Band in a Box to an arranger, is like a Workstation to an arranger, in that there are many overlaps, but they are designed for different jobs.

Band in a Box:
Great for projects, waste of time for on the fly backing.

Workstation:
Great for voice manipulation and real time control, waste of time for making and using styles.

Arranger:
Great easy play features and backing for OMB waste of time for any serious project work due their inflexibility.

Programmable real time control and easy operation of advanced editing is a must for project work, as is a highly flexible (And predictable) backing track creator. (A limited NTT (As in an arranger) is of no use whatsoever)

Bill

Basically, I agree, as far as it goes, but there are super styles and solos that some would want to use. If so, one could quickly copy the chords from existing charts and change any that are undesirable.

Dan:
Thanks so much for remembering one of your first customers.

I am still not a big fan of full keyboard mode on an arranger as it still forces you to play in a certain way... So i prefer either using a chordsequencer, a midifile or Biabox..

I can assign BiaB to any VST or AU that i want to...
Also most of the latest styles are fully audio...

Its just a matter of prefference...

Biabox, or an arranger with chordsequencer are also a very welcome tool for people playing their piano lessons that want a fun backing, it just takes half a minute to create a bakcing ..

Also for singers, its a great tool.
Same goes for guitarists, works much better for guitarists then an arranger.


While i agree mostly with your opinion, its very obvious the opinion of a pro and gigging musician... In the end however, it is nice to have all these 3 in a single setup.. All for their own reasons.

What I noticed and would be super cool in an classic arranger too is the fact that the chord sequence (example CM-Am-GM-GM7) is played slightly different the second time around, compared to the first time... Some elements of the orchestration seem to play kind of independently, that gives almost like random (but musicaly) choices! This variable algorithms is something I long said would be great in the styles, for avoiding the repetitive loops.

Yes I would love to see one of the major arranger manufacturers implement some kind of (optional) randomness. There when you want it but user can turn it off.

Also Bachus: Roland, Ketron, and maybe Korg too allow you to "lock" the current recognized chord with a foot switch. Then you can jam away with both hands and the chord won't change until you release the pedal. FYI.

You've got to remember that no matter how wonderful new software or hardware is.......there's that learning curve. It's stopped me more than a few times from purchasing an item that I really would like to have. It's getting to the point where you have to "pick your battles" because you only have one lifetime to do all the things you'd like to do.

Right now I'm learning Spanish, but I should be working on the Denon mp3 players I bought 5 years ago, or the PA3x I bought 4 years ago, my new answering machine, my new GPS, and even my new paper shredder. The manuals are piling up on my desk!

Whatever you buy, if you want to get the best out of it (or even use only one of the functions) the price is not the deal-breaker.......IMO it is the learning curve. I could be wrong but the manual that comes with Band in a Box is about an inch thick.

.....which is the exact reason we need (or SHOULD) go back to grass roots.....being a musician and not a manipulator/player of new sound sources for the sake of novelty. Too many choices NOW and by next week, at the rate technology is changing everything, those choices will double.

I was at a Festival last week and the headliner was an entertainer....comedian who also played the piano in the act. I've seen him over the years. He's good and plays fine piano. The point here is......I walked over to look at the piano he was playing. It was an old Roland digital piano and the keyboard was so old, I didn't even recognize the model #. But he made that piano talk. I don't think he spends, or even thinks about spending one second working with new technology. His performance comes from the heart....not from a do-it-all keyboard with 100,000 styles, 600,000 fills, and a 12 foot LED screen!

As DNJ usually suggests, the finest instruments in the world won't cover up an inadequate musician! Good playing starts on the inside and continues on the outside. It's very seldom the other way around!

MARK

Hi Mark,

This is why we use arrangers, is it not. I am very good at playing guitar in the unplugged mode, yet I still prefer arrangers. And this is why we like 100 000 styles as the arranger is all about styles. All we do is press buttons & select the chords. The computer does the rest.

Yes, some play something with their right hand, but it's still mostly about styles and especially about good & realistic sounding styles.

Henni

Yes you can really make those styles very dynamic, but its mostly preprogramed because the band knows what and when the next chordchange will be.. You can also tell which measures you want to act like a fill ..these fills are much better then on arrangers..

The simple reason why many of these technollogies are not on arrangers yet is that they are programmed working towards the next chordchange...

Its very different then playing with arranger styles, and takes away much of the freedom, but adds in quallity of styles and sounds...

I see it as just another tool in my setup... With all my stuff, i can play arranger styles,(tyros) preprogrammed BiaB styles, standard midi files, audio files, ableton live style, just with drums, or with several arpeggios (motif) or Karma (Kronos) or just combine them.. I love to toy around with all of these..


I gave up hope that someone will ever make a keyboard that has all of these inside