The UltraPak is an all-encompassing music software package, with the
Band-in-a-Box Version 2008, and includes the entire collection of
Styles, Soloists, Melodists, and RealDrums Sets, 12 additional add-ons
(Duets, 200 Folk Songs, 50 Novelty Piano Riffs, more), and a Video
Tutorial Pak that shows you how to maximize your songwriting potential.
Band-in-a-Box Version 2008.5
Whether you're a working musician wanting a simplified way to flesh out
new ideas, or an aspiring songwriter who wants an affordable way to
create songs but can't afford the thousands of dollars worth of gear to
record music the traditional way, Band-in-a-Box is an affordable,
fun-to-use MIDI music software solution. This award-winning series
turns your computer into a ready-to-go back-up band. You choose the
length of songs, the chords you want to use, placing them where you
want, and then you can add your melodies, or choose ready-to-go,
intuitive accompaniments from the plethora of styles found in the
included Soloist, Melodist, and RealDrums Sets.
One
of the bigger updates in the 2008 version is a major overhaul to
RealDrums, which replaces the MIDI drum track with actual recordings of
quality studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers. More than samples, they are
full recordings from 1 to 8 bars which perfectly sync with other
Band-in-a-Box tracks, giving your song ideas a more realistic feel.
They will instinctively adjust to changes in tempo/volume and you can
even add third party WAV files or create styles that control
fills/post-fills/pattern lengths/substyles, etc.
Other enhanced
features in this music production software include MP3/WVA/WMA
generation; Audio Chord Wizard which can analyze an audio file and
figure out the chords for you; "Reharmonist", which generates chord
progressions in the genre you choose for all or part of a song;
auto-memo generation; a melody influenced soloist that allows you to
choose how much the melody will influence the pitch, rhythm, note
density and more of the solo; and a Soundtrack Generator for producing
original music that you can tweak to fit any style of film or video.
You also get support for TranzPort a wireless remote control that works
up to 30 feet away so you can work on a piano while cueing up your
"virtual bandmates". Improvements have been made to the notation, audio
dialog, practice, and chord functions, as well as better DXi features.
There's just loads of fun to be discovered with this product.
Style, Soloist, Melodist Sets
For those unfamiliar with the Band in the Box products, the Style,
Soloist and Melodist Sets are add-on collections of pre-made sample
material that can be used to generate accompaniment to your song. They
cover just about every genre of music giving you even more inspiration
to compose. Say you choose a Pop style, the Soloist and Melodist
features will create solos and melodies that are appropriate to that
type of song for you to work with. It's as easy as a push of a button.
Inside the Video Tutorial PAK
Oliver Gannon's Songwriting with Band-in-a-Box
Oliver Gannon's Secrets of the Stylemaker
The Simplifying Chord Progressions tutorial
A New Features Video outlining the newest features of the latest
release
The Soloist & Melodist Tutorials for the power users
and the popular Practicing with Band-in-a-Box, great video instruction
for effectively using Band-in-a-Box for soloist, improvisation, and
accompaniment skills.
Specs:
- Memory (RAM): Minimum 128MB
- Hard Disk space: 300MB minimum for MegaPAK (3GB including RealDrums)
- PC Sound Card or MIDI module
UltraPak includes:
- Band-in-a-Box 2008.5
- Style Sets 0-76
- RealDrums Sets 1-20
- Soloist Sets 1-20
- Melodist Sets 1-8
- Video Tutorial PAK
- 101 Essential Phrases & Riffs
- 50 Country Guitar Solos
- 200 Folk Songs
- 50 Novelty Piano Riffs
- Classical MIDI FakeBooks 1-3
- Bluegrass MIDI-Fakebook
- CopyMe
- Duets
- Master Swingin' Jazz Piano Solos
- Master Blues Piano Solos
- Master Jazz Guitar Solos Vol. 1-4
- Master Flatpick Guitar Solos
- FREE BONUS 12-PAK
Features
- Fully integrated RealDrums replaces the MIDI Drum track with tons
of real recordings of top studio Jazz/Rock/Country drummers, lasting
from 1 to 8 bars, that play in perfect sync with the other
Band-in-a-Box tracks
- Change tempos or volumes during playback, using the same tempo/volume controls as MIDI
- PG Audio Wizard automatically figures out the chords, tempo, bar
lines, and key from any MP3, WAV, or WMA (Windows Media) audio file and
displays them, and can even stretch the file to different tempos while
preserving pitch
- Audio Piano Roll displays notes from imported files so you can hear
the original MP3 playing in sync with the bar lines in Band-in-a-Box
and add your own parts to it, (i.e. Strings, RealDrums)
- Soundtrack Generator lets you create style, depth, length, and instruments used to create original soundtrack music
- Generate chords for a melody, or an improved chord progression for a melody, with the new "Reharmonist" feature
- New "Melody Influenced" Soloist lets you choose a strength (%)
setting allows to control how much the solo will be influenced by the
melody or choose melody influence (%) and one of several presets to
control the type of influence (pitches/rhythms/note density, etc.)
- TranzPort Wireless Remote Control support
- Audio Settings dialog makes it easy to mute, solo, or change the volume of the audio track
- Punch-in audio recording
- Hear existing audio parts when overdubbing
- New Audio-Offset feature allows you to synchronize any point of an imported audio file with bar 1 of the Band-in-a-Box song
- Audio settings dialog accessible from the MIDI Drivers dialog or Audio menu
- Batch-convert a folder of songs to Audio files (MP3, WAV, or WMA)
- Chord "Breaks" feature for practicing tempo control
- The Keyboard "QWERTY" Wizard now works with MIDI keyboard input
- Automatic Memo-Generation
- New "Practicing Window" allows "1-click" access to Ear Training
dialog, games (Pitch Invasion etc.), Metronome, CopyMe, Sight Reading,
101 Riffs series, and more
- Expanded "Trade 4's" feature lets you do "Trade 2's" or "Trade 8's."
- Soloists can be filtered by Genre to show only melodists in that
genre or filtered to show/not show soloists from sets you don't have
- QWERTY Input is now compatible with international keyboards
- Large text block can now be appended to the Lead Sheet window and printout
- Fakesheets can now optionally include 2-bar song ending
- Auto Piano Hand-Splitting with left/right hands displayed in
red/blue on the piano and on bass/treble clefs on notation, and even
provides a display and printout on imported piano MIDI files
- Notation enhancements including smoother summary information, lyric
entry, guitar chord diagrams, Event List Editor filter and Hot Key
support
- Several DXi features have been enhanced
- Panic button feature enhanced to reset a "hung" DXi/VSTi driver
- Simplified Latency selection
- Better ASIO4All support
- Patch list (.PAT) now provided for the Roland VSC DXi synth, and
the list of available synth DK/PAT files is enhanced to support newer
sound cards
- MIDI Latency Calibration
- Function to auto-determine correct keys of a song using only the melody
- Yellow "Fly-By Help Hints" expanded throughout
- Enhanced Chord Entry and Editing
- A "Fold" routine converts a song with a single large chorus to multiple smaller choruses, with optional tag ending
- Search/Replace Chords feature added
- Chord deletion over a range of bars can be done by selecting the
range and pressing DELETE, with no confirmation dialog is required
- Stylemaker displays current patch numbers for the parts on the main window.
- Melodists can be filtered by Genre to show only melodists in that
genre or filtered to show/not show melodists from sets you don't have
- Direct Render to MP3 button: Renders Band-in-a-Box song to MP3 in a
single step, using your Roland VSC DXi (or other DXi/VSTi synth)
- Feature on program boot-up detects and prevents conflicts with the THRU channel and other Band-in-a-Box instruments
- Convenient buttons for setting "no-harmony" in harmony dialogs, loading "song demo" on Style menu and more
- Jukebox option stops Jukebox when set is completed
- StylePicker auto-rebuilds when new styles have been added
