Music Technology in Education

Of all the software out there for musicians and educators, perhaps none has had the pure staying power as Band-In-A-Box. The well-known auto accompaniment generation has been a wonderful teaching tool for educators for decades. For those of you have never seen BIAB, you simply enter in chord changes and BIAB turns the lead sheet into a fully orchestrated accompaniment file. Recent upgrades over the years have added features such as notation, the ability to record audio, real-time MIDI input, and more. The one thing that some musicians might not have appreciated as much as the functionality of the software was the quality of the sound generated by the accompaniment. Basically, you were limited to General MIDI sounds that, let’s face it, sound cheesy. Not anymore. Introducing Band In A Box 2009 for Mac. While the PC version has been out for a few months, I haven’t checked it out until this latest announcement.

The most significant upgrade in years, the folks at PG Music have done the seemingly impossible - now the accompaniment files play back with REAL INSTRUMENTS which they call RealTracks and RealDrums. That’s right - actual audio recordings of real musicians playing thousands of examples that the software somehow strings together to create the most amazing sounding accompaniments yet. Band In A Box is now on a whole other level of sophistication. There are two movies posted on the PG Music site that introduce BIAB 2009 and the new features that are included. Those new features include: Audio Chord Wizard - this feature analyzes the chords played from any standard MP3, M4A, and more; and Direct Render to Disk which allows you to burn your files directly to an audio file or CD. I urge you to check them out. If you haven’t seen BIAB in a while, you’ll be impressed. At a price of $129 for first time users or as little as $49 to upgrade from BIAB 12.

To purchase BIAB 2009, visit the SoundTree Online Store.