You can harmonize melodies or solos, or play along from the MIDI or QWERTY keyboard (wizard) using the harmonies. See help for details.
Enter a chord on each beat by putting a comma between the chords. e.g., Cm7,F7 puts a Cm7 on beat 1 and F7 on beat 2 .
To erase a chord , type a comma then ENTER Key. Or press <SPACEBAR> then press <ENTER>
~The notation will intelligently display enharmonics (b and #s) based on the chord. e.g. By changing the name of the chord from Gb7 to F#7, you can change whether a Bb note will display as a Bb or a A#.
To "Push" a chord (anticipate the beat) put a ^ symbol before the chord. ^F7 pushes the chord by an 8th note. ^^F7 pushes by a 16 th note.
Right mouse button click on the chord sheet allows you to edit the chord string, putting in new features like pushes, rests, shots and held chords. There is also an on-screen button for this (with a "C7" on it)
Right mouse button click on the instrument names at the top of the screen MUTES/UN-MUTES the instr. To do this with Keystrokes. Alt 3 (Bass), Alt 4(Piano),Alt 5 (Drums),Alt 6 (Guitar),Alt 7 (Horns),Alt 8 (Strings),Alt 9(Melody),Alt 0 (Thru)
Right mouse click on the Tempo Spin Control will change its value by 1 at a time. Using the [ ] keys will change the tempo during playback or while stopped.
You can re-play the song from the current position by choosing PLAY From. If you hold down the SHIFT key as you do this, it will play from the currently highlighted cell . To do this by keystrokes, press CTRL F .
If you'd like a style to push the instruments (anticipate) more often, then edit the style (by CTRL F9) , press the MISC button to set higher % values for the pushes.
Band-in-a-Box will embellish chords like G7 in jazz styles. It will add extensions like b9 nat 9 , b13 and nat 13. You can force it to use natural extensions (9 and 13) by renaming the chord G9, or force it to use b9 and b13 by renaming it G7b9.
If you find that a harmony is too loud overall, EDIT the harmony, press the MORE button, and set the "Overall Harmony Volumes" to reduce the harmony volume. (A non-permanent solution is to reduce the volume of the melody or THRU instead)
The "harmonies" that can be made include 2 to 5 part harmonies. But you can also make harmonies that just use unison melody or octaves without any harmony. These are called LAYERED SOUNDS because they have different instruments playing the same note.
There are shortcut keys to typing common chords . For example to type CMAJ7 you can just type Cj because j is a shortcut for MAJ7. The shortcuts are j (Maj7), s (7sus),h (m7b5),d(dim),f(7b9),L(7Alt)
There is on-screen standard musical notation. Press the notation button to open the notation window, or press CTRL W. You may use the notation window to type in chords, enter lyrics, or enter/edit the melody. This may be printed out.
You may print out the chords / melody or lyrics in any combination. For example you can print out just the chord sheet (without the melody).
Occasionally you may want to over-ride the notation resolution setting on the notation window. e.g. If a style with straight 8th notes (e.g., bossa) has a melody played in a swing feel, then set to the OPTIONS Resolution to triplets.
The Notation has a "clean" setting. This "cleans up the notation" by not showing grace notes and glitches, and simplifying otherwise complex notation. You should probably leave the clean setting ON.
The Notation has a "Mono" setting. This forces any notation entered in STEP time to Monophonic - by deleting any other notes on a the same time. This is useful for entering single voice melodies.
The Notation has a "Minimize Rests" option (in the OPTIONS dialog). This will only show a rest if it is a quarter note rest or larger, and improves the readability of the notation. Leave it set to ON.
The Notation has a "Show Key Signature Option". By setting it to NO, you will see the notation with all of the screen space used for the notation. This extra space is useful when displaying complex notation with 16th notes etc.
If entering lyrics to be printed out, set the Show Key Signature option (in the OPTIONS dialog) to NO. This lets you line up the lyrics on-screen with the printed bars (assuming that you are printing out without showing Key Sigs and Clefs each line)
Melodies entered in STEP time can sound pretty stiff. An alternative (without a MIDI keyboard) is to record the rhythm of the melody using the Wizard, and then fixing the pitches by dragging the notes (preserving the rhythm and durations !)
The Notation Window defaults to displaying the melody. But you can display any track (Bass /Drums/ Piano/ Guitar/ Strings) using the BDPGS buttons.
If you're displaying a track like the piano track in notation - remember BBW doesn't create the track till you press PLAY, so the track may be blank (or show previous information ) before you press PLAY.
You could use the Notation Window to EDIT any track, including BASS, PIANO etc. This can be used to make a few small edits, then make a MIDI file. But don't press PLAY ! (or those edits will be lost when BBW rewrites the BASS track !
Melody can be entered onto the notation window by left mouse click on the Notation Window. Make sure you're in Piano Roll or Editable Notation mode (click the "N" button to change modes).
Clicking the mouse on the on-screen piano will enter notes onto the notation at the current location. If you are recording, these clicks will be recorded.
You can edit notes on the Notation screen. Make sure you're in Piano Roll or Editable Notation mode (click the "N" button to change modes). Then press the RIGHT mouse button over a note to edit it.
To delete a note from the Notation - hold down the delete key and left-mouse click on the note. Or you could right mouse click on the note (to edit it)- then press the Delete button. Make sure you're in Piano Roll or Editable Notation mode
On the Notation Window, to quickly move from chorus 1 to chorus 2 etc.- press the PAGE DOWN key.
The fastest way to record a complete melody is to record the first chorus (in real time), then select Copy 1st chorus to whole song (from the Keep Take ? dialog box).
The Notation has an "engraver spacing" option. This spaces the notation properly. Leave this setting ON
The printout can use Arial font or "PG Text font". Since Arial font is built in to Windows - you should use Arial font if you're having trouble with printout.
To un-install BBW , delete all the files in c:\bb and any subdirectories (ie.c:\bb\solodemo). Delete any BBW icons by highlighting the icon and press DEL. Other PG Music programs use PGMUSIC.TTF+ PGTEXT.TTF fonts in c:\windows\system so don't remove those.
If the program output is silent, make sure that you have selected the correct output driver in the MIDI Driver menu item. Try another MIDI program , usually if one works, they will all work.
An easy way to check if the program is receiving MIDI input is to look at the on-screen piano as you play notes on the MIDI keyboard. If BBW is receiving input, the piano will display the notes in GREEN. If not - see next TIP.
If you're not receiving MIDI input , make sure that your driver has been set to the correct IRQ. Roland MPU401 example: Check the jumper setting on the card to read the IRQ # (e.g. IRQ=2). Then setup the driver in control panel to same IRQ.
You can use drag/ drop to move notes on the Notation Window. Drag the note with the left mouse to change the start time or pitch of the note.
You can use RIGHT mouse "drag" to change a note's duration in the Notation Window. Using the Right mouse, drag the note's duration from the note to the length of the desired duration.
While entering lyrics, you can move to the next or previous row by using the cursor up /down keys
Copy and Paste works for lyrics. To do this you need to use CTRL-INSERT for COPY and SHIFT-INSERT for PASTE (not Ctrl C or Edit Copy ) . This can copy /paste lyrics between different bars of the song, or from /to a word processor.
Band-in-a-Box will print a leadsheet style printout of chords , melody,lyrics, and solo's (or any combination). It will set up the #staffs per page
