How many of you use BIAB or similar software for practice?

[voxsss]

[Jason Sioco]

What do you mean by "better than BIAB" ? in what respect ?

Does ToonTrack itself quickly creates ready to hear sound tracks given a chord chart, and then each can be adjusted on selected bars ?

Toontrack is highly similar to BIAB that their features are almost like twins. I said Toontrack is better because it expands to styles and genres that BIAB might be hokey with. For example, Toontrack gives you the platform to create instant prog-metal and BIAB does not quite really. BIAB is good with jazz, blues, and maybe country, but hokey with more mainstream and contemporary styles that the younger demographic listens to. But what I said was highly opinionated and based on my personal observation.

[mhch]

Toontrack is highly similar to BIAB that their features are almost like twins. I said Toontrack is better because it expands to styles and genres that BIAB might be hokey with. For example, Toontrack gives you the platform to create instant prog-metal and BIAB does not quite really. BIAB is good with jazz, blues, and maybe country, but hokey with more mainstream and contemporary styles that the younger demographic listens to. But what I said was highly opinionated and based on my personal observation.

Thanks for the clarification. Yes BIAB is good with standard jazz & blues, less with funk, latin, latin funk. except bossa nova. Much less styles to play with. Have to combine instrument styles yourself, specially for soloing. Never considered other different styles like metal or very contemporary music as you said.

A big weakness of BIAB, maybe Toontrack: its inability to handle unusual time signatures, apart from 4/4 and 3/4 (already with limitations). A friend of mine wrote a 4/4 funk tune ending with a 3/8 turnaround which is key to that tune !! no way to have it using BIAB. I had to manually create a score for a playalong and create an audio file using the Dorico notation software. Never thought of trying to have Take Five in BIAB, just out of curiosity. Worth to explore !

[kris]

BB is great!
Real tracks are very creative with exelent feel.

[j4zz]

I have BIAB and used to use it a lot, but lately I have been using jjazzlab. I find it easier - BIAB's interface is not very logical. It's all over the place and hard to find what you want. Jjazzlab is very straightforward.
Also I am liking the results from jjazzlab better. I think it's because it uses Yamaha styles, and they seem to be very professional. That plus ease of use keeps me using it and BIAB hasn't been fired up for quite a while.

[kris]

BB is very easy to use...very fast.

[JazzPadd]

When studying a new standard, I use iRealPro to bring it to tempo. But, only to get enough fluency to work on it at a jam session.

[orri]

Recently I've mostly used Sunny Bass on youtube for backing tracks (double bass only) to practise melodies and improvisations on standards (or just have fun playing)

But sometimes I use band in a box if I want to change the key or tempo. Sometimes I use it to play a standard in all 12 keys.
I also have a few "exercise sheets", for instance one which has 4 bars of every maj6 chord through the circle of 5ths. I can use it to practise scale fingerings, chord voicings, arpeggios etc in all 12 keys, spending 4 bars in each key.

Yesterday I was messing around with a solo I had transcribed and made a BiaB backing track and made challenge on my facebook where I asked people if they knew which solo it is. I think the realstyle sounds surprisingly good.

Here is my recording if you want to hear how good the real style sound or make a guess:

Here's the quiz answer:
tinyurl.com/yxdxjptk

[kris]

recently i've mostly used sunny bass on youtube for backing tracks (double bass only) to practise melodies and improvisations on standards (or just have fun playing)

but sometimes i use band in a box if i want to change the key or tempo. Sometimes i use it to play a standard in all 12 keys.
I also have a few "exercise sheets", for instance one which has 4 bars of every maj6 chord through the circle of 5ths. I can use it to practise scale fingerings, chord voicings, arpeggios etc in all 12 keys, spending 4 bars in each key.

Yesterday i was messing around with a solo i had transcribed and made a biab backing track and made challenge on my facebook where i asked people if they knew which solo it is. I think the realstyle sounds surprisingly good.

Here is my recording if you want to hear how good the real style sound or make a guess:

here's the quiz answer:
tinyurl.com/yxdxjptk

yes...+1 bb is creative!

[fep]

I have BIAB and have had it for a long time. I hardly ever use it these days. I prefer to record my own tracks (except drums and for that I use EZDrummer).

I have no complaints about BIAB though. I just love DAWs (Reaper) and recording my own tracks.

[TF]

I feel stronger as a player when I use a metronome, than I did when I used BIAB.

I could see BIAB being useful to a composer, though.

[charleyrich99]

I use JJazzLab for practicing tunes or progressions: JJazzLab

I quite like it.

--Charley

[strumcat]

I use JJazzLab for practicing tunes or progressions: JJazzLab

I quite like it.

--Charley

Spiffy. The Linux version works great, too. Thanks.

[TF]

BIAB is an extraordinary program. But last time I tried it, I found myself listening and grooving to the clever, realistic backups, to the point where I would almost rather listen than play.

My reason for playing music is to create sounds I like to hear. If the computer creates beautiful rhythms and harmonies to my precise specifications, as BIAB does, then I find myself demotivated to create my own sonic environment.

Metronome for me!

[GordonM]

It recently struck me that BIAB is under half the cost of a Reverb pedal that I was considering - a pedal that would be nice perhaps but is not essential and might not actually change my sound that much as I can get an ideal reverb in several ways already. So I got the BIAB pro version which although not as comprehensive as the other versions, I think has more than enough sounds/styles to keep me going. And the free Realbook download on this site has plenty of ready-made tracks to start off with.

Is it worth it? - YES. Once set up it's easy to recall a tune to play along with and also very easy to create a chord sequence to practise to. The learning curve is very quick for the simple stuff.
The main thing is the TIME SAVED. I have backing tracks elsewhere and on different media/sources/links but it's more effort to get those going and this is where BIAB comes into its own when I can take just a few seconds to get a backing track up and running for me to practise to or simply enjoy playing along with.
The niggles and limitation frustrations I had with free s/w (and a lot of time wasted) are no longer there.

Does it help my playing? - YES. Less time fiddling about and more time actually playing guitar.

I'm fully aware that it's not the same as playing with other musicians but if you dont have that option very often then BIAB is really worth having.

[GuyBoden]

BIAB is an extraordinary program. But last time I tried it, I found myself listening and grooving to the clever, realistic backups, to the point where I would almost rather listen than play.

My reason for playing music is to create sounds I like to hear. If the computer creates beautiful rhythms and harmonies to my precise specifications, as BIAB does, then I find myself demotivated to create my own sonic environment.

Metronome for me!

Yes, I used BIAB a lot for practicing everyday, until about 12 years ago, it can make you sound better than you are, especially with the realtrack samples.

I don't use it anymore, prefer to comp my own chords on a loop pedal, but there is nothing wrong with BIAB.