From: Winslow Yerxa Date: Sat, 12 Feb 2000 23:23:53 -0500 Subject: Band in a Box at NAMM
Visited PG Music - makers of Band in a Box - at the NAMM show. They were kind hard to find, being tucked into a one-computer stall down a side alley at one of their distributors' booths.
Band in a Box is a program that will generate band backing for you automatically. You just tell it the chord changes, choose a style, and press PLAY. You can change key, tempo and style easily, pick your instrumentation, and print lead sheets. It can also generate a melody and a solo in the style you choose (or even generate fills around a melody), and print it for you to study and learn. The first thing under discussion over pizza the evening I arrived for the Howard Levy Summit in November '98 was tips and tricks for Band in a Box. It seems that every diatonic player looking beyond 3-chord tunes was using BB as a major woodshedding tool to learn their way through different chord changes and rhythmic styles. (I'm sure chromatic players use it, too - that just happened to be a diatonic event). Dedicated blues harmonica players, on the other hand, have felt less than ecstatic about BB due to a lack of blues-oriented styles, but I learned some good news about that.
In a chat with Scott Pinches, PG's Marketing Representative at the NAMM show, I learned the following:
The new Version 9 will record an audio track via your soundcard, to go along with any song. The format is compatible with Cakewalk, Cubase and other popular sequencers, and BB allows to allows you to export both the backing track and the audio track to a WAV file, which can be burned to an audio CD, or compressed to mp3 or other format for sending over the internet - you can trade licks along with a backing track with friends or in a student-teacher exchange. One more power tool the far-flung harmonica community can use to share knowledge. What's a good way to approach that part of this version of a 12-bar blues with this sort of rhythm? Here, let me show you over this BB track. The receiving party doesn't need to have BB to listen to this - just an MP3 or other free audio format player.
I'd been frustrated with the selection of chords in BB - despite the exhaustive selection, some of my favorites were not available. But I learned that you can teach BB chords it doesn't know - either by building them up note by note or by playing them in on a MIDI keyboard.
Harmonica players have complained that there aren't many blues styles or tracks available. Scott showed me Styles Disk 16 - all blues. This contained several listings, in on or two keys (which can be changed at will). Many of these contain small variations in chord progression over a particular type of groove - of course you can alter the chords. I tried out a Howlin' Wolf style. Not exactly like hearing the Wolf's great Chicago band, but better that the meager selection I'd experienced heretofore.
Style disk 16 is not included with the BB version 8 I have (it does come as part of the BB version 9 megapak), but you can get it from BB for $29 at www.pgmusic.com. It includes 23 blues styles. The descriptive blurb indicates that stylistically it's weighted more towards the rock/R&B end of blues (names mentioned include Chuck Berry, Jamse, Brown, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eric Clapton, Jerry Lee, Dr. John (they slyly mention only part of each name to avoid legal troubles). There are MIDI samples of all 23 styles available to hear or download. Be nice if they concentrated a little more heavily on Chicago and on Jump/Swing styles. PG does have a styles suggestion box at their website - so let 'em know that harmonica players out there and have their own preferences. With enough feedback they might just come up with something for us.
But you can also build styles for yourself. Scott showed me how you can do it from the ground up - looked like quite an involved process, as you build up little characteristic licks, fills, accomaniment patterns, rhythms, etc., then decide how often statistically these will come up. He suggested that the best approach is to find an existing style and alter it to suit your purposes. It'd be nice to have some harmonica-customized blues tracks that emulated the classic Little Walter or Sonny Boy or Muddy bands on Chess, complete with Robert Jr, Lockwood or Myers Brothers guitars locking in behind then harp, for instance. Anyone who had sufficient understanding of the styles and is willing to do the work just might make this a reality. Hint, hint.
PG also has its MIDI fakebook, including 300 songs (200 classical, 50 bluegrass, 50 "Traditional/Original Jazz and Pop". Easier than building them yourself. No song list at the website (that'd be nice). $29, or included with the BB Version 9 Megapak.
I also looked at the Latin Pianist, one in a series of piano stylist instructional CD-ROMS. This one looked quite good, as it showed not only notation of the piano in each tune (accompanied by bass, percussion and other instruments) but also taught a lot about the style(s) in general with definitions, examples, photos, questionnaires. While it was not possible to view notation for the other instruments, the basic file was a MIDI file, allowing the files to be loaded and viewed more completely in another program - like their full-featured sequencer, Power Tracks Pro Audio.
They have a similar series for guitar - again using MIDI. A harmonica one might be nice, but no way could they convey anything with the fake-sounding harmonica patches - they'd have to find a way of using specific recorded samples for everything.
Band in a Box is definitely worth checking out. No, it doesn't necessarily give you killer backing tracks you'd play with on a gig. But that's not the point. it's the stuff you need to learn before you can play out - Band in a Box can can definitely help you develop the chops and familiarity you need for any given style or set of chord changes. This is less embarrassing than learning tunes onstage at a jam, and more reliable than bribing a guitarist or pianist friend with pizza and beer.
Pricing Info:
Band in a Box Version 9
Band-in-a-Box Pro Version 9 for Windows, includes Version 9, Styles Disks 1-3, Harmonies Disk 1, and Melodist Disk Set 1 first time purchase $88 Upgrade from BB8 - $49 Upgrade from BB7 - $59
Band-in-a-Box MegaPAK Version 9 for Windows The MegaPAK contains - Version 9 and Styles 1-19, Soloist (1-9), Melodists (1,2), MIDI Fakebook and PowerGuide CD-ROM video instruction First Time Purchase - $249 Upgrade from BB8 - $149 Upgrade from BB7 - $159
