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BAND1.EXE
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HELP.BB
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1991-06-03
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Band-In-A-Box version 4.03 Help : Recent additions to program
This information comes from a file on disk called help.bb
It is a standard ASCII file , so you may print it out ,
by typing copy help.bb prn from the DOS prompt
Recent Additions not in the manual :
USER STYLE NAMES NOW STORED WITH SONGS .SGU -> SONG WITH USER STYLE
So Loading a song like mySong.SGU will also load in the User Style
that was saved with the song .
F4 KEY (PLAY) WILL PLAY SONG IN BUILT IN STYLE OR USER STYLE
The Standard Edition of Band-in-a-Box comes with 24 styles that
are built in to the program ( you can't edit them ).
The Professional Edition of the program comes with an additional
51+ styles - all 51+ may be edited.The editable styles are called
"User Defined Styles" and are named with extension .STY
22 of the styles are User Defined Style versions of the Built in
styles - they are identified by naming beginning with Z
ie. Z_JAZZSW.STY is User Defined Style version of the built in
style Jazz Swing . Note that these Z styles are similar but
not identical to the built in ones - just made with the same
style in mind . The other 30+ styles on the Professional Edition
are brand new styles eg. AFRICAN.STY would be African User Defined
Style.
Each style comes with a demo chord progression to demonstrate the
style . Songs are named with .SG? extension
By looking at the song name you can tell what style it was
saved with by looking at the last character of the file name.
Songs using The 24 Built in styles are named
.SG1 .SG2 .SG3 ... SGA ..SGB etc
Any song saved with a User Style will be named .SGU
eg. mysong.SG1 is a song called mysong which when loaded
will use built in style #1 which is jazz swing
mysong.SGU is a song called mysong which when loaded
will use a user style stored on disk . When
you load in the song , the style will be loaded
in as well .
( When loading in a song with a user style , the program has to
be able to find the User Style. It will look in 2 places :
1. the same directory as the song is in
2. the directory that bb.exe was booted from
If it doesn't find the style in either location,it will
give you a message " can't find Style " . You can then
find the style yourself using the F9 Key , and then resave the
song in the same directory as the Style .
In precious versions of BB the F4 Key would
always play the Built in Style .
Now the F4 key will play the song in whatever style
is displayed on the main screen
eg.
My Song
CHACHA.STY Tempo 150 Key F
This song will be played in User Style CHACHA.STY if you hit the
F4 Key .
My Song
Cha Cha Tempo 150 Key F
As the Style name doesn't have .STY after it , we recognize
that this is a built in style and will be played with F4 Key.
the F8 key will still play the User Style in memory , which will
overide the Style Setting on the Screen .
You may change to a built in style by using the Pull down menu
for Styles , or change to a User Style by choosing a style
from the F9 Key .
- ENDINGS ARE NOW AVAILABLE for all styles and user styles .
From the Top menu accessed by the TAB key ( or PageUp ) there
is an overall setting of Yes/No for endings . If set to no the
program will function as before . If set to yes (the default) a
2 bar ending will occur after the end of the choruses ( or tag )
eg if Chorus is bars # 5-36 the ending will be played on bar 37,38
Note: The endings are based on the SINGLE Ending Chord that is placed
in the bar following the Chorus end (or Tag End ).
So if you have an ending with more than 1 chord involved
eg C Fm7 C you should use a tag ending with the
exact chords followed by the Final Chord (Ending Chord)
TECH NOTES :
1. You can't change between User Style as the song is playing
You can change between any of the built in styles at any bar.
1. To change Port I/O address to other than hex 330
run program as bb s The program will run prompting you
for desired IO address.
2. IRQ/Interrupt settings by the program are almost never required
as the program handles this automatically even if you use
other than IRQ2.
If the program locks up after the startup screen it means that
there is a hardware conflict and you must change the IRQ setting on
your card to a different interrupt # ( usually other than IRQ2 ).
If you like you may override the program's automatic detection
or IRQ by specifying IRQ# by running program with i option
eg. bb i7
( remember that this is not needed even if you use other than IRQ2
but is only included to handle unusual cases )
2a. PS/2 MicroChannel users . The MPU-IMC card MUST be set to other
than IRQ2 - ie IRQ7 . This is done by jumper setting on the card.
If your card is an early MPU-IMC there will be no jumper setting
and you'll have to return it to Roland to install jumpers
for you . The IRQ2 is used by the Hard Disk on the PS/2 !!
3.If your program cannot access song files on your disk it means that
your disk controller is conflicting with disk controller IRQ and
you must change the IRQ setting on your card .
4.If you find songs give message TOO MANY BARS with even short songs
it means that very little memory is available to the program and
you should re-boot without mem-resident programs or unused drivers.
Other possibility for TOO MANY BARS message is a bad pattern
in a user style . If so , edit the style playing every pattern
with the F8 Key - the "bad" pattern won't loop properly, then delete
that pattern by assigning a weight of 0 .
If you get error message 203 - it means you have completely run out
of memory . Need 640K memory with at least 520K free as reported by
Chkdsk program (DOS). Remember that even if you have 2 meg of memory
DOS only uses 640K less mem-resident less drivers less DOS requirements
and it is only when you run CHKDSK program that you will find how
much memory is available on your system .
Typical memory hogs include :
SHELL programs / MENU programs / EMS drivers/POP-UP PROGRAMS etc
5. Miscellaneous StyleMaker help
- If A User Style PlayBack has screwed up timing-
this could be due to a pattern
with bad data recorded (somehow). This pattern can be identified
either by listening to when in happens and recognizing the pattern
ot going to the StyleMaker and playing all of the patterns with
the F8 Key . If a pattern is bad it will not loop properly.
Once found, Delete the pattern by assigning a weight of 0 .
Then resave the style and its fixed .
This situation does not usually happen.
- Voice leading for Piano Patterns has been improved :
There are 3 types of voice leading available
0=Intelligent
1=Smooth
2=Simple
If you want to use only the C7 chord notes C E G Bb you should
use Voice Leading 0 . If the Chord in the Song is C13 the program
would play your C E G Bb notes as D E A Bb .
If you want the pattern to be smoothly voice lead with the 3rd
swapped for the 7th etc , choose type 1 .
If you are playing a "riff" and plan to use passing notes etc.
you should use voice leading 2 , which result in the pattern being
played pretty much as is ( it will only adjust the third and 5th )
here is a one page summary to get you going
1a. The program is not copy protected . None of the files
are archived or compressed .
BB.EXE is the program
HELP.BB is the on line help file <F1><F1> to access
*.SG? files are the song files (chord files )
2.Suggest that you copy all files to your
hard disk ( suggest C:\bb subdirectory )
3.Type BB to run the program
The program uses standard IBM-PC conventions for key commands .
Move around screen with cursor or page up/down keys
Escape out of options , Hit enter key to choose options.
To get to the pull down menus Hit the <ALT> key and press the
first letter of the desired pull down menu .
Set your desired MIDI channels by the MIDI window accessed by
the pull down MIDI settings.
4.Drums default to Roland drum notes. If your not using
a Roland Drum machine move to the DrumKit section
from the MIDI pull down menu,choose the define drum kit option
and then type in the MIDI drum notes that correspond to
your machine. When saving the file (Function key 2),
suggest you name it MYSETUP then it will automatically
be loaded every time you use the program ( along with the
MIDI channels you had selected and the bass/piano octaves).
5. Load in some of the songs that come with the program by
hitting FunctionKey 3 <F3> for a menu of all songs or
<F7> for menu of only songs in currently selected style.
6.Play the songs by <F4> key. If octave for bass/piano is too
high or low -adjust these from the MIDI pull down.
7.Create a Standard MIDI file by <F6> key
8.Blank the worksheet by <ALT> B or pull down menu EDIT Blank
9.Type in your own chords/songs. <F1> help key gives summary
of entering chords . <F2> to save songs .
10.<F10> to quit . If you've saved a drum kit with name of
MYSETUP ( .DK extension added by program) your
configuration of drum kit,channels, and bass/piano octaves
will be auto-loaded next time you run the program.
HAVE FUN,
PG Music Inc.
SECTION 1
INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM
Band-In-A-Box (version 4) is a MIDI program for IBM compatible
computers with an MPU 401 compatible MIDI interface. The program
provides automatic accompaniment of bass,piano chording, and
drum parts in a wide variety of popular styles of music
(total of 24 including Jazz swing ,Rock ,Country, Ethnic and more ).
This program was designed and programmed by a musician.The concept
is to provide the fastest means possible to provide a complete
piano,bass and drum accompaniment to any song .
To play a song all the program requires is :
- the chords of the song ( as typed in by the user onto
the screen using standard chord symbols-eg:C13b9 )
and - the form of the song (ie. the looping points for the chorus
to begin and end , number of choruses to play , tag ending)
and - part markers placed throughout the song to indicate new
parts and locations for drum fills.
and - the desired style (chosen by the user from a menu of
24 available styles )
A typical song may be entered in about 2 minutes . This
allows the user to quickly build up a large library of songs
in many styles of music .
Examples of situations where the program is most useful include:
1. Play along in home MIDI studio .
No more need to buy "Play along Jazz/Pop records".Now
you can input your own songs very quickly,transposing,
changing tempo,styles,trying different chord substitutions,
and saving to disk as chord file or performance file
(Standard MIDI File).
Improve your playing regardless of instrument .
Each of the instruments (bass,drums,piano) may be turned
off so applicable to all musicians .
2. Useful for non Keyboard players (eg:vocalists) to enter
chords directly out of Song books and generate accompaniment.
Also educational as bass and piano parts are displayed on
piano keyboard drawn on the screen , as well as 'bouncing bar'
indicating which bar is playing .
3. Professionals will appreciate the abilities of the program
to quickly generate sequences of popular songs . The song
can then be saved as a sequence using a Standard Midi File .
This file can then be loaded by most other IBM MIDI sequencers
(such as Cakewalk v3.0 or Voyetra or Master Tracks)
and can be edited or tracks
added).The sequences can then be used in live situations .
4.Entering a song as a series of chords has many advantages
over creating a sequence :
- about 20 times faster entry of song
- can switch styles with touch of a key
- storage of chords takes less than 1K per song
( 360 songs/floppy , 30,000 songs per hard disk !! )
- can change chords at will
- no need for user to be aware of all
kinds of drum beats and fills
- as future versions of program increase sophistication
your 'old' song files will sound better and better
whereas a sequence sounds the same.
Appendix A : List of valid chords accepted by Band-In-A-Box
(major chords)
C,CMAJ,C6, CMAJ7, CMAJ9,CMAJ13,
Cb5, Caug,C+,
CMAJ9#11, CMAJ13#11,
(minor chords)
Cm,Cm6,Cm7,Cm9,Cm11,Cm13,
Cmaug,Cm#5,
CmMAJ7,
(half diminished)
Cm7b5,
(diminished)
Cdim,
( dominant 7th chords )
C7,7+, C9+, C13+, C13, C7b13, C7#11, C13#11, C7#11b13, C9,
C9b13, C9#11, C13#11, C9#11b13, C7b9, C13b9, C7b913, C7b9#11,
C13b9#11, C7b9#11b13, C7#9, C13#9, C7#9b13, C9#11, C13#9#11, C7#9#11b13,
C7b5, C13b5, C7b5b13, C9b5, C9b5b13, C7b5b9, C13b5b9, C7b5b9b13,
C7b5#9, C13b5#9, C7b5#9b13, C7#5, C13#5, C7#5#11, C13#5#11, C9#5,
C9#5#11, C7#5b9, C13#5b9, C7#5b9#11, C13#5b9#11, C7#5#9, C13#5#9#11,
C7#5#9#11, C13#5#9#11
( sustained 4 chords )
Csus ,C7sus,C9sus,
C13sus, C7susb13, C7sus#11, C13sus#11, C7sus#11b13,
C9susb13, C9sus#11, C13sus#11, C9sus#11b13, C7susb9, C13susb9,
C7susb913, C7susb9#11,
C13susb9#11, C7susb9#11b13, C7sus#9, C13sus#9, C7sus#9b13, C9sus#11,
C13sus#9#11, C7sus#9#11b13,
C7susb5, C13susb5, C7susb5b13, C9susb5, C9susb5b13, C7susb5b9,
C13susb5b9, C7susb5b9b13, C7susb5#9, C13susb5#9, C7susb5#9b13,
C7sus#5, C13sus#5,
C7sus#5#11, C13sus#5#11, C9sus#5,
C9sus#5#11, C7sus#5b9, C13sus#5b9,
C7sus#5b9#11, C13sus#5b9#11, C7sus#5#9, C13sus#5#9#11, C7sus#5#9#11,
C13sus#5#9#11,
Note1: it is not necessary to type upper or lower case.
the program will sort this out for you.
Note2: Any chord may be entered with an alternate root ("SlashChord")
eg: C7/E = C7 with E bass
Note3: Separate chords with commas to enter 2 chords in a 2 beat cell
eg: Dm7,G7
The suggested retail price of Band-in-A-Box is under $100
PG Music Inc.
111-266 Elmwood Ave
BUFFALO NY 14222
1-416-528-4897