Michael, I purchased BIAB 2007 last year after it came out having heard about it but never trying it myself. I was pleasantly surprised how this one tool sparked my creative juices as it did and got me to working in Sonar again and completing long awaited projects. If you would like to hear an example of a song using a product of BIAB 2007 using Real Drums then goto www.soundclick.com/drmiller and check out the song "Living Water". The drums, bass and pads were all created using BIAB 2007, exported to wave file and imported into Sonar (no midi) where I added the guitars and vocals, mixed and mastered. For the money BIAB 2007 is worth every penny.

I've used Jammer since V2 now 6.1 Pro or something and have all the styles packs with the new musicians packs as well. I don't find it limited at all and have never got to the point where I thought it lacked depth in the quantity and/or diversity of styles.

I use it to trigger SONAR.

I have a template setup in SONAR across all 16 MIDI channels and route each MIDI channel in JAMMER through SONAR's soft synths and Drums like SD2 & DFHS and it sounds awesome used this way. if I'm just mucking around with ideas I'll often just use my external SB Extigy and its inbuilt Soundfonts but so much better going through SONAR.

I've emailed Soundtracks and asked about a VST version of JAMMER and they've hinted at it for the future some time but no firm commitment.

I've used Jammer since it was shipped with Cakewalk Pro Audio 4 about 12 years ago. It has served me well for backing tracks in cover tunes and a few of my own older tunes. I stopped at version 5. Tried the V6 demo but didnt want to take the time to figure out how to make my own styles which is the only reason I would want it now since they haven't added any new styles in years.
got BIAB 2006 about a month ago and am currently loving it for making backing tracks of cover tunes. My show has a lot of jazz flavored songs, including older standards of the 30's and 40's so it is perfect. I usually cut the strings or generated guitar (cheesy) make a few edits (drums), record acoustic guitar and than play along with electric guitar, harmonica and sing. At first I hated the interface but now i find it easy to navigate and fairly intuitive. I can whip out a new tune pretty fast. I'm not interested in BIAB 2007 as i like the midi drums from editing and then play through session drummer for the sound. My go to for other instruments is Dimension Pro.
As far as originals I might try different styles but its hard to match my style. if i find something i might keep a bass line or some comping of keys. But lately I've like doing originals from scratch with all the tools i have in Sonar.
So for me Jammer has seen its use and now its BIAB.

With apologies to the musicians in the forums who find difficulty in tolerating these apps.

It seems quite common and accepted on this forum to use drum loops - it's a regular topic. I really don't see a difference. I have an old version of Jammer that came bundled with something and have played around with it, but am seriously considering buying the latest version and commiting to learning how to really use it for composing original songs. I've played around with BIAB and just do not care for it's jazzy sound. It does that style well but as has been pointed out, it does not do rock well.

I use it to trigger SONAR.

I have a template setup in SONAR across all 16 MIDI channels and route each MIDI channel in JAMMER through SONAR's soft synths and Drums like SD2 & DFHS and it sounds awesome used this way. if I'm just mucking around with ideas I'll often just use my external SB Extigy and its inbuilt Soundfonts but so much better going through SONAR.

Is this something you can explain a little more or share your template? My biggest beef with Jammer is that I cant use VST/Dxi softsynths.....

Thanks

I'm a guitarist primarily and have a Fantom X6 synth for the sound sources, so Band In A Box is great for me as it will produce keyboard, brass, bass parts for my compositions that I can then tweak to taste in Sonar.

BIAB is heavily jazz biased (tho' making good efforts to improve), but is a very active, extremely well-supported product with annual updates. Jammer Pro however seems to have gone to sleep, which is a shame because I find it 'tighter' than BIAB in terms of the parts you can get out of it.

Greetings all,

Thanks to those of you posting about Jammer. I may need to look at it, also.

I've never used Jammer, but BIAB for several years now. The menu system is clunky; the whole interface is clunky. This is a result of incremental improvements going on for, what, 20 years now? The MIDI support is absolutely horrid. The audio support might as well not even be there; it's very minimal (which I mention for Bill "Cromberger"). I find the Real Drums interesting but almost quaint. The music theory is based on jazz theory, so this explains the comments by others regarding the lack of range of styles. But this is a strong point, not a weak point. Jazz music theory appears to be quite well-formed and strict, so it's never really "wrong." More about that in a minute. Also, yes as others have said, you need to do a lot of editing. Indeed it is difficult to impossible to imagine putting a song straight out the door, other than for an ad jingle or something like that, and let's face facts; a lot of people need exactly that kind of capability. Sometimes I do this myself.

However, now having "dis'd" BIAB, I must say that it is by far the most creative tool I have and I use it all the time. It's one of those "Love-Hate" relationships I suppose. If they had a reasonable update this week, I'd get it without hesitating.

--------------------------------

The reason I like BIAB so much is that I do what I call "subtractive composition." I turn on everything I can find in BIAB, embellish melodies, create guitar solos, creating a boatload of MIDI data. This would be like creating white, pink, or brown noise to feed a filter, except that it has a strong basis in jazz theory (which is a good grounding for this kind of thing --- you know it will sound good after working with it awhile). I then export it (because BIAB's MIDI support is gawdawful) and then turn it all off in a MIDI editor. After that, I slowly add things back in while switching instruments and parts all around and moving measures around all over the place. Eventually I narrow down my editing to smaller and smaller pieces.

Were it not for BIAB, I'd probably not have any compositions that were worth anything musically --- or certainly not of as much potential musical value.

Here is a recent example:

http://mysite.verizon.net/dave_clark/Encounter_with_Unknowns.mp3

It doesn't sound anything like BIAB, or at least not to me, yet this is indeed where it began its life. I threw out the drum track and set Jamstix loose on the bass part. I also added some "ear candy" keyboard noodling and electric guitar tomfoolery. This type of thing is always necessary to keep it from sounding so formulaic from BIAB.

Regards to all,
Dave Clark

P.S. On Edit: Another very important factor in making BIAB so strong is the extensive (and I mean *extensive*) list of heuristics you can apply. This, combined with jazz music theory, is what makes BIAB such a serious compositional aid. Also worthy of mention for anyone trying to decide about purchasing it is that you can import MIDI files and chop them up into styles. You can also create your own style from scratch, and this is actually quite simple to do in my limited experience.

Is this something you can explain a little more or share your template? My biggest beef with Jammer is that I cant use VST/Dxi softsynths.....

It involves using MIDI YOKE to create a virtual MIDI cable between JAMMER and SONAR. This allows me to write the MIDI parts in JAMMER but play the Softsynths in SONAR just as if I used an external synth to trigger SONAR's Softsynths but as it is all in software you need a virtual MIDI cable to make the connection. Each track in JAMMER can be set to send MIDI out on any of its 16 channels via MIDI YOKE as a virtual MIDI device. I just setup SONAR with 16 MIDI tracks all set to recieve on one of the 16 channels with MIDI YOKE as its input. Then I can assign softsynths and audio tracks just Like I would with any soft synth but in this case JAMMER is the trigger via its MIDI YOKE out. Of course you have to set SONAR to recieve clock signals external and set it to play. Then go to Jammer and press play and it triggers SONAR to start playing.

Its fairly straight forward once you get your head around it. Very powerful too because the sound is awesome when you get your arrangements going well.

I don't have anywhere to host my JAMMER template but I think I got one originally from the soundtrek site.

I guess its a little like Rewire in its implementation.

JAMMER 6 pro came out not too long ago as well as a bunch of new musicians and styles which is hardly going to sleep. I found enough in it to upgrade from 5 to 6 Pro.

ORIGINAL: DaveClark

Greetings all,

Thanks to those of you posting about Jammer. I may need to look at it, also.

I've never used Jammer, but BIAB for several years now. The menu system is clunky; the whole interface is clunky. This is a result of incremental improvements going on for, what, 20 years now? The MIDI support is absolutely horrid. The audio support might as well not even be there; it's very minimal (which I mention for Bill "Cromberger"). I find the Real Drums interesting but almost quaint. The music theory is based on jazz theory, so this explains the comments by others regarding the lack of range of styles. But this is a strong point, not a weak point. Jazz music theory appears to be quite well-formed and strict, so it's never really "wrong." More about that in a minute. Also, yes as others have said, you need to do a lot of editing. Indeed it is difficult to impossible to imagine putting a song straight out the door, other than for an ad jingle or something like that, and let's face facts; a lot of people need exactly that kind of capability. Sometimes I do this myself.

However, now having "dis'd" BIAB, I must say that it is by far the most creative tool I have and I use it all the time. It's one of those "Love-Hate" relationships I suppose. If they had a reasonable update this week, I'd get it without hesitating.

--------------------------------

The reason I like BIAB so much is that I do what I call "subtractive composition." I turn on everything I can find in BIAB, embellish melodies, create guitar solos, creating a boatload of MIDI data. This would be like creating white, pink, or brown noise to feed a filter, except that it has a strong basis in jazz theory (which is a good grounding for this kind of thing --- you know it will sound good after working with it awhile). I then export it (because BIAB's MIDI support is gawdawful) and then turn it all off in a MIDI editor. After that, I slowly add things back in while switching instruments and parts all around and moving measures around all over the place. Eventually I narrow down my editing to smaller and smaller pieces.

Were it not for BIAB, I'd probably not have any compositions that were worth anything musically --- or certainly not of as much potential musical value.

Here is a recent example:

http://mysite.verizon.net/dave_clark/Encounter_with_Unknowns.mp3

It doesn't sound anything like BIAB, or at least not to me, yet this is indeed where it began its life. I threw out the drum track and set Jamstix loose on the bass part. I also added some "ear candy" keyboard noodling and electric guitar tomfoolery. This type of thing is always necessary to keep it from sounding so formulaic from BIAB.

Regards to all,
Dave Clark

P.S. On Edit: Another very important factor in making BIAB so strong is the extensive (and I mean *extensive*) list of heuristics you can apply. This, combined with jazz music theory, is what makes BIAB such a serious compositional aid. Also worthy of mention for anyone trying to decide about purchasing it is that you can import MIDI files and chop them up into styles. You can also create your own style from scratch, and this is actually quite simple to do in my limited experience.

Hi, Dave,

Thank you very much for the personal "shout out" regarding the audio capabilities of BIAB. Doesn't sound like a feature that would make me dump Jammer, since I've been working with it for so long. However, your comments about how you use BIAB as a compositional tool have now got me even more interested in BIAB. I've always been curious about BIAB, of course, so maybe I'll just have to upgrade Jammer *and* get a copy of BIAB. One can never have too many tools in the old kit bag. I'm not a "jazzer" by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm a blues guy who is trying to stretch his blues a bit more towards the more sophisticated concepts of guys like Count Basie, T-Bone Walker, Robben Ford, the "jazzier" stuff from Charlie Baty, etc.. From your description, BIAB may be just the ticket for me. Thanks for your well thought out critique of the program.

Bill

ORIGINAL: DaveClark

Here is a recent example:

http://mysite.verizon.net/dave_clark/Encounter_with_Unknowns.mp3

It doesn't sound anything like BIAB, or at least not to me, yet this is indeed where it began its life. I threw out the drum track and set Jamstix loose on the bass part. I also added some "ear candy" keyboard noodling and electric guitar tomfoolery. This type of thing is always necessary to keep it from sounding so formulaic from BIAB.

Hey, Dave,

Just listened to Encounter With Unknowns. Fantastic. It's amazing how similar your piece is to some stuff I wrote (conceptually, not sonically) when I was in music school (a long time ago, in a place far, far away....). You have a marvelous sense of musical form and orchestration. Are you formally trained in composition? I've got a copy of Jamstix, but I haven't really explored it's possibilities yet. It certainly did some interesting stuff with your bass line. At first, when I heard the opening of your piece, I thought I was hearing in at half-speed because it's pace is so lackadasical and the bass part is soooooo low.... Very cool. Congratulations on a very nice composition.

Bill

ORIGINAL: stratcat

It seems quite common and accepted on this forum to use drum loops - it's a regular topic. I really don't see a difference.

I don't see the difference either. And by that same logic (i.e. it being cheating), wouldn't using samplers, synthesizers and drum machines in place of the real instruments be cheating too? Or comping a "perfect" vocal/instrument track from several different takes (since the vocalist/player didn't actually sing/play it like that)?

I think maybe most of the naysayers of these programs don't like them because they think they sound cheesy, not because they view it as cheating. But that's entirely subjective. Example: I was reading user reviews a few years back for the Roland JV-1010 sound module. I laughed because the guitar players that reviewed it thought the guitar patches were lame, but loved the "realistic" pianos. The piano players that reviewed it thought the piano patches were lame, but loved the "realistic" guitars.

So there.