in fact the essence of music !!!

Impressive program. But kind of "so what?".... totally misses he point of music for this reader !

So wait...do you work for the company or something?

Draw the Moral
did you not read upthread where i said i would swear on a stack of bibles i dont.
jeesh. now i'm disappointed in you.
i thought we could have an intersting exchange of ideas mate without
such types of incorrect comments.
if you knew me you would realise my integrity is of the highest order..double jeesh.
fyi i'm a retired puter engr who has wriitten several hundred songs over the years.
for the longest time ive been a registered user of their powertraks daw product.
now i'm looking at getting biab plus real band.
so ive been going through the evaluation of both.
just get a hold of the manuals and read in depth the manuals.
then youll see how daft some of the comments in this thread are.

i dont agree with the jazz comment either.
i wish people posting such would go talk to jazzers useing the darn program..lol.
they might learn something or read the darn manual..lol.

No need to get defensive.

This post is what made me wonder:

Usually someone who's evaluating the software doesn't talk like this.

I just don't understand why you personally are trying so hard to sell this product. If it works for you, great! Recommend it and move on. It won't work for everyone.

You've heard several opinions on here that are quite valid.

I told you my opinion, and that I'm even willing to try it out if it's worth while.
I posted examples of why this software isn't best for my workflow, and you said you liked the music. We both agreed that BIAB wouldn't do what I did for my songs.
That's why it wouldn't be very useful for me for songwriting.

And now you are a little defensive.

I love Logic, but it's not everyone's cup of tea. I'll recommend it, and then if someone decides against it, I'm not offended.

My point, and the point of the other musicians here is that we enjoy CREATING the music from scratch.

BIAB is fine for practice, and I'm sure its a very versitile program...but it will just never replace real songwriting and playing with other musicians...at least for me.

If you create all of your music with BIAB and only play a rhythm guitar part to it and then put it on iTunes as your song, then that's your decision.

It's just not how I work.

Draw the Moral
i ONLY posted that info mate cos you said you "might" try the demo.
i was darn well trying to help you thats all.
dont read more into it.
and ive seen posts on the user forums who didnt understand
what pacs to try .
i was just trying to give you some things to watch out for from
my own research.

did i ask you if you worked for logic ??
nope.
i assumed you were an end user like myself.
i would expect anyone to disclose if they were working for a supplier etc.

i'm fully aware of the free form improvisational approach.
i just dont feel one can be so dam rigorous or close minded mate.
its just a tool like anything else.
one user might get crappy results while another might get great results.
it depends how the user uses the tool.

i frankly dont care whether people buy the product or not.
but i DO feel there are many people on these forums unaware of alternatives
to the standard way of doing things.

actually i look at logic several times a year mate.
and keep an open mind.
if apple ewould put a dam quad core processor in the mini n puff it out cheap ,
then i would look seriously at logic on the mini plus also biab.
for nothing more than fun and to see what i could do with the combo
in conjunction with reaper on the mac.

if you want to have a friendly exchange of ideas i'm all for it.

Look, let's be completely frank... that stuff is VERY VERY cool. If I were a songwriter type who maybe only played one instrument and/or didn't enjoy creating new parts and instead just wanted to get ideas down, I would LOVE that. However, for those of us who write our own parts and play our own parts, it doesn't have that much use.

I remember the old biab.. what was cool about that is I would create a chord progression and generate MIDI, which I would then import into my DAW. Then I would customize the hell out of the MIDI... just use it as an idea springboard. With these realtracks... not so much.

But that's just me...

All that said, again, it seems great for the singer/songwriter type!

psalad
good balanced post.
let me explain why i started the thread.
there were no nefarious reasons.
the reasons were simple.
over the years ive seen songwriters n friends and small project studios spend lots
on mics/pre's/mixers/software n goodness knows what else.
100k sometimes even.
then spend ages wrestling with doing midi and audio traks.
whereas something like biab could have saved em lots of time and possibly gear money.
eg 10 mics on a drum kit.
ive been there done that n bought the fruit salad..lol.
all the set up time n tuning the drums n running tests etc etc.

of course if one has a big studio and all ones mates are top session
musicians willing to come on over at the drop of a hat its a different story.
but many people dont have such.
or like me they might be somewhere with no gear available in a hotel room
or at a cottage.
for example i get an idea at a cottage.
gotta hook up the gear n the midi keyboard n if the midi kbd goes on the
frotz which happened to me once...well you get the idea.


Draw the Moral
if you read various of my back posts on various gear threads on gs,
youll see i comment on all sorts of gear like mic pre's etc etc.
for example i might suggest someone look at a rane ms1b mic pre.
it dont mean i work for rane. or i might suggest someone look at
a hard drive with a large cache.
it dont mean i work for hard drive manufacturers of such.
recently ive been turned on by a brilliant series of books
cos i'm a cat lover called "the cat who series.." by the author braun.
been telling all my friends bout such.
it dont mean i work for the author.
in summary i purely post bout what i consider highly usefull products.
which ive researched by myself from my deep technical background spanning decades.
i'm beholden to no one cept my lovely wife and conduct my own independent gear reviews.
and i dont listen to what i read in gear mags.
i do my own research.
if someone doubts a recommendation they can always try it.
a good example is way back i posted on the reaper forums bout my acer dual core
el cheapo i got. i warned people their experience might be different.
cos manufacturers change pc components.
some people then bought the machines and were happy.
some people on gs 2 yrs ago told me it was a POS. consumer junk.
my pos has now been running for 2 yrs i think it is with no problems day in/out.
thru 2 albums n tons of other demo songs.
if it conked out tomorrow i cant complain.
i'm happy retired n enjoy doing songs for fun.
but spending hours over midi traks is not my idea of fun.
i like to work fast with a song idea and thats why ive been researching deeply
on products that help with such.

*sigh* Wow man.

Just relax a little bit ok?

You gave me two, separate, lengthy posts just trying to convince me that you don't work for them, and you keep saying you want to have a friendly exchange of ideas. All you had to do was say "No, I don't work for them, I just really like the software."

Listen, we are having a friendly exchange of ideas right now.

No one here is flaming you or insulting you. I'm especially not insulting you. If you somehow think that this thread is flaming, then I don't know what to tell you except maybe go to the Hip Hop forums or something.

You have to understand that people's opinions are going to differ. I've been reading 5 pages of you trying to justify your provocative title in this thread.
So here's the conclusion:

1) BIAB obviously works for you and impresses you. You want others to experience it, and that's great. So make the recommendation casually, state your opinion, and then MOVE ON!

2) For many people, BIAB will not replace their DAW. That's ok in a world with choices. When you make threads with titles like this one, you are going to get dissenting opinions. You could have called this thread "New Band in a Box features!" and it probably would have gotten your point across better. Instead, you chose a title that invites opinions. They are valid opinions, just like yours. Again, state your points, and then MOVE ON. It's really not that serious.

3) This is restatement of point 1. Your experience is different from everyone else's here. So is mine. I'd like to learn from you and whoever I can. It's a lot easier to learn from people when we all, as you say, "have a friendly exchange of ideas." Part of that process means accepting dissenting opinions and....you guessed it....MOVE ON.


/Thread

PS. I'll download the BIAB demo today and give it a shot.

No shit use whatever works for you and move on.

in answer to the OPs initial question...

no my DAW cant do this,

and thankfully - i dont want or need it to......

so i'll be off then.

BYE and have fun......................

Haven't read the whole thread but, yeah, I don't think I've seen any flaming, to speak of.

No matter how much one likes/loves BiaB, I don't think even the latest version is going to replace a DAW for any serious recordists, though it can be a productive adjunct to a DAW for some purposes. And as I noted way earlier, it can be a great tool for songwriting, practicing, etc -- but probably not for everybody.

Downloadable demos are great and probably are the chase that folks should cut to if they're actually interested -- or just morbidly curious. heh


PS... I always tend to think of Manning1's prose style as a sort of old techie blank verse. heh I think Manning is even a little older than me and I suspect he came up on onscreen editors that didn't have niceties like wordwrap... That said, Manning, my brother, at least break things up in to more discrete paragraph groupings -- it will make it lots easier for folks to follow your often intriguing posts. And if you can get into the word-wrap typing flow, I suspect that would help, too.

lets just move on then,
and i would appreciate no more comments questioning
my personal integrity.

for those that are interested ....
for mac folks heres a list of recent updates i came across.
PG Music Inc. - Band-in-a-Box Macintosh Updates

for pc folks..
PG Music Inc. - Band-in-a-Box Windows Updates
as you can see there are a ton of updates.

patch map updates for various synths.
(note some people make their own.)
PG Music Inc. - Patch Map Files

mac...real traks and real drums updates ...
PG Music Inc. - RealDrums and RealTracks Updates for Macintosh

pc...real traks and real drums updates...
PG Music Inc. - RealDrums and RealTracks Updates

realband updates..
PG Music Inc. - RealBand Windows Updates

blue1...yeh i know bout my typing style.
one of my weak points. we all have em..lol.

With the proviso that I have not read nearly everything in this thread, I didn't really see that -- perhaps your enthusiastic championing of a quirky, but worthy underdog may have led a cynic or two who don't know you to wonder -- but you're solid in my book, Manning!

What a strange thread.

Comparing BIAB to a DAW is like comparing a jukebox to a toolkit. For sure I use BIAB to map out a new track and generate keyboard tracks and pads, but as soon as we move into DAW territory I throw away all the drums, bass, guitars and other stuff to put real playing there instead.

You can't replace humanity with something as primitive and unsubtle as BIAB, and you certainly would want to replace your DAW software with it.

I think a real issue is that BIAB is pretty much neither fish nor fowl. There have been a few other attempts at arrangement generators out there, as well as algorithmic composition tools, but certainly none with the legs or level of adoption of BIAB. That said, I strongly suspect that there are a wide range of uses of BIAB, from practice/woodshedding all the way to quasi-DAW-like uses.

(Almost on a side note: one of the coolest little featurettes that I don't think I've ever seen anyone talking about is its ability to map its somewhat complex arrangement-based harmony generation features to the built-in vocal harmonizer utility. Getting the vocal harmonies out of BIAB and into your DAW is not necessarily straightforward, but I used it to create some robo-harmonies that had a level of jazzy complexity I've seldom heard in the obvious robo-harmonies one often hears in pop and contemporary R&B.)

i'm now going to cover some interesting add ons
for biab and other products seperate for example from my perusing.
that might be interesting for some.
that some people might not be aware of.
some only work on win it seems.
1. PG Music Inc. - Songs and Lessons PAK
the songs and lessons pak is loaded with added stuff.
essential riffs n phrases.
midi fakebooks. familiar tunes etc.
master jazz.
duets with miles black.
these are actual lessons by miles black.
master piano n jazz solos.
country guitar solos.
2. PG Music Inc. - Garritan Personal Orchestra
and PG Music Inc. - Garritan Jazz and Big Band Collection
these are orchestral libs.
3. PG Music Inc. - ForteDXi
a high quality inexpensive sample player.
handles gig3 files.
4.PG Music Inc. - GuitarStar Volume 1: Rockin' Riffs
PG Music Inc. - GuitarStar Volume 2: Rockin Riffs for the Beginner
PG Music Inc. - GuitarStar: Brent Mason Country
these guitar star products are lessons by master guitarists.
such as van berkel, brent mason.

there are also many other helpers like..
chord n piano dictionaries.
a product called copyscat a vocal practice method...
here...PG Music Inc. - Copyscat

at the links above just look on the left hand side.
cos i cant cover everything.

PG Music Inc. - Online Store is the main link for checking out details of everything
and add ons etc etc.
there is all sorts of possibly interesting series and tutorials.
oscar peterson for example where you can study what is being performed..
notation etc etc. sor studies in classical guitar.
sax studies etc etc. just click the links.
under products is a full listing of everything.

there is a section called dare to compare.
PG Music Inc. - Demos - Dare To Compare
that gives you an idea of sound differences tween various budget plug in synths.
remember up thread we talked bout "cheesy sounds" ??
solution dont use the built in sound chip in the computer ,
use a good plug in or lib. or an excellent sounding external synth
for midi traks.

if you clik under support...
PG Music Inc. - Support
youll find a ream of faq's n helper ideas and further guides etc etc n tutorials.
there are also specific user forums dedicated to mac and pc users
where lots of long time very experienced and new users hang out.
all kinds of users from retired pro's to new musicians.

next from my own research i'll try n cover some usefull stuff related to realband.
realband is win specific.

ps..blue1...
i'm getting to some stuff further from my own research.
cant cover it all at once.
your correct biab is a chameleon used many different ways by many types of users.
and can be used like a regular daw in conjunction with realband which i will be getting to.
there are some interesting triks with realband from my research.
also how one uses the biab/realband combo.
god bless.

I cant believe this guy is still trying to sell us on this crap..I don't care how many people use it, there are a shit load of hip hop guy's that dont play their own music either...This BIAB would be good for writing and that's it..I don't know one person ...OK one person that plans on their music going public that would use this biab..I don't care if it is real instrument samples/loops being used in it..it still sounds fake, I let my wife hear it for a good laugh at how music is falling apart and she even thought it sounded fake..like my 3 year old daughters Casio keyboard..so I would stop trying to convince people that this thing could replace a DAW..because it CAN NOT..christ..this old Roland dm5 I have had for many, many moons sounds way more real than biab..ughhh..I just cant believe this thread..ooops, I meant ADVERTISEMENT is still going...god, next thing you know there will be some thing called fruity loops that does everything for you also.

You see manning? THAT was a flame.

We were being very nice.

Draw the Moral
re flames etc.
i'm just going to bypass such stuff.
and comment on neat triks ive found out about the products.
next i'm commenting on usefull unique aspects of realband.

what is realband ?? for pc.
realband is like regular daw software , but with some added interesting features
of its own like biab has.
some unique features from what i see.
every manufacturer of course tries to build in unique features.
and there is an advantage to useing it with biab which i will explain.
like biab there is no dongle.
one main difference is it has 48 traks which can be audio and/or midi.
plus it has certain auto features of its own.
there is a interesting feature i understand in useing realband.
viz ..if one uses biab on its own , one has to go thru a bit of a dance to
get traks into ones daw. via export from biab n then import.
if one uses RB however i understand its not such a dance.
one just saves ones biab song.
then load in the biab song file in RB , and bam all the traks
are nicely there seperated on individual traks. so this can be a timesaver.
people earlier mentioned free form creation.
this is where you could do such extensively.
plus RB has its own fx suite.
heres a summary of features from the demo which ive tried.
(there is a summary manual with the demo.)

Intelligent automatic accompaniment.
RealTracks and RealDrums – automatic live instrument parts.
Audio Chord Wizard interprets chords from audio files.
48-track MIDI/audio mixer with multiple FX busses (up to 16 effects per track).
Support for popular audio file formats – MP3, WMA, WMV, WAV, and CDA.
Built-in DirectX audio effects.
DirectX and VST plug-ins supported.
Band-in-a-Box files load directly.
Compatible with all Band-in-a-Box styles and Real instruments.
Shares native .SEQ file type with PowerTracks Pro Audio, directly compatible.
Support for MIDI and Karaoke files.
Karaoke lyrics window.
Piano roll window with graphic controller editing.
Onscreen notation and lead sheet style printout.
Virtual guitar fretboard and piano keyboard.

some things i would like to point out.
some of the most extensive midi editing features ive seen.
you dont necessarily need a midi keyboard.
there are various arranger settings.
notation editing is included.
after importing a biab song you can keep it as is or regenerate
to create new ideas.
if you clik on the styelepicker all your styles are neatly in one place for useage.
one major point i would like to make is the bars window that makes it very easy to move chunks of midi data around. lead sheets are supported.
it includes the audio chord wizard.
one can do things like split midi drums to their own traks.
there is also an auto back up feature.
which i understand has rescued more than one user
recording a live client band.
some people on the forums have called the fx plug ins world class for audio traks.
i can verify that they are very low resource useage plug ins as they are the
same as the ones in powertraks that i use and which i also use in reaper.
this could save some people money buying extra plug ins.
once again you can generate drum variations , fills and accents.
time stretch and pitch shift is included.
one other feature i would like to point out is hi resolution ppqn .
up to 3840 ppqn.
micro resolutions.
there is an option to use a frontier tranzport.
one thing ive not seen in another daw is a midi guitar clean up wizard.
this is for users of midi guitars.
there is an option to play gm drums from the computer keyboard.
a guitar tuner is built in for guitar n bass but can be used with other instruments.
one feature i really like is something called midi monitor.
this is a very detailed module that helps trak down/diagnosis of any midi problems one might have.
ive seen many posts on gs where people have had such problems.
this is the tool that would help with such.
or lets say there is a problem with a midi file someone has imported
from some third party that needs to be checked out.
you can slide midi or transpose it and a ton of other features.
rechannel, eliminate note overlaps,randomise,split piano trak into
left and right on traks,drum grid editor,tempo changes,
midi/mtc sync(various frame rates), sysex handling, lyrics window.
there is even a nice real time analyser for audio traks.
as a little freebie extra they include a vinyl tool for cleaning up old records.
some users ive seen have said its very effective apparently.
declik/decrackle/denoise etc.

in summary my judgement is this is very serious daw software
with many features of biab also.
a manual is available with the demo which covers things much more extensively
than i can.

ps..instead of some people posting comments on things they have never tried.
just refrain and bypass the thread.
i'm just trying to open peoples minds to other solutions available
which they might find usefull.

I think we get it Manning my friend ... ... cool program.

BIAB is not a DAW. PG music doesn't even call it a DAW.

lawrence.
well actually mate these products from what ive seen
reading various user posts at pg are used in lots of different ways.
this is why i call them chameleon type products.
for example some biab users seem to make nice money live gigging,
useing biab as the back up band while they sing and
play an instrument to the accompaniment.
then others useing it in lots of different ways.

then there are others who think in the following fashion.

ie..sorta a song is like a house.
you got the original plans then things
are built up layer by layer.
so something like auto accompany could be used for getting ideas down fast
n trying out different arrange ideas fast.
then once this phase is done decide what one wants to keep or not
and add further layers and then ones live upfront traks.
like final lead vocs etc etc.

as i understand it if one gets biab for win,
then realband daw is included.
thats a pretty decent deal imho.
given the low price of entry.

if one is on mac then there is the new biab for mac that loads of
mac users have been pushing for that were on biab 12 for mac before.
in fact if you view the threads some were quite heated regarding how long
the mac user base had to wait. well finally its out for mac.
then one would import the biab traks into a mac daw if one wanted.
eg dp or pt or logic or whatever like some mac users have done in the past.

fyi..and you might not agree (lol.)...a long while back
i put in a FR for reaper to have a basic auto accomapany
feature. sorta like a chord trak.
so one entered chords n midi would be auto generated.
to save all the time spent creating midi traks.
if you notice on the pg and reaper forums some people are useing biab
and then importing into reaper the traks.
it looks like i'll be doing the same.
biab or realband generation then into reap.

as you know i really enjoy reaper and am an avid user.
done 2 albums in it with my songwritin pardner.
we enjoy doing bonkers songs lol.
but if reaper had this feature it would save me money getting
the biab/realband combo.

i'm also keeping my eye on magix music studio based on samp.
i have an earlier version here which ive had for years,
and have much respect for considering it cost a pittance.
and am watching developments in case magix decide to do something further in this area.
main reason being the cheap 80 buk music studio has worked like reap
and powertraks on any pc ive tried it on , even crappiest ones.
i once loaded it on a friends really awfull p3 laptop ,
a totally screwed up laptop and it ran like a champ.

ps..contrary to what some might believe i keep a completely open mind.
but being ret'd i have to be mindfull of budget.
for other family reasons.

Speaking of which.... I hope that situation has improved.

Of course it's ridiculous to think this could replace living, breathing musicians ...

but If I want to SlapChop something together, print charts, and have the WHOLE band on the same page by noon, well, why the hell not?

Too much seriousness :: lots of room to accommodate any style or type of workflow. It isn't about replacing the spark - more like having air tools instead of ratchet & socket, when time is of the essence.