument and Harmony, and to set Change Instrument setting for when you would like to change to a new Melody patch (e.g. Each Chorus). In the Change Style to .. window you can choose a style for the Melodist, and specify the feel for the style in the .STY is box. Legato Boost % changes the legato (length) of the notes generated. Instruments like Saxophone have longer legato phrasing.
Number of Variations to Choose From As the Melodist is determining what type of phrase to generate, it will narrow the possibilities to the number of variations set in this variable. Setting a higher number results in more interesting melodies, but the chord progressions are more unusual. Default = 15. Tempo Range / Auto Tempo The Tempo Range setting determines the tempo range that the tune will be created with (it will be a random tempo in the range).
The Guitarist Maker Band-in-a-Box will intelligently arrange any melody to a guitar chord solo by inserting real guitar voicings throughout the piece. There are many preloaded Guitarists to choose from, or you can customize existing Guitarists’ settings or make your own Guitarists from scratch in the Guitarist Maker. The Guitarist Maker is accessed from the Guitarist window.
The settings for Note Duration thresholds to get a chord refer to how long a note must be before a chord will be generated. (Quarter note = 120 ticks.) Looking at the settings above these would be interpreted as follows: - If a note occurs and it is the “First Note of a New Chord” and the note is not followed by another note for at least 50 ticks (120 ticks = 1 quarter note), then a chord will get voiced 90% of the time.
Chord Types to Include You can decide which types of chords should be included in the chord solo. Best Chords Good chords Advanced chords Unusual chords Barre chords Include Open Strings (Never/ Sometimes/ Favor) The most commonly played chords by pro guitarists. Popular alternate chords. Chords that are difficult to play, advanced voicings. Voicings that should be avoided in most cases but have some uses. Chords that require the index finger to be played in a Barre position.
Chapter 12: Tutors and Wizards Vocal Wizard The “Vocal Wizard” displays the best song keys for your vocal range! This feature helps you choose the best song key for your vocal range. Open the Vocal Wizard, enter your vocal type (baritone, tenor, etc.), or choose a custom range. Then the wizard analyzes the song and recommends the best keys for that song. Options available to “include/exclude falsetto range,” “restrict choices to these keys […],” and “transpose now.
1. Entering your Vocal Range. 2. Here you enter your “comfortable” vocal range, from lowest note to highest note. If you can sing falsetto, you can also enter the highest falsetto note, and the % of falsetto notes that would be acceptable as falsetto notes. You can also select a preset (like Baritone Male or Contralto Female). Or you can select one of 8 “User Preset slots” to enter and save a custom range (if you press the [Save & Name User Preset] button) Selecting the keys that would be “allowable.
In the example Old Folks at Home, you can see that D is the best key (“green”), but any of the keys from G to Db are also good keys in the selected vocal range. The area in black at the bottom gives an analysis of the vocal range if the song was transposed to the chosen key. Now that the Vocal Wizard has told us the best key for this song, we can either close the dialog, or transpose it now to the recommended key (or any other key that we have selected with the radio buttons.
Chord Substitution Dialog This dialog depends on what chords were present at the bar that was currently highlighted. This bar number is shown in the dialog and may be changed. In the example shown, the chord was an F7 chord, so the substitutions shown are for an F7 chord. The substitutions shown may work for up to 4 bars, depending on the substitution. In the examples above, the substitutions work for 2 bars.
Auto Chord Substitutions You can quickly auto-generate substitutions for an entire song, or portion of a song using the auto-substitution dialog, which is accessed with the menu command Window | Auto Generate Chord Substitutions. For example, we can generate substitutions for the !Freddie.MGU song. Here is the original chord progression.
Chapter 12: Tutors and Wizards
Ear Training Tutor Ear training is an important exercise for all musicians and you can practice your ear training with help from Bandin-a-Box. In addition to the common interval exercises (perfect 4th, minor 2nd, etc.), learning to “play-by-ear” for Jazz and Pop music is further enhanced by ear training exercises to recognize common chord types (e.g., Major, Minor, Dominant, etc.). For example, Band-in-a-Box will play a chord and you will have to identify the correct root and chord type.
Start the game by pressing the [Guess Interval] button. You can control the starting note and the second note in the dialog. Once the game starts, click on the interval that you think is being played.
Chord Tutor Click on the [Chord Tutor] button to enter the Chord Tutor module. - Press the [Play Tonic] button to familiarize yourself with the root note of the scale as a reference point. Click on any of the other note names to hear that root. Click on any of the chord extensions to hear that sound. Guessing the root You can test yourself on roots only or root AND extension. Press “Guess a New Root” and you'll hear a root played. Press this button to hear the root-to-guess replayed.
When you think you know the root, press the root name on the list of note names at the left. If you guess incorrectly, you'll see a message that says “Wrong Root.” You'll then hear the note that you guessed playing, followed by the root-to-guess note again. If you guess correctly, you'll see a confirmation of that, and can play again. Press the [Stop] button to stop the game.
Rhythm Guitar Chord Tutor Use the Guitar Tutor to analyze any song. This feature will show the chords that are playing on the virtual guitar fretboard, in your choice of a Jazz, Pop, or Folk perspective. The Guitar Tutor is a fun way to learn about new guitar chords while playing along with your favorite Band-in-a-Box tune. The Rhythm Guitar Chord Tutor is most useful on styles that aren't guitar styles, because the guitar styles already have a guitar part that you can learn from.
There are also tutors for the alternate tunings like DADGAD, Open G, etc. They can be selected from this dropdown list. Show muted high note of 3 note comping One of the tutors uses 3 note Jazz voicings to simulate the famous Big Band chord guitar comping styles. If you use this, you'll only see 3 notes in the chords of course. Since it sometimes helps to see the entire 4 chord voicing in this case, there is the option to show the muted note as well. Note: This applies to the guitar tutor.
MIDI File Chord Interpretation Wizard Many people who play music by ear think of songs in terms of “Chords and Melody.” However many MIDI files lack chord symbols, so they become difficult to learn without the user having to figure out the chords in a time consuming process. Now you can open up any MIDI file in Band-in-a-Box, and Band-in-a-Box will automatically figure out the chords of the song for you.
Once you have loaded in the MIDI file, and assuming that you have the “Auto Interpret” set to true, you'll see that the dialog displays the settings that the Chord Wizard has found for the key signature, and channels used for the song. Let's work with an example song called Violet Song.MID. This should be included in your c:\bb directory. - Start with a blank worksheet by choosing File | New. - Choose the MIDI File chord Wizard dialog by choosing File | Import Chords from MIDI file.
Now, after loading in the MIDI files, you'd normally have a look at these settings above, to see if they seem reasonable for your MIDI file. If not, you can change the settings. For example, if you know that the key signature of the song is not F but is C, then you would set that. Or, if you knew that the Melody channel was on channel 3, you could override the Chord Wizard settings.
The setting for “Allow Sus chords” determines if chords like Csus or Bbsus7 will be included. The “Allow 7th chords” specifies if 7th chords like C7 or Bbm7 would be allowed. Simple Rock songs might not have 7th chords or Sus chords. Allowing chords with no thirds should be set in a hard rock song, or similar song with “power chords” that might not contain the 3rd of the chords. Delay Lowest Bass Note Usually a bass player plays the root of the chord at or near the time when the chord changes.
As you can see, by comparing the two sets of chords, the Chord Wizard got almost all of the chords correct in this example. The Chord Wizard purposely avoids chords like “C13.” It will put a simpler “C7” instead, since this is more like a typical lead sheet. If you've read in the entire MIDI file, you have 103 bars of chords on the Chord sheet. This actually contains 3 choruses of the song.
The setting for “Write Chord Summary Notes to Soloist Track” is only used for diagnostic or special purposes. When set, the Soloist track will contain a special track that has a chord written every 2 beats (or whatever the setting for chord resolution is) that contains every note found for the chord. This shows you the type of logic that the Chord Wizard is basing its decisions on.
The “Channel selector” presets help with the selection of the channels as described above. The [None] button de-selects (mutes) all of the channels. The [All] button selects (plays) all of the channels. The [Solo] button will “solo” the last channel that was pressed before the Solo button was pressed. The “BB” part button selects all of the channels that are currently using the “BB Parts,” i.e., the Drums/ Bass/ Piano/ Guitar/ and Strings.
Snapshot Regions This area is for the “snapshots” for A substyle, B substyle, and A, B drum fills. For the “A” substyle enter the range of bars that you would like to be included in the “A” substyle. You can enter values separated by commas “1, 2, 4,” or ranges “1-7, 9-14,” or combinations “1-4, 9, 11, 12-24.” To determine which bar numbers to enter you'll need to listen to the MIDI file. Pressing the [Auto-Generate Snapshot bars] button will generate a list of bar numbers for the snapshots.
“Add to existing style...” allows you to add the patterns to an existing style. The [More] button launches the Style Wizard – Advanced Settings and Preferences dialog. Style Wizard “More…” Dialog This dialog is launched from the [More…] button in the Style Wizard. There are 2 sections to this dialog. Advanced Instrument Settings The advanced instrument settings allow settings for the instruments (drums / bass / piano / guitar / strings) to be included in the style.
Bass (“voicings”) determine if the bass part will use All notes / Scale tones only / Root 3rd, 5th, 7th / Root, 3rd, 5th / Root and 5th / or just the Root. The default is “Auto-select” which usually allows all 12 semitones. Piano, Guitar, and Strings Voicings determine how the Piano patterns will be voiced. The choices are Auto, Include Full Voicings, and Tritones only (3rd/7ths). The auto-setting usually uses the “Include full voicings.
Chapter 13: Tools and Utilities Roland VSC3 Virtual Sound Canvas An important part of Band-in-a-Box is the band that you actually hear. This is determined by the MIDI driver that you use for output. The Roland Virtual Sound Canvas (VSC) is a top-quality software synthesizer. You need to install the Roland VSC3, which is a separate install from the Band-in-a-Box program. When you install the VSC3, you'll see a “Roland VSC” MIDI Output driver listed in the Band-in-a-Box MIDI Driver Setup dialog.
Guitar Tuner The Guitar Tuner is optimized for guitar and bass, though it may be useful with other instruments. Connect an electric guitar or bass to your computer’s sound card Line-In, or tune an acoustic instrument using a microphone connected to the sound card Mic input. Play a pitch and the tuner will auto-range to determine the nearest note, and display the intonation of your instrument. Press the on-screen [Tuner] button or select the Window | Guitar Tuner menu item to launch the Tuner Window.
The Drum Kit window can be resized to tile or fit with other windows of interest, or the drums can be moved offscreen. The window looks best if your computer display is in High Color (16 bit) or True Color (32 bit) video mode. The onscreen instruments may be played by mouse clicking or by pressing the appropriate computer keys. There is an option to display all the QWERTY names on the drums at the same time, so that you can see what keys to hit without having to mouse over the instrument.
Computer “QWERTY” Keys Press computer keys to play drums. Drums are grouped on the computer keyboard by category. The kick, snare, and hi-hat sounds are on the lowest keyboard row. The lower-middle row contains toms and cymbals. The upper-middle row contains Latin drums, and the top row contains Latin hand percussion. The Numpad keys contain the rest of the Latin hand percussion plus the electronic tones. Settings Dialog Press the Settings button to adjust the various Drum Kit Settings.
Instrument Hints Customize the appearance of the Hint line. - Show Note Name - Show MIDI Note Number - Show Computer Key Show “Show All Instruments” shows all instruments in the drum window. “Show Used Instruments” displays the basic trap kit, but does not display any extra instruments unless they are used in a song. The drum window is cleared each time Play or Stop is pressed.
To use Band-in-a-Box to measure in milliseconds- set Band-in-a-Box PPQN to 480, and Band-in-a-Box tempo to 125 BPM. With this special resolution and tempo, tick values in the Event List window will correspond to milliseconds. Current Time - The millisecond count since the timer was last started. Click anywhere in the Timer area to clear the Current time, setting it to zero. Channel Activity Panel This panel has an array of “LEDs” to show which channels are active.
Chapter 14: Reference Band-in-a-Box Menu Descriptions This chapter gives line-by-line descriptions for all Band-in-a-Box menus. File Menu New is used to blank the chordsheet and start a new song. Open (BB song) is used to open an existing Band-in-a-Box song. Open MIDI file loads a MIDI file into Band-in-a-Box and the MIDI file will play with the chords intelligently interpreted on-screen.
Open (Using Custom Dialog) uses the custom dialog that allows long-file-names, font selection, and even remembers its settings (unlike the standard windows 95/98 dialogs). Open Using Standard Dialog uses the standard windows 95/98 dialog. Open with Melodies lists only song files that have melodies (*.mg?). Open Song by Title allows selection of songs by displaying the full title of the song (not 8 character file name).
Run Explorer in Current Directory launches Explorer. Pressing Ctrl+Shift+F3 is the usual way to get to this item, and will quickly open Explorer. Once Explorer is open, you could double click on a song or style to load it in. (Assuming that there is a file association for Band-in-a-Box songs and styles made in Explorer.) Auto-rename song files to Long File Names will rename all song files in the current directory to long file names, using the song title as the name.
Edit Menu Edit | Undo and Edit | Redo allow you to undo or redo most operations. Edit | Cut functions like a delete command to remove bars from a song. Edit | Copy and Edit | Paste are to copy chords. Copying a section of chords can be done in the same manner as copying text in a Windows word processor. Copying Chords to the Windows Clipboard - Select the region to copy. - Place the mouse cursor at the bar to begin the selection. Then, holding down the left mouse button, drag the mouse over the region.
Tip: The copied section remains in the clipboard and can be used repeatedly. If your song is in the form verse-versebridge-verse, you can simply copy the first verse to the clipboard, and then paste in the other verses. The clipboard contents remain even if you load in a new song, so you can copy and paste between songs. Copy From…To… / Copy Rests / Erase From… To… One of the best ways to copy chords is the Copy From… To… command, or pressing Alt+C, which will launch the Copy Chords and/or melody dialog.
Source track can be any of the Band-in-a-Box tracks – Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings, Melody, or Soloist. The track to “Copy/Move selected channels to ->” can be Melody or Soloist (since these are the only tracks that are editable in Band-in-a-Box). Intro Bars - Auto Generate (or Remove) This command will launch the Generate Intro dialog where you can specify the characteristics of the intro you wish to generate. For more information on this feature please refer to the Automatic Intro section.
Unfold (convert to 1 BIG chorus) Choose this command to unfold a multi-chorus song into one BIG chorus. When selected, Band-in-a-Box will display all choruses and verses of a song without loops or repeats. It is useful, for instance, when you have a song with 3 choruses and want to convert it to a single large chorus, or to customize a song with the “Edit Settings for Current Bar” feature to change meter, tempo, patches, styles, and/or harmonies and generate a MIDI file for export. becomes...
Transpose From .. To .. launches the Transpose dialog for transposing a particular section of the song. The bar values can be typed in manually or you can transpose a portion of a song by highlighting the region you wish to have transposed, selecting this menu item, and typing in the new key you wish to transpose to. Transpose DOWN or UP 1 semitone transposes the entire song. This can be done while the song is playing.
Chord Settings… This launches the Chord Options dialog box, where you can put in rests and pushes. You can launch the Preview, Chord Builder, or Chord-Substitution Functions from this window. The Chord Options dialog box can also be opened with the chord options button, with the keystrokes Alt+F5 or with a right mouse button click on the chordsheet.
Make a Hybrid Style The “Hybrid Styles” feature allows you to play and create a style that has instruments from up to five different styles! You can, for example, play a song with a Reggae bass, Rock drums, Salsa piano, or any combination of up to five styles that you want. Style Wizard (Auto-Create Style from MIDI file) Launches the Style Creation Wizard, which automatically converts a MIDI file (.MID) to a Band-in-a-Box Style (.STY). Simply open a MIDI file, select your options, and press “Save-As Style.
When you have successfully made an alias, you will notice that there will be a small arrow in the Styles box on the main screen indicating that you have an alias loaded. Tip: You can temporarily totally disable the Alias feature by disabling the Allow Any Style Aliases checkbox found in the dialog. You can also have confirmation of alias substitutions by enabling the Confirm Substitution checkbox.
Utilities Edit Chord Shortcuts file (shortcut.txt)… / Refresh Chord Shortcuts… If you have found a chord that Band-in-a-Box doesn't recognize, you can add your own shortcuts in a text file that you make yourself called c:\bb\shortcut.txt and Band-in-a-Box will allow you to type in that chord in the future. Click on this menu command to open or create your own chord shortcuts file. Make sure to save the file after editing.
Language Selection This allows you to change language from English to another language for display. If there are other languages supported by your version of Band-in-aBox, then they will be displayed in this dialog box. International language support files are available for download from www.pgmusic.com. Preferences… This dialog box allows you to set various settings that are saved in the Band-in-a-Box for Windows configuration file called INTRFACE.BBW.
If a style is changed with a different feel (16th notes instead of 8th notes), Band-in-a-Box will automatically offer to expand or reduce the duration of the chords, and change the tempo to accommodate the new style. StylePicker defaults to current style Since the StylePicker can now default to the current style, this option is available.
Display Options The [Display] button opens the Display Options dialog. Toolbars Toolbar mode settings are for the main toolbar. The Normal mode shows toolbar icons with text labels. Options are Text only, Icons only, or No toolbar. Show on-screen piano shows or hides the on-screen piano. Floating Toolbars Always Show Text toggles floating toolbar text off or on. Song Title area font allows the selection of any installed font the song title.
For minor keys, base roman numerals on the relative major. For example in key of Am, Am is either the Im chord or the VIm chord. Chordsheet Font/Number of rows You can choose the Font to use, and the # of rows per screen. If you choose a Custom font, you can choose the size as well. If you choose one of the preset fonts, the size is set automatically to fit into the height of the chordsheet row.
You can disable the rests feature. You might want to do this if you’ve got a song with a lot of rests in it, and are then having difficulty recording a melody because you don’t hear the drums providing the beat (due to the drums resting). If so, you can temporarily disable the rests so that you can record and listen to the drums. Allow Any Pushes If for some reason you don't want a style or a song to have pushes, you can set this to no.
Count-in and Metronome Options This opens the Count-in and Metronome Options dialog. Drum Lead-in options Allow Lead-In Bars People who use Band-in-a-Box for soloing practice will likely turn the lead-in off to allow endless looping uninterrupted by the lead-in count. To eliminate the lead-in count, select Allow Lead-In Bars to = NO, this will start the song from bar 1 with no lead in. Play Lead-In Even If Intro Present If a song has an intro, it’s usually not necessary to play the 2 bar lead-in count.
Smart Lead-in A smart lead-in avoids playing the count-in drum sound during a Melody pickup. Lead-in drum count if drums muted/disabled Previously, when the drum track was muted (or disabled in a song), the count-in drum click wouldn't play. This option can play the drum count-in in all circumstances. Drummers who play along with BB by muting the drum track should find this feature useful. To set this option, choose Opt.
Write Section Text as Text Events Your section text can be included in the MIDI file as text events. Include Volume/Reverb/Chorus/Panning This will include the volume, reverb, chorus, and panning settings that you have made in the Band-in-a-Box synth window in your MIDI file. Include Forced Channel Meta Event This will include the forced channel META event. It is recognized by PowerTracks Pro Audio and other PG Music Inc. programs only.
MIDI Input Driver Select the Driver that you would like to use for input from a MIDI keyboard. If you don't have a MIDI keyboard, you can select . MIDI Output Driver Select a Driver For MIDI Output. This also includes Sound Card output (like Sound Blaster). Perhaps the easiest way to configure Band-in-a-Box is to press the [Run Driver Wizard..] button. The MIDI Output Driver Wizard dialog will take you step-by-step through the process of auditioning and selecting an appropriate driver.
MIDI Options This button opens the MIDI Options dialog. Send GM Mode On at startup / Send XG Mode On at startup You can elect to have Band-in-a-Box automatically send a GM or XG Mode On command every time the program is started. Toggle this option ON if you have a GM or XG unit to ensure that it is always set to the appropriate mode. Local ON (Ext. Keyboard): If you are hearing the information played on your keyboard played twice (an echo effect) then set Local ON to “No.
Song Patch Changes: Songs can be saved with patch changes. If you want to prevent specific instruments loading for a given song, set this option to “No.” Style Patch Changes: Styles contain patch change information for the instruments that were used when the Style was created. To use your own instrument selection, not the original instruments, change this setting to “No.” Drum Patch Changes: To disable patch changes in Drums, set to NO. Allow Volume Changes: To prevent any volume changes set to “No.
These can use either Controller 0 (Bank 0), which is also know as MSB for Most Significant Byte, or Controller 32, also called LSB for Least Significant Byte, or combinations of the two controllers. Harmony Channels and Settings The [Harmony] button opens the Harmony Channels and Settings dialog where settings for the harmonies are made. Harmony Settings OK to Load Harmonies With Songs If set to YES, the harmony settings for each song will be loaded and saved with each song.
More Soloist & More Melodist Settings The [Soloist] button launches the More Soloist & Melodist Settings dialog. Set “Use MIDI Volume for Soloing Wizard” to true if you want MIDI velocity information sent to the Soloing Wizard. If you have a velocity sensitive MIDI device attached to your computer and you want to control the dynamics of the Soloist, you should enable this feature.
Color Selection The [Colors] button opens the Color Selection dialog. You can choose from several color sets using the 256-color palette in Windows. Choose from pre-made color schemes or make your own. This is like changing the Windows color scheme in the control panel. To select a pre-made color scheme, press the [Import..] button and choose from the list of schemes. Select [OK] to make the changes permanent. Use the [Export..] button to save and share your customized color schemes.
General MIDI Patch Edit This opens the General MIDI Patch Edit dialog, where you can make a customized General MIDI patch map. Type in the patch number that your synth uses for each instrument listed. For example, if your sound source has its Acoustic Piano at patch location 41select the box to the left of Acoustic Piano and type 41. Do the same for all of the instruments in the General MIDI patch list. If your synth doesn't have an exact match, use a close sounding patch that it does have.
Drum Kit If you have been unable to find a preset drum map that matches your synth's drum notes, then you may need to type in the drum notes that your sound source uses. To do this, you need to hook your MIDI controller up to play the Drum sounds from the keyboard. Play up and down the keyboard to hear all the drum sounds. Locate note 36 as a starting point; on the Band-in-a-Box onscreen piano it is the C directly above the [Play] button.
Favorite Instruments This button opens the Favorite Instruments dialog. For each of the Band-in-a-Box parts you can assign up to 10 “favorite” General MIDI instruments. Note: If you use a custom patch map it will convert your synth’s non-GM patch numbers, always enter GM patch numbers for the favorite instruments. The [Patch List] button displays the General MIDI Patch List of instrument names and patch numbers. The [Combos] button opens the Favorite Combos dialog.
Output Chords on Channel The [OutputCh.] button opens the Output Chords on Channel dialog. Some external music hardware devices require chords played in root position to drive them in real time. An example of this is the TC-Helicon Quintet, which lets you sing into a microphone and harmonize your voice according to the chords that are input to the device. Band-in-a-Box has the capability of outputting a separate channel with the chords in root position to support such external devices automatically.
You can also set the THRU transpose to the favorite key to transpose the THRU part so that you can always play along in your favorite key (regardless of the actual key of the song). To Activate, press Ctrl+Shift+K or select the menu item Options | Preferences and click on the “Transpose” tab. This launches the Vocal Wizard, which shows the best keys given a singer’s vocal range.
Notation Window Options The [Notation] button opens the Notation Window Options. If the Notation window is not open the program will launch it. These settings are described in the Notation chapter and in the online Help.
Lead Sheet Options The [Lead sheet] button opens the Lead Sheet Options dialog. If the Lead Sheet window is not open the program will open it. These settings are described in the Notation chapter and in the online Help.
Audio Settings The [Audio] button opens the Audio Settings dialog. If your PC has multiple sound cards, the [Audio Drivers] button lets you choose which one to use. Most people have a single sound card, so don’t require this feature. But if you have added an audio device (such as a USB Audio Adapter), you would have multiple audio devices, and are now able to choose which one to use. Choose Opt. | Preferences | Audio and click on the [Audio Drivers] button to select which audio driver to use.
The DMA Size and DMA Offset settings are set automatically by the auto-testing of the sound card. This test can be repeated by pressing the [Get from sound card…] button. The default value for all of these settings is 0 (zero). You can override these settings if required, but it is usually not necessary. The Offset in mS is not a setting that gets set automatically. It defaults to zero. This allows you to adjust the timing that the sound card plays audio in relation to MIDI.
Guitar Settings The [Guitar] button opens the Guitar Settings dialog. The Guitar Settings dialog allows you the ability to adjust various parameters on the virtual guitar fretboard so that music can be displayed effectively (and easily) on this window, regardless of the original instrument intended for the track data. It also offers the ability to enter notation using the virtual guitar. Click on the [Help] button for detailed online descriptions.
Big Piano Settings This button opens the Big Piano Settings dialog. This dialog allows you to set various options on the Big Piano. - You can set a specific range for the Big Piano, a starting note and a number of octaves, by over-riding the “auto” settings. - “Show out-of-range notes” ensures that all notes will be displayed. - If the “Send Notes to Notation Window” checkbox is enabled, clicking a virtual key on the big piano will insert a note to the notation track.
Lyric Window Options The [BigLyrics] button opens the Lyric Window Options. Individual color elements can be picked, or choose one of the presets. Display Chord Symbols will interleave the chord symbols with the lyrics. Show chord symbols above the lyrics will show the chords on a separate line. With the Scroll lyrics a page at a time option selected the Big Lyrics scroll a page at a time.
Print Options The [Print] button opens the Print Options dialog. These options are described in the Notation chapter and in the online Help.
Play Menu Note: Most commands in the Play menu are performed by onscreen buttons, or by the keystrokes listed to the right of the menu command. Play Stop Playback - Generates a new arrangement and plays the song. Stops playback. To resume either use the Play From Current Position command or the [From] button the play from the start of the current bar, or use the [Play] or Replay [+] buttons to play from the start of the song. - Pauses the song.
Slide Tracks - This allows you to move any of the Bass, Drums, Piano, Guitar, Strings or Melody track ahead or behind by a certain amount. You could, for example, slide the Bass track so it plays a little ahead of the rest of the band. This has the effect of making the bass player “drive the band,” and is useful in Jazz styles to make the music sound more exciting. Looping - You can loop any section of the song.
Lyrics Menu Enter Lyrics at current bar - Opens the Lyric entry box at the current location of the timeline or highlight cell. Big Lyrics Window - Opens the Big Lyrics window for viewing lyrics and, optionally, chord symbols. Lyric Document Window - Displays a full screen of formatted lyrics. Easily copy and paste lyrics to and from your favorite word processor. Copy Lyrics to Clipboard - This function allows you to copy a song's lyrics (and/or the chords) to the Standard Windows Clipboard.
Copy Line Lyrics to Note Lyrics converts line-based lyrics to note based lyrics. It is imprecise, because the linebased lyrics don't correspond to individual notes. But you can edit the positions of the note-based lyrics using the event list or the Move Lyric back/ahead to time line functions discussed above. Move Line lyrics to Note Lyrics works like the Copy Line lyrics to Note Lyrics function, except it erases the Linebased lyrics.
Melody Menu Track Type Normally you'd leave the track type set to Single. But you can set it to: - Multi (16) -Channel – All channels get preserved, and outputted on the channels, this would be useful for importing an entire MIDI file, and playing it from the Melody channel (using a silent style). - Guitar – Channels 11 to 16 will display on the guitar as strings 11 to 16, TAB will show, the notation will be up an octave, and the MIDI file will contain the channels preserved.
Edit Melody submenu Import Melody from MIDI File allows you to import MIDI data from a file (*.MID) into the Melody track. Import Melody from Clipboard allows you to import MIDI data that has been pasted into the clipboard (e.g., from a sequencer such as PowerTracks). Record Melody launches the Record Melody dialog to record a MIDI melody. Record melody From any bar starts recording at the current location of the highlight cell after playing a two bar lead-in.
- Resolution. Choose the division you would like the track quantized to. Choosing 16 will Quantize to 16th notes. - Starting at Bar# and Chorus #. Quantization will begin at the place you select and applied for the number of bars. % strength. Choose 100% if you want the notes quantized exactly to the division. Otherwise, the notes will be moved the % toward the target quantization. Quantize Start Times. By default, this option is set to “Yes.
Remove Harmony (or guitar solo) from Melody Track removes a harmony from a track, providing that the harmony was put there by Band-in-a-Box in the first place using the Convert Harmony to Melody Track command. Generate Guitar Chord Solo opens the Guitar feature dialog for generating a guitar chord solo. Rechannel to Guitar Display converts channels on a track to channels 11 to 16. Channels 11 to 16 are used by Band-in-a-Box to indicate strings 1 to 6 of a guitar.
Soloist Menu Track Type Normally you'd leave the track type set to Single. But you can set it to: - - - Multi (16) -Channel – All channels get preserved, and outputted on the channels, this would be useful for importing an entire MIDI file, and playing it from the Melody channel (using a silent style). Guitar – Channels 11 to 16 will display on the guitar as strings 11 to 16, TAB will show, the notation will be up an octave, and the MIDI file will contain the channels preserved.
saxophone), extra legato playing, playing more on top of the beat, playing straighter 8th notes than usual swing 8th notes. In addition, you can set phrasing options, such as how long the phrase should be, and how much “space” to leave between phrases. You can also set how “outside” the playing should be. Edit Current Soloists File opens the Select Soloist dialog with the currently installed Soloists file. Refresh Soloist allows the Soloist full access to all solo ideas contained in its database.
Quantize Soloist opens the Quantize Soloist Options dialog. The Humanize Soloist Part… feature is an advanced version of this function. Humanize Soloist Part w/Straight Feel / …/Swing Feel. Band-in-a-Box uses intelligent humanization routines, which can humanize a Soloist from one feel to another, from one tempo to another, and vary the amount of swing in 8th notes (but not randomly). The results are very musical, with natural sounding MIDI solos.
Audio Menu The Record Audio function is used to Record Audio using a microphone plugged into your sound card or a guitar (or mixer) plugged into the line-in on your sound card. This launches the Record Audio Dialog and the Record Audio – Keep Take dialog. The next two items, Record Audio and MIDI (Melody) and Record Audio and MIDI (Soloist) refer to the situation where you want to simultaneously record an audio track (vocals etc.) as well as a MIDI piano part.
Edit Audio submenu Copy 1st chorus to whole song copies the first chorus to the rest of the song. The Kill entire Audio menu item is used to erase the Audio Track. Erase Audio Choruses will erase the First Chorus, Middle Choruses, or the Last Chorus as chosen from a list box. Erase Region of Audio will erase a specified region of bars/beats of audio. Adjust Output Level of Audio (Quick) uses the Windows mixer to adjust the output level of the audio track.
Audio Harmonies & Pitch Tracking opens the Generate Audio Harmonies dialog. There are three uses of the Audio Harmonies in Band-in-a-Box, namely: - Pitch tracking (fixing) of the melody. - Harmonizing your voice using Band-in-a-Box harmonies (when a MIDI melody is present) - Harmonizing your voice to the chords of the song (when no MIDI melody is present) DXi Synth Settings opens the DirectX Plugins dialog to the Synth Track where you can select a DXi synth and apply real time effects to its audio output.
GM Menu The GM functions work on MIDI sound devices that support the GM (General MIDI) standard, which includes most newer MIDI Keyboards and sound cards. The GS functions work on instruments that support the Roland GS specification. This includes the Roland Sound Canvas, SCC1, and JV-30. The XG functions work on instruments that support the Yamaha XG specification. Roland GS submenu Reset Roland GS (Quick) and Reset GS (all ID’s) reset the module to factory settings.
Auto-Send GS Mode On at startup sends a Roland GS system on message when the Band-in-a-Box program boots up. Auto-Send XG Mode On at startup sends a Yamaha XG system on message when the Band-in-a-Box program boots up. Turn Local OFF / ON (external MIDI keyboard) “Local” refers to music playing on an external MIDI keyboard. If set to “Off,” Band-in-a-Box will play the keyboard via the THRU part. If set to “On,” both Band-in-a-Box and the keyboard might be playing the same Thru part.
Run Other Program submenu Sound card Volume / Playback VU Meter launches the Windows mixer to adjust volumes on your sound card with the Playback panel. Sound card Recording / Recording VU Meter launches the Windows Mixer to adjust volumes on your sound card with the Recording panel. Note: This uses the c:\windows\sndvol32.exe Mixer program. You may need to have the Windows 98 version of this program for the Recording Panel to open properly.
Harmony Menu Melody Harmony (select)… This option brings up the complete Harmony styles list, and allows you to choose one for the current Melody track. Thru Harmony (select)… This option brings up the complete Harmony styles list, and allows you to choose one for the current Thru track. Favorite Melody Harmonies This option brings up your favorite 50 Harmony styles (based on recent usage) and allows you to choose one to use on the Melody track.
Allow Melody Harmony Toggle this option “On” to allow harmonies on the Melody MIDI channels. Allow Thru Harmony Toggle this option “On” to allow harmonies on the Thru MIDI channels. Allow Soloist Harmony (on THRU Harmony) Toggle this option “On” to allow the Thru MIDI channels to utilize the harmony features for the Soloist track. Convert Harmony to Melody Track… Converts a single line Melody track to include the current harmony selection.
Not’n Menu Notation/edit/note roll mode moves the notation window through its various entry modes. Print... brings up the print dialog box. Note Insert mode Toggling this to “On” allows you to insert notes graphically with your mouse or keyboard on the notation window. Mono Entry Mode Toggle this “On” if you are inserting single notes (not chords) on the notation window.
Window Menu Notation (or chords) Window toggles between the notation and the chordsheet views. Movable Notation Window opens a movable and resizable notation window. Lead Sheet Window launches the lead sheet notation. Big Lyrics Window launches a window that displays lyrics in a Karaoke format. Lyric Document Window displays a full screen of formatted lyrics. Easily copy and paste lyrics to and from your favorite word processor. Big Piano Window launches a window that displays a Big Piano.
Chord Substitution Dialog (choose your own) This allows you to see a list of possible chord substitutions for the current chord progression. You can also access it from a right mouse click on the chordsheet, and by pressing the Chord Substitution button. Auto-Generate Chord Substitutions… This will automatically pick chord substitutions for all or part of the song. Ear Training Window Practice your ear training with help from Band-in-a-Box.
Help Menu Index Topic Search Using help How to… Basics Tutorials Show help hints Lists all of the Help topics. Type in a keyword under the “Index” tab to go to the topic you want. Opens the Help file where you can search the Table of Contents or the Index, or use the Search feature to find your topic. Has Windows tips for using Help files. Opens a categorized list of topics. It’s a fast way to find out about a particular feature or operation. Goes directly to the “Basics” introduction to Band-in-a-Box.
What add-ons do I have?… One of the greatest strengths of Band-in-a-Box is the ability to add-on and enhance the program through add-ons. The “What Add-ons” feature scans your computer's Band-in-a-Box directory and displays what add-ons are and aren't found. To see the latest add-ons click on the [www.pgmusic.com/addons.htm] button to go directly to the add-ons page on the PG Music Inc. web site. Web www.pgmusic.com Links to some important pages on the PG Music Inc. web site.
Keystroke Commands - Hot Keys It’s often faster to use keystrokes instead of using the mouse. For example, there are keystroke “hot keys” to mute instruments or to adjust volume, panning, reverb, chorus, or bank of instruments.
Looping / Song Navigation Keystrokes NUMPAD 1 Toggle looping on/off. NUMPAD 2 Open Loop Section Settings dialog. Ctrl+NUMPAD 1 Play with last chorus looped. Ctrl+NUMPAD 2 Play with middle choruses looped. Ctrl+NUMPAD 3 Play with middle and last choruses looped. Ctrl+NUMPAD 4 Jump to last chorus. Ctrl+NUMPAD 5 Jump to ending. Ctrl+NUMPAD 7 Loop Notation screen. NUMPAD [DEL] Advances the notation, lead sheet, and guitar window by one chord (group of notes).
F8 Play pattern on chord F10 Edit pattern options F6 or Shift+F6 Change instrument Cursor Keys Move around screen Alt+F4 Quit the StyleMaker StyleMaker Drum Screen Hot Keys F5 Drum alternate notes Bottom row (ZXCVBNM,. /) Drum note entry F6 Time base F10 or Alt+F4 Exit Additional Keystrokes There are additional keystrokes available, listed on the pull down menus beside the function.
Select Thru Harmony Alt+F11 Favorite Thru Harmonies Ctrl+F11 Allow Thru Harmony Shift+F11 Turn song Embellisher on/off. Ctrl+Alt+E Import chords from MIDI file. Ctrl+Alt+I Send GM mode on message. Ctrl+Alt+Q Set tempo. Ctrl+Alt+T Open the Preferences dialog. Ctrl+E Open the Song Settings dialog. Ctrl+N Launch Chord Builder. Ctrl+Shift+B Edit current bar options. F5 Save MIDI file. F6 Quit the program. Alt+F4 Chord List Commonly used chords are displayed here in bold type.
Notes: - It is not necessary to type upper or lower case. The program will sort this out for you. - Any chord may be entered with an alternate root (“Slash Chord”) e.g.: C7/E = C7 with E bass. - Separate chords with commas to enter 2 chords in a 2 beat cell, e.g., Dm,G7 Tricky Chords: C5b This is “C flat 5.” It is spelled this way to avoid confusion. C2, C5, C4, C69, C7alt, Cm7#5 You can type C-7 for Cm7 (i.e. use the minus sign) or C7-9 for C7b9.
PG Music Inc. Band-in-a-Box ® is protected by copyright and is the property of PG Music Inc. and its licensors. Copyright © 1989-2005 PG Music Inc. All rights reserved. PG MUSIC INC. 29 Cadillac Avenue Victoria, BC V8Z 1T3 Canada Contacts: E-mail: info@pgmusic.com Phone: toll free in the United States and Canada 1-800-268-6272, 1-888-PG-MUSIC (746-8742), Or 1-250-475-2874 (tolls apply) Universal International Freephone Service: Outside of the United States and Canada (where available).
Index A2 Transpose, 133 chords above, 127 Alias substitutions, 237 options, 127 Big Piano Window, 65 Alternate Guitar Tunings, 62 Guitar Tutor, 63 Breaks, 100 selecting, 63 Burn CD, 78 CD audible drum count-in, 245 Finalized, 170 Audio, 154, 159 Burn to CD, 78 CD Burner, 78 compressing WAV, 168 Changing Directories, 36 effects, 164 Channels Setting, 249 enhancements, 159 Chord harmonies, 159 import wave, 46, 154 Entry, 81 non-destructive editing, 159 Extensions, 207, 208 other audio pr
Styles, 98 Clefs, 129 Clipboard, 149, 231 Favorite song folders, 80 Color Schemes Favorite Songs, 67 File Associations, 80 Changing, 32, 252 file selection Combos no extension, 81 Favorite, 255 Files Convert patch lists Cakewalk to BB, 88 essential, 294 PowerTracks to BB, 87 transferring to Mac, 294 Copyright, 295 filter styles, 94 custom file selection, 80 Forced Rests, 110 Descriptive hints, 80 Fourths Harmonies, 190 DirectX General MIDI 2, 88 GM Menu, 280 instruments, 9 Display Opt
Lead Sheet, 128 Harmonize to MIDI Melody, 160 Fake Sheet Mode, 123 Harmony, 34 creating, 187 show title, 122 selecting, 33 Lead sheet options test chord, 188 convert harmony, 123 velocity boost, 188 Harmony display, 123 Harmony Maker, 187 Harmony volume, 123 Lead Sheet options Harmony Menu, 283 print harmony, 125 Held chords License, 2 options, 100 load next style, 71, 93, 236 Help Menu, 288 load previous style, 71, 93, 236 show hints, 288 Loading Hot Keys, 290 Songs, 13 Humanize S
Melody Menu multiple lines, 58, 124 Edit Melody, 270 Lyrics Menu, 268 Quantize Melody Options, 271 line-based lyrics, 268 Lyrics options, 127 track type, 270, 274 Main Chordsheet Utilities, 273 font size, 31 Melody Pitch Tracking, 162 number of rows, 31 Memo, 39 select font, 31 Metronome visual metronome, 84 Main Screen colors, 31 MGU files, 102 layout, 31 MIDI Channels options, 31 Setting, 249 overview, 30 Files status messages, 32 Standard, 149 Master Tuning, 222 Master Volume, 28
enhanced audio plug-ins, 19 editable, 109 favorite folder button, 20 Editing Notes, 119 full stereo audio track, 19 Guitar Tutor anticipate mode, 21 enhancements, 58, 120 harmonies in 4ths, 17 fonts, 116 harmony boxes wider, 21 highlighting, 58, 120 hidden lyrics breaks, 20 insert bends, 110 hi-res bitmap printing, 21 Lyrics, 126 import wave audio, 19 multi-color event list, 151 improved factory reset, 20 Options, 113 improved notation display, 20 resolution, 109 improved tab visibility,
Guitar Settings, 262 PowerTracks to BB, 87 Harmony Channels and Settings, 250 Patches keystroke options, 240 Allowing, 248 Patents, 2 Lead Sheet Options, 259 PG Music Inc.
Roman Numeral Notation, 84 Memo, 39 Root, 207, 208 new, 69 Sample level, 158 Part Markers, 101 Save Patches Allowing, 248 GM lyrics, 104 Saving Song with Patches, 102 pause, 84 Scale tones, 208 play, 84 Scriabin, 114 playing, 15 Select region, 83, 111, 158 save MIDI file, 103 Sequencers, 179 save with patches, 102 Setup, 7 saving, 77 Shots Settings, 92, 101 stop, 84 options, 100 Substyles Solo One Instrument, 45, 89 Changing, 101 Soloist Tempo custom solo generation, 191 Editor,
More button, 219 Sync, 248 part markers, 185 Synth Window, 33, 44 patch, 217 System Requirements, 7 snapshot regions, 218 Tag Settings, 102 snapshots, 185 TC-Helicon Harmony, 160, 161 tracks area, 216 dry voice, 160 tutorial, 184 level, 161 voicings, 219 octave, 161 Style Wizard, 216 preview, 161 StyleMaker voices, 161 bass patterns, 176 Technical Support, 295 drum patterns, 174 Tempo Change at bar, 92 guitar macros, 180 guitar styles, 179 Tempo Control, 38 hot keys, 291 Text mark
unmute drum count-in, 245 Voicings, 179, 209 Velocity Lines, 115 Volume visual metronome, 245 Allowing Changes, 249 Vocal Wizard, 199 Changes, 89 Setting, 249 auto-transpose, 201 Window Menu, 286 key, 200 Chord Builder, 287 range of song, 200 select track, 200 Wizard, 39 transpose, 201 Worksheet, 40 vocal range, 200 Zoom, 158 304 Index
Registration Form Please register your program. Registering your PG Music software entitles you to unlimited free technical support for as long as you own the program, advance notice of product upgrades, and new product news. If you haven't registered your PG Music software yet, please take a few minutes to register now. Mail this form to PG Music Inc. or fax to 250-475-2937 or 1-877-475-1444. Register online at www.pgmusic.
