Chapter 2: QuickStart Tutorial

Creating music with Band-in-a-Box is as easy as 1-2-3!  In this tutorial, you will see just how easy it is to get Band-in-a-Box making music for you.

Step 1 – Enter the Chords

There are numerous ways of entering chords into Band-in-a-Box.  We will discuss five fast ways of entering chords:

1. Using the Computer Keyboard
2. Playing directly on a MIDI Controller Keyboard
3. Using the Chord Builder
4. Importing Chords from a MIDI file
5. Loading an Existing Band-in-a-Box Format Song

On the main screen of the program, you will see an area called the Chord Sheet.

Each of the numbered cells on the Chord Sheet represents a bar.  In this example, you can see that there is an F6 chord in the first bar of this song.  Similarly, one row down, you can see an F6 chord in bar 5, and later in the song, a G7 in bar 7.  Notice the box in the first half of bar 1.  This is the highlight cell, and it represents the bar you are currently working on.  You can move the highlight cell around using the cursor keys, or select a specific bar using the mouse.

Enter Chords Using the Computer Keyboard

To enter a specific chord, move the highlight cell to where you want to place the chord.  For example, if you wanted to add (or change) a chord in bar 20, you would highlight bar 20 on the Chord Sheet.  Next, type in your chords.  If you want F7 at bar 2, type F and 7 on your keyboard and press return.  Notice that when you use the return key, the highlight cell moves to the second half of the bar.  You could then enter another chord at beat 3.  Chords are commonly typed using standard chord symbols (like C or Fm7 or Bb7 or Bb13#9/E), but you can enter them in any of the supported chord symbol display formats like Roman Numerals, Nashville Notation, and Solfeggio.

Enter Chords Using a MIDI Controller Keyboard

If you have a MIDI controller keyboard, you can use it to enter chords into Band-in-a-Box. Play a chord on your MIDI keyboard, and then type command+return. The chord will be entered into the Chord Sheet at the current highlight cell position.

Step 2 – Choose a Style

Band-in-a-Box creates backing arrangements based on the chords you type in, applied to a particular Style.

What’s a Style?

A style is a set of rules that determine how Band-in-a-Box creates music using your chords.  By adjusting the rules, we have created hundreds of styles that are appropriate for everything from Country to Bebop.  Some style examples would be Jazz Swing, Blues Shuffle, Hip Hop, Country 4/4, Pop Ballad, Waltz, and Medium Rock to name just a few.  If you don’t find a pre-made style that suits your tastes, create one from scratch using the StyleMaker.  Making custom styles with the StyleMaker is explained in detail in the full documentation.

Opening a Style

Selecting a Style using the StylePicker

The StylePicker window lists all styles with full information.  It has a great filter feature for finding a perfect style for your song by selecting elements such as time signature, feel, or tempo or by simply typing in a familiar song title.

You can browse styles by sorting columns or hear an “instant” preview by double clicking on the list.  If style has both MIDI and RealDrums available, you can hear both, and choose which one you want.  This makes it much faster to find the style that fits your song.

Step 3 – Play your song!

Now that we’ve entered chords on the Chord Sheet and chosen a style, it’s time to play the song!  First, we need to tell Band-in-a-Box how long our song is, in what key and how fast, and how many times we want the program to play through the chords, in what key, and how fast.

Framing the Song

Setting the Chorus

To tell Band-in-a-Box where to start and end the song, locate the framing buttons. There are three of them, one each for Start of Chorus, End of Chorus, and Number of Choruses. In the example shown, the chorus starts at bar 1, ends on bar 32, and is going to play 3 times..

Setting the Key

The Key button is used to set the key or to change it and transpose the song. When you press it, you see 2 columns of keys. The first column will set the key and transpose the song; the second will just set the key signature. Clicking on the small number will show a menu for the visual transpose settings..

Setting the Tempo

The Tempo Control shows the current song tempo. Left-click on the up/down arrows to change the tempo by +/- 5 beats per minute. Right-click to change it by +/- 1 bpm. Tempos can also be typed in directly. You can also use hotkeys: [ to decrease the tempo by 5 and ] to increase the tempo by 5.

This button allows you to quickly set the relative tempo. Click on the button and choose a percentage or use the Custom Tempo % menu item to set any value between 1% and 800%. 1% would be 1/100 of the original tempo and 800% would be 8 times the original tempo. Hotkeys are available: control - (minus key) for half speed and control = for normal speed.

Use the Tap tempo buttons to count and set a tempo. Tap the [-] button in tempo four times to set the tempo. It will appear in the tempo box. Tap the [=] button to count-in the song and start playback at the tapped tempo. As you tap more than 4 times, the accuracy will improve (through averaging) and you can continue to tap until the target tempo has been reached. For example, in a 4/4/ style, once you tap 4 times a tempo will be set. But you can keep tapping and the tempo will change every beat, based on the average tempo that you have typed.

Press Play

When you are ready, just press the [Play] button or the F4 function key and Band-in-a-Box will immediately generate and play a professional arrangement of your song using the settings and the style you selected.  You can double-click on any bar in the Chord Sheet, including the tag or ending, to start playback from that bar.

More fun with Band-in-a-Box

You’ve seen how easy it is to start making music with Band-in-a-Box, but there is still much more for you to discover.  For a start, you could add a human element to your arrangement with RealTracks and RealDrums.

Feature Browser

Clicking on the [?] button on the main screen or pressing the / return keys on the Chord Sheet opens the Feature Browser.

This dialog lists many features in Band-in-a-Box and allows you to browse them, find the feature by text filter, read descriptions about the feature, find how to launch the feature, access to the online information or video about the feature, and do more.

In the dialog, you will see:

• Text filter.
• Info on how to launch the feature from the toolbar, menu, hotkeys and/or other means.
• Memo with description about the feature.
• [Manual] button that links to online information about the feature.
• [Video] button to launch a video.  (Tip: over 80 topics have videos, and you can type the word “video” in the filter to find them.)
• A graphic showing the feature.
• [Do It] button that will launch the feature.

This dialog helps in the following situations.

• You know about a feature but don’t know how to find it.  Just type a part of the feature name and you’ll see the hotkeys, menu, and toolbar info on how to launch it.  For example, if you want to launch the Chord Builder but don’t know how to do it, type “builder” in the text filter, and you will quickly find the Chord Builder.
• You are exploring available features for Band-in-a-Box.  For example, if you are a guitar player, type the word “guitar” and you’ll see what’s available.
• You prefer “one-stop-shopping” and would like to launch features from the same dialog.
• You are learning the program and like to browse or watch videos about topics you’re interested in.
• You can’t remember hotkeys and want to review them.