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Band In A Box 2013 Pluspack
We're excited to offer Band-in-a-Box 2013 with more than 50 great new features and enhancements, 101 more RealTracks and 50 MIDI SuperTracks.
We’ve added a new MIDI DXi/VST synth (SampleTank) and have added some great High Quality (“Hi-Q”) MIDI Sounds. These Hi-Q sounds make the MIDI tracks (both regular and MIDI SuperTracks), sound much better. We’ve added Performance Tracks – Artist’s Performances on the Melody track, to showcase the Band-in-a-Box RealTracks demos playing along to an artist performing the melody. These are great for listening or for learning-from-the-Pros (since notation/tab shows for the performances). "Print to PDF” to save your printouts directly as a PDF file, or share your arrangements with the added SoundCloud.com integration and DropBox integration. There are a number of RealTracks enhancements including "Pick best soloist RealTracks" that shows you the soloists that best match the genre, tempo, and feel of your song, and many more.
Band-in-a-Box 2013 New Features
Band-in-a-Box 2013 for Windows® is here with more than 50 great new features and much more!
Yes, we’ve been busy and have added some great new features and new RealTracks to Band-in-a-Box! Compared to version 2012.5 (July 2012), this adds 50 new features, 101 new RealTracks, and 50 new MIDI SuperTracks. Compared to version 2012 (December 2011) this adds 65 new features, 202 new RealTracks, and 91 new MIDI SuperTracks!
Band-in-a-Box 2013 has over 50 new features and enhancements, including new Add-ons, 101 more RealTracks and 50 great new MIDI SuperTracks!
We’ve added a new MIDI DXi synth (SampleTank) and have added some great High Quality (“Hi-Q”) MIDI Sounds. These Hi-Q sounds make the MIDI tracks (regular and MIDI SuperTracks), sound much better.
Artist Performance Tracks. We’ve added Performance Tracks - Artists Performances on the Melody track, to showcase the Band-in-a-Box RealTracks demos playing along to an artist performing the melody. These are great for listening or learning-from-the-Pros (since notation/tab shows for the performances).
These performances play the melody (2 choruses), and 2 choruses of solo (first chorus “simple” solo, 2nd chorus advanced.
With Band-in-a-Box 2013, we include 50 Artist Performances:
- 20 guitar performances by Oliver Gannon (Jazz songs - melodies and 2 choruses of soloing for each song).
- 20 sax, clarinet, flute performances by Jack Stafford (Jazz songs - melodies and 2 choruses of soloing for each song).
- 10 Celtic fiddle tunes - performances by acclaimed fiddler Daniel Lapp.
All performance tracks include audio (stretchable to any tempo), notation, on-screen guitar, and guitar tab.
“Print to PDF” and save your printouts directly as a PDF file.
Pick “best” soloist RealTracks: This new dialog shows you the soloists that best match the genre, tempo, and feel of your song, listed from best to worst. For example, if you have a Jazz Ballad style loaded (tempo 60), the list will show jazz Soloists that will work well at a tempo of 60 at the top of the list, and something like a fast, Heavy Metal Guitar Soloist at the bottom of the list.
There are similar options on the instrument radio button to choose Best “All RealTracks” that will show all RealTracks, sorted by best to worst for the current style, and Best “Comping” RealTracks that show the list for Comping (i.e. Chording, non-Soloist) RealTracks.
There is SoundCloud.com integration. This lets you upload your compositions easily to the SoundCloud.com service. SoundCloud.com is a popular web service (unaffiliated with PG Music) that lets users upload their original songs for others to hear.
DropBox integration added. If you use the Drop Box service, you can easily drag/drop files from BB directly to your Drop Box folder, or save audio to Drop Box, without leaving the main Band-in-a-Box screen.
To do this, drag a track (or the Combo button for all tracks) to the Drop station, and when it turns green, you can then right-click on the Drop button, and choose “send To Drop Box.”
A new Song Form feature allows you to define sections of a song (A, B, C etc.), and then rearrange the song by simply typing the form you want (e.g. AABABAACA). You can revisit this dialog, to re-order the sections. Or change a chord in the “A” section, and propagate the changes through all of the “A” sections.
The Leadsheet window can now be resized. As you resize the window, all of the elements resize.
Favorite RealTracks and RealDrums. When you are choosing RealTracks or RealDrums, there is now a list of recently used RealTracks and RealDrums.
Favorite RealTracks. Your recent RealTracks selections are saved, and available in the various dialogs that allow you to choose RealTracks. Since a common selection is a recently chosen RealTracks this speeds up selection of a RealTracks. The 400 most recent selections are shown, with most recent at the top.
The popular “Band Button” is enhanced, with many more styles and categories listed, including submenus for subcategories.
Many new RealStyles have been made, and many are displayed on this menu. The instruments used in each style are displayed, giving a “thumbnail” summary (e.g. bass, piano, guitar, brushes, Alto Sax Soloist).
Band Button Submenus. Submenus have been added for various genre subcategories. For example, the Jazz Styles list has submenus for subgenres Bossa, Gypsy Jazz, Jazz Swing, Smooth Jazz, and Jazz Styles with Soloists.
For example, a “Campfire Guitar” subgenre is added, with many RealStyles of simple strumming guitars.
Save Track as Performance. This takes “freezing” a track one step further, and saves the audio itself. So you can send your Band-in-a-Box song to your friend, who will be able to play that track without needing to have the RealTrack installed.
Wave button menu: Now pressing the WAV button shows a menu that allows you to quickly save the song as WAV, WMA, MP3, MP4, or M4A. This has options for saving audio (WAV, WMA, M4A, MP4, MP3) as well as sending to SoundCloud.
URL link for Web Demos. Every style has a Web Demo available. Click on the Web Demo button in the StylePicker to hear the demo.
Copy/Move Tracks command now works for all tracks. Now you can copy any channels from any track to any other track.
Examples of uses include:
- Loading a MIDI file to the melody track, and copying the bass part to the bass track, and then freezing the bass track. This lets you setup a MIDI file with the same tracks as BB uses. Note: the command automatically freezes the destination track after the copy.
- Getting the RealChart to play, to double a RealTracks part on another instrument. To do this, generate a RealTracks for piano on the piano track. Then copy the piano track to the strings track, and set a strings patch. You now hear a RealTracks piano, with the strings doubling the piano part.
- Replace a RealChart with a MIDI version. If a RealChart is available, copy the RealChart as in the example above. Then eliminate the RealTracks on the original track. You now have a RealChart MIDI part playing instead of the RealTracks, and you can edit that part etc. as with any MIDI track.
RealCharts and MIDI SuperTracks timing is more accurate. Improvements have been made to the timing for RealCharts and timing/feel MIDI SuperTracks.
The timing can also now be manually adjusted using the “Increase Lateness” setting in the Soloist Editor, allowing you to make a MIDI SuperTracks that is “more laid-back” for example.
You can also adjust the “lateness” on any individual track now by using the Set Track offset feature (right-click on the instrument radio button).
Better bass fretboard playing for bass styles. For MIDI bass patterns, an intelligent algorithm determines where to play the bass part, and this has been improved.
Better Soloing over Double Time feel. Soloists with ‘double time” feel now have better timing and better feel, so are useful in more circumstances.
The Drop Station has been enhanced. The Drop station is the [Drop] button at the top left of the screen, where you drop a track after dragging it to get an audio or MIDI version of the track.
There is now a right-click menu, allowing you to copy the resulting file to a favorite folder, open the favorite folder, start/stop the DAW Plug-in mode, upload to SoundCloud.com and more.
Rests, Shots, Holds keyboard Shortcuts. When entering chords on the chordsheet, there are now shortcuts available for entering rests over a range of bars.
- Type h4 for a chord, and this will copy the rest/hold/parameters on the first beat of the cell for 4 bars
- Type ,h4 for a chord, and this will copy the rest/hold/parameters on the second beat of the cell for 4 bars
- Type h for a chord and it will copy the rests/holds/ until the next part marker
- Type a chord with a rest/shot/hold followed by a number (N), and it will do this for the next N bars
- e.g. C7...4 will enter held chords for 4 bars
- Gm7...bd5 will enter held chords (bd=except bass and drums) for 5 bars
The Soloist Dialog and Soloist button are enhanced. The Soloist button is enhanced, now shows a menu where you can either choose a best real tracks to add to the whole soloist track, or launch the Soloist dialog to customize the type of solo that you want (trade 4’s etc.).
- You can now choose (in the Soloist dialog) from the list of “Best RealTracks.” RealTracks Soloists will always show in the list, when you first visit the dialog
You can choose Favorite RealTracks from within the dialog.
Memos now show for MIDI SuperTracks, (instrument radio button-> Select MIDI SuperTrack to see the dialog) and you can click on the Memo for a big window (RealTracks Picker and MIDI SuperTracks Picker).
RealTracks are found in more cases. If you use a separate folder (or separate drive) for your RealTracks, BB will now look in the parent folder of the RealTracks folder (as well as the main BB folder for the related Soloist Databases. This means fewer messages about RealTracks not found. Previously, for a RealTracks to be found, the Soloist database files (ST2, XT2) needed to be present in the BB folder. Now they can be present in the parent of the RealTracks folder (which is where they usually are if you are running the program from the c:drive, but using RealTracks from a USB hard drive.
Better enharmonic display for transposed instruments, like alto sax. In some key signatures, a Db was showing up on an A7 chord for example, and this is improved so that C# would be shown. (Nothing needs to be done to enable this.)
Notifications added if RealTracks folder or RealDrums folder is not set correctly. When the program boots up, if you haven’t set your RealTracks folder correctly, you will see a yellow reminder message in the top right, with instructions on how to fix the issue.
A “Bar Settings summary” report is added, available from the Song Memo and the F5 / Edit Settings for Current Bar dialog. This report lists all settings in the song that have been made in the song.
DragDrop names are more descriptive. When files are dragged from the instrument radio buttons to the Drop Station or Explorer, they used to have cryptic names like this: BBBass_Real_SingleRender_DragDrop_0.WAV
StyleMaker “delete Instrument” function has been added. This function is handy if you need to remove an instrument from a style. After selecting the instrument that you want to delete, from the StyleMaker, choose the menu option Style- Delete Instrument.
“Simpler” Very Simple Bass Jazz RealTracks added. By request, a Jazz Swing RealTracks has been created that plays the simplest bass lines for Jazz Swing, with root and 5th in the “a” section, and quarter notes only in the “b” section.
Intonation improved on a few RealTracks. With over 1,000 RealTracks available, there were a few ones with some intonation issues on some notes (for example, high notes on a string bass). These have been corrected.
Bluegrass 8th note based style added. Our bluegrass styles are typically 16th note based, so that a typical bluegrass tempo would be 130. Some people prefer the bluegrass styles to be 8th note based (typical tempo 260). We have made a _BGBAND8.STY that has 8th note based RealTracks. Press the Band button, Country-Bluegrass menu to choose this style.
Many more RealTracks have the “simpler” option available. When you set the Simpler option, the RealTracks play a simple unembellished arrangement.
More RealTracks have the “Direct Input” Guitar option for previously released RealTracks. (Direct Input Guitars are guitar RealTracks with no effects added).
Files saved are now not called MGU if there is only a RealTracks on the Melody track (and not a MIDI melody).
Custom synth or plug-in names now show on instrument names, mixer, and song memo. If you have added a custom synth or plug-in (i.e. a TGS file), you will now see that name added to the mixer, instrument radio button, and song memo, reminding you of what custom synth or plug-in is in use.
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