Band In a Box

Windows

Band-in-a-Box 12 for Windows® is here, with over 50 new features making the award winning Band-in-a-Box easier, more powerful, and more fun ...

The latest version of Band-in-a-Box adds 50 more features.

MIDI-file to Style Wizard - This automatically converts a MIDI file (.MID) to a Band-in-a-Box Style (.STY). Simply open a MIDI file, select your options, and press “Save-As Style.” With plenty of options this wizard allows you to quickly make your own simple or advanced styles from a standard MIDI file – without any knowledge of the StyleMaker required! Novice users will appreciate the automated option that “does everything” to make the style while advanced users will appreciate the custom options to control (for example) which bars from the MIDI file are included in the style, how many pattern variations and more.
“Twice as many instruments” - with General MIDI 2 support! - We've added support for General MIDI 2 standard (GM2). This GM2 support adds 128 new instruments to Band-in-a-Box styles and songs, including ukulele, mandolin, 12-string guitar plus many new and improved piano, organ, guitar, brass and string sounds! We've made many new styles using the new instruments, and also include updated versions of previous styles – you'll be hearing the new instruments with many of your new and existing styles. (Note: The included Roland VSC3 synth supports the new GM2 instruments, as do most newer modules/soundcards. If yours doesn't, a similar instrument from the existing 128 General MIDI sounds will be substituted.)
Harmony Notation Display Enhancements - Harmonies can now be displayed on the leadsheet window (or printed) with separate notation tracks for each harmony voice. View each harmony on a separate track, or view/print a single harmony voice! Print harmony charts for your band, or use for sight reading practice – to read and play any harmony voice along with the melody that you're hearing.
Guitar Window enhancements - We've enhanced the Guitar Window, by adding fret display support for other instruments, including mandolin, ukulele and banjo. You'll see authentic chord voicings and melody display on the fretboard for all of these new instruments. The StyleMaker has been enhanced with support for the GM2 instruments, so you can make styles that use the new instruments and have correct instrument voicings displayed on the fretboard.
Guitar Chord Diagrams on the Notation - We've added an option for standard Guitar Chord diagrams to be included in the notation display. Choose from Folk, Pop or Jazz Guitar Chord Diagrams on the notation, leadsheet, or printout.
Bass Part Enhancements - Bass players will now see bass tablature and correctly displayed bass parts on the new bass fretboard. Interface Enhancements - The program’s Graphical User Interface has been enhanced, with a single dialog for all program options (hot key Ctrl-E) and song settings (Ctrl-N), right mouse menu support, simplified menu, additional hot keys and more. The Main Menu has been simplified, with ½ as many menu items! A new “Window” menu has been added and the “User” menu has been removed. Menu functionality is the same, just easier to navigate. Right Mouse menu support has been added. Right mouse click on the Chordsheet or notation (press the right mouse key) and you'll see a menu of items available giving faster access to common editing commands. Styles Improved - All of the styles are enhanced! We've improved/updated EVERY Band-in-a-Box style that we’ve made with the newest StyleMaker features including guitar and other fretted instrument voicings, consistent volume levels, edited patterns and more. Many of these styles and new demo songs are included with your Band-in-a-Box version 12 upgrade.
Loop any Section of the song - You can now loop any section of the song. The program will then start playback at the first loop point and play the looped section until stop is pressed or looping is turned off. This feature is handy for looping a full chorus or other section of a song for practice or performance. There's a useful “Play-Looped” command that allows you to quickly play a looped section (simply highlight the range of bars to loop, then choose the “Play-Looped” command (Ctrl-NUMPAD-1) and press OK.)
Song navigation options during playback - These features allow you to control song looping and navigation during live performance or practice sessions. Options includes hot keys and buttons for enabling/disabling loop, playing with last chorus looped, playing with middle choruses looped, playing with middle and last choruses looped, jumping to last chorus with no loop, and jumping to song ending with no loop. Example uses include a student song practice with the “loop middle choruses” option, so that there will be endless choruses. Live performers can loop middle and last choruses so that the music will continue while the dance floor is full, or jump to the last chorus or ending if it's time for the tune to end!
Band-in-a-Box can load and play an entire MIDI file - Now you can open an entire MIDI file into Band-in-a-Box. The chords will get auto-interpreted by the Chord Wizard, and the MIDI file will play and display on the Melody track. A “Silent” style will get loaded, so you'll only hear the MIDI file.
Other Handy New Features include:

• Visual Metronome during the whole song.
• Change styles at any bar using the convenient StylePicker Window
• Bass player plays better “5ths” over some Jazz chords. Band-in-a-Box’s bass player was playing some natural 5ths over some chords like C7 altered or others. Now, after a discussion with some bass players, we've improved Band-in-a-Box so that the bass part plays the #5 or b5 correctly on these Jazz chords.
• Part Markers are now written to the MIDI files. These part markers can be read by PowerTracks (and Band-in-a-Box if re-importing the MIDI file with the Chord Wizard). Save a MIDI file in Band-in-a-Box, and move it over to PowerTracks (version 8 or higher), you'll now see the Part Markers (and chords) written on the Chords Window in PowerTracks. Re-import the MIDI file into Band-in-a-Box with the Chord Wizard and you'll also see the part markers in Band-in-a-Box.
• Channel numbers are now displayable on the notation. When editing notes, it is often helpful to see the channel number of each note.
• Load Previous Style, Load Next Style. This function, (analogous to the Load Next Song function) loads in the previous (or next) style. Styles are ordered alphabetically.
• “Chase Volumes” added for playback. For a file with Volume change events (Controller 7) written into the Melody (or other tracks) – if the song is played back from somewhere in the middle, the most recent volume control information prior to the start of playback will get sent.
• Option to write MIDI file with separate tracks for each drum instrument
• Option to hear the drum count-in even if the drums are muted or disabled. Drummers who play along with Band-in-a-Box by muting the drum track should find this feature useful.
• On program bootup, the current directory will get set to the last directory used in the previous session.
• StylePicker Enhancements
  There is a new filter to display only the styles of a certain styles disk number, as well as displaying the full descriptive name of the styles disk. The limit of number has styles has been increased (to 4,800) to accommodate the large number of third party styles developed for Band-in-a-Box. The window size has been increased, providing more space for the category descriptions.
• Notation Enhancements.
  Guitar Chord Diagrams are available on the notation, leadsheet, or printout for Folk, Pop and Jazz voicings.
  Boxes for Section text are now thicker.
  A Notation option has been added to disable the highliting-of-notes-in-red-as-the-song-is-playing (so it won't be distracting to good sight-readers who like to read ahead).
  Brackets (#) are now drawn around accidentals after a bar line as a courtesy, where no accidental is required.
  Printing as Graphics has been enhanced with a “Copy-to-Clipboard” option, so that you can quickly paste into other applications.
  For the leadsheet and printout, if the last line of the range printed out contains only 1 bar, it is drawn with a narrow width (previously it was stretching the bar across the entire line).
  Print Options has a “Style” button – pressing this button will enter the full style name into the Style field.
• Descriptive Hints added throughout the program!
  We've added much more detail to the yellow-window fly-by hints that appear when you move over an item. Also added are many new hints for the dialog boxes and various windows. You can set the hints to display none, basic or detailed information.
• Direct Entry of Tempo and other settings.
  You can now quickly enter a specific tempo for the song by clicking on the tempo (hot key is Ctrl-Alt-T, or menu item Play – “Set Tempo…”), and a dialog will open up allowing you to type in a tempo. Similar dialogs are available to enter a value for Volume, Panning, Reverb, Chorus, and Bank settings.
• Master Volume settings can now be made more quickly, with hot keys added.
  If you want to “turn it all up or down,” this can be done quickly with hot keys
• A THRU Velocity boost can be applied to the THRU part.
• The Song Titles Window can now be updated from within the Song Titles dialog.
• The Big Lyrics Window now scrolls a page at a time for easier reading of lyrics...
• Custom File Dialog Enhancements. Now there are hot keys for the Search Dialog (Alt-S), Favorite Folders (Alt-F), and Font selection (Alt-N). Double clicking in the favorite directories window now exits the dialog.
• Handy song-Transpose options
  Quick (1-hot key) Song Transpose. Now you can transpose the entire song during playback (or while stopped) using a single key. Transpose down 1 semitone (Ctrl-Alt-5), up one semitone (Ctrl-Alt-6), or a specified # of semitones (Ctrl-Alt-7). Quick Transpose is useful when accompanying a vocalist who requests a higher key, since you'll instantly hear the song in the new key – even if the song is playing it will continue in the new key. Use it during playback to modulate the song.
• “Audio Mute”. Now you can mute/un-mute the audio track in Band-in-a-Box. Choose Audio-Mute Audio to mute/un-mute the audio track.
• Many new hot keys added.
  Examples include hot keys for Chord Builder (Ctrl-Shift-B), Song Settings (Ctrl-N), Preferences (Ctrl-E), song transpose by +1/-1 (Ctrl-Alt-5, 6) and many more. The TAB key now advances around the Chordsheet (like the right cursor key), and Shift-TAB functions like the left cursor key. For entering chords like “Cm+” you no longer have to type an uppercase for the “+” you can type the lowercase “=”, and the program will enter a Cm+.
• Shot/Held Chords option enhanced. Normally, when a “shot” or a “held” chord is assigned, instruments that are excluded from the shot/held chord play normally. Now there is an additional option for those excluded instruments to stay silent. Velocity boosts for shots and held chords are now settable. In previous versions, a shot or held chord produced a (loud) velocity boost of 15-30. Now you can set the amount of velocity boost, for the effect you want. Duration of “shots” is reduced to 60 ticks per beat. Previously the shots lasted as long as the typical 1-beat pattern, which was often longer than 60 ticks.
• Soloist “Note-Density” option. Now you can control the maximum number of notes per quarter note that the soloist will use. For example, you can set a “Rock Guitar” Soloist to use nothing shorter than 16th notes. This would produce less “guitar hero” solos with bursts of 32nd notes etc. Or you could create a Jazz solo that uses only quarter notes or longer to help with sight-reading or student study. We've already modified many of the soloists using this new setting, so your solos will already sound better without you having to change this setting.
• Dedicated menu items added on GM Menu for “Turn Local On”, “Turn Local Off” and “When program quits, turn local on.”
• For the loop screen feature, if looping on the first line Band-in-a-Box now loops from bar 1 and does not include the lead-in.
• MIDI Driver dialog improvements. When visiting the MIDI Driver dialog, if the setup is panned to MONO, the program offers to change it to stereo. Selecting a new drum kit from the MIDI Driver dialog no longer changes your panning settings. Since most people use stereo settings, this makes it easier to ensure that you are using stereo settings. A new Drum kit is only installed if you specifically select a new Drum kit in the MIDI Driver dialog.
• If playback is occurring when OPEN song is chosen, playback of the new song will resume when the new song is loaded (so you don't have to press PLAY). This works for other methods of song loading such as load next/previous Song.
• Chord Wizard Enhancements, including recognizing more chord types and additional options.