May 14, 2018  -  Band-in-a-Box® 2018 for Mac - 45 Requests Fulfilled!

Band-in-a-Box® 2018 for Mac is here, and there's more than 80 new features! We've answered some user requests with this release, including:

Q. I am learning guitar. The RealTracks are very helpful in that I can hear great guitar players, and most of the tracks have tab and notation as well. But there is much more to guitar, could you include some videos of some of the RealTracks Artists? Because I would learn much more from seeing a guitarist than just hearing them.

A. We have a major new feature called "Video RealTracks." These work and sound like RealTracks, but you get to see a video of the Guitarist (or whatever instrument) playing as well. The amazing thing is that this works with any chord progression you type in. So, if you want to learn to play like the great guitarist Brent Mason, for example, you can type in chords to any progression you are interested in, and then hear and see a video of Brent soloing over your progression. Now you can learn much quicker, as it helps to see how a musician is performing, as well as to hear.

Q. I use the feature to make a video of the chord sheet from a Band-in-a-Box song. I use it to make backing tracks and upload them to YouTube. But these don't include any notation for the melody and lyrics of my songs. My viewers would like to see the melody and lyrics too. Is there a way you can include the melody in the video? I've tried recording this with screen capture programs, but it's time consuming, recording in real time, and the audio quality and sync are not that good.

A. Yes, Band-in-a-Box 2018 can do this now. You can save your song as a video of the notation track. So that includes the notation, guitar tab, and lyrics. And saving the whole video and audio just takes a few seconds, much faster than real time recording. Just load in your song with chords, melody, lyrics, and/or guitar tab, and press Save-As Notation Video. Your song will be up on YouTube in no time!

Q. I am songwriter and uses Band-in-a-Box to make backing tracks for my productions. I'm starting to make videos and upload them to YouTube. Can Band-in-a-Box help with my production videos?

A. Band-in-a-Box 2018 can now make videos with Video RealTracks, of the musicians performing the RealTracks. And they are playing along to your song's chord progression. You can include these videos in your own song performance, which adds a nice visual element.

Q. I use the Audio Harmonies in Band-in-a-Box. But I find the harmonies simplistic, in that they are mainly using chord tones. The Band-in-a-Box MIDI harmonies are more sophisticated, using passing tones. Why can't my Audio Harmonies work like that?

A. We've added support for new types of Audio Harmonies in the Audio Edit Window. These do allow you to choose any Band-in-a-Box MIDI harmony that has passing tones or sophisticated jazz voicings (adding 4 parts to make a 5-part jazz voicing for example). Band-in-a-Box automatically figures out the MIDI version of your melody so it uses this to create the harmonies.

Q. The new toolbar is nice, but needs more color options. Too much grey! How about skins?

A. We've added support for skins, and you can choose color or grey scale options for toolbar, mixer etc.

And more!!!

All of the new features in Band-in-a-Box® 2018 for Mac can be reviewed at http://www.pgmusic.com/bbmac.new.htm

Posted on May 14, 2018 08:15 AM