User Guide

Chapter 1: Welcome to Band-in-a-Box!

The MIDI Output Driver

Wizard dialog will take

you step-by-step through

the process of auditioning

and selecting an

appropriate driver. This

assumes that the

appropriate Windows

sound drivers are installed

and correctly configured.

Output to Software Synthesizers (DXi and VSTi)

Software synthesizers allow Band-in-a-Box to play high quality sounds directly through your computer sound card,

without requiring any external MIDI hardware. Most new software synthesizers are released as “plug-ins,” so they

will work in a standard way with many programs. Connecting Band-in-a-Box to the software synth as a plug-in

provides several advantages over the previous method of connecting as a MIDI driver. The plug-in allows Band-in-

a-Box to merge/synch in any existing audio file (vocals etc.) with the synth output. You can also directly render

your performance to a .WAV file using the plug-in. Sampler-based synths allow you to assemble a huge,

customized library of instrument samples to use with Band-in-a-Box.

The current DXi or VSTi synth name is displayed in the button that

launches the VST/DXi settings.

DirectX Instrument Synthesizer (DXi plug-in) Support

To use DXi with Band-in-a-Box, you should think of the DXi as a type of “MIDI Out Driver.” As such, you visit

either the Opt. | MIDI driver setup or click on [Pref] [MIDI Driver] and select the “Use DXi Synth” checkbox.

When you do this, you can select the type of DXi to use (from a list of installed DXi, if any), and also will see a

panel display of the DXi that allows you to make settings directly for your DXi synth.

The DXi will convert the MIDI information to audio, which Band-in-a-Box will playback through your sound card

to audio speakers.

You can select DirectX DXi Software Synthesizers as the MIDI destination, and also apply DirectX Audio plug-ins

to the Band-in-a-Box audio track.

Check the Use DXi Synth checkbox to enable DXi playback. While using

DXi or VSTi, all playback information is routed to the DXi/VSTi, including

the option to route the THRU part from your MIDI keyboard to the DXi/VSTi

synth.

Note: To use this option, you must have a polyphonic DXi synthesizer installed on your computer, such as the

Roland/Edirol VSC DXi. It will also be most convenient if your DXi synthesizer can use General MIDI or GM2 patches.

To select the DXi synthesizer, click the [DXi Synth Settings] button, which will open the DirectX Plugins window.