Band In A Box by PG Music URL: (http://www.pgmusic.com) Topic: Software: Audio/MIDI

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Reviewed on 5/16/00 by Abe Mathews (84) Rating: I use BIAB several times a week. I've yet to have it crash. I think that with some of the style expansion disks, you would have a program you wouldn't outgrow. It's no substitute for playing with real musicians, but it's about as good as it gets otherwise. Price: $79 (new) Where Obtained: MARS music Suitable for all skill levels of bassists Features: Needs a midi-compatible soundcard, 15MB disk space, 8MB RAM. BIAB is about the standard for a computer-generated accompaniment. There are literally hundreds of available BIAB songs on the internet for download, including the whole Real Book. I normally program in a progression I'm working on for my lessons and play along with it. Being able to select which instruments are active is a neat feature - allowing it to be useful for just about any instrument. Ease of Use: It's not the most user-friendly or attractive software available. I'm not too fond of the look of the interface - it's very dated. But it's functional and bug-free so far.

Reviewed on 9/19/06 by Paul Warren (14435) Rating: BiaB is responsible for my current level of play. I use it all the time. It is exceptionally reliable. I wouldn't want to be without it. I don't think there is anything that would truely improve this software. It really is that good. Price: $79 CAN (new) Where Obtained: pgmusic Suitable for all skill levels of bassists Features: BiaB is the industry standard accompaniment software. If all it did was provide a useful backing track in any imaginable style then it would be fantastically useful. As it is providing accompaniment is only one of the uses for BiaB. For example, BiaB will generate a bassline to go with any style you choose and with the guitar window you can follow the line graphically. You can slow the tempo until you have the line down. You can transpose a progression with one click. Etc. etc. etc. It should also be noted that BiaB has a lot of features that a composer might find useful. For example, BiaB can generate a complete song in any style with melody and solo ideas. A composer could then work from this starting point to tweak the song to perfection. Ease of Use: BiaB is very full featured and requires considerable time be invested to learn to use it to its potential. However, having said that, it's relatively easy to use BiaB for a backing track. Simply type the chords into the fake sheet, select a style and click play.

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