Band in a Box 2009 Pro

by PG Music Inc.

Product Features

• Band-in-a-Box is a powerful and creative music composition tool for exploring and developing musical ideas with near-instantaneous feedback.
• Pro version includes Band-in-a-Box, RealBand, Styles Sets 0-3, Soloist Set 1, Melodist Set 1, RealDrums Set 1, and RealTracks Set 1.
• Record an audio track along with your Band-in-a-Box song, then edit the track, adding audio effects and harmonies.
• Turn your computer into your backup band!
• And many, many more?!

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Shipping: This item is also available for shipping to select countries outside the U.S.
• ASIN: B001ONPM2I
• Item model number: BBE90468
• Date first available at Amazon.com: December 1, 2008
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,560 in Software (See Top 100 in Software)

Product Description

Band-in-a-Box is an intelligent automatic accompaniment program, which means that you can go from nothing to complete song arrangements in as little as a few seconds. Simply enter chords to a song, choose a style of music, and Band-in-a-Box does the rest, generating a full band arrangement complete with Bass, Piano, Drums, Guitar, Strings, and more. You can arrange, listen to, or play along with songs in hundreds of musical styles. The MIDI and audio tracks that Band-in-a-Box creates are automatically played out through your computer's built-in sound card or synthesizer, and the music notation is displayed in a lead sheet window. Band-in-a-Box is a unique and flexible program with a broad range of uses. It is a powerful and creative music composition tool for exploring and developing musical ideas with near-instantaneous feedback. Amaze friends and family by coming up with your own original songs in as little as a few minutes! Band-in-a-Box is also an excellent educational tool, used both by professional musicians to sharpen their skills, and as a learning aid by people with little or no musical background. It's also an essential program for practicing your instrument in a full band setting - you play your instrument while Band-in-a-Box takes the place of the other members in your band. While the basic concept behind Band-in-a-Box has remained the same since it was first conceived over 20 years ago, hundreds of innovative features have been added. The list of things that you can do with Band-in-a-Box is endless! The Soloist, Melodist, and Audio Chord Wizard are examples of amazing ""intelligent"" features; the Soloist generates professional quality solos over any chord progression, the Melodist can create entire songs from scratch with Chords, Melodies, Intros, and Solos (even a Title!), the Medley Maker can combine songs to create interesting medleys, and the Audio Chord Wizard can figure out the chords in any audio file (wave files, MP3, WMA, etc.).

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Jam, compose and hone your chops!, January 30, 2009

By 

E. Minkovitch (Montreal, Quebec) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Band in a Box 2009 Pro (CD-ROM)

4.5 stars - For the most part this is a fantastic product, and one that a home musician or music student should not be without.

It works well as a learning tool, with dozens of examples to help an aspiring guitarist learn solos and progressions, and to play with an emsemble. On the other hand it's an excellent composition tool, which speeds up realization of ideas. You don't need to spends days arranging your new song. The program does a great job and gives you over a hundred styles to choose from. The soloist feature is amazing - you can have your own top session players whenever you want. I was able to compose a song in the first couple of days of using the program, and with minor touch-ups outside the software, complete it.

Another amazing thing is the ability to use real instruments, pre-recorded by top studio musicians, which the program is able to massage into whatever harmonic and rhythmic structure you use in your song, sounding like real recording. That works amazingly well in jazz, where you can generate incredible saxophone solos, and a killer rhythm section to go with that.

Now for the not-so-good news - the program interface is extremely cluttered and disorienting. I find myself lost in a maze of dialog boxed and a myriad of options. Very confusing, and requires careful reading of the manual, watching the included videos, and a few calls to the help desk, which, by the way is very friendly and avaible in the off-hours.

Overall, I would say it's worth the time and money spent - it will improve your skills as a soloist and composer.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but needs a major overhaul, October 22, 2009

By 

MotorMind (The Netherlands) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Band in a Box 2009 Pro (CD-ROM)

Band in a box has been around for a while and has come a long way from a simple chord-chainer to a full blown accompaniment package. The quality of the generated MIDI output varies widely depending on the styles used, but it's generally fit for practicing purposes. I personally like to let BIAB generate piano parts, which I export to MIDI and import into Cubase for further treatment. At least this way I can get some decent piano in my music, being the lousy keyboard player I am.

Now on to the bad part: the interface is outright horrible. It looks like a rejected high school project student's first effort in Delphi. The commands are obscure and don't seem to follow any GUI guidelines whatsoever. BIAB often refuses to load screens or simply to play music, without any indication of what is going on. Screen estate is scattered all over the place, without any rhyme or reason.

The style editor is also a joke. I love to make my own styles, but editing a part has to be done by playing into the program in real-time, which is a pain in the royal behind. There is no way of importing MIDI snippets to treat as a part, aside from the very clunky roundabout way of loading a whole melodist track. Editing individual notes can only be done through a very clunky, ugly, near-dysfunctional staff editor. Why they don't let you use the piano roll for editing style parts is beyond me; it seems to work okay in other parts of the program.

In short: yes, it works. Somewhat. At least, if you like to simply press the play button and get it over with. It's also very popular, so you can download loads of styles and songs from all around the Internet. I don't think the high price for it is justifiable though, given the horrendous state the program is at the moment. C'mon, Pgmusic--upgrade the program already. I think a total rewrite would be in order.

3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good Price, Great Software Package, May 30, 2009

By 

Daniel G. Augustine "Dan Aug" (Fredericksburg, VA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Band in a Box 2009 Pro (CD-ROM)

The price was 1/3 less than the local music store for exactly the same package. The item came sooner than the estimated delivery date.

All around a good buy. I would buy again from this vendor.