Band in a Box 2007 - REAL DRUMS

[burningbusch]

PGMusic just released Band in a box 2007. The biggest improvement is the inclusion of real drums played by a real drummer. They not only sound a lot better, they groove a lot harder.

 

I've use BIAB in the past, but not for anything serious. I could definately see using it now to create backing tracks or a quick demo. Hopefully this is just the beginning. Ultimately bass, guitar, horns MIDI could all be replaced with real players.

 

http://www.pgmusic.com

 

Busch.

[konaboy]

any video demos or mp3s of that? couldn't find any on the site.

 

ah, ok i found the new features video.

[SilverDragonSoun]

Originally posted by burningbusch:

PGMusic just released Band in a box 2007. The biggest improvement is the inclusion of real drums played by a real drummer. They not only sound a lot better, they groove a lot harder.

 

I've use BIAB in the past, but not for anything serious. I could definately see using it now to create backing tracks or a quick demo. Hopefully this is just the beginning. Ultimately bass, guitar, horns MIDI could all be replaced with real players.

 

http://www.pgmusic.com

 

Busch.

This is good to hear. I bought BiaB in 2004 and liked the program alot but there were some real limitations with the sound quality. I agree with you and hope they continue to add real sounds.

[Dreamer]

I don't know...

in the first place, there are only three sets of live drums, so this feature apparently doesn't apply to all the pre-existing BIAB styles. In the second place, I doubt that it will be ever possible to replace the midi tracks with samples of real players because the difference is that these tracks have to recognize the chords played. Now, you can record a drummer playing -say- a swing style, albeit with different variations for the intro, the verse, the chorus, the fills, etc; and you could even record the same drummer at different tempo's (at least the most used ones for every musical genre), but... how can you record a real piano or guitar player comping with all the different kinds of possible chords (not to mention the inversions? )

[resigned]

Crossposted:

------------------------------------

From the BIAB Forum:

 

Matt Finlay made a demo, this is one of his existing BB songs, that he just played using RealDrums. It uses some shots (for the ending for example, Matt uses a shot instead of the typical ending). Anyway, you can hear the RealDrums here, and we are making a page with a number of demos, should be ready by tomorrow.

http://www.catsmeowcafe.com/Music/MP3s/Christmas/holiday.mp3

-------------------------------------

 

The general idea is that if the drums are live-sounding then the rest of the MIDI instruments will sound more realistic. It's a step in the right direction and I suspect we will see something similar (looped audio drum tracks) in keyboards soon.

 

BIAB is one of the handiest music programs out there for everything from scratch SMF creation to leadsheets. It's a real time saver for song framing (similar to house framing). I like to make rough sketches with BIAB that I elaborate manually with Sonar.

 

For those who do their entire song creation in BIAB the RealDrums will be a blessing, but there's lots of other improvements in BIAB 2007 that makes it worth the upgrade for the rest of us.

[burningbusch]

Originally posted by Dreamer:

I don't know...

in the first place, there are only three sets of live drums, so this feature apparently doesn't apply to all the pre-existing BIAB styles. In the second place, I doubt that it will be ever possible to replace the midi tracks with samples of real players because the difference is that these tracks have to recognize the chords played. Now, you can record a drummer playing -say- a swing style, albeit with different variations for the intro, the verse, the chorus, the fills, etc; and you could even record the same drummer at different tempo's (at least the most used ones for every musical genre), but... how can you record a real piano or guitar player comping with all the different kinds of possible chords (not to mention the inversions? )

I've been playing with it for the last few days. I have all the options so that includes:

 

jazz brushes

bossa brushes

rock

jazz

waltz

country

reggae

jazz even

jazz swing

hiphop

country

 

You are correct in that there are styles that aren't represented but when I look down my list of "Styles with RealDrums" it's in excess of 150. Plenty for me.

 

I generally use BIAB for drums, acoustic bass and maybe a little background guitar. The rest I don't need or can't stand how it sounds. The ability to just add chords and have a full night's worth of decent sounding jazz/latin/light rock backing tracks is extremely atrractive. There are certainly enough drum variations to do that.

 

If you've ever used Virtual Guitar and/or Virtual Bass they get wonderful sounding playing using a combination of real players and various technologies to make it work at different tempos and pitches. Remember for some styles, e.g. funk guitar, you might just need single note lines. Rock and country don't need all the chord variations you need in jazz. It doesn't seem a stretch for them to include brass section riffs which would go a long way in making the brass useable.

 

The big thing for me is that MIDI jazz drums RARELY sound good. That's no longer a problem.

 

Busch.

[Dreamer]

Busch,

where can one find that list of "Styles with Real Drums"?

[burningbusch]

Dreamer, it's an option when you look select Styles in the program. Now I'm not saying all of the drum patterns are different in each style (there does seem to be good variation). What you have are appropriate real drums for the style.

 

BIAB is big on add-ons, so undoubtedly this is an area where they'll be providing more in the future.

 

Busch.

[Dreamer]

Thanks! To get the 150 Real Drums styles, is it enough to upgrade to BIAB 2007 or do you need to buy a Megapack?

[Maxone]

Do any of you guys use the BIAB version for Mac?

I was considering buying it about a couple of years ago, but

then somebody told me how poorly supported the Mac version is as compared to the PC version, plus the Mac version is less

developed as compared to the PC version and I ended up not buying it.

Is the program stable? Stable enough that you could use it live

the way I use my Roland G1000? (well... probably not. after all

it's a PC program... basically . maybe if it had been developed for Mac... to begin with ...). Well, sorry! I was just "thinking loudly" ...

[Dreamer]

I have just upgraded to BIAB 2007 and have to thank Busch: the Real Drums sound great and, as he said, all the bases are covered, unless you play heavy metal or hard rock...

What's more important, if I am not mistaken you can create your own "real drums", and I have a lot of CDs (like those from Drum on Demands) with excellent loops, so... I think that I will have a busy holiday season.

[burningbusch]

Update.

 

I've been playing with the ability to create your own RealDrums and it's really quite easy once you've done one or two. I created about six different rhythm sets using Digidesign Strike. They sound really good. I want try some purely percussion backing.

 

Also, version 2007 now makes use of the Tranzport Frontier. It's really slick. With it, you can load songs (you see the full title in the display), start/stop, change tempo and you see the chords in the display. The chords are especially nice. On the top line you see the current measure and on the bottomline, the next measure. I could easily see using a Tranzport live on top of your keyboard with the laptop hidden away.

 

There is a demo for Forte DXi included. The great thing about it is it loads Gigasampler.gig files. I loaded Larry Seyer's Upright Bass and now I've got this very aggressive upright bass sound. I've got it running on a five year old laptop without a hitch.

 

Busch.

[soundscape]

Originally posted by Maxone:

Do any of you guys use the BIAB version for Mac?

I was considering buying it about a couple of years ago, but

then somebody told me how poorly supported the Mac version is as compared to the PC version, plus the Mac version is less

developed as compared to the PC version and I ended up not buying it.

Works fine IME... though the interface is cr*p.

[Maxone]

Thank you Soundscape. Ofcourse the interface is c*ap.

It was developed for windows , what do you expect!

I'll wait for Apple to release the next OS, I'll install a copy of windows on my PowerBook Pro and I'll get the windows version of BIAB. I guess that's what I'm gonna do.

[Jazzwee]

Busch, for jazz purposes, what do I need to buy? Do I need the megapak?

[Dreamer]

Originally posted by Jazzwee:

Busch, for jazz purposes, what do I need to buy? Do I need the megapak?

Here is a list of all the Real Drums styles; the jazz ones are distributed among all three volumes; the majority, however, are in volume 1. I think that the price of the 25 PAK upgrade is so low that it's worth the while to get all the 3 volumes. You pay for the whole upgrade less than you would pay for a single CD from -say- Drums on Demand.

[burningbusch]

Dreamer, the 25-pak is not the same as the MegaPak. The MegaPak sells for $269 and includes all styles and all RealDrum sets. The standard package is $99, which includes RealDrum #1 and only a few basic styles. It also includes bonus Pak-12 which should include RealDrums #2--this is confusing as some places it says you get RD #2 in bonus pak-12 and other places it says it's only available in the MegaPak. An extra $25 gets you RealDrum bonus pak.

 

As far as the styles go, there are a ton of them beyond what's in the base $99 package. If you use it as I do, drums and acoustic bass with occasionally guitar they are not going to be absolutely essential. They will just give you more bass line variations and some other guitar patterns.

 

The problem is I bought MegaPak a while back and have always upgraded to the next version of MegaPak becuase it really doesn't cost much more. So I'm confused as to exactly what is included in some of the other packages. Jazzwee, your best bet is to give pgmusic a call and really understand what's included. There are a lot of aspects to BIAB. I might use features you never will and vice versa.

 

Once you get it, you'll find numerous places on the Internet where you can download BIAB files with the chords for all the standards in them.

 

Busch.

[Dreamer]

Originally posted by burningbusch:

Dreamer, the 25-pak is not the same as the MegaPak....

Busch.

Yes, you are right; however, please note that on the PG Music site there is quite a bit of confusion and I had to check the emails I received from them to learn that the Mega-PAK is actually the most basic upgrade, which on the website is referred to as 12-PAK (price: 99 USD). I have actually bought the upgrade to BIAB 2007 with the 25-PAK; this package includes all the Real Drums volumes (1-3), plus a few bonus styles; the price paid was 124 USD plus 20 for shipping via UPS (but I live in Europe).

In the end, the difference between the 25-PAK and the so called Mega-Pak is just 25 USD, so to me at least the choice was a no brainer.

[SilverDragonSoun]

You may also want to check the Norton Styles. Alot of people think these are better than the styles that come BIAB. Click here

[Dreamer]

Originally posted by Silver Dragon Sound:

You may also want to check the Norton Styles. Alot of people think these are better than the styles that come BIAB. Click here

I gave them a listen; they are good, but frankly I think that, with the Real Drums, BIAB raised the bar quite a lot and now Norton has some catching-up to do...

[Dreamer]

dbl...

[Jazzwee]

Thanks guys. I thought it was a little confusing. So really $99 doesn't cut it right (for a brand new purchase). I need to go all the way to Megapak or get 25 pak.

 

I'll have to think of this somemore.

 

So I could theoretically buy a $99 version and upgrade the bonus paks later?

 

I have to say the website isn't too clear on what these "extras" are.

[burningbusch]

I would call them and have them help you sort it out. You also might post a question on the pgmusic forum regard best route for jazz backing, various styles and all. I'm not a BIAB expert, and like I said I really haven't used the program all that much until very recently.

 

They do offer a 30 day money back guarantee.

 

Busch.

[Dreamer]

Jazzwee,

I am not a BIAB expert either; however, from what I have gathered reading the home page of their website, until the end of this month you have the following options (which according to them are real bargains, because afterwards prices could rise):

 

1- buy the basic upgrade plus a lot of other goodies (the so called 12-PAK, former MegaPAK) for $ 99; this includes Real Drums volumes 1 and 2

2- add $ 15 and buy more goodies (the so called 17-PAK); this does not include any more Real Drums

3- add $ 25 (to $ 99) and buy even more goodies plus Real Drums volume 3 and Real Drums bonus tracks (the so called 25-PAK). That's what I did, btw.

 

Hope this helps.

[Jazzwee]

Originally posted by Dreamer:

Jazzwee,

I am not a BIAB expert either; however, from what I have gathered reading the home page of their website, until the end of this month you have the following options (which according to them are real bargains, because afterwards prices could rise):

 

1- buy the basic upgrade plus a lot of other goodies (the so called 12-PAK, former MegaPAK) for $ 99; this includes Real Drums volumes 1 and 2

2- add $ 15 and buy more goodies (the so called 17-PAK); this does not include any more Real Drums

3- add $ 25 (to $ 99) and buy even more goodies plus Real Drums volume 3 and Real Drums bonus tracks (the so called 25-PAK). That's what I did, btw.

 

Hope this helps.

I've only run the demo of this. Never bought one so that's why I'm trying to avoid the $269 hit for a new purchase, which could be stiff if I don't end up finding it usable. At $99, I could take a risk.

[MaFunk]

Jazzwee - I have been using BIAB for jazz practise recently (2006 version) and have found it to be an invaluable tool. The Jazz guitar styles provide an excellent swing style accompaniment for practising bebop with some tasty pre-written solos to study/copy/play along with for those times when inspiration needs a little kick start..

 

I have found though IMHO that most of the other 'styles' blow somewhat..

[Billdar]

I've had BIAB for a few years now, but only recently have I started to use it a lot. The reason: I started running it through my Motif ES rack instead of the sound card in my computer. The sound quality is superb, and I think better than the samples provided on the PG Music website.

 

I think that the jazz, latin, and the newer blues style sets are great. My practice sessions have taken on a new dimension.

[MaFunk]

+1 Billdar. I run it through my XV5080 and it makes all the difference. Alternatively, export the midi's you are happy with and fire them up in Cubase or your DAW of choice and let any number of VST's do the job.

 

Does anyone know how to print out the main BIAB songscreen without using PRINTSCR on keyboard? Id like to have hard copies of the large font chord sequences all on one page..

[Billdar]

Originally posted by MaFunk:

+1 Billdar. I run it through my XV5080 and it makes all the difference. Alternatively, export the midi's you are happy with and fire them up in Cubase or your DAW of choice and let any number of VST's do the job.

 

Does anyone know how to print out the main BIAB songscreen without using PRINTSCR on keyboard? Id like to have hard copies of the large font chord sequences all on one page..

You can click on "Window" then "Lead sheet window" and print that out.

[MaFunk]

Will doing this give me the melody + chords in a stave structure?

 

I just need a printout of the main screen as it is with the large chord symbols as they are when you play the song. Dont want to be pain with silly Q's like this but i dont have a printer at home so i need to get it ready to printout at work.