Go, K-man!

Is this cheating???
 
 

abacab
Is this cheating???
 
 

$2.5K for a cool keyboard or BIAB for under $500US? 
 
You decide.

This thread makes me feel old. At least I'm not cheating 
 
I really tried to like Biab. I deliberated a long time. I'm still deliberating. So long as I have drum kits and bass I can play with midi I really have no reason to buy it. I would rather spend my time learning to play. I'll be learning the rest of my life.
I'm not snubbing anyone who uses it. If I were churning out tracks for music libraries and all that mattered was getting a facsimile of an idea out there I would be on this like white on rice.
 
I use my looper for similar activity. Play a part into it and jam. Maybe even easier, play a part into Sonar and loop it. I guess i'm still missing the point. For me at least.

smallstonefan
Great playing Kenny! :)

abacab
 
 
Hey Kenny, you sure can play some!!!  
 
Nice one! 

Mesh
Kenny, you're cheating..........you're playing the guitar!!

BobF

Mesh
Kenny, you're cheating..........you're playing the guitar!!

Yeah, he's making those BiaB tracks sound better than they really are 
 

abacab
There's obviously some cheating going on there, but danged if I can spot it, LOL!!!

Fleer
Go, K-man!

 
Hey there ,  James, abacab, Mesh, Bob, and Fleer ,
WOW thank you for the kindness of your words
 
Kenny

Hey Kenny nice playing there.  Love Blue Bossa.  You sure stated that theme and blew over it nice.  Love it.  I like hearing the melody.  I wish I had a dollar for every time I played Blue Bossa (on drums that is)  I like the fast groove you have chosen too.  This tune can drag if too slow.  You have set it up with a nice samba type thing happening.  We used to play it real fast sometimes too. Then the head is over in a flash.  You are a fine Jazz player Kenny.
 
Like the blues too. Nothing like a good rip roaring blues! 
 
And to Starise I am with you on that.  I have thought about it too but never made the plunge.  My feeling is that if you are going to go to all the trouble to create a very original style, and I know you can, then you might as well do it in your DAW then and be done with it.
 
 
 

Just about all of my songs start in BiaB but those tracks are replaced by myself and others in the finished song.  Most of the time the only remaining tracks are the drums and sometimes strings but those are usually modified by me.  Note that I use the MIDI side of BiaB.
 
I play the guitar, bass, wind controller (AKAI USB) and a little keyboard.  JonD, a friend of mine, adds the harder keyboard parts.

For a prolific songwriter who simply doesn't have the time to assemble a rhythm section for do demos at 3:00 am in the morning, it is a God-send.  A quick way to see whether your new song idea will fly or if it just might sound better in a totally different style.  No guilt felt here.  I firmly believe that you use the tools that were available.  If my father would have had this, he might have quadrupled his songwriting output.  It's at the least a great time saver.  Besides, if the idea sounds strong you can THEN bring a group into a studio and record it.  But, at least you ran it up the flag-pole first.
 
Let's face it guys, if I would have had Sonar Platinum and all the various parts of it available 30 years ago, OMG, I would have been so much more prolific.  Instead a lot of ideas were lost because of time.  You use the tools that you have, and these are our tools.  I have imported BB tracks into Platinum and embellished them and, of course, added my own flavored tracks on the instruments I do play.  Works great.  For example, I will always do the keyboards and associated sounds my way and generally redo the bass parts and guitar parts as needed.  I am really building on the rhythm and then I can even redo the drums with the stuff in Platinum.  Good show.  Love it.

Glad to see this thread resurface, because I learned to love, love, LOVE Band In A Box this year.  I signed up for "February Album Writing Month" (FAWM.org) where you have to write 14 songs in a month.  I've been a frustrated, creativity-blocked songwriter for ages--writing, like, 1 song every 3 years for my mother on Mother's Day or whatever.
 
I'm retired now and have some free time, so decided to get the 14 done.  I already had the most recent BIAB, and was determined to use it to speed up the process.  I got all of my songs done.  What follows is the best of the bunch, written from the first "head scratch" to its upload to YouTube in about 5 hours (as were all of my songs that month).  My technique was to take a random song's chords and structure and a second random song's arrangement and input them into BIAB, then import over to accompanying program RealBand as discussed earlier in this thread to use the amazingly real-sounding instruments.  Then I imported to SONAR and wrote lyrics and did my best with my own vocals.  5 hours, and I think this came out pretty decently.  All music you hear, including the sax solo, is BIAB.  Vocals are me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZmBB9qZry4

I wrote a song, and hired a bunch of musicians to play it... Is that cheating?