Overview: Band in a Box (BinaB) was designed as a tool to help musicians practice solos over standard tunes. However, over the years it has developed into a multi-faceted accompaniment program. You can type in chords to any song in lead sheet style (ie C or Cm7b5), pick a style and let BinaB do the work for you. BinaB will create a backup group consisting of strings, piano, drums, guitar, and bass. An added feature in version 8 is the "Melodist" feature. The melodist will auto generate chords and melody in one of the many styles available in BinaB. The "Soloist" will auto generate solos over any chord changes you type in (you can even use the soloist with the melodist for a completely automated tune!). There are many functions within the program and it's quite easy to get lost and overwhelmed by the menu depth in Version 8. This tutorial will lead you through 2 ways of creating music in BinaB: automated styles Using the Melodist and Soloist, and for those who like to have control over every aspect of the music we'll explore how to create your own tunes the Standard Way. The beauty of this program is that you need almost no musical training to create music!! Have fun!
Before we begin, make sure you have BinaB up and running.
Spend some time looking at the main screen BinaB presents when the program is started. Your screen should look something like the one below.
The large area at the bottom of the screen (area with the numbers) is where most of your work will be done. The numbers are measure numbers. To put it simply, you just type in your chord changes by clicking in the open spaces next to the numbers. When you're done, click play and BinaB gives you a couple of count-off measures and begins playback.
The keyboard area is a virtual keyboard the BinaB will use to show you what notes are being played. If you would like to learn how to play chords in any style, you can watch this area and copy the play styles to simulate the styles in your own playing.
Just underneath the menubar is a smaller bar with checkboxes next to instrument names. If you click the box next to any one instrument and open the instrument pop-up box below, you can change the patch (voice) of the instrument selected. The patch list is taken from a normal GM patch list and for the most part you will be limited to only those patches unless you set up BinaB to use you external MIDI device's patch list. We don't need to concern ourselves with this patch to use BinaB. It should be automatically configured to do so.
This button panel is new to version 8. Breifly, we'll discuss what some of the buttons do and when you would use them.
The guitar button opens a virtual guitar neck that will play the melody and solo of a tune during playback. Useful to learn how to play themes and learing to solo.
The drum button opens the virtual drum kit that allows you to audition the drum sounds of your GM Drums patch. (Cool!)
Intro button allows you to insert an intro into a tune if you wish. If you use the melodist,
this button is not really needed.
The 2 buttons to the right of the C7 button (chord options button) and the one
to the right of the "Pref" button are specific to AWE64 sound cards. If
you own one of these cards, you should look through these buttons. Otherwise,
they serve no purpose but for AWE64 configuration.
The MIDI button shows a MIDI monitor that gives technical info about the MIDI data.
The tuning fork brings up a tuner that allows you to tune your instrument.
The button with the II on it switches the chord symbol view. (Nashville, Pop Chart, and Theory styles.)
This box allows you to choose styles (using the STY button) for the song you've created.
Change keys at any time using the pop up menu with the "C" on it.
Change the tempo using the box to the right of the Key box.
Pressing the Song button allows you to load songs (saved files) in BinaB. The f buttons next to the styles and song buttons are "favorite" buttons that allow you to quickly load your favorite styles and songs. BinaB allows for an unbelievable amount of tunes on these "favorite lists" (somewhere in the range of 100) which is useful for quickly locating your favorite tunes without wading through millions of BinaB files!
Now that we are armed with some basic knowledge, let's begin creating some music.
Press the Melodist button 
to create a song from scratch.
The most important area of this dialog box is the left scroll window. This alows you to select a "Melodist" BinaB will create a new song in the style of one of the "Melodists" you choose.
For now, select #2, KennyG Sopr. Sax. From here on out we can only explain the various settings of the dialog box. Because once you generate the song, it's different every time. Take a quick look at the Chords and/or Melody area. You'll notice that there are check marks next to every item. I've chosen to have BinaB create a solo. Normally, this defaults to being off. Now a quick explanation of the properties of this box.
The form is set to AABA. You can select other form types but beware, stay away from the "No form" box. It produces odd effects.
Set the # of choruses in the #chorus box currently set to 3.
Normally, the tempo is set in the style song. However, you can over-ride this by setting your own in the Tempo box and unchecking AutoTempo.
When the song is set to "Any Key" the Melodist will randomly choose a key for playback. You can, of course, choose any key you like now or later. The 20% value is the percentage that the tune will be in a minor key.
Underneath the Key area is where you can have the Melodist generate the entire song or just parts of it. This is useful (partial) if you didn't like the way a couple of the measures turned out. We'll touch on this more later.
Press OK to generate the Song!
Your screen will look something like the one below. Just remember that BinaB generates new key, melody, chords, and tempo each time you use the Melodist. Your song may turn out differently.
BinaB generated a 4 bar intro (measures 1 - 4), the real tune begins at measure 5. We set the form to an AABA style so the first A goes from 5 to 12, repeats from 13 to 20, the B section is from 21 to 28 and the final A is from 29 to 36 with an ending measure at 37. When BinaB reaches m. 36 it will jump back to m.5 and continue to 36. It will finish one more time before reaching m.37 because we set the #chorus to 3.
While the song is playing, change the patches by clicking on a box next to Bass or Piano and scrolling through the Instrument window to change patches.
BinaB not only generates the chord and melodies, but it also generates a song title (next to
the song button) and a style used for the song. (P_PHIL_C.sty) Styles
contain instrument combos and styles of playing that you can switch at any time.
Styles of playing are, for example, latin rhumba, hard rock, pop rock, jazz,
and so on. They are pre programed from PG music and allow for quick make-overs
of song. Note, the styles will not change the chords, just the way they
are played!
[Return to the Project Menu]
- Regenerating part of a tune
Let's say, for example, that you are unhappy with the melody between measures 9 and 10. Using the mouse on the chordsheet window, click and drag over bars 9 and 10 to select them. (click just a little after the chord symbol.)Press the Melodist button
You will notice that the Melodist will automatically now default to change only Partial song and that it recognizes the measures you selected. If you forgot to highlight the region, you can make the settings manually here. Also, make sure there is a check next to Replace Thru form. This will make sure the melody will adhere to the new chord changes.
Press OK.
Continue doing this until you are happy with your changes.
On a final note, you can change sections of a song in different chorus repeats.
For example, if we were to change the Chors # from 1 to 2 our the Melodist will change measures 13 -15 ONLY in the second repeat of the chorus. This will leave the 1st and 3rd choruses alone!
You could change an entire A section on repeat 2 if you wish. Get the idea?
This is a quite simple process as well, however, it does require a bit more work that letting
the Melodist option does. Follow this quick guide to help you create your
chord progressions that you enter and let the Melodist create the melody.
[Return to the Project Menu]
- Select New from the File menu.
- Enter your chord changes the large window at the bottom of the screen. Click after a measure number to enter the enter mode and type your chord changes using the PC keyboard. You can enter up to 4 chords per measure. Seperate chords with a comma to type more than one chord in a box.
- When done go to the Edit menu and select Song Settings.
In the Chorus End box, type the last measure of your tune. If you created an intro, type the measure in the Chorus Begin box that the tune actually begins at. Now, your song will not continue past the measures you've entered so far. If you change the song's length, be sure to update this window as it has no idea what changes you've made.
- Now, let's choose a style for the music to play back in. Go to the Style button and select a style. For now, lets choose a Fats Domino style.
BinaB will generate a style pattern and use your chord changes as the base music.
- Now, let's get a melody in the song by letting the Melodist do its work. Press the Melodist button. This time we only want it to do a melody so we'll have to deselect Generate Chords. Pick a style of "performer" you want to play back the melody. Since this is a Rock-n-Roll type tune, we probably should pick a style that would complement the chords. Choose Rock Organ (8va in Octaves) for now.
You'll notice that I have Part of Song set. I left the first 2 measures alone since I may opt to have an intro generated for me later. If you do this, remember to go through this process again for each following chorus. (2 more times) I chose not to have the Melodist chang my style because I want to keep the Fats Domino feel. Press OK.That's it!
- If you have a MIDI keyboard hooked up to your machine. You can opt to record your own melodies in. Go to Melody => Record Melody. You play along and record your melody at the same time.
Either have the Melodist generate a tune for you or create one of your own. We'll need
it to show the following features of BinaB Ver. 8
With the song open, click the Leadsheet button, (green button with 2 notes on
it) to view the leadsheet. BinaB automatically creates this when it created
the song or when you create a song from scratch. Use the small grey
buttons along the top to change which instrument you are viewing. (ie
P=Piano, S=solo, M=melody, etc.) Use the Opt. button to change the view
size of the music so more will fit on the screen. During playback BinaB
will highlight the notes as they are played in the lead sheet area.
With the song running still, exit the leadsheet mode and press the Guitar Button in
the new Version 8 buttons. (see above)
Now as the song plays, you will see the melody play on the guitar fretboard.
Great for the guitarist who quickly need to learn solos or tunes.
Stop the tune.
Now for some real fun! Click on the Drum icon under the new Version 8 buttons. A new window will appear giving you a virtual drumkit. Use the mouse to click and test the percussion instruments at your disposal. Note! some instruments have more than one sound on them. Be sure to look for "hidden" sounds!
Don't overlook this section! This is very important!
To save your work as a Band in a Box file, you need only to do a File Save or File Save As.
However, this will not be portable to others, we need to save this file as a general midi
file. Go to File => Make Standard MIDI File. The following window
will pop-up:
Click on File on Disk to save your work.
Now name your file and add the .mid extension. That's all there is to it!
Have fun with Band in a Box.
