The Steel Guitar Forum

Just for fun, how do you use BIAB?

I'll go first. I use BIAB as my rhythm section in our Church Praise band. I simply could / can not get enough live musicians that will commit on a regular basis. I normally just use drums, bass and guitar from BIAB.

I have also created wav files from the BIAB tracks and imported them into Audaity. Works great.

I set up the songs that I want to do in the Service, place the laptop audio out into the sound board, hit the play button and away we go.

Let us know what you do with it.

David

My companion and I use BIAB rhythm tracks to entertain at senior homes. I make up and customize the tracks to suit our style of music which is "Music from the Good Ol' Days".

I also import the tracks into PT Pro 12 and make our own CDs for sale. They pay for the gas, etc.

A few things about Biab tracks are;
- The musicians are there and always ready and on time.
- They don't complain about the key we're playing in.
- No band instruments to haul and set-up.
- No battle of the volumes to contend with.

We would love to use live musicians, but the homes don't have the $$$$$, and the pay is on a charity level as it is. Another thing is, many musicians will not do charity work. With the thousands of $$$ invested in equipment, I can hardly blame them

Although, charity work has turned up some good gigs.

Joe

I use Band-in-a-box, as back up,for instrumentals and Karaoke. I go to Birthday partys, reunions,restaurants, any where that will have me . I try to get $50.00 just to show up. But when I do Karaoke which has become very popular,since american idol.I take my Boss digital recorder with CD burner and record there song they are singing Live for $10.00 for one song,$20.00 for three songs.Burned to a CD. Also I sell some of my CD'S.

I'm using BIAB to ramp up my playing - it's working too.
Dan

I use it mostly for backing tracks for practicing steel.Drums,bass and rhythm guitar..
I also use drums and sometimes bass for recording originals..
Great tool for composing..

I do a gig 4 times a summer where I play outside for a farmer's market and provide ambient music. I've sequenced country standards on BIAB and play along with them with my steel going thru my Evans amp and the band going thru a Nashville 400. I keep the volume low for the vendors sakes and nobody hassles me. It's a startling contrast from usual club dates and I really look forward to it every summer. Last ones this weekend.

I use it for practice and song writing and stage once in a while for our seniors program here as well....technology aint it great... But I hope it never fully replaces Live playing with other great and talented musicians.......

All instruments except PSG and Lead guitar are BIAB. Brought the tracks into audacity, recorded the voices and PSG as well as lead guitar. Did all of the mixing in audacity.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVKSI-eCEcI

What do you think?

Nice track David, well done

I use it for songwriting and for recording demos.

Also, I've used it for backing tracks in steel circle jams.

I use BB when I play MIDI-solo gigs. I build the song first in BB and save as a MIDI file. I next open it up in Anvil Studio for the "real work." This can include making sure I have full snare hits on intros/bridges/outtros and rim or side sticks during verses. I will also drop all instruments except for drums, bass and rhythm guitar and maybe piano if it isn't too invasive. Any bass line re-writes are done as well as rhythm shots.

Sometimes this is a real quick process and other times you may want to just start from scratch. I do like the quick build with BB and the initial effects.
I've never used used all the insruments because the styles can get a bit busy and step on melodies and guitar parts.

I do this quite often when gigs come up that don't have room for a band or the band wouldn't fit the venue. Sometimes I may run out of my laptop headphone Jack into the PA and other times I'll use my Korg sound module if I plan on staying awhile...It has better sounds in my opinion.

My next trick will be to use Power Tracks to build Set CD's and attempt the volume matching features. Sometimes BB songs can very quite a bit in volume depending on the style.

Tom