Band-in-a-Box® Plugin: Summary and QuickStart

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Band-in-a-Box® Plugin: Summary and QuickStart

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The Band-in-a-Box®* plugin for Notation Composer gives you the capability to automatically add or change the accompaniment to your songs with a few simple steps. The trial plugin comes with 25 styles in a  variety of genres - the full plugin comes with 150 styles and variants.  You can also use styles that you have purchased from PG Music® or obtained from other sources.  The trial version is free to try fully for 60 days, and any files that are created using the plugin can be opened in any of Notation Software's products.

 

The main steps for using the The Band-in-a-Box® plugin to automatically generate accompaniment are:

 

1. Song file: Open or create your song file

2. Style: Use the Style Picker to select the style/substyle that you wish and click in the score where you want the accompaniment to begin (eg. measure 1 beat 1).

3. Chord names: Enter the chord names manually, or have Composer automatically analyze the chord names for the existing accompaniment

4. Intros and endings: Decide if you would like to have a special "intro" for your song, and select the number of measures of intro for the song (you may need to add extra measures to the beginning of the song so things sound good).  You can also select to have the last 2 measures of the song played as a "finale" finish; again you may want to add a couple of measures to the end of the song for it to sound perfect.

5. Takes: Click the "Generate" button to have accompaniment generated automatically for your song. You can select different styles and create multiple takes to have a variety to select from or to combine using Composer's editing tools.

 

 

Band-in-a-Box® main palette

Band-in-a-Box® main palette

 

 

Note: There are a few requirements that the song file must meet for the Band-in-a-Box® plugin to work properly:

 

oThe song must be in 4/4 or 3/4 time.  You can generate accompaniment for other time signatures, but you must first change the time signature to 4/4 or 3/4 using Staff Symbols/ Meter/Change Meter, generate the accompaniment, and then change the meter back to your original meter.

oSome chord names are not recognized by the Band-in-a-Box® plugin.  If this is a problem for your file, you will need to change the problematic chord name, generate the accompaniment, and then change the chord name back if needed.  Using Notation Composer's note editing tools you can "tweak" any note pitches in the accompaniment to give you the exact sound you want for those chords.  You can find a list of supported chord name types at http://www.pgmusic.com/tutorial_chordlist.htm

 

 

* The Band-in-a-Box® plugin is only available for Notation Composer, and is an additional license purchase.