User Guide

Chapter 6: Making Songs in Band-in-a-Box

Make Your Own Songs

Now that you’ve seen how much fun it is to play music with Band-in-a-Box, we’ll show you how easy it is to make

songs of your own. This section gives you step-by-step instructions from start to finish.

Getting Started

Clear the Chordsheet

Click on the [New] button to blank the Chordsheet.

Name the Song

Enter the title of the song by clicking in the title area and typing in the name.

Choose a Key

You can use the special operators “tk” and “tr” to set or transpose a key signature.

Typing tkc plus the Enter key will set the key of the song to C. Typing tkbb sets it to Bb. Note that this sets the

key signature but does not transpose the song.

The “tr” operator sets the key signature and transposes the song. Typing trf and pressing Enter would transpose the

song to the key of F, typing trab would transpose the song to Ab.

Another way to set a key signature is to click on the Key Select List and choose the key of your song.

It's easy to change the key by simply selecting another key from the list. Click on “YES” when the

program asks, “OK to transpose WorkSheet” and Band-in-a-Box will automatically transpose the

entire song into the chosen key.

You can have multiple keys in a song by changing the key signature in the Edit Settings for bar

dialog (F5 function key). The new key signature is shown on notation.

Setting the tempo

The tempo is displayed under the title. You can quickly enter a specific tempo for the song by typing the letter “t”

together with the tempo and pressing the Enter key. For example, type t140 and Enter to set the tempo of the song

to 140.

Click on the tempo box (hot key is Ctrl+Alt+T, or menu item Play | Tempo | Set Tempo…), and a dialog will open

up allowing you to type in a tempo.

When choosing File | New the tempo will be set to the best tempo for the current style. The tempo for this style is

160 beats per minute (bpm).

Click the mouse on the arrow buttons to adjust the tempo.

- LEFT mouse click to change by 5 beats per minute at a time.

- RIGHT mouse click to change by 1 beat per minute at a time.

Tap the tempo

Not sure of the tempo for your song? Tap it in real time on either the minus [-] key or the equals [=] key on your

computer keyboard. Four taps on the minus key sets the tempo, four taps on the equals key sets the tempo and starts

the song playing. You can also click the mouse on the on-screen [-] and [=] buttons to the right of the tempo box.

“Framing” the Song

Framing a song designates the first and last bars of each chorus and the number of choruses Band-in-a-Box will play

before playing the standard 2 bar ending.

You can type special words to set the beginning and end of the chorus, and the end of the song.