Band In A Box

[dave.king1]

The fat guy in the red suit came good with some folding stuff and I had been mulling over this software for some time and decided to lash out, does mean the next kit goes on hold until the bank builds again but hey ho.

I got BiaB Pro which is $129 USD plus a bonus package knocked down to $49 USD until midnight tomorrow night US so about $240 AUD. ( a single purchase provides licences for 3 PCs, so two for me and one for my computer semi literate bandmate )

I'm seeing it as a great composing aid, I can throw ideas together and get it out in minutes to my lyricist / singer mates to be worked on.

So much easier than setting up the DAW, putting down the drum / bass / rhythm / keys tracks and rendering it down and if the proposed stuff gets up I can import individual tracks into the DAW to create the project and rerecord the bits I want to play.

Installation is easy but takes ages to install the 13 individual packages that my purchase included but very worthwhile.

Finished install at 10pm on Wednesday night and had knocked out two completely different demos of a new song by midnight, one is straight country with steel guitar and the other is soft rock with Hammond B3 / Leslie.

The instruments are all played by renowned session guys, the country guitarist is Brent Mason who has been 1st call in Nashville for over 10 years. ( YT is your friend if you are curious ).

Happy as a dog with two tails

[Marcel]

Is there a online link you can point us to Dave?

[dave.king1]

Here ya go Marcel, remember the prices are USD

http://www.pgmusic.com/bbwin.packages.htm

[king casey]

I struggled along with the pirate version har har for a while before buying the one that came on a hard drive.
Used it once before the drive became unresponsive.
Pretty good program but so many bells and whistles in a confusing interface.
Mostly overkill for me as I usually only require a simple bass/drums/keys and cut the rest.
One thing that I found really annoying is the limited ways to put a decent ending to a track.

cheers, Mark.

[DrNomis_44]

Even though FL Studio is pretty flexible, I always have a bit of a hard time setting up decent-sounding drum patterns so I can record demos, even with Ableton Live, usually I'll spend time looking for a good drum loop and have trouble finding one where it's got the groove I'm looking for, they're usually too busy sounding, or the drummer that recorded the loop sounds like he's showing-off.


One thing I will need to do is upgrade my account with Soundcloud cause I only have about 4 minutes of playtime left, I think it's about time I went pro with it.

[Sonic Mountain]

I use garage band and love it. The new drummer setup is amazing. I've been using it since the first version, but it can be daunting for new starters. So flexible and fun though.

[churchie]

I've used EZDrummer for sometime - really like it for laying down a quick drum pattern, and then later tweaking it with fills and different patterns

[Simon Barden]

I find it best to start with a very basic drum pattern, do the rest of the track and then come back and tweak the drums at the end. I've got several drum programs (EZdrummer2, Groove agent, BFD3) and I find them all pretty frustrating to use, especially if I use a standard MIDI library pattern, as the drums then drive the nature of the song, rather than adding to it. So I normally do a very basic pattern, then try and find a better pattern match after the track is completed and when I've got more of an idea what the drums should be doing in the track.

[churchie]

Yeah I get that Simon. Sometimes the beat drives the track rather than the other way round

EZDrummer sometimes can act as inspiration however, by providing something different than a standard 4:4

[Marcel]

Tap-tempo makes it so much easier to set long delays... sometimes simply hate not having it on some pedals and rack and DAW effects ...