Band-in-a-Box 12 for OS X is here and includes many new and improved features. The Latest Version of Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh is built for OS X.
Playing alone can be a lonely experience, BandInABox is state-of-the-art accompaniment software that gives you the chance to play along with a backing band. The software is infinitely extensible as you can load up MIDI files, and then generate backings where YOU decide on the tempo. Perfect if you find those accompaniment CD's are just too fast! Plus, you need never buy more than this one piece of software to benefit from the millions of MIDI files already available, and being added to daily. In addition, you can quickly create your own backing tracks from any sheet music, in a huge variety of styles, simply by typing in the chords. PLUS Band-in-a-Box is a fantastic intuitive composition tool which will soon have you creating your own songs and pieces to play along with. Or.... Get IT ALL!! Check out the fabulous Band In A Box MegaPAK, which contains over £1000 worth of extras (when purchased individually) for just £179. With the Band In A Box MegaPAK, you get Band in a Box PLUS all the style sets PLUS all the soloist sets PLUS all the melodist sets PLUS the MIDI fakebook PLUS instructional video......
Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh can now be supercharged with the introduction of the new program "GarageBand" for Mac OS X. You can take any Band-in-a-Box song. and with a few simple steps, import that song into GarageBand so that you can utilize its stunning sounds and effects.
BandInABox - Product Details
The award-winning Band-in-a-Box is incrediby easy to use! Just type in the chords for any song using standard chord symbols (like C, Fm7 or C13b9), choose the style you'd like, and Band-in-a-Box does the rest. Band-in-a-Box automatically generates a complete professional quality arrangement of piano, bass, drums, guitar and strings in a wide variety of popular styles. (Jazz, Pop, Country, Classical and more.)
Build up your tempo gradually, and greatly improve your ability to listen to other parts as you play, developing the skills you need to go and play live with other musicians.
Uses your existing Multimedia setup:
No external sound source or MIDI System required. Band-in-a-Box plays through any Windows compatible Sound Card (also QuickTime, external MIDI modules, etc.).
Band-in-a-Box Pro 2004 - ideal as a standalone music creation tool or as a complementary product to your favourite music software including: Finale, PrintMusic, Sibelius, Cakewalk SONAR, Home Studio, Music Creator etc., Steinberg Cubase VST, Cubase SX, Cubase SL, Cubasis etc.
"..one of the few music products that sits in the 'must have' category." Sound on Sound
- Packed with features for musicians, songwriters & music students
- Automatically generate professional quality solos - includes 100 Soloists!
- Record melodies using the built-in sequencer or step-time entry
- View/edit the music and lyrics in piano roll or music notation
- Automatically generate complete songs from scratch, including chords, melodies, intro, & even a song title!
- Harmonise the melody or play along with harmonies in real-time
- Create and edit new songs, Styles, Harmonies, Melodists and Soloists
- Reads and writes Standard MIDI files (.MID) so you can transfer your work from/to other music programs
- Supports General MIDI (GM/GS), sound cards and non-GM modules/ synthesisers
- Add-on disks available for Styles, Soloists, Melodists, Harmonies and more!
- MIDI File Chord Interpretation Wizard learn the Chords to any MIDI file.
- Guitar Styles - These are the best sounding guitar styles ever!
- Style Changes at any Bar - Use many styles within the same song.
- Melody Embellisher - Change the timing to add syncopation, change durations to achieve staccato or legato playing, add grace notes, slurs, extra notes, vibrato and other effects.
- Automatic Guitar Chord Solos to any Song - Generates a chord solo on guitar for any song, using the same guitar chords that the pros use.
- Guitar Tutor - Show the chords for any song on the virtual guitar fretboard.
- Chord Substitution Wizards - Chord substitutions are instantly displayed for you.
- Chord Preview/Builder - Instantly hear how any chord sounds.
- Drum Brushes - Available for QuickTime® users.
- Style Selection Enhancements - Selecting a style has been made much easier.
- Jazz Up the Chords, Jazz Down the Chords Change the chords from Pop/Rock chords to Jazz type chords.
- Convert Harmony Part to Notation track See it and print it out.
- Harmony enhancements Harmonies sound better.
- Add your own chord shortcuts - Found a chord that BB doesnt recognise?
- Song Endings Option - Results in more natural endings for many songs.
- Six Channel Guitar files - Supported in Version 11 so that these types of files can be played back perfectly.
NEW FEATURES IN 2004 EDITION
MIDI File Chord Interpretation Wizard. Many people who play music by ear think of songs in terms of Chords and Melody. But so 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 into Band-in-a-Box, and Band-in-a-Box will automatically figure out the chords of the song for you. It automatically analyses the MIDI file, figures out where the bass, piano, melody and other tracks are, and then figures out the chord changes for the song. The chords are written onto the Band-in-a-Box chordsheet like any other song. This allows you to quickly learn how to play a song from a MIDI file just read it into Band-in-a-Box and youll see the chord symbols, and then learn the Melody! You can also read in tracks to the Melody and Soloist tracks.
Guitar Styles. Would you like to hear some realistic, accurate MIDI guitar from Band-in-a-Box styles, with strumming, picking, and accurate fret fingering? YouLL get them with Version 11: Guitar Styles are styles that show strummed and picked guitar parts accurately on the guitar fretboard (and they sound great.) These styles also play accurate guitar voicings, in your choice of Pop, Jazz, Country or Folk guitar chording. Theres even a walking guitar comping style that plays guitar which emulates the famous Basie Big Band jazz style. The Guitar Styles play like any regular style, and when you view them on the virtual guitar fretboard you can see exactly which strings and frets are used so it is a great learning tool as well. You can also make your very own Guitar Styles using the StyleMaker feature, with options such as guitar style (Jazz /Pop, etc.), strumming speed, picking patterns and more!
Style Changes at any Bar. Previously, only one style could be chosen per song. Now you can specify a new style at any bar of the song, so that you can use many styles within the same song.
Melody Embellisher. When a musician sees a leadsheet that has a melody written out, he/she would almost never play it exactly as written. They would change the timing to add syncopation, change durations to achieve staccato or legato playing, add grace notes, slurs, extra notes, vibrato and other effects. Now you can have Band-in-a-Box do these automatically using the Embellisher. If you enable the Embellisher, any Melody will get embellished as it is played, so that you hear a livelier and realistic Melody and its different every time. The Embellisher is only active while the music is playing, it doesnt permanently affect the Melody track. There is an option to make the embellishment permanent, so that if you like a certain embellishment, you can add it to the Melody track. This is especially useful to spice up songs that have been entered in step time, with robotic-like velocities and durations of notes using the Embellisher makes it sound like a person was playing instead of a computer!
Load in any song with a Melody into Band-in-a-Box (or generate a song with a melody). Then open the Guitar Window and Press the Auto-Generate Chord Solo button. Band-in-a-Box then generates a chord solo on guitar for that song, using the same guitar chords that the pros use. Chord types can be selected to use standard, advanced, or embellished chords. The chord solo plays on the correct positions on the guitar window, so you can see the performance played on guitar. Or view it in notation, or TAB, and print it out! For the guitar chord-melody soloing, there are even special types of voicings have been added which emulate the great Canadian Jazz Guitarists Lenny Breau and Ed Bickert, as well as the famous open voicings often employed by the legendary Johnny Smith.
Automatic Guitar Chord Solos to any Song! Now you can easily make and learn a professional quality guitar chord solo to your favourite song!
Guitar Tutor. Use the new Guitar Tutor to analyse 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 favourite Band-in-a-Box tune.
Chord Substitution Wizards. Reharmonizing a song with the new Chord Substitution Wizard is a fun and educational way to perform or practice a familiar song in a brand new way. This feature is very easy to use; simply highlight an area of chords and select Chord Substitution, and the possible chord substitutions are instantly displayed for you. For example, if you had chords such as Dm7 G7 Cmaj7, a list of substitutions including the tritone substitution Dm7 Db7b5 Cmaj7 would be offered to you for use in your song. There are also helpful comments associated with each substitution, showing you why a given substitution might work in each case (e.g. is the melody compatible with the substitution, etc.). Or you can enable the Auto-Substitution feature, and the substitutions will be selected according to the general pre-set preferences.
Chord Preview/Builder. Now you can right-click on any chord to instantly hear how it sounds, or use the Chord Builder feature to audition different chords until you find the one that sounds best to you. In other words, you can enter chords by ear without having to know the actual chord names or any music theory. This feature also illustrates the differences between various chord types.
Drum Brushes available for QuickTime® users (QuickTime 6 required). If you use QuickTime for sounds in Band-in-a-Box, you can now hear drum brushes for the styles within Band-in-a-Box that use drum brushes. Also, QuickTime users can benefit from the improved sound sets found in QuickTime 6.
FreeMIDI support added For users who prefer FreeMIDI (from MOTU) to OMS, you can now select FreeMIDI as a choice of MIDI Driver.
Balloon Help added, so that you can see context appropriate help for many on-screen items.
Support for larger screen sizes has been added, so that the program will fill the entire screen, as well as options to restrict the screen size to a certain size.
Option for MIDI files to contain Chord-Names META event.
Style Selection Enhancements. Selecting a style to use for your song has been made much easier, and more fun! When you open the new StylePicker Window, it shows you which styles would work best in your song, highlighting all styles that have a similar tempo, genre, and feel to your song. And you can preview styles before loading them so you can hear what theyLL sound like in your song. The window remembers the style and genre that youve used, and will return to it the next time you visit the window.
Jazz Up the Chords, Jazz Down the Chords. When switching genres (from Pop to Jazz, or Jazz to Pop), its often necessary to change the chords from Pop/Rock chords (C) to Jazz type chords (Like CMaj7). Now you can quickly do this by new menu options called Jazz Up, Jazz Down.
Convert Harmony Part to Notation track. Previously if you added a harmony the harmony parts wouldnt be seen on the notation, you would only see the lead part. Now you can write the harmony part directly to the notation track, so you can see it and print it out, just like any other part.
Harmony enhancements. You can specify a harmony to only occur for notes longer than a certain duration. And there are new options for how the program fixes the harmony when chord changes occur during a sustained note harmony. And theres a use guitar voicings harmony type that uses real guitar chord voicings that display correctly on the guitar fretboard. Weve enhanced the existing harmonies file to take advantage of these new features, so your harmonies will sound better.
Solo Around the Melody option. Theres a new option for the Soloist part to create a solo around the melody to solo at times when the Melody is silent.
Add your own chord shortcuts. Have you found a chord that BB doesnt recognise? If so, add it to the your chord shortcuts file, and BB will allow you to type in that chord in the future. This also lets you define chord shortcuts, one letter abbreviations for longer chord names (J for Maj7, etc.)
Read in Chords from a PowerTracks or Band-in-a-Box MIDI file. Many of PG Musics programs have MIDI files with the chords in them. You can open these files in Band-in-a-Box, and the chords will be imported onto the chord sheet.
Song Endings option. The usual Band-in-a-Box ending is 2 bars appended to the end of the song. This new option gives you an alternative to end the song on the last bar of the song, BB will still play an ending on the chord that you specify, and the ending will occur as a 2 bar phrase beginning 2 bars before the end of the form. This results in more natural endings for many songs.
Total time for song in Minutes and seconds are now displayed at the top of the screen (e.g. 4:58)
Polyphonic adjust of Melody tracks. This function will convert a polyphonic track to a monophonic track by eliminating note overlap, optionally preserving the double stops (chords) in the track.
If a song has an intro, its usually not necessary to play the 2 bar lead-in count. Theres a new option to always OMIT the lead-in if an intro is present.
Six Channel Guitar files. MIDI guitar performances for Rock or Country involving bends and slides sound best when output on 6 MIDI channels at once (i.e. a separate channel for each string). This mode is fully supported in Version 11 so that these types of files can be played back perfectly. The Master Country Guitar Solos files are good examples of the need for this feature.
And many other handy features, including...
- When importing a MIDI file to the Melody track, there is now an option to merge the data with the existing track.
- The StylePicker window now has a Play Style Demo option that plays the demo song for any given PG Music style.
- Many Band-in-a-Box styles employ drum brushes-kit sounds. If your soundcard doesnt support brushes, you can use a new option that will correctly play the brushkit styles on a regular drum kit instead (by remapping the notes).
- There is now the option to turn local back on when you leave the program, so that your MIDI keyboard can be heard.
- Choose which tracks get written to the MIDI File. By muting tracks option clicking on the track name at the top of the screen you can decide which tracks get written to the MIDI file. Any track that is muted is excluded from the MIDI file.
- Option to eliminate 2 bar count-in from the MIDI file. If you dont want a MIDI file that contains the first 2 bars of the 1-2-1234 count-in, you can select this option, and the MIDI file will begin directly at bar 1 without the count-in.
- Animated Drum Window Enhancements. The popular drum window has been enhanced. The drums that you play now show up in green (the computer played drums are red). 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. The drums can be moved off-screen without snapping back to the middle.
- Melodist Enhancements. The Melodist feature creates songs with chords and melodies. Weve enhanced it so that it can now create Bebop tunes and Jazz Ballads.
- You can also specify the note range for a created Melody.
- Lead-in Enhancements. The familiar 1-2-1234 count-in has been enhanced. You can now select any drum instrument for the count in. You can choose different count-in rhythms (e.g. Tap on 2 and 4 instead of 1234). Theres a new smart lead-in option to not play the drum count-in if a melody lead-in has begun.
- The JukeBox now has a Song Preview mode. This will optionally play just one chorus of each song, or will play a settable # of bars of each song (e.g. 16 bars).
- The Patch File (.PAT) file limit has been expanded to include 2,000 patches, and we include a .PAT file for the SC8850 with 1,800 patches!
- There are handy hot keys for transposing the Melody or Soloist up/down one octave (Ctrl 1,2,3,4)
- The Insert MIDI Chord command works for beat 2 and 4 (by pressing Ctrl-Shift-Enter)
- The Send GM/GS/XG Mode on messages now all send the Current BB Patches (unless the shift key is held down). The reset of the Roland modules is now much faster.
- The StylePicker is now enhanced with a Style Filter this shows only partially/fully compatible styles.
- And Much More!
System Requirements:
The Latest Version of Band-in-a-Box for Macintosh is built for OS X. NOTE: This version is OS X-ONLY. It will not run in Mac Classic Mode (OS 9.x and earlier).
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