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[Capntastic]

To be fair, you're not really giving us a lot of details to help you.   I'd never even heard of the program you're using, and indeed you do not even spell its name proper or even make it clear that it's what you're using.   I had to use Google.  You're incredibly vague about what you understand and don't understand, to the point where it's clear that even if I did give you specific help it'd need to be step by step.   

You've made it clear that you are in way over your head and don't even want to show initiative in trying to help yourself, so any one-on-one effort I made would be pointless.  Hence the suggestion you actually spend some time working at it.

A GOOD ANALOGY:

You:  So I acquired this fine ELECTRIC GUITAR just recently, and ever since the first test run have been trying to figure out how to PUT STRINGS ON IT.

Me:  "You should read a book on guitar basics, the guitar probably came with one.   It'll also teach you proper picking technique and how the fretboard works and stuff."

You: No!  I just want to make music!

[Kagus]

Alright, reviewing the first post, I realize that it I am not quite as clear as I could have been that I was talking about the instruments themselves, and not any arrangement of them.

And I suppose it is possible to misinterpret "Band-in-a-Buggered-Box".  But if you were familiar with the Band-in-a-Box product, you would most likely be able to recognize it.  Which brings me to this next item:

Does anyone have experience with this product?

Essential point right here.  I was specifically looking for someone who had previous experience with this product and would be able to say whether or not the MIDI configuration can be changed, and if it can how it can be done.

I have attempted to find the proper means of configuring it.  Posting a question here was not my first course of action.  I suppose I should have made that clear.  And yes, I have consulted the manual.  It tells me to do what I've already done.  A few times.  Not that doing it repeatedly would have much greater effect than doing it once, but you get the point.


Now, see, since you were posting here, I thought you actually knew something about the program I was using.  So I tried to approach things from that angle.  Only just now did I find out that you had to look it up on Google to find out what I was talking about.  I thought you were withholding information for some reason.  Now I understand that you never had that information to begin with, so I apologize for my shortness with you.

[Capntastic]

Sorry dude but I've been using Fruitloops and Cubase off and on for a few years now and I doubt they're much different than Band-in-a-box.

[Kagus]

And the reason for stating that was...?

[Capntastic]

Because you should do as I said and try replacing the midi with legit soundfonts.

[Kagus]

That's what I'm trying to do.  I'm almost positive that suitable files were included on the bonus discs (actually, I*know* that other files were included on the other discs, but I don't know of their quality yet as I haven't been able to play them), but I don't know how to get the program to point to them.  That is what I've been asking for the whole time, which menu or folder or whatnot where I can find the configuration settings and either swap out the old files or add new ones to the list.

[Capntastic]

Take a screenshot of the interface and post it up here.

If there's pulldowns, get caps of those too.

Edit:  And you're sure you can't just right click the midi tracker and pop in a VST soundfont?

[IndonesiaWarMinister]

Can't you just use MuseScore?

I can make some good music with it. Well, not really.

ALso, open-source.

[Kagus]

Spoiler: Main Screen(big) (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 'Audio' drop-down list (click to show/hide)

^"Import Audio" simply loads a 'dumb' file into play.  "Render MIDI to WAV files" saves the current project as the WAV file.  "Audio Edit Window" changes the current bars and chords display to one displaying the sound itself.  Out of curiosity, I tried the "Audio Chord Wizard".  All it did was open a sound file (I picked a WMA file that was in one of the RealTracks folders), figure out the notes and chords it was playing, and then deduce the time signature and musical key.  It also seems to suffer from Artificial Stupidity, as after listening to a "Ab, Eb, Eb, Db" progression, it concluded that the musical key was, of course, "C".

Spoiler: 'Audio Drivers/Settings' dialog (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 'DXi Synth Settings' dialog (click to show/hide)

^This one seems like what I might be looking for, but the "add VSTi plugin" option only looks for DLL's.  And I didn't find any promising-looking DLL's lying around...

Spoiler: 'Opt.(ions)' drop-down list (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 'MIDI/Audio Drivers setup' dialog (click to show/hide)

^This is where I was messing around before, thinking that maybe there was just a library mismatch and all my sounds were simply pointing to the wrong locations.

Spoiler: 'Edit' drop-down list (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: 'File' drop-down list (click to show/hide)

One of the folders in the Band-in-a-Box directory is something called "RealTracks".  This was installed with one of the bonus CD's provided, and includes numerous subfolders with various Bass, Guitar, Electric Guitar, and Saxophone audio files.  Each folder contains several files, all playing the exact same pattern in the same tempo, but in different keys.  However, they're all separate WMA files.  Each WMA file also has a "BT0" file with the same name.  What this all means, I do not know.

[Kagus]

Well, after some dicking around, I managed to find a workaround of sorts.  I'd like to thank everyone involved for their support in the matter, and wish them the same quality assistance should they ever need it.

And IWM, the reason I don't use MuseScore is because dammit if I knew about a free alternative to this software before I picked it up.  Now I feel extra-special-smart.

[Eagleon]

My experience with Band-in-a-Box:
*sound of head bashing on keyboard followed by no sound*

Conversely, my experience with Fruityloops:
*sound of head bashing on keyboard followed by a few notes as a result, followed by actual music after further experimentation and tinkering with the tutorials*

What I would suggest if you did want to use this program, is to find some tutorials in whatever community is available for it. I'm not sure how popular it is now, but at the very least I remember it being mentioned in a couple of different music magazines back when I was heavily into that stuff (1994-1996ish)

Midi is balls-to-wall complex if it isn't set up properly - any number of variables and obstacles can cause your program to produce no sound whatsoever, not render properly to file, turn on your ceiling fan instead of playing a patch, etc. etc. It's incredibly flexible in an electronics kit sort of way; it can be used (and has been used) as a control interface for just about anything, including non-musical devices, since all sorts of information is packed into a "simple" midi signal, but if you make a small mistake like changing the channel an instrument is sending to, you can lose your signal entirely.

If you didn't want to bother with midi (and I wouldn't blame you, I only use when I have to, with my keyboard), or only wanted to tinker with it when you absolutely had to, I would suggest something like Fruityloops. It has a huge community with a lot of example tutorials and stuff you can hack apart shipped with it, plenty of flexibility, and you can generally make music with it out of the box after a bit of examination of how the process works. I would say that the samples and instruments provided aren't well-suited to most besides electronica and hip-hop stuff, but since you've already gotten BitB's sample library, that's a good starting point if you wanted to explore there.

The only problem is that it isn't exactly free. But I'd say that it (or something like it) is well worth it if you're seriously interested in making music, and not interested in a career in sound production (not a bad thing for sure!). You'll still learn quite a bit as you use it, but the interface (for me at least) isn't nearly as obtuse, and the learning curve is a lot nicer. I use Fruityloops for final production and tinkering with weird effects, and Powertab (free) for making more complex, melodic scores, as I'm much more used to tabulature notation versus standard.

Good luck!

[Kagus]

Yeah, I'm basically just using this to tool around a bit and get some tunes down, I didn't pick it up with the intention of getting into the biz with it.  I'm just looking for rather basic functionality, but that preferably sounds like a bit more than just, well, bips and squeaks.

There is a BiaB community, but I haven't gotten around to checking them out all that much...  I'm still not entirely sure of my reasoning behind making a thread here before even lurking on the PGmusic forums.


Anyways, I've got something mildly functional going on now...  Finally figured out how to work the RealTracks.  That Sax and Soundwave button on the main display lets you set them up.  It takes the tracks and tweaks them accordingly so that they sort of fit what you've written out.  Not particularly flexible, but it works for basic stuff.

With any luck, I might be able to find out something else to make it even more listenable.  Just seems weird that we wouldn't have tech like this damn near perfected for the general public by now...

Also, I don't believe I've ever seen Polka listed as "Ethnic" before.

[qwertyuiopas]

There is plenty of diffrent programs out there, each unique, some free. Wikipedia has categories that list some.
MuseScore seems to only come with a poor quality piano soundfont, but even with a tiny bit of google(musescore soundfont), you get a page of the manual with links to a few good ones(seems to be a size issue for modem users or something, otherwise they would probaby have included more by default).

Seen Psycle? It is completely diffrent, but also free and able to make music.

Have a keyboard? Some of them are good enough as well.

[Kagus]

We actually have three keyboards...  At least.  One of them even seems to be the lovechild of a threesome between a keyboard, a synth, and a karaoke machine.

[qwertyuiopas]

Only have one, and yet, despite being at least 5 years old(probably closer to/over 7), it can synthesize, layer, MIDI, record, play any 16/32(I forget what number exactly) tones at a time(maybe more?), fine tune the pitch...

It proves that it isn't just using prerecorded sound clips for sure.

If only I could record to my computer, and if only I could play it decently.