The Steel Guitar Forum

When I was at the Dallas show last year I was able to catch David Wright and JayDee jamming to Band-In-A-Box tunes in the MSA room. The back-up sounded great . Since then I've been considering buying BIAB but I can't figure out where to start.

What level BIAB do you need to purchse?

Where can you get all those great Country tunes? ......I"m not interested in any packages that are heavy on rock, pop, etc....just country, and swing.

Tony Glassman wrote:When I was at the Dallas show last year I was able to catch David Wright and JayDee jamming to Band-In-A-Box tunes in the MSA room. The back-up sounded great . Since then I've been considering buying BIAB but I can't figure out where to start.

What level BIAB do you need to purchse?

Where can you get all those great Country tunes? ......I"m not interested in any packages that are heavy on rock, pop, etc....just country, and swing.

Hi Tony, yes BIAB is a great tool. You can go here: http://www.pgmusic.com/store.htm to see all the different ways to purchase this product. There are both "songs" and "styles" that can be used in BIAB. The songs are just that - programmed songs with all the "parts" (instruments) assigned and the chords and maybe a melody ready to play.

The "styles" are a means of you (or someone else) starting with a basic style of music - building a chord chart and then playing that file in BIAB. There are now thousands of styles for all types of music. The best value is to simply buy the complete package and toss what you will never use.

However, you can buy a "basic" set and then add "style sets" that contain the styles you want to play. Problem is that except for two or three of these sets the country styles disks are only a part of several types of styles. If you start buying separate style sets outside of the complete package it can add up very quickly.

Also, while you may not think that R&R or "blues" styles will be something you want after you have used the program a while you will start to find ways that they work within a country tune.

Only you know what your budget and time will allow. My advice is, if you know that this is something you will use as much a many of us do - get the hard drive option for BIAB 2009.5.

If you are not sure - get the basic version and play with it awhile and then upgrade directly to the MEGA PAK when $$$ and time are right.

One thing to know is that BIAB is a MIDI software program. The sounds (instruments) are created with either a software(DXi or VSTi) or hardware (soundcard or interface. There can be a huge difference in the quality of the sound (real or not real) in the interface you use.

So if you use the sound card that came with your computer is will sound rathery "cheezy". Using a high quality sound card or separate MIDI modual will sound close to the real thing.

BIAB now has built in Audio files that are prerecorded "licks" and can add to the realistic sound but they take a newer PC with a lot of RAM.

Blessings, Bo

PS there is a BIAB TOPIC on this site that will help you greatly as you progress.

Gary....thanks for the detailed response. I notice there's something called BIAB Realtracks which actually sound like instruments rather than that annoying "midi-keyboard" sound.

It seemd like the guys in Dallas had a huge library of country Realtrack tunes. Are there any steelers who are selling of large tune compilations of this type?

Tony Glassman wrote:Gary....thanks for the detailed response. I notice there's something called BIAB Realtracks which actually sound like instruments rather than that annoying "midi-keyboard" sound.

It seemd like the guys in Dallas had a huge library of country Realtrack tunes. Are there any steelers who are selling of large tune compilations of this type?

I don't know of anyone selling "large tune compilations. However; any tune that is in MIDI can be "Regenerated" into a song using RealTracks.

RealTracks is a creation of Peter Gannon of PGMusic, the creator of BIAB. He developed a way to have real session musicians play short (one, two three, four up to eight beats {{two measures}} of live music and record those into .wav type files.

He then devised a way to have MIDI notes "trigger" those wave files based on the notes in a typical MIDI file (like the cheezy MIDI piano).

So, the Real tracks are just very short wave files played in a certain key at a certain tempo. The program is smart enough to transpose the note and to some degree the tempo to match what any song calls for with the MIDI notes.

So, you CAN import any MIDI song out there into BIAB, assign a RealTrack instrument to that track and Presto-Magic you have a song. Each time you "Regenerate" a track it will choose from a "pool" of recorded licks. So you can get different variations of the same song. RealTracks are not a versital as pure MIDI but can add realisim to your song.

Personally, I find that using the RealDrums the best use of this feature. The strumming guitar RT's are good but the rest get old rather quick (especially the Pedal Steel).

Peter has a lock on creating RealTracks at the moment but I suspect that some future version will allow anyone to create (record) their own Real Track wave files to be used within the program.

I think you would be amazed at how well a standard BIAB MIDI song can sound comming from a High Quality MIDI Sound Module. I use a Roland VS3080 sound module and most can not tell it from the real thing. Expensive , yes; but in the world of audio you do get what you pay for IMHO.

Hope this helps, Blessings, bo

As mentioned about, the secret to having BIAB sound good is your playback equipment. I play my MIDI tracks back through an Edirol unit and they sound great. I have been complimented on the sound of the bass but that can be attributed to the quality of the speakers. I play back through a pair of Peavey enclosures with 15" speakers in addition to some tweeters.

Contact bigjim4b@sbcglobal.net- our resident BIAB guru. He sells BIAB along with 5000 preset songs and is a steel guitar maniac.

Don't get confused on the "Real Tracks". Real Tracks are mostly lead instruments sounds.....except for the Real Drums. I do like the Real Drums better than the standard midi drums. To create basic accompaniment tracks, the basic version of BIAB will do it just fine. I would expect the tracks you heard the guys playing to are just basic BIAB tracks. It will give you drums, bass, piano, some guitar rhythm, etc... They provide a Roland software sync with BIAB that does a great job. As stated before, play it through a stereo set up with decent speakers. The speakers on the computer are just designed to say "you've got mail" etc.... Have fun.