What do you guys think of Band In A Box?

[Colleen]

Hi, just heard of Band In A Box recently and checked it out online--it may sound a bit canned to me--but not sure whether I'm missing what could be a great tool to flesh out an arrangement--any thoughts from you would be appreciated )
Thnx--Colleen

[funsongs]

Wish I knew how to use it - IMHO, from a few I've heard - (both of them collaborative efforts on my song projects) - very convincing and a good tool for DEMO purposes.
I'll defer to other opinions whether or not it works well for pitching 'original' songs & cues.
Hope that helps - your mileage may vary.

Seriously - if you'd like to hear those two songs, and assess the quality of the instrument tracks, send me your email via a PM, please -
I'll send you the mp3 tracks - let me know what you think.

In case you're new to this format - hold the cursor over funsongs beneath my avatar photo - left click one time;
that should open up the Private Message (PM) option.

Cheers.

[philsmith]

Hi Colleen,

I've used BIAB since its creation. It's a wonderful tool. But it's inclined toward jazz and the verse/chorus structure of American Popular Song. If you don't understand what I just said, it's probably not for you. It's great if you want to woodshed soloing over some standard. But if you're a songwriter using current song structure, like verse verse chorus verse chorus bridge you'll have to unroll the whole thing. And make sure to uncheck the box about embellishments, or the piano player will use some hip substitutions.

It's also great if you want to practice comping, you can mute any instrument. And it will actually create some pretty credible improvisations. I've been known to input song parts into BIAB, export a MIDI file, import it into my DAW, and copy/paste the parts there. Then replace the parts one at a time. All in all it's a great tool.

[LamarPecorino]

Hi Colleen:

I have used PG Music software for many years. BIAB and RealBand are excellent tools. Groove 3 makes a very good training video for BIAB. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of music are you writing and producing? BIAB handles some kinds of music better than others.

[Len911]

Have you looked into Magix ACId Pro? I would say that it probably fits between band ina box and most daws. The advantages would be less clutter, the ability to use your own samples, the ability to edit your samples...much more versatile imo.
The disadvantage of bnb is that the samples' phrases are pretty much locked into their styles.

[Kolstad]

I use it in the Digitech Trio+ pedal. That is BiB in a guitar pedal. Great for developing ideas, practicing and much more. You can record a temp track with it, and then develop a recording, interchanging each part. I love it, very helpful tool.

[Colleen]

Hi Colleen:

I have used PG Music software for many years. BIAB and RealBand are excellent tools. Groove 3 makes a very good training video for BIAB. If you don't mind me asking, what kind of music are you writing and producing? BIAB handles some kinds of music better than others.

Thanks, Lamar and others for these replies
-- to answer your query, I usually do Singer Songwriter tracks, with and without vocals, but am starting to venture into HipHop as well.

[LamarPecorino]

I usually do Singer Songwriter tracks, with and without vocals, but am starting to venture into HipHop as well.

For Singer/Songwriter material, it should work fine. BIAB and RealBand works well for many production styles. I don't think that it will be particularly useful for Hip Hop. There are certainly DAW programs that are more adept at loop and sample based productions that BIAB/RealBand.

If you would like a more detailed answer as to how I use BIAB and RealBand, then PM me and I'll share my approach.

[cosmicdolphin]

Many of the most awful tracks I ever heard turned out to be folks using BIAB to make their music.

Horrendous cookie cutter, unconvincing sounding and poorly produced tracks. I did demo it about 10yrs ago and it wasn't for me.

How much that says about BIAB and how much it says about the people using incorrectly I don't know..Perhaps it tends to attract a less musically skilled type of songwriter as it's target audience.

Persoanlly I think you'd get much better results with stuff like EZkeys, EZDrummer , Kontakt etc. There are some great Sounding Kontakt Libraries..although that's not to say you can't use them all together.

Mark

[Casey H]

I use it and it's a great tool for writing and fleshing out ideas. I agree it's not for final productions.

What I love about it is the ease of laying out chords, measures, key, tempo and making changes during writing. It's especially good if you don't play an instrument or are not good at recording one. My assumption there is after you lay out the rough song, you would have it produced by a collaborator or hired producer.

cosmicdolphin: The newer versions have way better sound quality with a lot of real samples available.

I can share some recent backing tracks I've done for roughly laying out songs.

HTH!
Casey