PG Music Band in a Box - 2011 (Windows) User Manual download pdf (Page 9)

Chapter 2: Summary of New Features 9

Melody Embellisher

When a musician sees a lead sheet that has a melody written out, he/she would

almost never play it exactly as written. They would change the timing to add

syncopation, change durations to achieve staccato or legato playing, add grace

notes, slurs, extra notes, vibrato and other effects. Now you can have Band-in-

a-Box do these automatically using the Embellisher. If you enable the

Embellisher, any Melody will be embellished as it is played, so that you hear a

more lively and realistic Melody - and it's different every time. The

Embellisher is only active while the music is playing; it doesn't permanently

affect the Melody track. There is an option to make the Embellishment

permanent, so that if you like a certain embellishment you can add it to the

Melody track. This is especially useful to spice up songs that have been

entered in step time with “robot-like” velocities and durations of notes. Using

the Embellisher makes it sound like a person was playing instead of a

computer!

Roland VSC3 Sound Synthesizer Included

An important

part of “Band-in-a-Box” is the band that you actually hear – this

is determined by the MIDI driver that you use for output. Most people use

either an FM or wavetable sound card or a software synthesizer. Roland has

been making, in our opinion, the best quality software synthesizer – the Roland

Virtual Sound Canvas (VSC). The latest version of the VSC – dubbed the

“VSC3 - sounds so good that we put it to the test in a “blindfold” listening test

on our web site (www.pgmusic.com/blindfold_compare.htm). We made

recordings of the VSC3, various popular MIDI sound cards, sound cards with

enhanced sound fonts and hardware modules. They were all playing the

identical files (Classical, Jazz and Funk). The winner as voted by the visitors

to the site was the Roland VSC3 - beating out hardware modules and sound

cards, including those with enhanced sound fonts! Now you can hear all of

your MIDI music with the new VSC3, since it works with Band-in-a-Box and

most any other MIDI program that you have.

StyleMaker Enhancements

- Style Checker -

Analogous to a “Spell Checker”, this function analyzes your

style-in-progress and identifies possible problems. The results are output to a

text window, allowing you to examine the patterns and fix them if required. It

identifies patterns that might be “too busy” or incorrect macro notes etc.

Style Summary

- This displays a text window summary of the style,

including lots of information about the style such as number of patterns,

number of patterns for each substyle, patches, pushes, volume changes, guitar

patterns, and more.

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PG Music Band in a Box - 2011 (Windows) User Manual Page 9