User Guide

Chapter 11: User Programmable Functions
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similar patterns on playback. The number that is recorded and displayed on the screen
refers to the weight assigned to that pattern. Normally if you have three similar patterns
with equal weight they will be picked equally, but if you assign lower or higher weights
in the range 0 - 8, you can fine tune how often patterns are played.
Note: Normally weights are in the range 0 - 8. A weight of 9 may also be assigned when
you have a pattern that only occurs under certain conditions, but you want to ensure that
whenever that condition occurs that the pattern will always be picked.
The Bass and Piano / Guitar / Strings patterns are always recorded in two bar chunks
regardless of the chord duration. If a shorter chord duration is entered, the remainder of
the pattern is ignored. Patterns are also entered for the A and B substyles.
Drum patterns are not of variable duration like the Bass and Piano patterns. The Drum
patterns are always one bar long. Longer patterns than one bar may be chained together
using bar masks (see below). When you record a new pattern (Bass / Piano or Drums), a
dialog box will be displayed with several options, all set to defaults of 0. If you are
making a simple style, or if you don't understand all the options, just leave them at their
default settings. When you record a pattern with all the default settings, it is called a
generic pattern. Generic patterns may be picked at any time by the program.
Playback of patterns in the StyleMaker is done from the StyleMaker screen:
button plays pattern back exactly as played.
button plays pattern back as Band-in-a-Box would, e.g., on a specific chord
set by the user from a menu.
Stopping Playback:
Clicking the mouse button or pressing the < Spacebar > stops playback of the pattern.
Erasing Patterns:
Patterns are erased by assigning a weight of zero to the pattern. Type a 0 at the pattern.
NOTE: All user styles are entered in 4/4 time.
The Band-in-a-Box Program is capable of playing back in any time signature (via the
Bar Settings option on the Edit Menu or Option+B) so user defined waltz styles would
be made as 4/4 but played as 3/4.
Editing Existing Styles
The easiest way to become familiar with the StyleMaker is to start with an existing style
and modify it. In this tutorial, we will describe several ways to edit an existing style.
These include:
- changing patches saved with style
- adding/editing drum patterns to a style
- copying and pasting drum patterns
- recording additional bass patterns
- adding strings to a style by importing strings from another style
Let's edit the Light Rock Style, which is called ZZLITROK.Style.