Instruction Manual

Chapter 3: Band-in-a-Box 2008.5
29
Summary of New Features Added in Band-in-a-Box 2008.5
This version has over thirty-five improvements, primarily to the area of RealTracks. And we have forty-four new
RealTracks available to add to the previous three released with Band-in-a-Box 2008.
The new RealTracks include Acoustic and Electric Bass (8), Fiddle (1), Guitar Fingerpicking (5), Guitar Strumming
(9), Metal Guitar comping (3), Electric Guitar (11), Resonator Guitar (2), Slide Guitar (2), Pedal Steel (4), and Sax
(3). These RealTracks are usable for background accompaniment or soloing.
These include diverse RealTracks for Country, Jazz, Pop, and Hard Rock. Examples are Jazz Acoustic Bass,
Country Guitar Soloing, Motown Sax, Metal Guitar comping and soloing, plus great Country sounds including
Resonator Guitar, pedal steel, slide guitar, fiddle and more!
In addition to the new RealTracks, there are thirty-five new features in Band-in-a-Box 2008.5, that will make your
existing RealDrums and Realtracks work faster, better, and use much less hard drive space!
Here are the new features:
Faster Generation of RealTracks. The time it takes to generate RealTracks is now three times as fast.
“Waveless” and much smaller in size, version 2008.5 uses 1/8 of the hard drive space compared to2008!
RealTracks and RealDrums no longer need WAV files – they can use WMA natively. This frees up huge amounts of
your hard drive, so that the RealDrums and RealTracks take up only 1 /8 of the space that they used to take! The
handy “Archive” function will remove the no-longer-needed WAV files with a single-click. This means that the new
version uses up much less hard drive space than previous versions.
Tempo stretching quality enhancements. Now the RealTracks sound great over a much wider tempo range,
typically -15 and +40 beats per minute from their original tempo.
Stereo panning is now available for the RealTracks.
Automatic prevention of audio clipping. (New Float mixing and Peak Limiter added.)
RealStyles
™
available - these are styles that include all “Real Instruments,” with no MIDI. Up to 7 Real Instruments
all at once in a single style!
Improved transitions for RealTracks eliminating Pops/Clicks.
Right click menu is available for each part in Band-in-a-Box (bass, drums, piano, guitar, strings), allowing you
to quickly assign RealTracks, (or RealDrums) to that part along with other functions like mute, solo, save single
track, etc.
RealTracks browser dialog shows comprehensive information about the RealTracks, including name, genre, feel,
tempo, type, demos, and preview. Lists can be sorted or filtered by any column.
Easily save a style (.STY) with RealTracks, directly from the main screen (“save what you hear” as a style).
RealTracks Rests and Shots. RealTracks work for rests and shots.
Endings are now present in RealTracks.
Name of RealTracks or RealDrums display at the top of the screen for each part.
Save Single Track. Right click on a part to save that single track to disk as a WAV file.
RealTracks demos now present in RealTracks – demos folder, and can be opened from the StylePicker.
RealTracks Preview function to hear how a RealTracks will sound, without losing your current song.
Time Shift RealTracks. Ability to time shift a RealTracks by certain amount, to achieve more laid-back playing
for example.
Variations of RealTracks can be made, for things like a simpler type of soloing, or certain variations.
RealTracks can have multiple substyles. For example, the Jazz Acoustic Bass plays “2”’ feel in “a” substyle, and
“4” in “b” section.
Soloists can solo over different chords than the chords of the song. For example, the Metal Guitar Soloist can
have a tonal center controlled by the user, different than the song chords. So that the Metal Guitar can be soloing
over a G chord, while the chords of the song are G F G Bb, for example.