Hi,

MY friend loves my PSR 2000 pretty much and he only has a MIDI Keyboard in his bed room ... He knows that Band in the box can do something similiar to PSR 2000. But If he doesn't need to play live, does Band in the box stronger than PSR ?

Cowby

Band-In-a-Box (BB) does something very quick that no arrangers can do, but that's all. If you want to quickly generate a midi song, you just enter the chord, tell BB where to switch between intro, var 1, var 2, and ending and it will go and play the song or create the midi file - perfectly! Too perfect for me - no expression, etc. I don't know about the newest, but for up to version 9.0, you can't change the accomp parts. If a style has 4 parts (drum, bass, guitar, string), then you have to live with it. I'll let others add more comments to this...

..rb

For a horn player BIAB is the best tool I own. I can do Bossa, Jazz, anything in a couple of minutes put in the chords choose a style and blow. I can start slow and than progress to tempos myself or no-one else can play at. My playing has improved using BIAB. Great for practing and BIAB makes it fun.

I also have a few songs converted from BIAB to midi that I can play and use live. However, the arranger is better for live performance. You're playing something. An instrument.

Do any other horn players here agree?

I own BIAB v.11, which can import any midi file and generate a lead sheet from it (chords and single melody line), which is very handy. But the best thing about BIAB is that you can enter the chords from a song into it (especially from "fake books") and generate accompaniment midi files, which is great for entertainers who want to create backing tracks for their gigs. Once the chords are entered, you can try out hundreds of music styles to the chords you've entered. Also there are libraries of BIAB files available on the web. This takes a lot of the work out of creating midi files. From there, it is possible to use other sequencer programs to "humanize" the tracks and add some real-musician accents or replacement tracks. Hint, hint guys... you don't have to use BIAB-generated midi files raw... you can do a lot if you just use these as a starting place instead of an ending place for creating midi music.

This is entirely different from what an arranger keyboard does, which basically allows you to play chords in real-time to accompaniment. This is better for writing music on the fly and being spontaneously creative. Comparing BIAB to a PSR2000 is a bit like comparing apples to pears. Both have their advantages. BIAB is relatively cheap so you can't go wrong owning it. It has a permanent place in my toolbox.

Esh

http://www.mp3.com/esh

My thoughts exactly Esh. Version 11 also has enhancements to the style creator as well. I like Jazz and BIAB seems oriented towards Jazz in general ( although all of the major genres are represented ). Ditto on the enhancements in a sequencer. I don't usually care for all of the arrangements that BIAB gives me, but enhanced in a sequencer, they tend to come out better. One method I use is to generate something in BIAB, save it to a midifile, and then import it into Jammer Pro ( another auto accomp program that functions in dfferent ways than BIAB but has some similarities as well ). Jammer has an excellent "humanize" feature and a sequencer. It generates tracks based on algorithims and / or user entered step note data with a chord pallete similar to BIAB. I can use the sequencer in Jammer to record the pieces I want to play in real time too. Both softwares are relatively inexpensive, so they were worth purchasing to me.

Back to the BIAB styles and the style creator. Like an arranger, BIAB uses recorded midi data in its' styles. Where it differs is that BIAB allows for several "sub variations " within a variation. The sub variations will play randomly depending on the weight value ( 1-9 ) assigned to them. In this way the notes in a BIAB style will change and the styles aren't as repetitive.

As far as a good arranger though, for me, nothing replaces the spontaneity of being able to call up chord changes in real time on the fly when I'm playing with ideas, so all of these things have a place in my studio.

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 05-29-2002).]