Re: [Harp-L] Band-in-a-Box

["Doug H" <dough.harpl@xxxxxxxxx>]

I have been considering BIAB for a long time but hesitated for fear it having a frustrating time eater of a learning curve.  Your posts sort of confirm that frustrating aspect but are also encouraging.  I for one am glad to get this not-quite-harp-content news.

There is almost certainly a BAIB forum out there that would have better answers than the help manual.

Doug H
  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Elizabeth Hess 
  To: Harp-L 
  Sent: Saturday, November 13, 2010 9:57 AM
  Subject: [Harp-L] Band-in-a-Box


  Since my earlier post about Band-in-a Box (BAIB), I have received an 
  offer of help, a request for help, and a nod from list-owner, so I will 
  feel free to post questions here and cheerfully share what I've learned 
  so far.

  Band-in-a-Box is a very cool program that lets you enter chords in a 
  highly intuitive way, make a zillion adjustments and refinements, and 
  then you have music (or, for any live-music purists in the audience, a 
  very useful facsimile of music).

  I can tell that I have only begun to scratch the surface of what the 
  program has to offer.  Its weak point is the User Manual, which is very 
  disjointed.  The index is downright terrible:  I wanted to change the 
  time signature for a piece, looked up "time signature" in the index, 
  and found no entry.  Likewise "meter".  There is an awful lot of 
  verbiage in the manual about "tracks" and "patches" and MIDI sequencing 
  that is frankly over my head, and not enough about things like how to 
  make it play all the way through the song, or stop playing when I think 
  it should stop playing.

  It often seems that the more complex and flexible a program is, the 
  harder it is to  *learn*  to use, and that seems to be the case, here.  
  At least for me.

  I can just imagine a team of software engineers putting the finishing 
  touches on it and collectively shouting, "Yay!  It works!  Let's party! 
    Oh.  We have to write documentation??"  The manual got sort shrift.  I 
  think it deserves better.  But the program seems GREAT for creating jam 
  tracks and backing tracks for practice.  I suspect that in the hands of 
  a power user, it can also create tracks suitable for public 
  performance.

  There is a seminar about BAIB on the schedule at the Garden State 
  Harmonica Festival.  I don't know who's presenting it, but I encourage 
  people to go.  I wish I could be there.

  For the rest of us hoi polloi, I will send a follow-up post explaining 
  how to set up the second-simplest-possible jam track for a 12-bar 
  blues.

  Elizabeth (aka "Tin Lizzie")