What do you think of Band in a Box

    Hi folks.


    What do you think of Band-in-a-Box ?


    I searched, but the search engine doesn't look in this Other Gear forum. I'm sorry if this has been discussed to death before.


    Here's why I'm asking.


    I've admired and enjoyed the music that people create and share here. And despite that, I have no desire to do everything it takes to do what you do. (play several instruments, compose, arrange, record, mix, master, produce). A part of me shrivels up, desiccates, and wishes for a wind to blow me away whenever I see a grid or manipulate a timeline. But once in a while, I think - wouldn't it be nice to build my own backing tracks?


    Background

    I play sing and play guitar, and write - that's it. I've dabbled enough with drums and bass to know I should never do that again. I use my piano to map out sounds, but for me, it's a tool, not an instrument to play.


    I play live - at least when it's safer out there. I prefer to collaborate with live players who bring their parts with them. I don't want to tell a bassist or drummer what I want to hear from them. I want to do my part and for them to do theirs.


    I got a Digitech Trio+ Band Creator and Looper a few years ago. If you're not familiar with it, you play rhythm guitar, and it creates drum and bass parts in a loop. You can then play over the loop. You can have up to five sections (e.g., verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, solo-break, etc.) and set the box to play those sections in any order you like. You can get everything it's capable of delivering without a screen (tablet, computer, phone). I use it at home a few times a month. I would never use it on stage - not even for a solo show. I've never performed over a backing track.


    Back to why I'm asking about Band in a Box. Now and then, I get an urge to share a tune with you guys. As much fun as the Digitech Trio is - I'm sure you'd spot it right away. What do you think? Is the output of Band in a Box worthy enough to share here?


    Do you use it?


    Do you like it?


    Would you recommend it?


    Do you have to renew your license every year or can you keep using what you've got without buying the annual updates?


    Thanks for reading this far.

    Have you considered recording guitar and vocals then sending the tracks to a studio to build a band around you?

    I've been playing bass for a lot of artist who I'll never meet for Nomad Recording.

    My friend Gary Long can provide those parts and he's a great engineer and mastering expert.

    Our Buddy Southdakota has done recording with him with great success.

    Nomad Recording 214-282-6388 https://nomadrecording.com/

    Tell him what you want to do, he's great to work with and doesn't charge rock-star prices.

    I tried this one , but fount it too restrictive and not enough open for my needs , and not specially fun.


    The tools don't really matter , the most important is to have fun while recording like you seem to have with the digitech trio. Maybe just record the different drum & bass parts from the trio to a DAW and start from here , stacking your tracks.


    I always start from a beat / loop beat myself, to get into a groove, the rest follows naturally. But I highly suggest to concentrate on the drum & bass aspect vs the guitar harmonies, the trio looks great for this again.

    The web page itself scares me because it reminds me of how infomercials try to push there products which are often just junk product.

    Larry Mar @ Lonegun Studios. Neither one famous yet.

    I use BIAB occasionally when I'm sketching out songs.

    It’s quite a powerful tool, with a certain learning curve though.


    If you want professional backing tracks for building songs or trying different chord progressions without programming everything it’s really great.


    Also it’s an awesome practice companion.

    I also have the current version of BIAB. It has come a very long way in the past 6 years. It has a lot of the mixing abilities of a DAW now. You can also export directly out of it into a DAW.


    I really like it for throwing something together quick. You can make your own backing tracks to jam along with really easily and put the chord progressions in them that you want to practice over.


    My biggest complaint is that is it expensive. I understand why. They have put a ton of development work into it and it is quite good at what it does. I am a little jaded because I bought their everything pack a while back. I then upgraded it a little over three years ago. I was going to just stay on that version and use it for what it is. I upgraded the OS on my Mac and the application wouldn't run anymore. The reason was that the main application on the version I had was 16 bit. The new OS is 64 bit only. I was forced to upgrade it again. I hadn't upgraded for 3 years so the upgrade was more money than I really wanted to spend but I felt I didn't have a choice. It was either spend the money and have it to use, or throw away what I had bought and have nothing.


    You could get away with upgrading it every other year for $99 if you want to keep it up to date. I can't imagine that there will be another huge change like going from 32 to 64 bit any time in the near future that would make the version you bought stop working like mine did. I would recommend paying the extra $25 and getting it on an external hard drive. The program is pretty big and it runs just fine directly from the external drive. You can always download the application and reinstall it if you have to.


    If you have any other questions, post them. I will try to answer them.



    EDIT:

    It does have a little bit of a learning curve to really use the features that it as and get into the powerful parts. However, it is sort of like the Kemper, you can watch some videos and do a little reading and messing with it and get something simple up and running pretty fast to start getting a benefit from it. Just plan on spending some time with it to get to know it. There are a couple of good youtube channel out there to help with the learning.

    I used to use it all the time while in college. There was no similar program that could register complex chord progressions at the time. The UI and stock sounds were awful, although I'm sure you can/could run it through a better sound library - I just didn't know better at the time. I'm using iReal Pro for jazz these days, and make some of my own backing tracks on my DAW. Depending what you want your backing tracks for, I'd say doing them on a DAW is probably the best option; I use Logic and it can be very fast to make midi part or even drag and drop drum or bass loops. I am still curious about finding a good customizable, easy to use play-along software and I keep looking but I can't seem to find one.