User Guide

Chapter 6: Making Songs in Band-in-a-Box
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Press the [Add New Style] button.
A style has been added, called NONAME.STY. You now need to fill in all of the
information in the colored fields to supply the information for the style you have added.
Note: For this example, we’ll add a Jazz style called NEWONE.STY. This style is included in the C:\bb folder.
This information includes:
1. Name of the Style (8 characters maximum + .STY).
You can type in the style name, or press the Choose button to pick a style name from the \bb folder.
If the style doesn’t exist, a <not found> will appear in the style list beside the style name (as it does for the
NONAME.STY). Press the [Choose] button and choose NEWONE.STY.
2. Long Name of the style. This is a descriptive name that appears on the StyleMaker, and can be up to 32
characters. Enter “A Brand New Jazz Style.”
3. Memo and Examples. You can enter a memo for the style, and example songs that could be played in that
style. The memo and example can total 200 characters maximum. Enter a memo and examples for
NEWONE.STY.
4. We now enter settings to tell Band-in-a-Box what Soloist it should use when making improvisations using
this NEWONE.STY. For this, we need to know the genre of the style (Jazz, Country, and Pop etc.),
whether it is in an even or shuffle feel, and whether a soloist should be playing primarily 8
th
or 16
th
notes.
From the drop down combo box that appears, for this Jazz Swing style (newone.sty), we should choose
“Jazz Swing Triplet feel 8
th
notes.”
By doing this, Band-in-a-Box will then choose from many Jazz Swing type of Soloists available in BB.
But if we want a specific soloist to always be used, we can specify that soloist number. You can see the
soloist numbers in the Soloist dialog. In this example, we leave this at zero, so Band-in-a-Box will choose
between many different soloists.
This setting enables double time soloing when the style is
played at slower tempos.
5. Next we describe the feel of the style. Are the 8
th
notes straight or shuffle? Is the time signature 3/4
(waltz) or 4/4, is it a 16
th
note based style (tempo usually less than 120), or an 8
th
note style (tempo usually
above 120). For the NEWONE.STY, enter these checkboxes as shown.
(Not straight 8ths, not a waltz,
and not 16
th
notes.)
6. Next is the Tempo area. Here you can enter the typical tempo and the range of the tempo for the style.
7. You can assign a number for the style disk. We recommend that you use numbers higher than 1,000 and
pick a unique number for your styles. You can then search for them easily. It is not necessary to enter a